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I agree. I’m trying to learn German now and I keep failing lessons because I screw up gender and conjugation stuff. I wish there was a way to tell the app that

by pkulak 4y ago

I agree. I’m trying to learn German now and I keep failing lessons because I screw up gender and conjugation stuff. I wish there was a way to tell the app that I don’t give a shit. Even if I learn all the genders perfectly, I’m still going to be fumbling over words in an American accent. A few incorrect “der”s are not going to make me unable to be understood. And I can correct that later.

barrell 4y ago
A lot of the language learning methods out there really are built to be graded/measured. Books, courses, duolingo, anki - they all kind of seek to answer this question ‘how can we measure your language and make sure you’re progressing through it’. There are a few applications out there that are far superior for me, that don’t focus on this two way feedback. Language transfer is amazing, glossika used to be amazing (still is, but they have a lot of grading by default now), pimsleur and Michel Thomas are also good products. I’m also working on a product that explicitly tries to avoid this problem as well, but is a little meatier than the audio only products like I mentioned above. Won’t be ready for public use for a few months though but you can DM me for details if you’d like
- NickC25 4y ago
  I worked on a product for nearly 4 years that seems very similar to what you're describing. I would love to tell you all about it and what we could have done better, worse, etc... How can I get in touch?
  - barrell 4y ago
    Emailed :) Also added contact details to my about page here in case that didn't go through / got sent to spam
aix1 4y ago
I think it depends on one's goals in learning the language. If the goals are modest (e.g. say a few simple things in standard situations), then knowing a bit of vocab and couple of verb forms is probably all that's needed. Going beyond that, not knowing noun genders would start getting in the way pretty quickly: 1. It would almost certainly imply not knowing plurals [since patterns for forming plurals heavily rely on noun genders]. 2. It would cause declensions getting mixed up [since those also depend on gender]. All of a sudden, understanding who is the subject and who is the object could get pretty hard. 3. It would make it hard to reliably refer to previously mentioned things without repetition. Does Duolingo teach patterns for recognising genders and forming plurals? If it doesn't, it's absolutely worth learning them on your own. There are a few patterns that cover the vast majority of nouns. There are weird cases and exceptions, but those are relatively few and really stick out once one knows the patterns, making them easier to remember. Similarly with verb conjugations. Is it she who is doing something, or is it they? Unless the verb is in the correct form, it's impossible to tell. (I am a student of German rather than a native speaker, so take all of this with a grain of salt.)
posterboy 4y ago
To be honest, if you don't get the agreement right I simply won't bother listening to you, unless in a good mood. This is a two way street. A couple word order mistakes are much worse than occasional spelling mistakes in English. The phonology is similar enough that /k/ for /x/ (Loch "hole") shouldn't be a problem, for example. This differs of course with languages that have a completely different speech riddim and phonemes which are unknown to the recipient.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- twixfel 4y ago
  Well, this is one of the problems Germany has. Lots of moaning about immigrants failing to integrate, no real effort on the part of the bulk of the existing population to help them integrate, including such luxuries as "talking" and "listening". Your attitude would be unthinkable in the UK or the US but is everywhere in Germany. I can see why communities like Turkish one are often considered as having failed to integrate in Germany, and I don't believe the blame lies with the Turks, let's put it that way.
  - posterboy 4y ago
    > Your attitude would be unthinkable in the UK or the US but is everywhere in German No, it's the same. I'll just switch to English. > I can see why communities like Turkish one are often considered as having failed to integrate in Germany Das ist kulturel bedingt. Duolingo hätte jedenfalls nicht viel geholfen.
    - twixfel 4y ago
      >No, it's the same. I'll just switch to English. No it's not the same. My German girlfriend is consistently asked in Germany where she's "really from" despite being born there and living there her whole life (and her parents too!). That would be scandalous in my country, and the US too. The intolerance of imperfect grammar that can realistically only be attained by natives is adjacent to this issue. It's naive and simplistic to just state all Western countries are the same in terms of social progress. The English-speaking and German-speaking worlds are not the same. >Das ist kulturel bedingt. Duolingo hätte jedenfalls nicht viel geholfen. For sure. German culture will either change of I am sure that these waves of immigrants will not integrate properly and there will be strife. One of the benefits of immigration I hope is that Germany will change and become a friendlier and less inward looking society.
watwut 4y ago
Getting gender right is something any competent in person course will force you from the start. Having American accent is something to be expected and fine. Using wrong gender causes pain in listener. It really pops up great time. Gender in gendered language matter, unfortunately. The best advice I heard is to always memorize the word with its gendered article. (assuming language has articles)
- pkulak 4y ago
  What you just wrote had a few mistakes on the order of a gender error, and several worse, but I understood you just fine. What matters is that you were able to communicate with me, in my native language; and I'm grateful to you for making the effort. There was no pain involved on my part.
- brozaman 4y ago
  > Gender in gendered language matter, unfortunately. The best advice I heard is to always memorize the word with its gendered article. (assuming language has articles) For written language yes, spoken it doesn't really matter as people will cut you a lot of slack. In Spain there was a football comentator from England, Michael Robinson. Robinson had an obvious English accent and even though his Spanish was very very good, but he still he messed some things -including genre- and nobdy cared. He was a comentator for many years and people liked him a lot. In the US you have other examples of the same things. For instance I can think of Sofia Vergara and Charo to name the first that come to my mind. Both quite popular and I can spot their accent and some mistakes instantly and I'm not even a native speaker. Also I mess gender a lot myself when I speak English and people don't seem to care.
  - JackFr 4y ago
    In the case of Charo and Sofia Vergara, the accent and grammar mistakes are a cultivated part of the brand.
    - schrijver 4y ago
      Arnold Schwarzenegger has a dialect coach: his Austrian German accent has faded through years of living in the US, but it’s what his audience expects so he trains himself in it before each new movie.
LorenPechtel 4y ago
This is my wife's main beef with the owl. She's never going to be truly fluent, her only objective is to learn enough to function in a place where that's the spoken language. You can get a lot of the grammar wrong and still be understood and that's all that matters to her. She's actually ended up learning *English* grammar from it--English is not her native language and she's missed plenty of things where she understood it but failed to put it in proper English. If anything, botched grammar can be an advantage--it lets the person they are speaking with know their ability with the language is poor and thus encourages them to keep answers as simple as possible. (This only helps if the person has some experience in trying to communicate through a language barrier, though.)

