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My parents are a good example of their target audience. They live in Alaska and planned a weeklong vacation in Panama, so they used Duolingo for 4-5 months bef

by dx87 7y ago

My parents are a good example of their target audience. They live in Alaska and planned a weeklong vacation in Panama, so they used Duolingo for 4-5 months before they left in order to learn enough spanish that they could ask and answer basic questions during their trip, but they have no desire to spend the time required to be fluent enough to have a full conversation.

mkl 7y ago
How did they go? Was it sufficient?
- pikma 7y ago
  Anecdotally I did the same before a trip to Brazil and I found it very useful.
AlchemistCamp 7y ago
The sad thing is that if they'd spent just one month on a Michel Thomas or Pimsleur course, they'd have been at a higher level and been ahead in accent, too. Typing word and sentence translations from your L1 into a language you don't speak just isn't a good way to learn a language.
- Jestar342 7y ago
  Duolingo has (automated) vocal lessons.
  - simias 7y ago
    That's the worst part of the app because they use synthetic voices for most courses (the only one I know that doesn't is the Latin one, probably because there aren't many off-the-shelf Latin text-to-speech). I'm often hanging on the (absolutely terrible from a usability perspective) Duolingo forums to help people attempting to learn French and as such I often encounter people complaining that they can't figure out what the voices are saying. As a native speaker I can generally make out what it's supposed to say but it definitely sounds off and artificial. And even when the pronunciation is technically correct it's completely flat and lacks the natural emotion and emphasis a native speaker would use. The fact that an app who's supposed to teach you languages relies on crappy text-to-speech to teach you pronunciation tells you everything you need to know about Duolingo.
    - organsnyder 7y ago
      The Spanish voices are quite good—real people, and with similar pronunciation to what I hear from native speakers.
- dkarras 7y ago
  Nothing sad about it, those cost money and are not as gamified so they require consistent willpower. If duolingo didn't exist, they would not put in the work to start learning, period. Different people have different aims. I'm halfway through the Dutch course (230 day streak, so I put in at least 10 minutes every day for the last 230 days) and found it immensely valuable. It helped me build a habit magically, which is something I struggle with all my life. I would never work on something 200+ days in a row. Some days I study more than an hour, some days I do the bare minimum but I do it every day to keep my streak. I am able to form novel sentences and express my ideas with the vocabulary I have. That is all I need. Right now I can comfortably comprehend any A1 text, and can get by with A2 text when I look up the meaning of some words. I'm only halfway through. I can speak enough to at least successfully use speech to text on my phone (I answer textual questions on my phone by speaking and letting it turn my speech to text). I can understand some children shows. I have ONLY worked with Duolingo (and I read Dutch reddit comments). If it weren't for Duolingo I would never stick to it.

by dx87 7y ago

mkl 7y ago

How did they go? Was it sufficient?

pikma 7y ago
Anecdotally I did the same before a trip to Brazil and I found it very useful.

AlchemistCamp 7y ago

The sad thing is that if they'd spent just one month on a Michel Thomas or Pimsleur course, they'd have been at a higher level and been ahead in accent, too. Typing word and sentence translations from your L1 into a language you don't speak just isn't a good way to learn a language.

Jestar342 7y ago
Duolingo has (automated) vocal lessons.
- simias 7y ago
  That's the worst part of the app because they use synthetic voices for most courses (the only one I know that doesn't is the Latin one, probably because there aren't many off-the-shelf Latin text-to-speech). I'm often hanging on the (absolutely terrible from a usability perspective) Duolingo forums to help people attempting to learn French and as such I often encounter people complaining that they can't figure out what the voices are saying. As a native speaker I can generally make out what it's supposed to say but it definitely sounds off and artificial. And even when the pronunciation is technically correct it's completely flat and lacks the natural emotion and emphasis a native speaker would use. The fact that an app who's supposed to teach you languages relies on crappy text-to-speech to teach you pronunciation tells you everything you need to know about Duolingo.
  - organsnyder 7y ago
    The Spanish voices are quite good—real people, and with similar pronunciation to what I hear from native speakers.
dkarras 7y ago
Nothing sad about it, those cost money and are not as gamified so they require consistent willpower. If duolingo didn't exist, they would not put in the work to start learning, period. Different people have different aims. I'm halfway through the Dutch course (230 day streak, so I put in at least 10 minutes every day for the last 230 days) and found it immensely valuable. It helped me build a habit magically, which is something I struggle with all my life. I would never work on something 200+ days in a row. Some days I study more than an hour, some days I do the bare minimum but I do it every day to keep my streak. I am able to form novel sentences and express my ideas with the vocabulary I have. That is all I need. Right now I can comfortably comprehend any A1 text, and can get by with A2 text when I look up the meaning of some words. I'm only halfway through. I can speak enough to at least successfully use speech to text on my phone (I answer textual questions on my phone by speaking and letting it turn my speech to text). I can understand some children shows. I have ONLY worked with Duolingo (and I read Dutch reddit comments). If it weren't for Duolingo I would never stick to it.