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Duolingo Raises $45M, Now Valued at $470M

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Re: Duolingo Raises $45M, Now Valued at $470M

#121

Post by Symbiote »

mhartl wrote: post #91
Symbiote wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That should be easy on mobile devices. At least one of ä, á, à, â, æ, å is necessary for most of the supported languages.

Those characters are still based on the Roman alphabet, though. Non-Roman alphabets such as Cyrillic are trickier. For example, I can copy-and-paste Cyrillic, as in русский, but I don't know offhand how to produce those characters on my keyboard, much less on my iPad or mobile device.

When I travelled round Georgia and Armenia for a couple of weeks I enabled the Russian, Georgian and Armenian keyboard layouts for my phone (it's just a setting, and then a key labelled EN-RU-GE-AR appeared).

With significant effort I could type some Georgian or Armenian into Google Translate -- they are awful, awful scripts. Russian was easier, but not as widespread as I'd expected. I could also let other people type things, and they all know about switching between layouts, since they do it all the time to type email addresses etc.

Re: Duolingo Raises $45M, Now Valued at $470M

#122

Post by ajmurmann »

orthoganol wrote: post #51

Only complaint is they appear to have no priority in supporting languages of the East, where the majority of the world lives. I guess their main demo, at least at one point, was Western students, who aren't typically taught those languages in school. In the least, teaching Mandarin should be a higher priority than half the languages they support.

I am also very disappointed by this. I am mainly interested in learning Mandarin and Japanese. But Duolingo is so good that I decided to start learning Spanish with it till they support Mandarin or Japanese. Now it's one year later, still no Mandarin or Japanese and I ran out of motivation for Spanish a long time ago.

Re: Duolingo Raises $45M, Now Valued at $470M

#123

Post by ajmurmann »

tonydiv wrote: post #75

Goes to show that you can still try to figure out a business model after having raised this much money. Even with a superstar CEO.

I learned on Silicon Valley that you don't want any revenue anyways, because people will just expect insane revenue growth once you have any revenue. I didn't know if I was supposed to laugh or if someone just had spoken some truth everyone in the valley is too correct to actually say.

Re: Duolingo Raises $45M, Now Valued at $470M

#124

Post by bayesianhorse »

Grue3 wrote: post #38
rkrzr wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope they succeed in taking away some market share from TOEFL. The TOEFL test is ridiculously overpriced for what they provide and your results expire (no joke) after 2 years. Since clearly you will have forgotten everything you knew about that language in 2 years time... Go Duolingo!

>Since clearly you will have forgotten everything you knew about that language in 2 years time... They are not wrong. I passed Duolingo Spanish course (it might have been extended since then) and barely remember anything now. I was also studying German in school, and later French by myself to the point where I could even speak with native speakers a little. Hardly remember anything either. English is the only foreign…

The trick is to keep repeating the exercises for at least a few weeks after you have finished the course.

I can guarantee you that you didn't forget everything. If you completed the Spanish course, your brain has been rewired for Spanish...

Re: Duolingo Raises $45M, Now Valued at $470M

#125

Post by manish_gill »

shkkmo wrote: post #25

I am currently in Uruguay learning Spanish and Duolingo is one the the 4 tools I use on my phone for it. The other three are: Ankidroid: A flashcard app for adding vocabulary I need and phrases I want to come more fluidly. Spanish Trainer: A spaced repetition verb conjugation app as Duolingo doesn't give me enough practice with this. Google Translate What would speed things up for me is the ability to easily import t…

For vocabulary, http://memrise.com and http://quizlet.com are good. Memrise's flash cards (or "mems" as they call them) are quite good.

Re: Duolingo Raises $45M, Now Valued at $470M

#126

Post by dccoolgai »

Not mentioned in the article is IMHO the most important thing they are currently working on: Language testing/validation/badging. In the context of the "end of college" era, this work in microcredentialing may be the most valuable thing they are doing. Not teaching language, but validating as a trusted 3rd party what an individual knows.

