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Honestly from using duolingo pretty heavily for a couple of years, attending language classes and doing my own individual study I've found duolingo pretty usele
by vncecartersknee 5y ago
Honestly from using duolingo pretty heavily for a couple of years, attending language classes and doing my own individual study I've found duolingo pretty useless. It's "fun" and gives one the sense of progress without really accomplishing much.
- BooneJS 5y agoI moved on to Babbel.
- achow 5y agoThanks for the pointer. Quick search gave this review: The main differences between Babbel vs Duolingo are: Babbel is best for learnings looking to completely master a language, whereas Duolingo is better for sporadic learners who want to dabble. Babbel offers lessons with conversational practice and cultural immersion, whereas Duolingo offers adaptive learning lessons.
- vncecartersknee 5y agoyeah babbel seems better although iirc the interface was a bit clunky. I also found busuu and linq to be okay as well.
- tomduncalf 5y agoYeah I used Babbel to pick up some basic Italian a few years ago and thought that while a bit more “boring” than Duolingo, I felt like I was learning more useful stuff. It’s structured more like a language class at school. Memrise is worth a look as a Duolingo alternative. It’s similar but feels a bit more “serious”, there are some nice features like you get videos of native speakers saying phrases with a variety of accents.
- rtpg 5y agoMemrise also has fun sketches that offer something most language tools miss: entertainment. They’re dumb but can cause a little chuckle (extra satisfying when it’s in an unknown language)
- jansan 5y agoBabbel is great and they also have shorter subscription plans. I only needed a quick fresh up of my French skills and did not see why I should subscribe to a full twelve months plan, which was the shortest that I could find on Duolingo.
- dazc 5y agoIt serves as a useful tool for learning some fairly basic words and phrases, not much else. Languages have many subtle nuances that simply can not be taught via spaced repetition.
- daxaxelrod 5y agoMy personal experience leads me to disagree. I've been using Duolingo to learn Chinese for about 400 days now. I recently took another step and started taking private zoom lessons and my tutor said a few of her students have come from the same path. Duo has given me a good understanding of sentence structure and raw vocabulary. Even though my pronunciation needs work, Duo has given me so much for watching a few ads and I hope to continue with it. Given everything, my tutor said I would pass HSK 1 and maybe level 2.
- mdorazio 5y agoI learned Chinese in college and then lived in China for a year and a half. Personally, I think sentence structure and basic (spoken) vocabulary are the easiest parts of Chinese since there's no real conjugation and particles do all the heavy lifting instead of messing with word forms [1]. The hard parts are memorizing a decent number of hanzi and properly pronouncing with tones. I tried duo to learn some Japanese and found it... not great. [1] Note: Personally, I find Chinese superior to romance languages in this regard - it was actually really refreshing as a learner.
- daxaxelrod 5y agoI agree, building the mental map of written characters->translation was certainly difficult early on. Duo is not going to be as good as institutional schooling or immersion but I don't think it has to be to be considered a net positive for all of us. It has lowered the barrier enough to allow people to get started for what is essentially free. I remember 10 years ago I saw rosetta stone cds being sold in barnes and noble for $179+ for just a single level. Sacrificing the time of just 170 SWEs for something like this just seems like a no brainer to me, valuation aside.
- dorchadas 5y agoIf it took you 400 days to pass the HSK level 1, I would argue that you're absolutely doing something wrong or extremely inefficient.
- 5y ago
- ngokevin 5y agoI'm trying a language learning startup and surveyed a lot of people. The response is universal that everyone's tried Duolingo, and it didn't work for them in actually learning, despite monster streaks. I think it's masterful as a dopamine machine and employing habit building tactics. Perhaps it's a good icebreaker for people in language learning, as long as people are resourceful enough to look beyond Duolingo.
- vncecartersknee 5y agoThat's cool I'd love to hear more about it, I've actually been thinking about ways that a language app could work better. Seems like all the current research is that "immersion" in the target language is critical, an app that just played me conversations, had me read text, etc and 'creatively' formulate responses, not just simply fill in the missing word, obviously in increasing difficulty would be ideal.
- monkeybutton 5y agoImmersion provides the strongest motivation to learn and to try. When you want something or have a problem that needs to be solved and the other party doesn't speak English, you're going to be very motivated. The 'dopamine hit' from getting it right and communicating successfully in another language is also way better than from an app/game. The results are just so much more real and tangible.
- Jare 5y agoImmersion also creates connections between the language and other stimuli (visual, emotional, etc). Connections are powerful for creating reliable memories.
- kouteiheika 5y ago> Seems like all the current research is that "immersion" in the target language is critical This, a hundred times this. Immersion is not only effective in getting you used to the language, but also really helps you solidify what you've learned, and is extremely motivating. Virtually all of the people that I know in the Japanese learning community who learned the language really fast heavily immersed in a lot of content. In my own language learning app that I'm making I'm explicitly targeting a feedback loop which looks something like this: 1) You pick an easy show/book/etc. to consume. (I have a list ranked according to difficulty, generated through machine learning.) 2) You prelearn the vocabulary used within using an SRS. 3) You consume it. 4) You continue maintaining your vocabulary through SRS, so the app knows which words you're supposed to know. 5) The app recommends you the next show/book/etc. to consume based on what you've already learned. 6) Rinse and repeat. Gradually the whole thing snowballs and you have to learn less and less for each new work you consume. I personally believe this to be the most effective way of learning a language, and I'm already seeing some of my users having a lot of success with it.
