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Duolingo and apps like it, including Memrise, really fail with German. They can be good for syllable pronunciation and maybe memorizing gender of some nouns, bu

Duolingo and apps like it, including Memrise, really fail with German. They can be good for syllable pronunciation and maybe memorizing gender of some nouns, but they never will explain or brush on the more complex nuances of any language, which you would learn in the second week of any formal education.

kbp 8y ago
Duolingo has notes explaining the grammar as it introduces it, for the most part, and the grammar gets reasonably sophisticated by the end. Not really what I'd call complex nuances, but probably equivalent to a year or two of university study. What second-week German grammar concepts do you think it doesn't brush on?
- gammateam 8y ago
  Must have been an update, wasn't familiar with it. The last duolingo I used was just trying to get humans to solve its foreign-language reCaptcha material.
  - Sharlin 8y ago
    The desktop/webapp version has notes, and they're even pretty good. The mobile app doesn't, and IMO is mostly useful for rehearsing.
- bayesian_horse 8y ago
  In my experience Duolingo does have good grammar notes. But they are easily ignored and the exercises don't force you enough to read and understand them. Which may be impossible for any such tool.
reitzensteinm 8y ago
I agree with that. I banged my head on Duolingo and Memrise for ages before I got a tutor, and things fell in to place within weeks. Out of disgust for the solutions that existed, I went so far as to start working on my own Memrise style app which understands enough German grammar to generate English/German sentence pairs, so you can practice sentences with nouns/verbs/adjectives swapped around. So it shows you the first sentence and you translate: I lay the pen on a table. Ich lege den Stift auf einen Tisch The pens lay on the table. Die Stifte lagen auf dem Tisch. Or it shows you a present tense and you make it past: Ich lese ein Buch. Ich habe ein Buch gelesen. It was really effective at hammering in the edge cases of grammar (you'd practice maybe 500 sentences an hour). Though I got kicked out of Germany due to visa trouble and life took a different direction, and haven't touched it since!
- gammateam 8y ago
  For me I was content that I could parse what other people were saying. I wanted to know the concepts and how people think, my own ability to synthesize sentences would have been a side effect.
  - reitzensteinm 8y ago
    Sounds like you were further along than I was!
- bayesian_horse 8y ago
  It's not that easy to get kicked out of Germany... Duolingo is but a tool among many. For one thing it tends to not force you to repeat enough, and for another the grammatical explanations are not that elaborate and easily ignored. But for basic drilling it's great and I would prefer it over most other tools. After a point, of course, other things like reading, listening and writing become more important and efficient.
  - reitzensteinm 8y ago
    The visa office made a typo in my email address when setting the appointment, and when I didn't show up, they sent me another email asking if I wanted to reschedule, and when I didn't reply to that, they closed my case. As I was under a bridging visa that meant I was now there illegally. When I contacted them to find out what the hold up was, they told me what happened and that I was now there illegally and needed to leave immediately, so I did. After the mistake was found out the visa office were apologetic and offered to give me a visa again, and the criminal case against me for overstaying was dropped. But it was such a disruption to my life I no longer have interest.
    - madez 8y ago
      Interesting story. To avoid that to happen, I'd recommend to get a lawyer and to contest the authorities decision. You could have worked that out if you had looked into it. Sure, just letting it go is suboptimal, but in cases like this one things should still be able to be fixed if the mistake was on the authorities side.
black-tea 8y ago
Memrise was great for learning vocabulary. I greatly expanded my French vocabulary using it. But I later tried to use it for Afrikaans and found they had redesigned it and it was useless. Duolingo is completely useless in my opinion. It doesn't teach you anything about grammar and doesn't teach you much vocabulary. It's more like having random conversations with a native who doesn't actually know much about their own language, except you will never ever be able to converse with a native after only using Duolingo. It's a waste of time just like "Roseta Stone". Both try to tell you it's the "easy way" because it's how babies do it. Well babies spend years immersed and completely helpless without language until they finally get it. Even if you could go through with that, would you even want to? As an adult you would be stupid not to use the best tool you already have for learning things: your mother tongue. If you're serious about learning a language you need some way to learn vocabulary, a good book or books in your language to teach you grammar, and lots and lots of material in the new language: books, news, films, radio etc. You will not be able to learn to speak without a sympathetic native, though.
amaccuish 8y ago
I think the problem is that these apps sell themselves as a one-stop shop to learn a language, but they're not. When they're effective, is when you treat them as tools, to target various areas.