Re: Duolingo Raises $45M, Now Valued at $470M

#127

Post by bayesianhorse »

raverbashing wrote: post #47
Grue3 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Since clearly you will have forgotten everything you knew about that language in 2 years time... They are not wrong. I passed Duolingo Spanish course (it might have been extended since then) and barely remember anything now. I was also studying German in school, and later French by myself to the point where I could even speak with native speakers a little. Hardly remember anything either. English is the only foreign…

This, to me, is very telling I spent a lot of time barely using certain foreign languages (+ than 2 years). Of course you get 'rusty', but far from forgetting everything. And it came up back quickly This tell me Duolingo doesn't make you learn it, but rather memorize their game.

That's not true. Memorization is the most efficient way of learning a language, but it often comes in forms which aren't as obvious. For example you can look at reading foreign texts as a kind of repetition for every word you encounter.

It's hard to master and complete a Duolingo course without getting a grip on the language. You'd have to pretty much ignore the "Strengthen your skills" button and never repeat anything.

Even after finishing a course you should use the repetitions for weeks and months to keep refreshing your memory. That's the only way it may stay forever.

Re: Duolingo Raises $45M, Now Valued at $470M

#128

Post by bayesianhorse »

Someone1234 wrote: post #65
raverbashing wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This, to me, is very telling I spent a lot of time barely using certain foreign languages (+ than 2 years). Of course you get 'rusty', but far from forgetting everything. And it came up back quickly This tell me Duolingo doesn't make you learn it, but rather memorize their game.

And while that may be the case, it is ultimately a free Rosetta Stone. So if it fails to work you're only out just time, with Rosetta Stone you're out time and also hundreds of dollars. I'd love to see a independent study into its reliability/retention. But even if it is completely useless, it is still no more wasteful than any other mobile game people play daily.

There is one referenced on their homepage. On average, 34 hours of study in the Spanish course would be equivalent to a full semester of language education in college. For me that would be about a month of practice.

I have seen the effects myself. After a month or so, even though I had learned some spanish before, native speakers suddenly slowed down (in my perception).

An important clue: Use the "Strengthen your skills" button frequently to keep the tree golden. Duolingo itself doesn't nag you enough to do that, but it's essential for mastery of the language.

Re: Duolingo Raises $45M, Now Valued at $470M

#129

Post by GFischer »

Trufa wrote: post #107
shkkmo wrote: post #25

I am currently in Uruguay learning Spanish and Duolingo is one the the 4 tools I use on my phone for it. The other three are: Ankidroid: A flashcard app for adding vocabulary I need and phrases I want to come more fluidly. Spanish Trainer: A spaced repetition verb conjugation app as Duolingo doesn't give me enough practice with this. Google Translate What would speed things up for me is the ability to easily import t…

Welcome to our little country! Where do you come from? What's your mother tongue?

Seconded :) . I wonder whether might have enough HN users to have a meetup here.. (are HN meetups still occurring on other places? Maybe I should Ask HN).

Re: Duolingo Raises $45M, Now Valued at $470M

#130

Post by bayesianhorse »

manish_gill wrote: post #125
shkkmo wrote: post #25

I am currently in Uruguay learning Spanish and Duolingo is one the the 4 tools I use on my phone for it. The other three are: Ankidroid: A flashcard app for adding vocabulary I need and phrases I want to come more fluidly. Spanish Trainer: A spaced repetition verb conjugation app as Duolingo doesn't give me enough practice with this. Google Translate What would speed things up for me is the ability to easily import t…

For vocabulary, http://memrise.com and http://quizlet.com are good. Memrise's flash cards (or "mems" as they call them) are quite good.

Do they make you write your answers? I find that to be a crucial feature.

Also memrise doesn't understand language the way duolingo does. The latter actually uses words in context, both in fragments of sentences and full sentences. These count as repetitions for the individual sentences, and there always seem to be some fresh sentences.

I think these differences make Duolingo a much superior tool as far as there courses go.

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