- Areading314 5y agoI can't agree more. I made some progress on Japanese only to find that when I spoke it was completely incomprehensible to a native speaker. I think speech/pronunciation correction is still an unsolved problem.
- greesil 5y agoI took foreign language courses in high school and college. I couldn't actually communicate until moving to the country where they spoke it and living there for six months. Then I had to go back home :(
- wyxuan 5y agoI've done duolingo for 300+ days and can tell you that Japanese and Arabic are uniquely bad/hard to teach
- bawolff 5y agoIf your native language is english, surely romance languages are going to be easier than something like japanese
- meepmorp 5y agoeven though english is a germanic language?
- gen220 5y agoThe grammatical structure of modern English is closer to Romance languages than Germanic languages. You can convert many English sentences into a sensible (if not idiomatic) Spanish sentence by translating one word at a time. German has not so forgiving been :)
- meepmorp 5y ago> The grammatical structure of modern English is closer to Romance languages than Germanic languages. I'm pretty sure that's not true.
- colordrops 5y agoI'm learning tons of grammar and vocabulary through Duolingo. Are you not learning these things, or do you find them useless? BTW the quality of the language programs differs vastly. Spanish, which I'm studying, is very fleshed out. Tried Arabic and it was anemic and even broken in parts.
- chillingeffect 5y agohaving just returned from mexico for 2 wks i can say the pace of duolingo is waaaay to slow compared to conversation.
- mgh2 5y agoIts UX is good enough to gamify the starting language learning process, but that is where it stops - novice excitement
- scrooched_moose 5y agoI find their approach of "drag and drop these 6 words to form a sentence" or "fill in the missing word in this sentence" was just leading me to recognize correct patterns of letters, not words or meaning. "aog" always goes after "Lor" and before "san" (obviously made up example) - I couldn't tell you what the individual words meant or what the full sentence said; but I knew that those groups of letters belonged in that order. I'm also a lapsed B2 in German and played around with that course a few years ago. 3 or 4 weeks ago I got an email that they finally accepted my correction on a blatantly incorrect translation, which had apparently been unfixed in one of their most popular courses for years.
- Semaphor 5y agoIt’s useless for properly learning a language. For getting the basics of a language in a game-y way that doesn’t feel like studying, it’s great. My wife managed to pass her German A1 (CEFR [0]) exam almost completely by just using Duolingo. She took some free Deutsche Welle exam prep courses in the week before, but to even get to the level to understand those, she used Duolingo. If you need to learn a language quickly, I’d call it the wrong tool. If you are okay spending time properly studying a language, I’d say that will be better. But for certain cases, Duolingo is great. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_European_Framework_of_Reference_for_Languages#Comparisons_between_CEFR_and_other_scales https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_European_Framework_of_R...
- vr46 5y agoSo I am using Duolingo as I will have to take the sane exam at some point over the next year or two. I think it works ok for being able to consume simple German but less well for understanding spoken German, or constructing one’s own ideas. In other words, it doesn’t make the hard things easy or easier. It is a great alternative to wasting time on social media or news sites, however.
- zwayhowder 5y agoTheir business model isn't to teach you languages, it is to make money off the millions of people who want to learn a new language.
- hardwaregeek 5y agoThe problem is that language learning is inherently about putting your brain in tricky, slightly painful situations. You have to decipher confusing sentences, handle unfamiliar words and wrestle your brain into thinking in a different language. You can't really make a fun game that does this. Therefore Duolingo makes a game that focuses on translating the foreign language to your native one. That's great for starting out, but eventually you gotta start composing sentences and ideas in the foreign language.
- N00bN00b 5y ago>The problem is that language learning is inherently about putting your brain in tricky, slightly painful situations. I think that's a really good description of learning in general.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y agoGrowth in general really. Stretching and building muscle, for instance, or training endurance.
- okwubodu 5y ago> The problem is that language learning is inherently about putting your brain in tricky, slightly painful situations Immersion is the only way you’ll ever truly learn a language. All the classes, flash cards, etc., in the world can’t teach you how to clear up a misunderstanding with the manager at hotel in Spanish. I remember at some point we did Duolingo in Spanish, and the Spanish speaking kids were shocked how fast we (black) tested out of topics and progressed. The reason was pretty obvious; we’re around y’all a lot lol. My recommendation is even if you don’t have many people speaking the language you want to learn near you, immerse yourself. Read popular modern authors in the language, listen to podcasts in the language, join a game server and practice in-game interaction in the language (hard mode). Maybe it is useless. But you may find that those encounters take place on a foundation built by some little green bird named Duo.
