By the way -- this Youtube video also has some good tips, some of which overlap with mine, some of which don't. He is slightly more positive about what using Duolingo can achieve. So much depends on how much effort someone is willing to put in with supplementary work, I think.
Great post! Thank you! After the start of the full scale war with Russia, I began Ukrainian on Duo as I wanted to at least have a clue when watching videos from the various fronts. After more than a year I could hear differences and similarities with Russian, which told me I was getting somewhere. I have few opportunities to speak beyond a few in-store conversations, snippets really, with the Ukrainians in my Brooklyn neighborhood. I fully recognize the superficially of my knowledge, but the pure language-joy is profound. Then, ultimately, I married a German woman and I made the switch. In the month before we went to Germany to meet the family I POUNDED Duo for hours a day (and in the process won the Diamond league). This was the test. How would I do in Germany? How much could I follow a conversation at home, in a shop or restaurant? Say a few things?
The answer was that could beyond everyone’s expectations. It was AWESOME! And priceless: being able to follow dinner conversations with little translation felt amazing. To be honest, before Duo I figured my language-learning days were long over: never again would I spend a junior year in Italy and Spain. Knowing I couldn’t get that kind of learning meant I just took it off my endless aspirational lists. Obviously German would gain a foothold in my life now, but how much? Duo showed me it was possible to begin at 53. Yes, German is “easy” because of all it shares with English (compared with Ukrainian, for example) and I do have a history of learning languages, but I never imagined the progress I’ve made was possible.
To some of your insights: it’s not enough and parts do suck. Within a few weeks of German, I needed the classic dictionary and grammar textbook approach too: verb form lists, conjugation tables, actual understanding of cases, etc. The gaming approach works great to hold eyeballs, but limits are soon reached. Gaming the game offers the illusion of success (with help from capitalization of first word, correct words to choose from, “cheating” by seeing the word), but offers no guarantee of real learning. But even in those periods where I was using a “cheat” to gain quick points (“Speak” mode is awesome for this), I justified my learning mode saying, at least my mouth is making German words for two hours a day, with only Duo to disapprove of my pronunciation. Repetition, so essential to language learning, is the hardest thing for me to “schedule” into my over-scheduled life. But Duo has cracked that: NO WAY I’m losing my 650+ day streak!
I totally agree about filling your world with as much of the language as possible: we watch German TV news, a fun “Antiques Roadshow” type show “Rares für Rares,” and listen to Harry Potter in German. I also get to add a life goal every day: reading Kafka in the original. Some days it’s a paragraph in a short story or novel, other days it’s an aphorism. I take notes and expand a specific, singular vocabulary. I liken it to learning Italian by reading Dante - there will be tons of lacunae, but at least you know what you need to enter those realms.
My experience is echoed in your thoughtful analysis: it’s great, but with superable shortcomings.
Oh, full disclosure/fun fact: after both being Duo users for more than a year each, my wife now works for the Green Owl! She will be very interested to read your insights!
I'm using Duo'o for Chinese (Mandarin)--once upon a time, long ago and far away, I took a year of it at Harvard. Of course, everything then and up to but not recent (that is, pre Duo'o) employed tapes for "listen and repeat" exercises. Duo'o surpasses that, especially on the iPhone (thank you Steve, wherever you are). So I strongly recommend Duo'o for S&L practice (repetitive speaking and listening). It remains to have real-life conversations (maybe a "Duo'o-AI" will provide that).
I got to about 60% in both Spanish and Italian with Duolingo and yes, it's good for getting some grounding in a language you're already sort of familiar with (I have undergraduate Latin, high-school French and a smattering of Romanian). What put me off was the constant nagging and the pressure to gamble. Also, gamification doesn't work for me; I like my learning to be learning and my games to be games.
I've got your e-mail and in a few minutes later I got another mail from duolingo with a subject of "Are you still there?", and now I'm starting to suspect that this one is a marketing or not?
I've been practising with Duolingo Arabic for the last few years. I already knew how to read and write Arabic script, but Duo (and especially the timed word-matching games) has massively increased my reading speed, and recognition of common written words. So in that respect it has been helpful. However, for spoken Arabic it has been more or less useless - mostly because the course is in Modern Standard Arabic rather than any real spoken dialect. It has probably helped my listening comprehension a little though, and helped me to internalise some level of verb conjugation.
I've also progressed some way through the Norwegian course, which is better-developed than the Arabic course, and that did get me to a point where I can exchange messages back and forth in Norwegian with Norwegian friends. But having some prior knowledge of German from school probably helped there.
Yeah, I think where there's some grounding from a course or cognates to connect to, it does better. But I find it incredibly hard to learn things from scratch with it.
I listen to the Duolingo Podcast in French, which provides a written transcript for those who like to read along. I’ve enjoyed the stories featuring places, events, and the people from all over the world, adding to France’s rich culture.
