Duolingo Max, a learning experience powered by GPT-4

Like, who on Earth, if learning a language (and not just needing a phrasebook) would ever want to remember foreign language words by rhyming them with a different language?

While truly etymologically related words make sense - such as "escribir" and "scribe", connecting unrelated words is IMHO a bad idea that would do more harm than good.

I currently try learn some Spanish and I had some trouble with Spanish "mirar" accidentally being close enough to Japanese "見る" (which absolutely aren't related, of course, just happen sound similar), so now and then my brain had farted ("hey, I'm speaking in a third language, other than my native and English!") and I could blurt out "miro!" instead of "mira!" or some similarly weird shit unintentionally mixing up two different grammar systems as my brain struggles to explain itself through the grammar I know about. Maybe it's just me, but I think unrelated rhymes and false cognates are a big no-no when learning a new language.

When I've asked ChatGPT (GPT-3.5) to explain me Spanish grammar, such as "explain me 'a' in the beginning of 'a tu hermano le gusta...') it did a decent job explaining me how it works. Factually it matched what I found later, cross-checking.

Their iOS team seems to be the one who experiment the most with new features, and then they either get discarded or finally make it to Android, and then in a few years to the Web.

It is really annoying, as when I used Duolingo (stopped because of the new update in Jan), I would often use all three platforms, and have the worst experience.

Before the UX update at the end of last year, I was trying Arabic (something like 2 years of daily lessons and I still couldn't manage the alphabet), Greek (felt worse than before the preceding UX change but I couldn't say why exactly), Esperanto (the audio sounded like it was done by a volunteer at their own home?), Dutch, German, and Spanish.

I'm still doing German, because I live here now, but I gave up on all the rest the day that update happened.

Oh my goodness the voices and animations are annoying. Whenever the young boy appears I have to mute my speakers.

I'm sure they're hyper-focused on "engagement metrics" to the detriment of all else, just like how old-school OK Cupid turned into just another Tinder clone.