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Duolingo reaches $6.5B valuation on day of IPO

reuters.com

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Re: Duolingo reaches $6.5B valuation on day of IPO

#171

Post by pedroaraujo »

least wrote: post #46

I was a cryptologic linguist for the army and went through a 16 month course of 6-7 hours of classroom instruction per day M-F, native speaking instructors, tons of immersion, and a couple hours of homework each night and left still feeling like I hardly knew the language that I was supposed to be interpreting. Unless your major in college is a specific language, you probably won't achieve any sort of fluency in your…

A 16 month course of 6 to 7 hours per day with a lot of exercise and you didn't learn the language at all?

I don't think Duolingo is a good solution but in your case you had all the opportunity to become fully fluent with that kind of regime, it starts to be your fault.

Re: Duolingo reaches $6.5B valuation on day of IPO

#172

Post by consilla »

tapland wrote: post #141
least wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I in fact did indicate that reading is the easiest in my post. Speaking is harder than listening because it requires you to produce language and convey ideas from your own mind, with proficiency in pronouncing it in such a way that a native speaker might understand you. Things like idioms you may be able to infer meaning from interpretation when you are listening or reading but you will never use them in speaking unl…

According to the test specifications. You will not speak what you don't know. There is no such limit when others just say things in accents, speeds or using words you have no knowledge of. Starting to speak and be correctly understood felt much easier than accurately understanding others in my two secondary languages, and the same for my fiancée who is a native English speaker with one secondary language.

I'm surpised this is getting downvoted. The OPs assertion that listening is easier than speaking makes sense in the context he describes, a closed testing environment. In a more practical setting, as someone who is living in another country and learning the language, it is far easier for me to convey my meaning with limited vocabulary, than to listen and interpret another speaker, and especially a group conversation.

Certainly listening is easier than me speaking at the same proficiency as the other speaker, but in terms of what matters for using the language on a day to day basis, it is the other way around.

Re: Duolingo reaches $6.5B valuation on day of IPO

#173

Post by meepmorp »

gen220 wrote: post #151
meepmorp wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

even though english is a germanic language?

The grammatical structure of modern English is closer to Romance languages than Germanic languages. You can convert many English sentences into a sensible (if not idiomatic) Spanish sentence by translating one word at a time. German has not so forgiving been :)

> The grammatical structure of modern English is closer to Romance languages than Germanic languages.

I'm pretty sure that's not true.

Re: Duolingo reaches $6.5B valuation on day of IPO

#174

Post by end0r »

least wrote: post #108
thenoblesunfish wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I got huge value out of Duolingo as a first step. I live in a German speaking country where it’s entirely possible to speak no German. Duolingo and textbooks got me far enough to enroll in a B1 course and find some speaking partners. The alternative would probably have been paying for a year of A-Level courses, and to be honest I may not have found the time. For absolute beginners, Duolingo has a lot of value.

I'm glad that it worked out for you! I can't comment on the quality of every individual course, but if it propels you towards your language learning goals, then it's definitely doing its job. I do think that for many languages there are more effective ways to learn in a given time period than Duolingo, but if Duolingo helps you stay motivated and keeps you practicing in a way that other methods couldn't, that in itse…

I have been learning languages on Duolingo and Babbel for years now. None of them I can speak well, but certainly well enough to have a good base of knowledge to start with. Duolingo has the advantage that you can do it whenever you want, while commuting, quickly a lesson before lunch, or on the loo. It just sums up if you consequently keep doing it.

I totally agree with your point, though, that some languages are better suited for Duolingo style of learning than others. For example with Russian it was quite difficult without any grammar basics explained so I needed to additionally read about it, while with Danish it was much easier to grasp the mechanics. Not quite so with the pronunciation...

Re: Duolingo reaches $6.5B valuation on day of IPO

#175

Post by nonameiguess »

Count me as severely skeptical. I don't exactly feel like digging through the entire prospectus since it's too late to matter, but a quick search seems to indicate their user and revenue growth was fairly flat for years until last year, which just happened to be the year everyone in the world was forced to stay home and find somewhat productive things to do. Investing in this doesn't feel any saner than investing in a startup for people making sourdough at home.

