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An opinionated critique of Duolingo

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Re: An opinionated critique of Duolingo

#201

Post by KnuthIsGod »

Duolingo is a good example of terminal enshittification.

"[I]f it’s our content, as in, like, our learning content, there’s so much of that - thousands and thousands and thousands of kind of sentences and words and paragraphs. That is mostly done by computers, and we probably spot-check it. But if it’s things like the user interface of Duolingo, where we say - like, you know, the button says quit, and we have to translate, that is all done with humans. And we spend a lot of effort on that, but that’s because each one of those is highly valuable.

Yes, the button that says ‘quit’ is more valuable than the learning material, which is only ‘probably’ spot-checked."

Re: An opinionated critique of Duolingo

#202

Post by rawoke083600 »

I went down this road with their Japanese.. in summary, their focussing on "words" vs "phrasing/talking" from day one like Pimsleur was, wat killed it for me.

On that note Pimsleur was/is EXCELLENT for me: 1. Focusing on phrases vs words 2. Talking from Day 1 3. Lesson oriented.

Re: An opinionated critique of Duolingo

#203

Post by lawn »

jmkni wrote: post #102
mtalantikite wrote: post #87

I think the thing I dislike about Duolingo is it sort of catches the casual person into a trap by misleading them into thinking that by using this app they'll learn another language. It's not that it's a bad app, it's just that that's not going to happen. There's no one resource that will get you to even an intermediate level in a language. And the State Department's FSI estimates are unfortunately pretty accurate fo…

So what's the hack? I'm guessing there isn't one? Asking as it's "hacker news" after all, I remember reading how North Korean agents would watch shows like Friends for hours on end to become familiar with English, is that a hack?

Immersion as others have said.

But you can speed up the process by simply getting better at memorizing words to give you a much wider vocabulary.

There are various hacks to memorize things such as decks of cards or long sequences of numbers and similar techniques can aid you here too.

Re: An opinionated critique of Duolingo

#205

Post by usrnm »

skinkestek wrote: post #188
koakuma-chan wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are you learning Ukranian?

For me it was because I dabbled in Russian before, but recent events have led me to avoid anything that could be seen as supporting Russia in any way, including culturally. I also learned that a number of things I thought was Russian was in fact Ukrainian.

That's just sad to hear for me as a Russian. Russia and the Russian culture are a lot older than the current war and will still be around long after the war, but a lot of people just cannot draw a line between the two.

Re: An opinionated critique of Duolingo

#206

Post by davedx »

Look, Duolingo is obviously not the only thing you use to become proficient in another language. It's not perfect, it's gamified, it's over simplified - it's a tool in the toolbox.

That being said, it's helped me immensely with both polishing my Dutch (I passed my state exams a while back but there are still so many words I don't know), and I'm now learning Japanese.

Yes, Duolingo does not teach you directly all the intricacies of Japanese grammar. That's because it's a dumbed down, spaced repetition app. If you're actually serious about learning a language you'll see that pretty much from the start and like, buy some Japanese textbooks or something to supplement what you learn from the owl app.

I'm currently using Satori Reader and have bought a manga to practice my Japanese reading. My grammar is still woeful, so I'll need some other material to work on that and get a real understanding.

Anyway, I don't really disagree with the author on their criticism per se. But I think the criticism applies to a bunch of language learning methods...

Re: An opinionated critique of Duolingo

#207

Post by jenadine »

nozzlegear wrote: post #43
forgotusername6 wrote: post #27

I have a 2000+ day streak on Duolingo, mostly learning Russian. The app has got progressively worse since I started, for a while just giving me the same lesson every single day. I of course finished the course years ago, but I keep up with my one lesson a day to keep the bird happy. I find the UI incredibly annoying, I've disabled all the sounds and animations that I can. You might ask why don't I stop? Well I want t…

I've also got a 2000+ day streak (Spanish) and keep it going for similar reasons. I can't stand the goofy animations they keep adding to Duolingo. I'm about to dump my streak and move to something that doesn't make me feel like the developer thinks I'm a child clapping at the cartoons on the screen.

I stopped playing after reaching a bit more than 2000 day streak. Towards the end I was just going through a lesson as fast a possible before going to sleep. That was no fun and I got nothing out of it.

Re: An opinionated critique of Duolingo

#208

Post by draven »

qingcharles wrote: post #103
jmkni wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what's the hack? I'm guessing there isn't one? Asking as it's "hacker news" after all, I remember reading how North Korean agents would watch shows like Friends for hours on end to become familiar with English, is that a hack?

I have Dutch friends who swear they learned all their English simply by watching Friends on BBC in the Netherlands.

I learned english at school in France, and we're notoriously bad at teaching foreign languages. The approach is way to academic and mainly based on reading. That's why our accents are often atrocious. I was good at written tests, but what allowed me to actually get fluent (as in being able to think in english and convert my thoughts to speech in real time) was watching tv series in english with subtitles in english (no translation involved.)

Re: An opinionated critique of Duolingo

#210

Post by mrmlz »

usrnm wrote: post #205
skinkestek wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me it was because I dabbled in Russian before, but recent events have led me to avoid anything that could be seen as supporting Russia in any way, including culturally. I also learned that a number of things I thought was Russian was in fact Ukrainian.

That's just sad to hear for me as a Russian. Russia and the Russian culture are a lot older than the current war and will still be around long after the war, but a lot of people just cannot draw a line between the two.

Well German and Germany took a significant hit after WW2, you will face the same disgust for a generation or two depending on you future behavior.
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