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It's quite hard to lose a Duolingo streak

leejo.github.io

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Re: It's quite hard to lose a Duolingo streak

#51

Post by DrewADesign »

kqr wrote: post #29
jonathanjaeger wrote: post #5

My boss stopped learning Spanish on Duolingo when he lost his streak. It's a powerful motivator even if it's not a "true streak" due to streak freezes and such. My streak is at 1436 and if I lost it, I wouldn't stop Duolingo because I actually like it to learn, but the streak does make me happier, haha. I think I've had 2 days in the last few years of streak freezes due to 1 day forgetting and 1 day the site not savi…

In the context you mentioned it, the streak sounds like a powerful demotivator. This is a more general problem with gamification and external rewards: they are just as good demotivators as they are motivators, if not more so. This is why I wanted to turn off streaks when I was using Duolingo. I knew it was just a matter of time before I had my streak broken, and I was very concerned about what would happen then.

The real question is whether they'd have used it to begin with— I’d guess not. It seems most folks here discouraged by streak-loss had sizable steaks to lose. That means they reaped real benefit and provided real revenue for duolingo. Nobody uses a language learning app forever.

The gamification requires two coordinating motivations— secondarily the game mechanics, and primarily learning a language. Duolingo won't replace candy crush for non-language-learners. I imagine folks significantly discouraged by poor game performance without doing some serious learning first just aren’t motivated enough to practice their language skills in an app.

Personally, I’m not motivated by gamification at all and am content to ignore it. It is noisy, however, and I also wouldn’t mind the ability to shut it off.

Re: It's quite hard to lose a Duolingo streak

#52

Post by yieldcrv »

Frummy wrote: post #47
yieldcrv wrote: post #6

A) For those that question the apps and are on the fence, consider a traditional methods of language learning, consider a class at a community college. Community college in San Francisco is free for San Francisco residents and they have many language classes! Similar arrangements might be available wherever you currently live, and they're also cheap either way. B) I travel a lot and I realized that I don't actually w…

So how do you learn with that goal in mind? And how do you know in advance what the cultural demands are?

I go to a club in that country and figure it out. Takes an me about an hour and a half to observe, and then try. I don't consider myself extroverted.

The more stimuli the better, because the less actual talking is expected. Very basic bits of information need to be transmitted.

Nobody is going to understand your years of app language, or years of school language, and definitely not your accent. You need idioms and expressions and you aren't going to blend in either way. Do it live.

Re: It's quite hard to lose a Duolingo streak

#53

Post by Tams80 »

moron4hire wrote: post #27

I work for a foreign language instruction services company. We mostly serve government and military, but we do accept private students. All of our linguists are extremely skeptical of apps like Duolingo. And before anyone replies something like "your company has a vested interest in propping up instructor-led language training", if apps like Duolingo actually worked, the government--especially the military--would sto…

Of course private tutoring is one of the most effective ways.

But you can't have a private tutored lesson while in a queue at the supermarket. Or on a train. Or while you wait for the water to boil.

Of course the government pay for your services. They need people to be trained to be good at languages. Most of the people who use these apps are doing it as a hobby.

Re: It's quite hard to lose a Duolingo streak

#54

Post by oneoff786 »

Telemakhos wrote: post #49
superasn wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same for me. I had a 800+ day streak and I remember that on the days I couldn't practice, I used to play Duolingo story #1 at 1am with half eyes open just to keep it going. But as soon as my streak ended, my frequency of playing went from 6 days in a week, to 5 days.. and now I haven't played it in months. Fake or not, keeping the streak alive did help me learn a lot of French (well actually there is one more side to…

> even after all that I can't speak a single proper sentence now apart from the basic je m'appelle stuff This is the real problem with Duolingo: it doesn't actually teach you to communicate in the language. Rote memorization and communication are two different things, and Duolingo does very little aside from drilling memorization. Streaks and gamification don't contribute to communication, which has its own system of…

I’m not sure I would be so pessimistic. Learning a language is hard and you’re probably correct that you won’t be able to speak it with just duolingo. That doesn’t mean duolingo isn’t providing a substantial amount of necessary foundation.

I’ve never tried it but I feel like it’s probably similar to Spanish classes in high school.

