I feel like people constantly shit on Duolingo and other things like it, especially compared to other forms of language study like full classes, immersing yourself in that language via cultural exports (movies, TV shows, books, etc.), or interacting with people that speak that language.
But I think that’s kinda missing the point — Duo and other programs structured like it offer a way to learn a decent chunk of a language without a lot of effort. If you put in a bit of time every day or so and take things at least a little seriously, my understanding is that you can learn a lot. Maybe you won’t be truly fluent, and certainly you won’t learn as much as you would with intensive self-structured learning or classes at a university, but it takes way less effort and is far more approachable.
That being said, definitely look somewhere else now that Duolingo is using AI.
Not really… if you wanna learn something like swedish where you basically replace a few words in an english sentence and switch the word order to V2 it probably works but when you have languages like russian(because other slavic langauges warent even available last time i checked) or hungarian you enter a completely different level. Idk that much about russian but i can say for sure in hungarian you have to keep like 20 tables in mind constantly and have to be thinking about what roles the words in your sentence fill so you can attach the right suffixes and also keep in mind all the suffixes and vowel harmony for tense, aspect and mood, etc. Not to talk about word order, intonation and other affix related shenanigans.
Apart from the basic learning at the beginning when I didn’t knew anything it is helpful to grasp some basic things and see if I wanted to invest more time and resources.
Now my current method to learn is with proper classes and use Anki to solidify the material I’ve been taught.
Duolingo’s only purpose right now is to learn some new vocabulary and to not lose practice, the friend streaks, and the friend quest is what even in the days that I’m totally unmotivated forces me to not abandon practicing.
I would love to move elsewhere but I’ll lost the only thing that helps me to keep on focus.
Do you know of any good options similar to Duolingo?
I’ve been pissed off with that platform for a couple of years now. They keep changing the structure of lessons and learning paths. I think they’ve been trying to make learning more based on quick rewards at the expensive of context, which I don’t like.
I took a look around for similar apps a coding of years ago, and they all seemed to be one of: a) paid, b) rifled with ads; c) have crappy/buggy UIs. I realize the ads can usually be motivated with a DNS server, but the fact they showed do many ads is kind of a red flag in general. But I know FOSS options have really taken off in the last year or so, so I’m hoping a new, good, free platform has stepped up to tackle Duolingo and the like.
My understanding is that you won’t get fluent but it would give you up to a middle school level understanding, depending on the language. French and Spanish were more advanced than Mandarin or Welsh.
I’ve been using Duolingo to study Mandarin for a few years now. It’s fun but the lessons are frequently frustrating. They love to teach me a bunch of new characters, then stop using them altogether for a few months, then bring them back and expect me to know them with zero review.
The lessons should be structured to include more review if you’re only doing 1/day (which I think is the normal way people use it).
Do you mean middle school level vocabulary? Because I would argue that middle schoolers are absolutely fluent in their native languages. Hell, I think maybe even 9 year olds are fluent.
Fluency in a language learning context is not the same as native speakers. The measure is can you pass a 4th grade grammar class in the given language.
I learned the basics of spanish with it. Now i’m pretty decent at it. I used duo for about a year and then just started talking to spanish speakers. This was years and years ago though.
was duolingo ever actually good for language learning tho…?
I feel like people constantly shit on Duolingo and other things like it, especially compared to other forms of language study like full classes, immersing yourself in that language via cultural exports (movies, TV shows, books, etc.), or interacting with people that speak that language.
But I think that’s kinda missing the point — Duo and other programs structured like it offer a way to learn a decent chunk of a language without a lot of effort. If you put in a bit of time every day or so and take things at least a little seriously, my understanding is that you can learn a lot. Maybe you won’t be truly fluent, and certainly you won’t learn as much as you would with intensive self-structured learning or classes at a university, but it takes way less effort and is far more approachable.
That being said, definitely look somewhere else now that Duolingo is using AI.
Not really… if you wanna learn something like swedish where you basically replace a few words in an english sentence and switch the word order to V2 it probably works but when you have languages like russian(because other slavic langauges warent even available last time i checked) or hungarian you enter a completely different level. Idk that much about russian but i can say for sure in hungarian you have to keep like 20 tables in mind constantly and have to be thinking about what roles the words in your sentence fill so you can attach the right suffixes and also keep in mind all the suffixes and vowel harmony for tense, aspect and mood, etc. Not to talk about word order, intonation and other affix related shenanigans.
Apart from the basic learning at the beginning when I didn’t knew anything it is helpful to grasp some basic things and see if I wanted to invest more time and resources.
Now my current method to learn is with proper classes and use Anki to solidify the material I’ve been taught.
Duolingo’s only purpose right now is to learn some new vocabulary and to not lose practice, the friend streaks, and the friend quest is what even in the days that I’m totally unmotivated forces me to not abandon practicing.
I would love to move elsewhere but I’ll lost the only thing that helps me to keep on focus.
Do you know of any good options similar to Duolingo?
I’ve been pissed off with that platform for a couple of years now. They keep changing the structure of lessons and learning paths. I think they’ve been trying to make learning more based on quick rewards at the expensive of context, which I don’t like.
I took a look around for similar apps a coding of years ago, and they all seemed to be one of: a) paid, b) rifled with ads; c) have crappy/buggy UIs. I realize the ads can usually be motivated with a DNS server, but the fact they showed do many ads is kind of a red flag in general. But I know FOSS options have really taken off in the last year or so, so I’m hoping a new, good, free platform has stepped up to tackle Duolingo and the like.
Mango languages is nice, and lots of library systems have licenses so you can unlock the premium features with your library card.
My understanding is that you won’t get fluent but it would give you up to a middle school level understanding, depending on the language. French and Spanish were more advanced than Mandarin or Welsh.
I’ve been using Duolingo to study Mandarin for a few years now. It’s fun but the lessons are frequently frustrating. They love to teach me a bunch of new characters, then stop using them altogether for a few months, then bring them back and expect me to know them with zero review.
The lessons should be structured to include more review if you’re only doing 1/day (which I think is the normal way people use it).
Do you mean middle school level vocabulary? Because I would argue that middle schoolers are absolutely fluent in their native languages. Hell, I think maybe even 9 year olds are fluent.
Fluency in a language learning context is not the same as native speakers. The measure is can you pass a 4th grade grammar class in the given language.
Which, ironically, native speakers oftrn struggle with.
I learned the basics of spanish with it. Now i’m pretty decent at it. I used duo for about a year and then just started talking to spanish speakers. This was years and years ago though.
I tried Japanese. Two years ago I did 15 mins/day for two months. Two months later I remember nothing.