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LibreLingo – FOSS Alternative to Duolingo

librelingo.app

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Re: LibreLingo – FOSS Alternative to Duolingo

#111

Post by jamager »

hombre_fatal wrote: post #105
Tor3 wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was simply an example of what's actually used in schools teaching adult immigrants of all ages! It was not something I pitched as an alternative to Duolingo. (Though it must be said that this particular school I mentioned has a very good track record in churning out able speakers, though this is not something a casual learner would want to try. It's basically full time. Very, very hard.) For language learning th…

I just wrote this in another comment, but the hardest part of language learning is the daily practice. Learning how the language works is the easy part. But only through the daily practice part do you develop the skills to read, write, and speak on the fly. So the question comes down to: what are you willing to do every day to get that practice in? Especially when you're a noob well under the level needed to do (or s…

Daily practice is very important, yes, but languages are genuinely difficult beasts on their own.

Thousands of words and grammar rules that you need to grasp real time. Just mindless or Duolingo-ish daily practice doesn't take you nearly there.

Re: LibreLingo – FOSS Alternative to Duolingo

#112

Post by mentalgear »

I like it! Really fun and fluent, though maybe the keyboard navigation (e.g. radio boxes, etc) could be improved.

I like the turtle, but maybe you want to rethink the jetpack flames from it's behind approach. Also, maybe a slight more "shiny" version, a la Duo, would match nicely.

But overall, great work !

Re: LibreLingo – FOSS Alternative to Duolingo

#113

Post by reddalo »

cookie_monsta wrote: post #87
aquariusDue wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In bed?! You gotta multitask if you want to get things done, try on the toilet next time.

If you are spending 30 minutes on the toilet, language fluency is not your biggest problem

But your nearest proctologist is going to have a new client soon.

Re: LibreLingo – FOSS Alternative to Duolingo

#114

Post by jamager »

Tor3 wrote: post #4

There wasn't much to read there, but why aspire to be an alternative to Duolingo of all things? Duolingo focuses on learning by translation, basically. It's even in the name: "Duolingo". It's an utterly broken approach to learning languages, except for the very initial phase where you're getting just enough to move on to modern methods (i.e. avoid translation like the plague, to start with). Which is exactly why a co…

There is nothing wrong with learning via translation.

What Duolingo does wrong is many other things: emotional manipulation, lack of context, low content density, countless distractions, being mobile first, and a long list. But translation is OK.

Re: LibreLingo – FOSS Alternative to Duolingo

#115

Post by jamager »

mobtrain wrote: post #6
Tor3 wrote: post #4

There wasn't much to read there, but why aspire to be an alternative to Duolingo of all things? Duolingo focuses on learning by translation, basically. It's even in the name: "Duolingo". It's an utterly broken approach to learning languages, except for the very initial phase where you're getting just enough to move on to modern methods (i.e. avoid translation like the plague, to start with). Which is exactly why a co…

This comment would be 60 times more helpful if in addition to your strong opinion on the failures of learning with Duolingo it’d supply some of the good alternatives.

Italki, LingQ, Languagetransfer, StoryLearning...

Re: LibreLingo – FOSS Alternative to Duolingo

#116

Post by yorwba »

watwut wrote: post #11
navigate8310 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anki cards comes to my mind, diploma from local university, preparing for TOEFL/IELTS equivalent. Also some languages have better alternatives than jack of all trade, Duolingo.

That is absurd suggestion when OPs complaint was about translation. A person new to language doing Anki always end up only translating words in always the same sentences. That is actually much less of a problem in Duolingo where those sentences warry and that has you do variety of exercises.

You can do Anki without translation. My preferred approach is to have "type answer" cards where the question side just plays a recording and then you type in what you heard. I do add a translation on the answer side to let me check whether I understood the sentence correctly, but the focus is on listening and writing in the target language, not translation.

Of course the number of cards is finite, but so are Duolingo's example sentences, so whether you get more or less variety ultimately depends on the size of your deck.

Re: LibreLingo – FOSS Alternative to Duolingo

#117

Post by jamager »

devrandoom wrote: post #5
Tor3 wrote: post #4

There wasn't much to read there, but why aspire to be an alternative to Duolingo of all things? Duolingo focuses on learning by translation, basically. It's even in the name: "Duolingo". It's an utterly broken approach to learning languages, except for the very initial phase where you're getting just enough to move on to modern methods (i.e. avoid translation like the plague, to start with). Which is exactly why a co…

What are the modern methods and what's to back up they're better?

I wrote https://thehardway.guide just about that, in case it helps.

Re: LibreLingo – FOSS Alternative to Duolingo

#118

Post by ix101 »

cookie_monsta wrote: post #87
aquariusDue wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In bed?! You gotta multitask if you want to get things done, try on the toilet next time.

If you are spending 30 minutes on the toilet, language fluency is not your biggest problem

But learning how to ask the chemist for proctosydol in French may pay off dividends

Re: LibreLingo – FOSS Alternative to Duolingo

#119

Post by Tor3 »

tossandthrow wrote: post #99
Tor3 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 2) speech from day one. .. is something I can't fully agree with. The exception being if the target language only has sounds which you are familiar with already (as in _really_ familiar - your native language already have them). Otherwise you'll simply train your brain to pronounce badly, because in the beginning you can't hear the differences. That's something which will be hard to fix later. And it takes time to…

> ... target language ... > your native language already have them It seems like there is a strong underlying understanding that learning a new language is done from a source language towards a target language. The book I am referring to argues that learning a language is about embodying that language - ie. it is not an intellectual task. The most natural embodiment og a language is speech. This is fundamentally anot…

I did not at all in any way mean to say that learning a language should be from a source language towards a target language. Quite the opposite really. I completely agree with the statement ".. embodying that language - ie. it is not an intellectual task". That matches my own anecdotal experiences, at least.

What I wanted to say was that even though babies can hear and differentiate between all the sounds of every language on earth (and yes they can), and young children too - what then happens is that the brain will after a time simply keep what's needed for the child's language and discard the rest. Which is why adults will have problems hearing certain sounds of a target language, unless those sounds already exist in that person's language(s). That takes time. Native English speakers, for example, are in my experience generally unable to hear the difference between certain vowels in my native language even though said vowels are as different as night and day for me. It seems to take up to two years for that to get fixed, depending on the person and also age. And in the meantime the pronunciation will be wrong and the person is unable to hear it and thus can't fix it. And later it's so hard that it won't, as a rule, get fixed.

My wife can't hear the difference between certain consonants in my language even though she's fully fluent otherwise. She has to watch my lips. After all these years. The reason is simply that those differences don't exist in her native language. On the other hand, very young people can easily do it and will get the pronunciation right at first try.

Re: LibreLingo – FOSS Alternative to Duolingo

#120

Post by [deleted] »

Tor3 wrote: post #4

There wasn't much to read there, but why aspire to be an alternative to Duolingo of all things? Duolingo focuses on learning by translation, basically. It's even in the name: "Duolingo". It's an utterly broken approach to learning languages, except for the very initial phase where you're getting just enough to move on to modern methods (i.e. avoid translation like the plague, to start with). Which is exactly why a co…

[deleted]
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