I can at least squint at something like Zoom and say sure, single-year growth like this is never going to happen again, but at least remote multimedia collaboration is probably here to stay, even though Zoom specifically isn't necessarily going to monopolize it just because they were first. But that has a clear business use case that isn't going anywhere. Duolingo is relying entirely on the whims of the general public.

Re: Duolingo reaches $6.5B valuation on day of IPO

#176

Post by bamboozled »

least wrote: post #46

I was a cryptologic linguist for the army and went through a 16 month course of 6-7 hours of classroom instruction per day M-F, native speaking instructors, tons of immersion, and a couple hours of homework each night and left still feeling like I hardly knew the language that I was supposed to be interpreting. Unless your major in college is a specific language, you probably won't achieve any sort of fluency in your…

But Duolingo makes people happy because you can sit on your ass, or in bed, not really try and feel like you're putting in the hard yards.

Kind of like watching sport instead of playing / training.

10/10 satisfaction score.

Re: Duolingo reaches $6.5B valuation on day of IPO

#177

Post by mlac »

bawolff wrote: post #57
urda wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Every company at this stage loses money. ... why are companies still getting a pass with this 10 years in? No, this isn't an acceptable excuse here.

Because investors are interested in making money in the end, not some arbitrary metric over if a company is behaving as they should. Whether or not this company makes sense, there are plenty of companies that have been losing money at this stage and ended up working out. (Plenty that didn't too)

Making money “In the end” (in this case) seems like a cash grab at the IPO.

And the question is whether those “plenty of companies” were valued at 6.5 BN.

Re: Duolingo reaches $6.5B valuation on day of IPO

#179

Post by darkerside »

pedroaraujo wrote: post #171
least wrote: post #46

I was a cryptologic linguist for the army and went through a 16 month course of 6-7 hours of classroom instruction per day M-F, native speaking instructors, tons of immersion, and a couple hours of homework each night and left still feeling like I hardly knew the language that I was supposed to be interpreting. Unless your major in college is a specific language, you probably won't achieve any sort of fluency in your…

A 16 month course of 6 to 7 hours per day with a lot of exercise and you didn't learn the language at all? I don't think Duolingo is a good solution but in your case you had all the opportunity to become fully fluent with that kind of regime, it starts to be your fault.

I think this is more of a Dunning-Kruger situation. The more you know a language, the more nuance you recognize and the more you see there is to learn. I only speak English, and I still feel my command of the language could grow.

Re: Duolingo reaches $6.5B valuation on day of IPO

#180

Post by hirako2000 »

konschubert wrote: post #98
gambiting wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've learnt both English and German at school, for pretty much equal amounts of time - about 12 years each. And well, I can speak fluent English, but barely any German, despite usually having at least ~2 hours of lessons a week, plenty of homework, oral exercises..... For me, it has everything to do with actually using the languge in practice. English was and is everywhere - it's much easier to practice when all your…

It works if you're learning the language while you're in a place where it's spoken.

But then one got to wonder why not spend that time learning in the wild. People have forgotten how it works I suppose. It would take less energy.

There are a few options to learn a language. Some say immersion. What's most effective for the brain to capture and memories is _needs_.

We tend to learn languages out of a desire to add them to our skill belt. Or out of fun. And we are having a hell of a time this way. Duolingo innovates and will happily monetize their effort.

Learn a language? Move to the country where it's spoken. Get a job where interactions are a necessity, but where one would perform to some level without even the basics. Think kitchen porter in a buzzing restaurant. 6 months later you are fluent, and have actually learnt local expressions and the way people actually communicate. From there you can read books and ramp up your vocab to proper fluency.

I took English, by force, for 12y , 4h per week. I could still barely read, and in no way get a face to face conversation even started other than hello, what time is it.

Months in an environment where communication was a need, and suddenly I found myself nearly fluent. Never having to open a grammar manual or do extra effort for the sake of learning.

The teaching models are flawed. They are designed to extract a profit, at the detriment of the learners.

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