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LibreLingo – FOSS Alternative to Duolingo

librelingo.app

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Re: LibreLingo – FOSS Alternative to Duolingo

#261

Post by zelphirkalt »

The app could use some spinners, when actions lead to a delay. I clicked on the landing page on the only available purple action button and nothing seemed to happen. I already checked my uBlock Origin, whether it is blocking something, but it does not. Already wanted to reload the page, when finally something visually changed, and the course was loaded. Simply a little spinner/animation would make this way less confusing.

I like, that for keyboard input the special letters are given as buttons, so that I don't need to hunt for those on any US/English keyboard layout.

One thing missing is a way to report mistakes in the learning material. For example I found "Buenos dias" to be translated to "Good morning".

Re: LibreLingo – FOSS Alternative to Duolingo

#262

Post by stronglikedan »

cyborgx7 wrote: post #13
darkstar_16 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

who are these people who have 30 minutes in the morning to make a smoothie and learn a foreign language ... :D

The people who prioritize learning a foreign language over some of the things that you prioritize.

Exactly, and I just happen to prioritize sleep until I have to go to work!

Re: LibreLingo – FOSS Alternative to Duolingo

#264

Post by Alex-Programs »

TheJoeMan wrote: post #177
pergadad wrote: post #174

Very nice initiative, the language space is overcrowded with commercial offers that have an incentive to keep you locked in. Apart from LanguageTransfer there seem to be few other good offers. That said, looking at the current offer it seems to lack the one thing Duolingo offers: Duolingo (for all its many faults and pedagogical uselessness) takes the burden of decision making away - I don't need to really think what…

Do any alternatives take a more "fully immersive" approach? I tried this LibreLingo, but the first question I got was "Which of these is The Sun?". Once you learn/memorize a few basic Spanish phrases such as "¿Qué significa?" you can stay immersed in the language. When you see a photo of the sun, you need to jump straight to El Sol, not Photo->"The Sun"->"El Sol".

I built https://nuenki.app, which follows a fully immersive approach by immersing you while you browse the web. It translates entire sentences at your knowledge level into the target language, and you hover for definitions/the original sentence/etc.

Re: LibreLingo – FOSS Alternative to Duolingo

#265

Post by Alex-Programs »

hombre_fatal wrote: post #96
simonbarker87 wrote: post #12

Going to plug Language Transfer again, an excellent free app that is a much better way to learn a language than the DuoLingo approach.

So, it's basically somewhat of a podcast that's almost entirely in English? Dunno, I guess you could listen to it. But you also need rote practice to calcify what you learn. That's what Duolingo is good at. Everyone who has spent 5min learning Spanish knows what tener means. The hard part isn't knowing what it means, but rather practicing it so that you hear it, read it, and conjugate it on the fly. Reading a grammar…

Language transfer is rather good. I'm not quite sure what it does differently, but there's a reason people recommend it.

Re: LibreLingo – FOSS Alternative to Duolingo

#266

Post by syndeo »

sieve wrote: post #241

As someone who knows four languages[1] (picked every single one up during childhood) and is currently learning Sanskrit, I have to say that Krashen's input hypothesis and Orberg's Lingva Latina is probably the way to go if you are learning languages as an adult. The direct teaching method works but is time-consuming and generally used for languages that lead to an occupation, viz. English. The grammar translation met…

Ah, is Lingva Latina the one with Caecilius and his family? I had a Latin class in 7th grade and remember having a book of that same name, and I somehow remember the main father character's name. They had a dog too, I want to say his name was Cerberus, haha. "Cave canem"—"beware of dog"

Every day, we'd start class by the teacher saying "Salvete, discipuli!" to which we'd reply "Salve, magistra!"

The fact that all these years later I still remember some things from it shows its effectiveness I suppose.

In any case, in years since, I've used Pimsleur (for other languages), which is a similar "get actual language input rather than learning a set of language rules up front" method, and I like to think it's worked decently for me at least!

