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LibreLingo – FOSS Alternative to Duolingo

librelingo.app

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Re: LibreLingo – FOSS Alternative to Duolingo

#291

Post by insane_dreamer »

Great to see a FOSS app for language learning! Kudos.

However, I think apps that focus on one particular language and how to learn that language are better than a one-size-fits-all approach like Duolingo. The structure and grammar of languages like Russian, Japanese, Chinese, and French (I've learned all 4) are all significantly different from each other. Or at least different approaches for language groups (French and Spanish, which I also speak, are similar enough to warrant the same approach).

Re: LibreLingo – FOSS Alternative to Duolingo

#292

Post by damnitbuilds »

bluGill wrote: post #182
damnitbuilds wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have lived in a foreign country for 25 years and have started picking up the local language. There might be faster methods.

My wife lived in a foreign country for 3 months (as an exchange student) before the family told her that was enough and refused to use English. Your experience is common. However it is mostly a reflection on you and your situation. You could have picked the language up much faster if you tried. Note that I'm not intending to judge you. It is likely you have a life and other things to do with your time. Only you can f…

No worries - I was exaggerating for comic effect. I don't speak the local language like a local, but I do do it all day at work.

I often wish the locals here would refuse to use English, but I enjoy speaking other foreign languages when I get the chance, so I understand when they want to do the same.

Re: LibreLingo – FOSS Alternative to Duolingo

#293

Post by mvieira38 »

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…

Orbeg's Lingva Latina is so good, especially if you use the supplemental exercises and stories as well. It's a shame it didn't catch on as much, the material for modern languages is now outdated and it seems no one is working on newer editions. Deutsch Nach der Naturmethode, Français par la Méthode Nature and English by the Nature Method are excelent at teaching the basics, but I hear criticism over the vocabulary often.

Re: LibreLingo – FOSS Alternative to Duolingo

#294

Post by bunderbunder »

zelphirkalt wrote: post #255
salimmadjd wrote: post #228

Duolingo user here with a 4 year streak. Duolingo is not a language teaching platform at its core. It’s a gaming platform with language as its gaming skill. Duolingo at some point became so focused on gamification that it just became a game (I believe they hired their lead PM from Zynga). If you’re on free version, just look at the ads you’re getting. Vast majority of the ads are for other games. I think you can lear…

Have a friend, who is on his 7th or 8th year of every day using DuoLingo (DL) "learning" German. His German is still terrible. Phrase structure goes all overboard, verbs are not adapted to time, person and whatever else. It is a bit painful to see. People also say that some languages just have terrible lessons on DL. Maybe German is one of those. I tried using it for Chinese/Mandarin, but apparently classified myself…

An even basic Chinese is better learned from a Chinese-specific app like Lingodeer or HelloChinese.

I tried all three when I was first getting started. I didn't end up going with any of them (I bought a textbook instead - gamification just isn't my jam), but I was at least fairly impressed with Lingodeer and HelloChinese. Both were clearly made with love. And I've met several more advanced learners who got started with them. By contrast, for all its users, I've yet to meet a single person who went with Duolingo and subsequently made it to an intermediate level in Chinese. I'm sure there's someone out there somewhere, but overall it seems that people's success rate with that app is bleak.

Re: LibreLingo – FOSS Alternative to Duolingo

#295

Post by bunderbunder »

hintymad wrote: post #280
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…

Duolinguo tries to follow the input hypothesis. For instance, it barely teaches any grammar but simply asks its users to translate sentences. Unfortunately that's very ineffective. Compared to reading or watching live conversations, the amount of input in unit time on Duolingo is too little. In the meantime the sentences lack sufficient context for Duolingo users to build up intuitive understanding of phrases. Take D…

The thing is, the input hypothesis all by itself is not enough. It's arguably close to where the modern paradigm of second language acquisition started, but it's not where we still are nearly 50 years later.

For example, one big thing that Duolingo's method completely misses out on is the importance of a rich communicative context. This was implicitly there in Krashen's original monitor model, but wasn't fully appreciated until closer to the turn of the century.

Re: LibreLingo – FOSS Alternative to Duolingo

#296

Post by brewdad »

Can anyone recommend a solid resource for learning Tagalog?

Being a far less popular language than the standard "big boys" that most apps, web sites, books etc tend to offer, it's been a lot of false starts for me or simply feeling a bit lost when a resource throws me directly into a scene to learn dialog without having any of the foundational knowledge first.

I plan to spend a year or two (at least) in the Philippines in the not too distant future. While most Filipinos understand English, I feel like learning at least some Tagalog would go a long way in fitting in and feeling less like an outsider.

Re: LibreLingo – FOSS Alternative to Duolingo

#297

Post by Alex-Programs »

koreth1 wrote: post #287
Alex-Programs wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

This looks really useful! Wish I'd had something like this when I was learning Mandarin. I'm curious what determines whether or not you add a given language to the list. DeepL and Claude, at least, have usable translation ability in more languages than the app currently supports. Is there a lot of manual effort required for each language, or do you want to keep the list limited just to avoid overwhelming users?

Thanks! I'm glad people like it; I'm hopeless at marketing it to Language Learners:tm:, but programmers seem to love it and it's nice to get some positive feedback.

DeepL is actually pretty limited in what it supports. Unless I've missed a new language, Nuenki supports all of DeepL's languages.

Some of the additional ones are supported via Claude only and, where permitting, Groq. Groq is far faster than Claude; in languages that DeepL supports, DeepL handles visible text and Claude handles text that you haven't scrolled to yet. Claude-only languages are a bit of a worse experience.

It's pretty easy for me to add a language. It's all stored in a centralised toml file, which happens to be open source - https://github.com/Alex-Programs/nuenki-languages/blob/maste... - and it's about a 20 minute job to add a language, test it, etc. Then it's about half an hour and 5 USD to benchmark whether Llama is any good at it, and if so enable Groq and make the experience a bit more pleasant. I'm currently working on improving the translation quality benchmark (https://nuenki.app/blog/the_best_translator_is_a_hybrid_tran...), because people seem to like it and there's definitely a lot of room for improvement.

That 20 minute number is without updating the big language cloud on the website, which is a bit finicky; iirc I haven't added Vietnamese to it yet.

If anyone here has any requests, I'd gladly add them!

Re: LibreLingo – FOSS Alternative to Duolingo

#298

Post by barrell »

brewdad wrote: post #296

Can anyone recommend a solid resource for learning Tagalog? Being a far less popular language than the standard "big boys" that most apps, web sites, books etc tend to offer, it's been a lot of false starts for me or simply feeling a bit lost when a resource throws me directly into a scene to learn dialog without having any of the foundational knowledge first. I plan to spend a year or two (at least) in the Philippin…

I really don’t want to be doing self promotion in someone else’s thread, but I have Tagalog support on https://phrasing.app. I just posted some demo videos this morning in comments if you check out my profile

Re: LibreLingo – FOSS Alternative to Duolingo

#299

Post by brewdad »

stronglikedan wrote: post #262
cyborgx7 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!

Is their something in your evening routine you'd be willing to sacrifice in order to free up your morning?

Re: LibreLingo – FOSS Alternative to Duolingo

#300

Post by barrell »

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’m very interested in Sanskrit, and working on an application to learn it (and many other languages).

If you have any interest in app based review (not courses - I specifically try to work with input) I would love to get feedback on the Sanskrit experience.

I posted a bunch of comments about it in the past few days, I don’t want to take over another apps thread, but there are so many cool languages being learned here

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