- okwubodu 5y ago
- this_is_not_you 5y agoI wouldn't call it "pretty useless". I think it has two distinct places in a language learning process. 1) They make learning a new language very accessible and fun to get started. Books and courses do not have such a low level of entry. 2) It's good for learning new words in a context. Memrise for example often just gives you a single word and translation. But I think it's much more effective to then put words into sentences. That said, if you really want to learn a language past the "I can manage for a few days as a tourist" you need to add other methods to it. Read books, listen to audio content, watch TV, have lessons (speak the language!), study grammar etc. Then not everybody is alike. So try different methods. See what works for you. Some might have more success with Duolingo, some will have less.
- gokhan 5y agoFor Duolingo, you might mix it with other materials for a much better experience. I told our kids' experience learning foreign languages here [1]. My wife used the same technique to learn some French, Duolingo reinforced with audio and visual materials, songs with lyrics, regular learning books, podcasts etc. Duolingo is used daily in our house and we're paying for not seeing ads. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25408576 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25408576
- devin 5y agoThis proves the OP's point. Duolingo is trash if you aspire to fluency. It's only useful in fluency as an additive to a robust training program. You don't get fluent by following Duolingo alone.
- gokhan 5y agoI disagree. Duolingo is not trash as the op suggests, it's a great fire starter and makes you able to use other materials by handling the intro well. Peppa Pig is a sustainable language learning tool if you did something before to learn the basics and Duolingo handles that part well for free. How is that trash?
- stephen_g 5y agoYeah, I've gone through not quite half the introductory Spanish audio course from Language Transfer [1], and it feels like I've made massively more progress than Duolingo, even though I'd spent at least twice as long on the Duolingo courses over the year. All the Language Transfer is available free too so that's nice. It's a shame, because Duolingo is fun, the art style is cool and the gamified stuff is potentially useful for keeping people coming back and doing the lessons. It just really hasn't felt very effective to me at language learning at all... 1. https://www.languagetransfer.org/ https://www.languagetransfer.org/
- estaseuropano 5y agoCan only agree. Duolingo gives some basic vocabulary but after that basically is useless, especially as the way it teaches grammar forms (and on the mobile app barely any explicit rules) is 100% useless. Native speakers looking at example sentences in the target language are often shocked at the nonsense that is provided. But worst for me is that it wastes time. The unnecessarily ineffective repetitions, all the features and ads intended to upsell 'Pro', etc. There are dozens of other apps that do it better for free (e.g. good old Anki, or newcomers like Clozemaster) and when on a desktop a whole wealth of professional learning resources are available, both old ones that are now public domain, the world of wikis and collaborative learning and flashcards, and no-profit materials. For instance lots of organizations fund free courses, e.g. the EU funded a bunch of sites for learning languages, like https://deutsch.info https://deutsch.info, and national broadcasters like RF1 (French), DW (German) provide great professional and current materials. Podcasts and youtubers teach any language imaginable, etc. Try Duolingo to get a taste, but after a few lessons look for your language online and you'll find much better stuff.
- baby 5y agoSame here. This valuation makes no sense to me. I’ve spent a LOT of time optimizing ways in which I learn languages, and duolingo doesn’t do much. Here’s what I can recommend: - follow as many instagram account as possible to teach you the language. There’s so many “teaching chinese” instagram account for example. Every day when I check instagram I learn a few chinese words. - check browser plugins to display subs in different languages simultaneously on netflix - use memrise or anki or other app or real world flash cards. There’s a reason people always go back to the flashcards. It’s all about input. You need to learn a lot of vocab, fast. Don’t even focus on grammar at first, and even less on output. Output will come naturally after a while.
- rtpg 5y agoMy partner is doing a “cocktail” of Duolingo, Memrise, and a grammar textbook for French. They are progressing a lot in just a month (and given the early learning curve from the grammar, I’ve found it good) I think that these language tools work best when you have a mixture, because they can complement each other and keep on feeding into the novelty factor. (In particular Memrise and Duolingo operate on different sort of teaching strategies so just those two together is really interesting)
- orky56 5y agoTotally echo all of this. I'm one of the owners at the Orange County Lingual Institute (oclanguages.com) and we see Duolingo as the gateway for people to tap into their language learning interest but then get serious with in-person or online language learning classes. We have seen firsthand hundreds of students unsuccessful with apps since they are not practicing live conversations and not understanding grammar. With 80+% retention of our 2 month/once a week classes, adult professionals get through a college textbook in a year and can become fluent enough to travel to those countries, speak with relatives, and read novels & newspapers with high levels of profiency. Language learning is hard work with no shortcuts but can still be accessible without apps that overpromise and underdeliver. Ping me privately or check out our site for more info.
- ALotOfBees 5y agoI find that Duolingo is to human languages what Codecademy is to programming languages. It's gamefied and fun but will only scratch the surface teaching you the very basics. In order to truly learn the language you have to put in the much harder work elsewhere. That's not to say that both platforms dont have a place, they still can be pretty valuable tools for beginners.
- whatever_dude 5y agoFor non-ubiquitous languages (everything other than English), part of the difficulty of learning is not just the basic learning, it's retaining what you've learned; it might be difficult to practice it unless you're on the country that speaks it. Of I'm in the middle of Tennessee, probably don't have a lot of opportunity to prescribe my Japanese. That's where Duolingo shines, in my opinion: as a learning companion.