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LibreLingo – FOSS Alternative to Duolingo

librelingo.app

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Re: LibreLingo – FOSS Alternative to Duolingo

#321

Post by runarberg »

K0nserv wrote: post #73
rmnwski wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you learn the kanji for the first 1000 words? Looking into learning Japanese as well. I tried the Remembering the Kanji by Heisig but that felt rather abstract after a while.

It's mentioned elsewhere in the thread, but I've had good success with WaniKani[0]. As an aside, the company behind it, Tofugu[1], also have a lot of good free resources. The main tag line on the WaniKani website, "2000 Kanji. 6000 Vocabulary words. In just over a year." is very optimistic, I'm around level 12 (of 60) after that long. It might be possible to do it all in a year, but you need to put in a lot of work.…

Shameless plug: I created a free and open source alternative to WaniKani https://shodoku.app/ using open dictionary data and the same SRS system as anki.

It actually has a very different learning philosophy from WaniKani so it is not really an alternative.

* shodoku teaches writing as well as reading, the point being that writing it helps you remember it.

* You learn components (radicals) and vocabulary at the same time as the associated kanji.

* The order doesn’t need to be by simplicity. This is deviates from both WaniKani and Remembering the kanji.

* You rate your self, just like anki.

I find it is actually more important to learn the kanji in the words you are learning, if a new kanji has three new components, it is not hard to simply learn these new components at the same time (and create a story / connection of them). And learning the reading of the kanji is easier if you learn words containing it. So what I do is I bookmark a couple of words each time I start a new kanji card, and during reading review, if I remember how these words are pronounced, I rate it as good.

Re: LibreLingo – FOSS Alternative to Duolingo

#322

Post by foolinaround »

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

this tool is really nice...

Suggestions: Can I get some transliteration when I hover over it, rather than translation? Maybe a Alt+ ?

Re: LibreLingo – FOSS Alternative to Duolingo

#323

Post by foolinaround »

Alex-Programs wrote: post #297
koreth1 wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 la…

A request to add Tamil, a widely spoken and one of the earliest classical languages! Thanks!!

Re: LibreLingo – FOSS Alternative to Duolingo

#324

Post by huimang »

ryandrake wrote: post #165
pbmonster wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Hi my name is _, I like the color _, My hometown is in _, how are you today?" Is not a real conversation. That's... "first two weeks"-level of language lessons, right? No reason not to progress to children's stories and newspaper articles in time. We basically never did speaking with a partner, I think our teachers realized that most students will learn little from that. It was always student teacher interactions,…

> That's... "first two weeks"-level of language lessons, right? No reason not to progress to children's stories and newspaper articles in time. After trying for years to learn my wife’s native language, I haven’t really gotten past the “my name is _” and a few other key phrases. I’ve got maybe 10 phrases memorized and I think that’s all my brain can hold at this point. Language learning is not for everyone.

Every human learns a language from birth; there's no inherent reason why learning a second one "can't be for everyone".

The thing is that it requires a lot of time and studying. At least 30 mins per day is the bare minimum, but 1-3 is much better for results.

I don't personally feel like language learning is easier for me than other people. I just focused on putting the time and studying in diligently over many years.

Re: LibreLingo – FOSS Alternative to Duolingo

#325

Post by DontchaKnowit »

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…

learning spanish currently and I disagree on the grammer part. I never made any progress with spanish until I found a program that started with drilling all the grammer rules. after that my learning took off

Re: LibreLingo – FOSS Alternative to Duolingo

#326

Post by gnarlouse »

Hot take y'all but what if, just what if,

coded applications with injected content are ~GASP~ not the way humans learn language.

I know that this LibreLingo project is probably somebody's baby, and if it works for them great. Heck, if it works for you, great! But for anybody who really wants to (durably) learn a new language, aren't the results already in? Immerse yourself in the language, be around people. At the very least, listen to native speakers on YouTube or something. Read articles/books. Struggle at it, like a baby! That's not pejorative either; babies are the world's premier language learners.

Re: LibreLingo – FOSS Alternative to Duolingo

#327

Post by gnarlouse »

hyperific wrote: post #243

I'm surprised more people aren't talking about the recent announcement that Duolingo is replacing contractors with AI. https://www.theverge.com/news/657594/duolingo-ai-first-repla...

If DuoLingo is currently a thriving company, I am convinced it is exclusively because of branding momentum. I think Match.com's trajectory foreshadows the fate of DuoLingo. In the 00's, Match.com used to be the premier "try to meet a not-weird-fuck to date online" system. Then in the early 2010s, Tinder-style dating apps consumed the market. Shortly after, match.com started doing some really fucked up business practices because their niche market got swallowed up in a larger general market by a superior "free" product.

Duolingo's users are sticky so long as the brand ideology holds: "if you want to learn a second language, play duolingo".

Also, Duolingo CEO Luis von Ahn also founded ReCAPTCHA. Every idea this man has capitalized on has been made obsolete by the advance of AI.

Re: LibreLingo – FOSS Alternative to Duolingo

#328

Post by Tainnor »

joaohaas wrote: post #201

Cool... but nothing will ever beat Anki + Immersion. Here's one guide most Japanese learners follow: https://learnjapanese.moe/

I don't think it's accurate to say that this is a guide "most" Japanese learners follow. There are some good (and some arguable) ideas there, but it's just one guide out of several, and most learners probably don't even browse the internet for such things and just learn Japanese in class or something.

Re: LibreLingo – FOSS Alternative to Duolingo

#329

Post by watwut »

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…

I am getting ads on clothes.

Re: LibreLingo – FOSS Alternative to Duolingo

#330

Post by gitroom »

Yeah, I've used Duolingo and always end up doing the same stuff, but it's way too easy to just tap through and not actually learn anything real. Got me thinking - you think anything can really replace just talking to people and living with the language day to day?
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