Re: LibreLingo – FOSS Alternative to Duolingo

#267

Post by simonbarker87 »

hombre_fatal wrote: post #96
simonbarker87 wrote: post #12

Going to plug Language Transfer again, an excellent free app that is a much better way to learn a language than the DuoLingo approach.

So, it's basically somewhat of a podcast that's almost entirely in English? Dunno, I guess you could listen to it. But you also need rote practice to calcify what you learn. That's what Duolingo is good at. Everyone who has spent 5min learning Spanish knows what tener means. The hard part isn't knowing what it means, but rather practicing it so that you hear it, read it, and conjugate it on the fly. Reading a grammar…

No, it’s a series of audio activities framed as a conversation between someone who knows the new language and someone learning. You pause the audio and play the part of the student when required and it focusses on the positive language transfer aspects between languages and how they can be used to build up sentences and phrases.

Grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation and comprehension are all practiced and developed through the courses and, for me, it has been the most effective way to learn Spanish.

After just a handful of lessons I was able to structure many useful sentences based on the teachings that we weren’t taught directly but that I was able to create a fresh as needed in the moment.

Re: LibreLingo – FOSS Alternative to Duolingo

#268

Post by sieve »

luqtas wrote: post #250
sieve wrote: post #241

As someone who knows four languages[1] (picked every single one up during childhood) and is currently learning Sanskrit, I have to say that Krashen's input hypothesis and Orberg's Lingva Latina is probably the way to go if you are learning languages as an adult. The direct teaching method works but is time-consuming and generally used for languages that lead to an occupation, viz. English. The grammar translation met…

i don't know why people are taking Duolinguo and relatives as the definitive course to learn a language... they even cite at their FAQ about the need of going outside the app if you want 'fluency' some people are quite fine learning a limited number of phrases to lurk in a country. a great part of communication among humans also happens with the body/eyes. no one needs to discuss their phD dissertation in 4 different…

Frankly, people do not have the time to deeply research this topic. You want to learn French or Spanish for fun. Duolingo claims that it can help you. So you join, try for a few days and give up.

This happened to me about ten years ago.

I too had not bothered to understand pedagogy. It is only when I wanted to learn Sanskrit, and struggled with it, that I got pissed off at the lack of progress and began looking around. There are some people on YT who talk about this stuff:

- Alexander Argüelles

- Steve Kaufmann

- Luke Ranieri

I might be missing a few others.

You first have to know what your problem is, before you can solve it.

> no one needs to discuss their phD dissertation in 4 different languages

True. In culturally homogeneous countries, you don't need four languages to make yourself understood.

It becomes somewhat necessary in places like mine where different groups of acquaintances/relatives/friends speak different languages and finding a single language at the intersection of those groups can be hard.

Re: LibreLingo – FOSS Alternative to Duolingo

#269

Post by czbond »

Alex-Programs wrote: post #259
sieve wrote: post #241

As someone who knows four languages[1] (picked every single one up during childhood) and is currently learning Sanskrit, I have to say that Krashen's input hypothesis and Orberg's Lingva Latina is probably the way to go if you are learning languages as an adult. The direct teaching method works but is time-consuming and generally used for languages that lead to an occupation, viz. English. The grammar translation met…

I built a tool[0] that gives you constant input at your level as you browse the web, so you don't need to take time out of your day. You can just learn a little as you browse, and let it compound over time. It works by estimating the difficulty of English sentences, then translating ones at your level into your target language. [0] https://nuenki.app

I like your approach here, thanks for posting

Re: LibreLingo – FOSS Alternative to Duolingo

#270

Post by Aachen »

Tor3 wrote: post #89
mobtrain wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

My learning finally picked up speed again when I started using CCI (Compelling Comprehensive Input). How easy it is to find material differs a lot between languages. Way way back in time I learned English that way, though I didn't think of it as "learning" back then - I was so focused on what is now called "compelling input". However, you'll need some kind of foundation, otherwise it'll be hard to find anything to st…

I'm trying to look up what this CCI thing is, but I don't seem to get further than simply "use the language". Do you have a good resource that explains how to apply the method or, if applicable, an example of a CCI course?
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