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> Or rather, one of them, considering that [Duolingo] has all sorts of issues. Yep. I agree with measured criticisms of Anki even while feeling the app is rea

> Or rather, one of them, considering that [Duolingo] has all sorts of issues. Yep. I agree with measured criticisms of Anki even while feeling the app is really useful if you use it well. Whereas Duolingo isn't worth bothering with at all. It's purely optimized to maximize engagement/revenue.

wizzwizz4 4y ago
Duolingo used to be better: people who are talking about Duolingo might be referencing how it used to be.
- TwentyPosts 4y ago
  I'm not. I'm a new user, and I notice that Duolingo kind of sucks, but I am getting some amount of value out of it. I'm very open to suggestions for better language learning apps, though.
  - bluquark 4y ago
    When you hit diminishing returns on a walled-garden language-learning app, it's time to create a continuous intake of real-world media at your level that you enjoy, plus a suite of inline understanding+memory tools to extract the maximum learning out of that media. I have been following many of the recommendations on https://learnjapanese.moe/resources/ https://learnjapanese.moe/resources/. Most of them are language-specific, but perhaps you can still draw some inspiration from the methods and look for equivalent tools in your target language.
  - hackernewds 4y ago
    Read this and you'll realize why Duolingo has gone down the wayside https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/how-duolingo-reignited-user-growth https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/how-duolingo-reignited-us... Shows when incentives are aligned to shareholders vs users, that is the outcome you get
TwentyPosts 4y ago
As someone who didn't like the idea of learning a language at all but has to, I'm glad that Duolingo gave me a very, very easy way to get started with literally anything at all. It's simple and streamlined, meaning that it's easy to start and stick with it instead of getting hung up on how to find a good textbook, or figuring out how to use Anki "properly". This also applies to practicing every single day: I find it easy to do a few Duolingo "lessons" as warm-up before delving into more in-depth practice. Nowadays I would not use it for real "practice" at all. I use it to check my understanding for 5-15 minutes a day. If I make mistakes in Duolingo (eg. forming the plural, remembering the dative for a given grammatical gender) then I look these things up and study them. I might drop Duolingo completely at some point, but for now I'm getting a non-zero amount of value out of it—I am increasingly looking into better options, though. I'm already looking Anki, and I'm sure there are some other language learning apps out there.
- hackernewds 4y ago
  what if Duolingo employed Anki?
  - Kelamir 4y ago
    People could stop using it, because as opposed to Anki, Duolingo is far from real language learning. At least I tried it a couple of years ago and that was my experience.
watwut 4y ago
I mean, I don't think this is true about duolingo. I used it for language I knew zero about and for one I used to know. And I did learned foreign languages before duolingo existed. With nothing but duolingo and occasion "let's try to read or watch movie", my ability to read or understand went high in a way that would not happened without it at all.

wizzwizz4 4y ago

Duolingo used to be better: people who are talking about Duolingo might be referencing how it used to be.

TwentyPosts 4y ago
I'm not. I'm a new user, and I notice that Duolingo kind of sucks, but I am getting some amount of value out of it. I'm very open to suggestions for better language learning apps, though.
- bluquark 4y ago
  When you hit diminishing returns on a walled-garden language-learning app, it's time to create a continuous intake of real-world media at your level that you enjoy, plus a suite of inline understanding+memory tools to extract the maximum learning out of that media. I have been following many of the recommendations on https://learnjapanese.moe/resources/ https://learnjapanese.moe/resources/. Most of them are language-specific, but perhaps you can still draw some inspiration from the methods and look for equivalent tools in your target language.
- hackernewds 4y ago
  Read this and you'll realize why Duolingo has gone down the wayside https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/how-duolingo-reignited-user-growth https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/how-duolingo-reignited-us... Shows when incentives are aligned to shareholders vs users, that is the outcome you get

TwentyPosts 4y ago

As someone who didn't like the idea of learning a language at all but has to, I'm glad that Duolingo gave me a very, very easy way to get started with literally anything at all. It's simple and streamlined, meaning that it's easy to start and stick with it instead of getting hung up on how to find a good textbook, or figuring out how to use Anki "properly". This also applies to practicing every single day: I find it easy to do a few Duolingo "lessons" as warm-up before delving into more in-depth practice. Nowadays I would not use it for real "practice" at all. I use it to check my understanding for 5-15 minutes a day. If I make mistakes in Duolingo (eg. forming the plural, remembering the dative for a given grammatical gender) then I look these things up and study them. I might drop Duolingo completely at some point, but for now I'm getting a non-zero amount of value out of it—I am increasingly looking into better options, though. I'm already looking Anki, and I'm sure there are some other language learning apps out there.

hackernewds 4y ago
what if Duolingo employed Anki?
- Kelamir 4y ago
  People could stop using it, because as opposed to Anki, Duolingo is far from real language learning. At least I tried it a couple of years ago and that was my experience.

watwut 4y ago

I mean, I don't think this is true about duolingo. I used it for language I knew zero about and for one I used to know. And I did learned foreign languages before duolingo existed. With nothing but duolingo and occasion "let's try to read or watch movie", my ability to read or understand went high in a way that would not happened without it at all.