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LibreLingo – FOSS Alternative to Duolingo

librelingo.app

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Re: LibreLingo – FOSS Alternative to Duolingo

#361

Post by ljm »

vel0city wrote: post #183
ljm wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've used Pimsleur on and off for a while and it's great, because even with sporadic usage I can still more or less remember what I learned and most of the time I just need a bit of a refresher in terms of using the right case or conjugation so I don't get I/you/they/it mixed up. Hours into Duolingo I'm repeating total nonsense like "the man is a boy" and "the turtle has green pants," but with Pimsleur, after the sam…

I see people say they get nonsense phrases in Duolingo a lot but I never seem to get them. For example, a lesson I'm doing right now has phrases like "Quand est-ce que vous partez aux Etas-Unis?" (When are you leaving for the United States?), "Tu as ton ticket? (Do you have your ticket?), "Nous cherchons un bon hôtel à Paris." (We are looking for a good hotel in Paris). How are these nonsense phrases? Seems like some…

You’re not saying how far in the course you are or at what level.

The basic stage stuff is trash. You’re not even getting “ou est la biblioteque” or “donde esta la biblioteca”, you’re getting “la tortuga es verde” or “un homme ne pas femme” or something.

Re: LibreLingo – FOSS Alternative to Duolingo

#362

Post by endofreach »

Alex-Programs wrote: post #344
sehansen wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cool idea, unfortunately the example on the front page has errors in both Danish and French. In Danish the third line is translated as "Du kan vende tilbage til oversættelser ved at holde musen over dem." which means "You can return to translations by hovering over them." i.e. the opposite of what happens. As a native Danish speaker I'd write "Du kan vende tilbage til originalerne ved at holde musen over dem.". I've…

Thanks for letting me know. The front page items are translated with DeepL, which is used for text that's currently visible. My benchmark claims that it's actually pretty good at French (I haven't got data for Danish) - one of the reasons I'm currently remaking it! I hadn't heard of Kagi Translate; I'll add it to the benchmarking I do. And I'll see about adding Furigana there.

What's your benchmark? How many paid subscribers do you have that actually use it while browsing?

And why do you think did duolingos competitor "toucan" not take off? How does nuenki do the job better?

Seriously interested and happy to read more insights.

Disclaimer: i did create an MVP of this exactly. But it was just to try and generate some cash quickly to finance my main project (dumb idea, of course). I did get some signups but never even launched the app (and not planning to). Just curious what your experience is.

Re: LibreLingo – FOSS Alternative to Duolingo

#363

Post by nickburns »

DontchaKnowit wrote: post #357
sieve wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my experience, knowledge of grammar gives you a false sense of knowledge of language. You might know what the form of the word is, but you may not grasp its meaning in context, or be able to use it in your own sentences. Grammar is the analytical part of language. It is not the language itself. Try reading Spanish texts for a few days without doing these drills and you will notice a massive increase in relative co…

I agree with you but learning grammer gives you a scaffolding to understand, and allows you to freely construct sentances even beyond what youve previously encountered. Obviously knowing grammer isnt going ti get you all the way there, probably not even 10 percent, but its a much much sturdier foundation than "donde esta la biblioteca", etc

*está (ALT + 130) :)

Re: LibreLingo – FOSS Alternative to Duolingo

#364

Post by littlekey »

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…

Agreed, and the sad part is the gamification - while helpful for motivation - actively works against learning in other ways. Duolingo clearly doesn't want their lessons to be actually challenging because that would get in the way of the cycle of "just smash out a quick lesson to continue your streak, then get on with your day". Learners need to embrace failure and be encouraged to spend more time with the material, but the company has been steadily and purposely moving away from that over time.

Re: LibreLingo – FOSS Alternative to Duolingo

#365

Post by DontchaKnowit »

nickburns wrote: post #363
DontchaKnowit wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you but learning grammer gives you a scaffolding to understand, and allows you to freely construct sentances even beyond what youve previously encountered. Obviously knowing grammer isnt going ti get you all the way there, probably not even 10 percent, but its a much much sturdier foundation than "donde esta la biblioteca", etc

*está (ALT + 130) :)

Yeah I'm aware. Also that alt thing doesnt really work on any of my windows compyters I had to install I third party keyboard software.

Re: LibreLingo – FOSS Alternative to Duolingo

#366

Post by arghwhat »

isaacremuant wrote: post #358
arghwhat wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Private tutoring for 1 hour, 3 times a week at the current rates offered by local freelancers where I live would be ballpark 1000 USD per month for a long time. If you start nitpicking about quality and put in some more serious hours I wouldn't be surprised if you hit two grand. Language should not be reserved for people that can throw that kind of money monthly at their random hobbies, and suggesting that this is "…

I don't know what kind of hours and dedication that private tutoring is but you could do online classes with good tutors for way less than that. You can't chase me with the "it's only reserved for people with money". There's ways to invest well and less than those numbers. Those numbers may not be bad either if you compare it with how much people invest in other types of education in the US, which I presume is what y…

> how much people invest in other types of education in the US, which I presume is what you're talking about.