kbp 8y ago

Duolingo has notes explaining the grammar as it introduces it, for the most part, and the grammar gets reasonably sophisticated by the end. Not really what I'd call complex nuances, but probably equivalent to a year or two of university study. What second-week German grammar concepts do you think it doesn't brush on?

gammateam 8y ago
Must have been an update, wasn't familiar with it. The last duolingo I used was just trying to get humans to solve its foreign-language reCaptcha material.
- Sharlin 8y ago
  The desktop/webapp version has notes, and they're even pretty good. The mobile app doesn't, and IMO is mostly useful for rehearsing.
bayesian_horse 8y ago
In my experience Duolingo does have good grammar notes. But they are easily ignored and the exercises don't force you enough to read and understand them. Which may be impossible for any such tool.

reitzensteinm 8y ago

I agree with that. I banged my head on Duolingo and Memrise for ages before I got a tutor, and things fell in to place within weeks. Out of disgust for the solutions that existed, I went so far as to start working on my own Memrise style app which understands enough German grammar to generate English/German sentence pairs, so you can practice sentences with nouns/verbs/adjectives swapped around. So it shows you the first sentence and you translate: I lay the pen on a table. Ich lege den Stift auf einen Tisch The pens lay on the table. Die Stifte lagen auf dem Tisch. Or it shows you a present tense and you make it past: Ich lese ein Buch. Ich habe ein Buch gelesen. It was really effective at hammering in the edge cases of grammar (you'd practice maybe 500 sentences an hour). Though I got kicked out of Germany due to visa trouble and life took a different direction, and haven't touched it since!

gammateam 8y ago
For me I was content that I could parse what other people were saying. I wanted to know the concepts and how people think, my own ability to synthesize sentences would have been a side effect.
- reitzensteinm 8y ago
  Sounds like you were further along than I was!
bayesian_horse 8y ago
It's not that easy to get kicked out of Germany... Duolingo is but a tool among many. For one thing it tends to not force you to repeat enough, and for another the grammatical explanations are not that elaborate and easily ignored. But for basic drilling it's great and I would prefer it over most other tools. After a point, of course, other things like reading, listening and writing become more important and efficient.
- reitzensteinm 8y ago
  The visa office made a typo in my email address when setting the appointment, and when I didn't show up, they sent me another email asking if I wanted to reschedule, and when I didn't reply to that, they closed my case. As I was under a bridging visa that meant I was now there illegally. When I contacted them to find out what the hold up was, they told me what happened and that I was now there illegally and needed to leave immediately, so I did. After the mistake was found out the visa office were apologetic and offered to give me a visa again, and the criminal case against me for overstaying was dropped. But it was such a disruption to my life I no longer have interest.
  - madez 8y ago
    Interesting story. To avoid that to happen, I'd recommend to get a lawyer and to contest the authorities decision. You could have worked that out if you had looked into it. Sure, just letting it go is suboptimal, but in cases like this one things should still be able to be fixed if the mistake was on the authorities side.

black-tea 8y ago

Memrise was great for learning vocabulary. I greatly expanded my French vocabulary using it. But I later tried to use it for Afrikaans and found they had redesigned it and it was useless. Duolingo is completely useless in my opinion. It doesn't teach you anything about grammar and doesn't teach you much vocabulary. It's more like having random conversations with a native who doesn't actually know much about their own language, except you will never ever be able to converse with a native after only using Duolingo. It's a waste of time just like "Roseta Stone". Both try to tell you it's the "easy way" because it's how babies do it. Well babies spend years immersed and completely helpless without language until they finally get it. Even if you could go through with that, would you even want to? As an adult you would be stupid not to use the best tool you already have for learning things: your mother tongue. If you're serious about learning a language you need some way to learn vocabulary, a good book or books in your language to teach you grammar, and lots and lots of material in the new language: books, news, films, radio etc. You will not be able to learn to speak without a sympathetic native, though.

amaccuish 8y ago

I think the problem is that these apps sell themselves as a one-stop shop to learn a language, but they're not. When they're effective, is when you treat them as tools, to target various areas.