Duolingo’s AI learns what you need to learn

[dead]

I'm a little over six months into Spanish and I feel like I'm learning a lot. Although I seem to get stuck in weird sections like weather for a week at a time. I have been in Diamond league for 2 months now. I'm a bit worried Duolingo is geared more for answering easier questions quickly, rather than learning at a more accelerated rate.

When I speak with an actual person through italki, I never talk about weather. I find out I need to learn how to recognize Haber, Poder, Ir, and Tener in preterite and future tenses at conversational speed. Otherwise I can't hold the context for whatever is going on (we tend to talk about what I did the last week, which I love. Throughout the week I lookup words and build a vocabulary in anticipation for our conversations)

I'd really like Duolingo to focus more on audio lessons, and answering questions about stories. I pay way more attention for those questions and really feel like I am getting better at hearing the language. However, I spend more time, and I do better at those questions. I fly through the other questions and tend to make typos which are bad enough where I get the question wrong. I don't know if this trains the AI to keep giving me easier things that I don't pay much attention to.

This is a really interesting article that not only gives insight into how Duolingo works technically but also maybe how Duolingo works as an organization culturally.

The most recent changes to UI reduced user choice on what to learn and practice significantly. Some of it is being repaired, but if you are continuing to use Duolingo you are deferring to its algorithm significantly on how you should learn.

This is probably a good thing in some ways as they are potentially better at identifying weaknesses I'm not aware of. However, I know for a fact that I'm weak on some things and I want to practice those things with their exercises. It'd be really helpful if it gave me the freedom to make my own decisions more easily. For instance, scrolling back in lesson history was lousy previously but at least possible. With the path UI it's much worse - still technically possible but so much scrolling.

Solving for this would be pretty easy. "Jump scrolling" as I call it, not sure if that's the correct term, where the scrolling shows indexes based on letter or number that you can scroll through more quickly would let me go back to lessons I want to revisit more easily. I'm also sure that people who work on algorithms like this are capable of coming up with other ways to take into account how I might know or understand my own weaknesses that their observations can't just detect. I see no curiosity about that in this article though.

It's pretty clear that Duolingo is more invested in improving their algorithms and all of what is discussed is entirely based on observing the learner rather asking the directly or providing them easy ability to make their own learning path when you feel Duo isn't getting it right.

I still use Duolingo and think it's been a great way for me to learn a language that I probably wouldn't learn otherwise. However I'll always be slightly disappointed in how restricted it feels. It's a tough balance for sure and I can probably solve my concerns with outside solutions like supplemental reading and flash card apps. But I would love to have Duolingo adapt to my preferences in some ways and take into account how I know my own deficiencies in learning. I just don't think they're culturally or financially motivated to make those changes, and I live with that comfortably for the most part. At least until I read articles like this that informs me that I'm paying for some amazing learning technology that has no interest in directly listening to me.

I hope they consider changing, I won't be surprised or upset if they don't.

Thanks for posting this article!

> It’s a nudge from Duolingo, the popular language-learning app, whose algorithms know you’re most likely to do your 5 minutes of Spanish practice at this time of day. The app chooses its notification words based on what has worked for you in the past and the specifics of your recent achievements, adding a dash of attention-catching novelty.

Ugh. I want so badly to believe that this kind of technology of manipulation would be used for nothing but good.

Unfortunately I know better. Duolingo, and education in general, is a great use-case for many of these technologies. The reality of how they'll be employed has been, and will continue to be, less rosy.

This is precisely my fear using an AI model. I don't want to end up in some local minima where I endlessly misspell Snow, and get forced into aggressive weather training.

Through italki (spanish) I make tu/usted (informal/formal) mistakes, I make plural mistakes, and I make gender mistakes. My italki instructor still understands me and we can focus on other things.