No, where I live all education is provided as a free service. The US education system, putting people into a life of debt just acquire the minimum of marketable skills, is broken beyond repair and not a valid point of comparison.

On the other hand, people with qualifications also demand reasonable salaries and need to pay taxes. "Private tutoring" is not a 10 minute zoom call.

Re: LibreLingo – FOSS Alternative to Duolingo

#367

Post by bhasi »

sieve wrote: post #350
bhasi wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my experience of having learnt Sanskrit via what I now realize is the comprehensive input method (thank you for introducing that term to me via your comments on this thread), I absolutely think that the "basics" - enough to recognize the seven (eight if you count the sambodhana ) vibhaktis (declensions) and the simple past, present, future and the subjunctive tenses - are required in order to get past the huge roa…

Sanskrit grammar is complicated enough for basic knowledge of the cases and the tenses/aspects/moods to be less useful than one would otherwise assume. You have sati-saptami prayogas, krdantas are often uses as adjectives while basic text books talk about them in limited contexts. It is a huge mess. Take this story ( https://www.adhyeta.org.in/sa/k/samskrita-chandamama/198404/... ). Assume you have a gloss available…

I wasn't referring to knowledge of the Paninian sutras or pratyayas, to be clear, when I said "the basics".

For this story, you don't need to know the pratyayas but you do need to know the tenses, the ktva-lyap forms, etc to fully understand what is going on. With only an incomplete knowledge of those aspects, one can sort of intuit the overall meaning but eventually would find that they had the wrong idea altogether when reading the corresponding translation in a language they know.

Re: LibreLingo – FOSS Alternative to Duolingo

#368

Post by vel0city »

ljm wrote: post #361
vel0city wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see people say they get nonsense phrases in Duolingo a lot but I never seem to get them. For example, a lesson I'm doing right now has phrases like "Quand est-ce que vous partez aux Etas-Unis?" (When are you leaving for the United States?), "Tu as ton ticket? (Do you have your ticket?), "Nous cherchons un bon hôtel à Paris." (We are looking for a good hotel in Paris). How are these nonsense phrases? Seems like some…

You’re not saying how far in the course you are or at what level. The basic stage stuff is trash. You’re not even getting “ou est la biblioteque” or “donde esta la biblioteca”, you’re getting “la tortuga es verde” or “un homme ne pas femme” or something.

In French that's like midway through section 3.

But I haven't done Esperanto in a long while, so I hopped into that. Back in section 1 unit 2, very early. The phrases are things like "La vetero estas bona" (the weather is good), "Hodiau estas bona tago" (today is a good day), "Cu la tago estas varma?" (Is the day hot?), "Hodiau la vetero estas tre bona" (Today the weather is very good), "Hodiau estas varma tago kaj la suno brilas" (Today is a hot day and the sun is shining). Once again, not nonsense like "the turtle has green pants".

So once again my experiences in the app do not mirror yours of just getting nonsense phrases for hours and hours.

Re: LibreLingo – FOSS Alternative to Duolingo

#369

Post by deeThrow94 »

bluGill wrote: post #170
deeThrow94 wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looking to apps to learn language outside of spaced repetition and talking to someone over video seems pretty naïve to begin with.

There are a lot of things an app can do for you. Spaced repetition is the easiest one. However there are a lot of other options if you get creative. Most of them are a lot more work though. (though chatbots should now be easy as well to implement)

I know any of us can demo a feature, but how specifically is an LLM gonna correct your tone when it can't understand tone itself?

Re: LibreLingo – FOSS Alternative to Duolingo

#370

Post by deeThrow94 »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #215
deeThrow94 wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm learning an admittedly fairly obscure african language, but one with tens of millions of speakers worldwide. LLM can produce intelligible but grammatically-incorrect and unidiomatic output. Is this better or worse than not helping at all? I'd argue worse.

There are two things to say here: > I'm learning an admittedly fairly obscure african language, but one with tens of millions of speakers worldwide. LLM can produce intelligible but grammatically-incorrect and unidiomatic output. This isn't a problem with the technology; it's easy to observe that it doesn't happen with better-known languages. Your problem is that you don't have a model for your target language. > Is…

> This isn't a problem with the technology; it's easy to observe that it doesn't happen with better-known languages. Your problem is that you don't have a model for your target language.

technically, you're correct. But I don't expect to see much given how resources for ai licenses are calculated.

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