Re: It's quite hard to lose a Duolingo streak

#55

Post by iratewizard »

needle0 wrote: post #40

Losing a Sojourner medal streak in Ingress (due to being busy due to my own wedding!) made me quit playing the game regularly. Streaks can be effective in keeping the user returning, but once it's broken it can be a perfect moment for the user to churn. Hence, I can understand how the Duolingo devs made the streak less fragile than it would initially appear, but doing so (and having the cover blown) also makes return…

I've used Duolingo for about a year and they definitely have a lot of stuff like that built into the gamification. Often times, though, playing the game they designed is counterproductive. I've broken 100+ day streaks twice now because I realized I was only putting in the minimum for the sake of the game. I've found it better to take a month off here and there so that I can come back and focus on my actual goals.

There's also the cracked lesson feature. They aligned cracked lessons to urgency gamification instead of something more sound like delayed repetition. As a result, you'll often have cracked lessons which you've long since permanently committed to memory and will be spending 15 minutes on easy lessons rather than doing the important, harder lessons.

Re: It's quite hard to lose a Duolingo streak

#56

Post by finolex1 »

someotherperson wrote: post #14

One thing I found odd about Duolingo is that they disabled offline lessons. It was the most powerful thing they had -- to me at least. I was able to board planes and just grind for hours, I could travel cross country and do the same. Even in normal travels I was able to use it without constant disconnects -- it was great. But they decided one day to just nuke it... for no reason as far as I could tell. My subscriptio…

Offline is still very much a thing: https://support.duolingo.com/hc/en-us/articles/4410000601869.... Maybe you just had a bug?

Re: It's quite hard to lose a Duolingo streak

#57

Post by hutattedonmyarm »

Rerarom wrote: post #2

What are some good alternatives to Duolingo with fewer dark patterns? (And don't suggest traditional methods, I am very much not against them, I am just curious about apps and such.)

I switched to Babbel a while back and couldn’t be happier

Re: It's quite hard to lose a Duolingo streak

#58

Post by k8sToGo »

bondant wrote: post #21
Rerarom wrote: post #2

What are some good alternatives to Duolingo with fewer dark patterns? (And don't suggest traditional methods, I am very much not against them, I am just curious about apps and such.)

I like Babbel.com Tried German and polish and thought the lessons were good.

Did it help you learn communicate in it or is it just like duolingo where you only learn basic vocab?

Re: It's quite hard to lose a Duolingo streak

#59

Post by davidzweig »

sanqui wrote: post #28
Rerarom wrote: post #2

What are some good alternatives to Duolingo with fewer dark patterns? (And don't suggest traditional methods, I am very much not against them, I am just curious about apps and such.)

It's a paid app, but I enjoyed Speakly's approach of "endless stream of open cloze exercises". It forces you to actually type words in the target language (unlike Duolingo which is mostly translations into the source language), it has a clever spaced repetition algorithm, and it lets you practice for as long as you want and stop immediately at any point, unlike Duolingo locking you into 20 question long lessons.

We made something a couple of weeks ago, you might like it, needs login but is 100% free. Endless (depending on language) listening exercises, sentences are selected (from tatoeba) based on vocabulary (no selection based on grammar yet). It's also integrated with a flashcard system (also free). If you set a small vocab (100 words) and do lots of cards, you start to get a feel for the grammar of a language. Something like 40 languages are supported.

https://dev.languagereactor.com/phrasepump (this is the dev site, will go to prod in a couple of weeks)

Re: It's quite hard to lose a Duolingo streak

#60

Post by leejo »

moron4hire wrote: post #27

I work for a foreign language instruction services company. We mostly serve government and military, but we do accept private students. All of our linguists are extremely skeptical of apps like Duolingo. And before anyone replies something like "your company has a vested interest in propping up instructor-led language training", if apps like Duolingo actually worked, the government--especially the military--would sto…

> The OP take about having used Duolingo for almost 10 years. That seems absurd to me. I would hope they have mastered at least half a dozen languages with that kind of effort.

Eh, the implication in my post is that Duolingo is minimal effort and the streak doesn't really mean anything other than you may have maintained that minimal effort for a long time.

Besides, very few people are mastering a single language let alone many. I'm a native English speaker and sometimes I feel I haven't mastered that language.

And yes - private lessons are going to offer the most value if you can't live in the country. Even then it's only in this particular part of this country where I would hear something like "On prend le traclet pour acheter du Papet."

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