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500 days of Duolingo: What you can and can’t learn from a language app

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Re: 500 days of Duolingo: What you can and can’t learn from a language app

#51

Post by skellera »

toomuchequate wrote: post #30
LanceH wrote: post #24

I'm using Duolingo to learn my 4th language. My previously recent language was studied in the early 90's, for perspective. Currently, I'm taking on Japanese. Becoming fluent with this app (or any other single app) is going to be just impossible. In isolation it will be a haphazard collection of phrases picked up at a glacial pace. The pluses to Duo are huge, though. What some see as repetition to gain master on a min…

Memorizing in the form of a game did not help things stick. Everyone who has learned a language says I need to talk to native speakers, this game is trivia.

I don’t think anyone is denying that. In addition to actually using the language with native speakers, it can help build vocabulary and grammar.

Re: 500 days of Duolingo: What you can and can’t learn from a language app

#52

Post by umvi »

StavrosK wrote: post #42
macleginn wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another, closely related, case is when you love the culture the language gives you access to. Learning a language without interesting books/movies/tv shows behind it will most probably be a chore.

> Learning a language without interesting books/movies/tv shows behind it will most probably be a chore. What language doesn't have interesting items of culture behind it?

Anime and video games are a powerful cultural motivator for me learn Japanese because I enjoy those things almost daily.

Russia no doubt has interesting items of culture as well, but I am not exposed to them at all and therefore have no desire to learn Russian.

Re: 500 days of Duolingo: What you can and can’t learn from a language app

#53

Post by david-s »

StavrosK wrote: post #42
macleginn wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another, closely related, case is when you love the culture the language gives you access to. Learning a language without interesting books/movies/tv shows behind it will most probably be a chore.

> Learning a language without interesting books/movies/tv shows behind it will most probably be a chore. What language doesn't have interesting items of culture behind it?

The first sentence is important. It's not about the abstract idea of "interesting items of culture" existing. IME they have to be already interesting to the learner to be a motivating factor.

Some people likely find any items of culture interesting. I'm not one of those people, and I suspect most around me aren't either, or we'd all know a lot more languages.

Re: 500 days of Duolingo: What you can and can’t learn from a language app

#54

Post by microcolonel »

Don't try to learn 100% of what you know about a language from an app; and if you can manage to install an input method for your target language, toggle those "rearrange these words" exercises into typing exercises.

If your target language has any media you enjoy watching (this is hard for me with Mandarin, and to some extent Japanese, since I find most of the TV shows basically unwatchable), consume that with subtitles, and pay a bit of attention at first to how things are said. If you hear a new word or phrase which sounds useful by its translation, repeatedly transcribe the phrase in the target writing system, and get a feel for why it means what it does.

Duolingo is a tool, but just as you should not attempt to build a house with only a carpenter's hammer, you should not attempt to learn a language with only Duolingo.

Re: 500 days of Duolingo: What you can and can’t learn from a language app

#55

Post by wallflower »

tcbawo wrote: post #34
Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Repetition is the mother of learning, as the old Russian proverb states. The point is making a phrase really get memorized.

The Pimsleur method, which relies on a progressly timed learning technique really helps commit language to long term memory. It's audio only, but I really recommend then. I believe Ankh is based on this as well.

If you are interested in repetition, Assimil is similar.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assimil

> These are some of my favorite Christmas gifts because they're the only self-teachers I know that work. In just 20 minutes a day -- if you do exactly what they tell you to with the books and accompanying recordings - - then presto! You will be talking like, roughly, an unusually cosmopolitan 3-year old.

https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=502158...

Re: 500 days of Duolingo: What you can and can’t learn from a language app

#56

Post by thescriptkiddie »

reitzensteinm wrote: post #15

Frustration with Duolingo and Memrise when learning German led me to build a tool that could generate sentences in German and English simultaneously, while obeying the grammar rules. In my opinion, the handful of hand crafted sentences they provide bundles way too much complexity together at random. In a traditional text book, you'd get a dozen questions that are very similar, changing one or two aspects of a sentenc…

You may be interested in Seedlang. It's not exactly an online textbook, but it does have a greater focus on grammar than Duolingo. It also has video lessons, worksheets, and a multi player "quiz show".

Re: 500 days of Duolingo: What you can and can’t learn from a language app

#57

Post by wallflower »

dominotw wrote: post #39
msvan wrote: post #7

The best way to learn a language is to need to learn it. If you come in contact with a foreign language daily, it becomes much easier to both practice and motivate yourself to continue to practice. As someone who has spent thousands of hours learning a foreign language, I've come to the conclusion that I will never do it again unless I have a proper reason for it. Might seem obvious, but it's worth pointing out.

I plan to learn Spanish by staying in Peru for a 2 months. I would duolingo spanish before that and put everything together and accelerate when i am in Peru. Thats the plan for now anyways :D.

How serious are you about learning Spanish?

One of the first things you will learn is the futility of “I am going to learn it in X months.” Try not to assign an unrealistic deadline (you don’t know what you don’t know), enjoy the long hike.

Think of Duolingo as, at best, riding a scooter or tricycle, if your goal is to ride a bicycle for a century (competency).

Check out iTalki. You can find hundreds of teachers for real live practice at reasonable rates. If you don’t click with a particular teacher, there are so many others to find a match with your schedule, learning style, and personality.

https://www.italki.com/

Buena suerte!

Re: 500 days of Duolingo: What you can and can’t learn from a language app

#59

Post by microcolonel »

ben_w wrote: post #46

I agree with the criticisms in this article. I currently have a 1.012 day streak on Duolingo, which I’m using to learn German, Esperanto, and Greek. I’ve “completed” the German course several times as the course was expanded, and even with the help of Clozemaster and Memrise I’m still only a B1 on an online CEFR test. It’s fine for the basics, but there’s no way it’ll make you good enough to, say, start working for a…

> 1.012 day streak

You are even using the German typographic conventions for numbers in the wrong language, I'm sure you're well on your way!

> It’s fine for the basics, but there’s no way it’ll make you good enough to, say, start working for a German-language software development company.

Sed cxu vi povas lerni suficxe da Esperanto, ke vi povus labori cxe Esperanta programaro kompanio?

Re: 500 days of Duolingo: What you can and can’t learn from a language app

#60

Post by StavrosK »

david-s wrote: post #53
StavrosK wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Learning a language without interesting books/movies/tv shows behind it will most probably be a chore. What language doesn't have interesting items of culture behind it?

The first sentence is important. It's not about the abstract idea of "interesting items of culture" existing. IME they have to be already interesting to the learner to be a motivating factor. Some people likely find any items of culture interesting. I'm not one of those people, and I suspect most around me aren't either, or we'd all know a lot more languages.

Personally, I like Spanish as a language and am learning it, and as a result I find that I have access to more Spanish movies/shows/books because I understand it better. It wasn't my goal, but it's a welcome perk, and my comment was mostly about the fact that even if you don't learn a language for it's culture, there's always a culture there for you to enjoy once you do.
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