By the way -- this Youtube video also has some good tips, some of which overlap with mine, some of which don't. He is slightly more positive about what using Duolingo can achieve. So much depends on how much effort someone is willing to put in with supplementary work, I think.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXHtwQP9DnQ
Great post! Thank you! After the start of the full scale war with Russia, I began Ukrainian on Duo as I wanted to at least have a clue when watching videos from the various fronts. After more than a year I could hear differences and similarities with Russian, which told me I was getting somewhere. I have few opportunities to speak beyond a few in-store conversations, snippets really, with the Ukrainians in my Brooklyn neighborhood. I fully recognize the superficially of my knowledge, but the pure language-joy is profound. Then, ultimately, I married a German woman and I made the switch. In the month before we went to Germany to meet the family I POUNDED Duo for hours a day (and in the process won the Diamond league). This was the test. How would I do in Germany? How much could I follow a conversation at home, in a shop or restaurant? Say a few things?
The answer was that could beyond everyone’s expectations. It was AWESOME! And priceless: being able to follow dinner conversations with little translation felt amazing. To be honest, before Duo I figured my language-learning days were long over: never again would I spend a junior year in Italy and Spain. Knowing I couldn’t get that kind of learning meant I just took it off my endless aspirational lists. Obviously German would gain a foothold in my life now, but how much? Duo showed me it was possible to begin at 53. Yes, German is “easy” because of all it shares with English (compared with Ukrainian, for example) and I do have a history of learning languages, but I never imagined the progress I’ve made was possible.
To some of your insights: it’s not enough and parts do suck. Within a few weeks of German, I needed the classic dictionary and grammar textbook approach too: verb form lists, conjugation tables, actual understanding of cases, etc. The gaming approach works great to hold eyeballs, but limits are soon reached. Gaming the game offers the illusion of success (with help from capitalization of first word, correct words to choose from, “cheating” by seeing the word), but offers no guarantee of real learning. But even in those periods where I was using a “cheat” to gain quick points (“Speak” mode is awesome for this), I justified my learning mode saying, at least my mouth is making German words for two hours a day, with only Duo to disapprove of my pronunciation. Repetition, so essential to language learning, is the hardest thing for me to “schedule” into my over-scheduled life. But Duo has cracked that: NO WAY I’m losing my 650+ day streak!
I totally agree about filling your world with as much of the language as possible: we watch German TV news, a fun “Antiques Roadshow” type show “Rares für Rares,” and listen to Harry Potter in German. I also get to add a life goal every day: reading Kafka in the original. Some days it’s a paragraph in a short story or novel, other days it’s an aphorism. I take notes and expand a specific, singular vocabulary. I liken it to learning Italian by reading Dante - there will be tons of lacunae, but at least you know what you need to enter those realms.
My experience is echoed in your thoughtful analysis: it’s great, but with superable shortcomings.
Oh, full disclosure/fun fact: after both being Duo users for more than a year each, my wife now works for the Green Owl! She will be very interested to read your insights!
I'm using Duo'o for Chinese (Mandarin)--once upon a time, long ago and far away, I took a year of it at Harvard. Of course, everything then and up to but not recent (that is, pre Duo'o) employed tapes for "listen and repeat" exercises. Duo'o surpasses that, especially on the iPhone (thank you Steve, wherever you are). So I strongly recommend Duo'o for S&L practice (repetitive speaking and listening). It remains to have real-life conversations (maybe a "Duo'o-AI" will provide that).
Only available in a few languages so far but I am really liking a different language app called Natulang. More speaking focused and time efficient.
Interesting, I'll check that out -- thank you!
I got to about 60% in both Spanish and Italian with Duolingo and yes, it's good for getting some grounding in a language you're already sort of familiar with (I have undergraduate Latin, high-school French and a smattering of Romanian). What put me off was the constant nagging and the pressure to gamble. Also, gamification doesn't work for me; I like my learning to be learning and my games to be games.
I hate the nagging, I don't need to be shamed by a cartoon owl!
I've got your e-mail and in a few minutes later I got another mail from duolingo with a subject of "Are you still there?", and now I'm starting to suspect that this one is a marketing or not?
This is definitely, 100% not marketing. The clue is in that I begin by saying it's not a very good way to learn languages.
I've been practising with Duolingo Arabic for the last few years. I already knew how to read and write Arabic script, but Duo (and especially the timed word-matching games) has massively increased my reading speed, and recognition of common written words. So in that respect it has been helpful. However, for spoken Arabic it has been more or less useless - mostly because the course is in Modern Standard Arabic rather than any real spoken dialect. It has probably helped my listening comprehension a little though, and helped me to internalise some level of verb conjugation.
I've also progressed some way through the Norwegian course, which is better-developed than the Arabic course, and that did get me to a point where I can exchange messages back and forth in Norwegian with Norwegian friends. But having some prior knowledge of German from school probably helped there.
Yeah, I think where there's some grounding from a course or cognates to connect to, it does better. But I find it incredibly hard to learn things from scratch with it.
I listen to the Duolingo Podcast in French, which provides a written transcript for those who like to read along. I’ve enjoyed the stories featuring places, events, and the people from all over the world, adding to France’s rich culture.