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Teaching a billion people ten words makes a lot more money than teaching 100k people 100k words. The stated goal is to teach _you_ a language but the actual goa

Teaching a billion people ten words makes a lot more money than teaching 100k people 100k words. The stated goal is to teach _you_ a language but the actual goal is to be lightly used by as many people as possible.

orliesaurus 7y ago
10 words...yeah not that good then.
- gbear605 7y ago
  10 words is an understatement, but the more reasonable estimate of probably around 1000 isn’t fluency either
  - yoz-y 7y ago
    But 1000 is more than enough to get around.
    - gbear605 7y ago
      Yeah, Duolingo is definitely enough of a tool if you want to start to use the language in the foreign country, but it’ll be very obvious that you’re a beginner. I’d say that’s probably the best way to learn, but you have to be prepared to be very confused.
      - yoz-y 7y ago
        In the end I think that the only way to really learn a language is immersion and/or daily usage. Any class, tutor, book or app can only get you so far. Get some basics and then practice by reading, watching stuff and most importantly: talking with other people. Duolingo is pretty good to get you to the start line.
echelon 7y ago
I don't know. If we could figure out a way to instantly impart someone with full fluency in a language for $100k, there would be so many takers.
adatavizguy 7y ago
I saw Luis von Ahn speak at the at the LAB in Miami circa 2013. His goal has always been to crowd source translating text like the New York Times everyday into several languages. Professional translators probably translate text better than Duolingo, but not at the price point they offer. One thing he brought up in that talk is that they hired a bunch of respected academics in the field of language learning. He asked them which parts of speech should be taught first which the consultants didn't have an answer so they implemented A/B testing to see which order of words and concepts people learned fastest with. Several years later the thing that surprises me is that with data backed learning they haven't got further. Working through he courses isn't such a bad waste of time for most of the users even though there might be better more expensive ways to learn a language.
- henrikschroder 7y ago
  > He asked them which parts of speech should be taught first which the consultants didn't have an answer so they implemented A/B testing to see which order of words and concepts people learned fastest with. Here's a crazy thought: People are different, and different people will have different best ways of learning a foreign language, depending on what they know beforehand, and how they like to learn. Some people are having great success with duolingo, good for them. I'm not one of them, I think its structure sucks for me, I need way more grammar and structure rules, not an endless string of random sentences. And the thing is, duolingo could add what I wanted to their lessons. They could absolutely add lists of pronouns or prepositions, or several sentences with small variations to their repertoire.

orliesaurus 7y ago

10 words...yeah not that good then.

gbear605 7y ago
10 words is an understatement, but the more reasonable estimate of probably around 1000 isn’t fluency either
- yoz-y 7y ago
  But 1000 is more than enough to get around.
  - gbear605 7y ago
    Yeah, Duolingo is definitely enough of a tool if you want to start to use the language in the foreign country, but it’ll be very obvious that you’re a beginner. I’d say that’s probably the best way to learn, but you have to be prepared to be very confused.
    - yoz-y 7y ago
      In the end I think that the only way to really learn a language is immersion and/or daily usage. Any class, tutor, book or app can only get you so far. Get some basics and then practice by reading, watching stuff and most importantly: talking with other people. Duolingo is pretty good to get you to the start line.

echelon 7y ago

I don't know. If we could figure out a way to instantly impart someone with full fluency in a language for $100k, there would be so many takers.

adatavizguy 7y ago

I saw Luis von Ahn speak at the at the LAB in Miami circa 2013. His goal has always been to crowd source translating text like the New York Times everyday into several languages. Professional translators probably translate text better than Duolingo, but not at the price point they offer. One thing he brought up in that talk is that they hired a bunch of respected academics in the field of language learning. He asked them which parts of speech should be taught first which the consultants didn't have an answer so they implemented A/B testing to see which order of words and concepts people learned fastest with. Several years later the thing that surprises me is that with data backed learning they haven't got further. Working through he courses isn't such a bad waste of time for most of the users even though there might be better more expensive ways to learn a language.

henrikschroder 7y ago
> He asked them which parts of speech should be taught first which the consultants didn't have an answer so they implemented A/B testing to see which order of words and concepts people learned fastest with. Here's a crazy thought: People are different, and different people will have different best ways of learning a foreign language, depending on what they know beforehand, and how they like to learn. Some people are having great success with duolingo, good for them. I'm not one of them, I think its structure sucks for me, I need way more grammar and structure rules, not an endless string of random sentences. And the thing is, duolingo could add what I wanted to their lessons. They could absolutely add lists of pronouns or prepositions, or several sentences with small variations to their repertoire.