Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[FearfulJesuit]

I'm starting this thread in the Other Games forum because, even though Duolingo isn't a game per se, it acts enough like a game and has a game-like community, so I think it belongs here.

For those of you (all three of you, most likely- it's gotten a lot of coverage) who aren't familiar with it, Duolingo (also available on app) is a website that teaches you foreign languages in a game-like manner, with lives, scores, and ability to compete against acquaintances. It's free- their business model is based on having people translate articles, then selling those articles to websites- and currently has nine languages available for English speakers: Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Danish and Irish. A tenth, Turkish, is coming out on Monday, and there are a few others in the works. Each course teaches you about 2000 to 3000 words and most of the major grammar, mostly by having you translate sentences. It's pretty good for reading and writing; if you want to be able to speak or listen to the language well you're going to need outside sources, though.

I'm currently making my way through the Portuguese (for review- my Portuguese is pretty good, but increasingly rusty) and German trees. I've found that Duolingo doesn't test vocab retention as well as I would like, so I also have Anki decks for both of these, which has cut down on review rage immensely. (I tried getting through the German tree once before and just could not keep the vocab in after a certain point. We'll see how it goes this time.) I'm level 11 in Portuguese and 3 in German, but my German is growing by leaps and bounds because I've done much of it before.

A word to the wise: make sure you review lessons. There's nothing more infuriating than wanting to work ahead on new lessons, but having a tree full of barely-reviewed lessons. Pacing is key; it's very common for people to get through about a third of the tree, find they have to review everything they've done, and ragequit. Again, I find an outside review system (Anki is the best I've found) for vocab makes the process less painful and more productive.

So, uh, anyways, talk about Duolingo...

[Cthulhu]

I took duolingo French for a bit and now I'm taking an actual college course.  Duolingo is fun and teaches you a bit but I don't think you can beat an actual class for learning it.  You gotta immerse yourself in it to really learn.

Also the placement tests are kind of silly.  The grammar and stuff is fine but there's a lot of words thrown in that they just kind of expect you to know because they're used in Duolingo.  If you've learned part of the language through a different method  you might still flunk out of the placement despite 90% of the early levels being trivial, just because you don't know the specific words they use.

Oh, to add onto the "you need to learn in person" pile, Duolingo isn't good at explaining pronunciation which can trip you up in a language like French where everything is silent and half the content of a sentence is conveyed by variations in pronunciation.

Oh oh, the test kind of format doesn't really teach you why the things you're doing are the way they are.  It feels very rote.  It never sits you down and explains anything to you so I don't know how you'd take what you've learned here and use it to construct original writing.

[Il Palazzo]

Oh oh, the test kind of format doesn't really teach you why the things you're doing are the way they are.  It feels very rote.  It never sits you down and explains anything to you so I don't know how you'd take what you've learned here and use it to construct original writing.

There's always those grammar, pronunciation and usage tips and notes attached to each lesson. Have you been skipping those or do you find them inadequate?

[FearfulJesuit]

I mean, the point isn't that Duolingo will teach you everything you need to know...it'll give you a solid base for grammar and vocab that you can use to read or go abroad with. It's not going to get you to C2, but in my experience, you rarely need to be C2 in a language unless you already live in a country where it's spoken, and then you can just chat up the locals and read the local paper.

Duolingo's strength is that it's oodles better than what came before it- Rosetta Stone is shit, and the Teach Yourself and Colloquial series just don't have much vocabulary. Duolingo also incorporates memory-retention training that traditional courses just can't do. It's not an ideal option, but it's one of the best.

Also, for some grammar stuff, you do want to look at an outside source...I've found I've needed to for German case agreement.

[Descan]

I'm using it for German. I want to move there, I know no German so I'm using it for a base structure.

[LordBucket]

Duolingo isn't good

I'm quoting the above somewhat out of context, but I'm going to agree with this snippet. Duolingo is a cute little gimmick, but it's not very useful. There are much better options.

Duolingo's strength is that it's oodles better than what came before it- Rosetta Stone is shit,
and the Teach Yourself and Colloquial series just don't have much vocabulary.

Haven't used Colloquial or Teach Yourself, but I'll agree on Rosetta Stone. Rosetta is an absolute waste of time. I've tried Instant immersion, and like Duolingo it's "fun" and gimmicky, but just not very effective.

I suggest torrenting the Pimsleur set. They are by far the most effective self-learning language tool I've ever used. The usual complaint about Pimsluer is that it's not very broad. You learn very few words. And that's true. But while not broad, it's deep. Pimsleur excels at quickly getting you very comfortable using the words and grammar you do know at conversational speed. It's also excellent for teaching pronunciation, as it breaks down every word to individual syllables.

After a month of Pimsluer you'll probably only know a hundred or so words. It's not for vocabulary. But the words and grammatical structures you do know you'll be very comfortable with. Pimsluer isn't sufficient on its own, but its' very strong at what it does, and if you can't take a class and are too shy to show up to meetup groups, it's the best self-learning language tool I'm aware of.

[dennislp3]

Yes I liked it..sadly it didn't have Chinese last I checked but there is a program almost identical to it for Chinese. The premise of it and execution is great. I love it...obviously as pointed out anyone looking to seriously learn a language will of course need immersion learning and other tools to truly make it happen

[Sartain]

Well this reminds me that I wanted to something to brush up on my German and Spanish while slacking for the summer, so maybe this would be an idea.

[Icefire2314]

I've used it for a while for Irish. I really like it a lot, but I'm disappointed in the obviousness of the answers. The way I tend to think, when I get a page with multiple choices, the answers are too obvious for me to have to THINK about the grammar rules, the answer is usually pretty blatant.

IE:
In Irish, madra is dog and madrai is dogs. A question in the plurals grammar section read as follows:

(They are ____)
Is ______ iad.
 >madra
 >madrai

So if you don't know the vocab, it seems like it's a decent question. If you are even remotely familiar with the grammar rules for pluralization of singular verbs then madrai immediately sticks out like a sore thumb, even if you don't know the word.
That example doesn't explain it well, but if you catch the gist of my idea then it's fine.

[CaptainLambcake]

no russian

[Rex Invictus]

It's been literally years and they still don't have Nipponese. God damn.

[inteuniso]

It's been literally years and they still don't have Nipponese. God damn.

Well, Indo-European VS Sino-Tibetan...

[dennislp3]

Also...in case anyone wants to see what sort of languages are being worked on and their status

http://incubator.duolingo.com/

Russian and Hungarian are almost ready for Beta testing

[jhxmt]

anki decks

Marginally off-topic, but can anybody recommend a decent beginner-ish Anki deck for Spanish?  I started making my own some time ago, but then drifted off practicing and would like a good one to start afresh with.  (A1 - A2 level, if that helps)

On-topic: I use(d) Duolingo mainly to help me refresh my basic vocab, rather than relying on it for extensive grammar or initial learning.  It's useful to me mainly because it's portable (on my phone) and nudges me to actually practice (until I skip it long enough that it realises I'm a lost cause).

I do like Pimsleur's stuff, what little I've used.