by pkulak 4y ago

barrell 4y ago

A lot of the language learning methods out there really are built to be graded/measured. Books, courses, duolingo, anki - they all kind of seek to answer this question ‘how can we measure your language and make sure you’re progressing through it’. There are a few applications out there that are far superior for me, that don’t focus on this two way feedback. Language transfer is amazing, glossika used to be amazing (still is, but they have a lot of grading by default now), pimsleur and Michel Thomas are also good products. I’m also working on a product that explicitly tries to avoid this problem as well, but is a little meatier than the audio only products like I mentioned above. Won’t be ready for public use for a few months though but you can DM me for details if you’d like

NickC25 4y ago
I worked on a product for nearly 4 years that seems very similar to what you're describing. I would love to tell you all about it and what we could have done better, worse, etc... How can I get in touch?
- barrell 4y ago
  Emailed :) Also added contact details to my about page here in case that didn't go through / got sent to spam

aix1 4y ago

I think it depends on one's goals in learning the language. If the goals are modest (e.g. say a few simple things in standard situations), then knowing a bit of vocab and couple of verb forms is probably all that's needed. Going beyond that, not knowing noun genders would start getting in the way pretty quickly: 1. It would almost certainly imply not knowing plurals [since patterns for forming plurals heavily rely on noun genders]. 2. It would cause declensions getting mixed up [since those also depend on gender]. All of a sudden, understanding who is the subject and who is the object could get pretty hard. 3. It would make it hard to reliably refer to previously mentioned things without repetition. Does Duolingo teach patterns for recognising genders and forming plurals? If it doesn't, it's absolutely worth learning them on your own. There are a few patterns that cover the vast majority of nouns. There are weird cases and exceptions, but those are relatively few and really stick out once one knows the patterns, making them easier to remember. Similarly with verb conjugations. Is it she who is doing something, or is it they? Unless the verb is in the correct form, it's impossible to tell. (I am a student of German rather than a native speaker, so take all of this with a grain of salt.)

posterboy 4y ago

To be honest, if you don't get the agreement right I simply won't bother listening to you, unless in a good mood. This is a two way street. A couple word order mistakes are much worse than occasional spelling mistakes in English. The phonology is similar enough that /k/ for /x/ (Loch "hole") shouldn't be a problem, for example. This differs of course with languages that have a completely different speech riddim and phonemes which are unknown to the recipient.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
twixfel 4y ago
Well, this is one of the problems Germany has. Lots of moaning about immigrants failing to integrate, no real effort on the part of the bulk of the existing population to help them integrate, including such luxuries as "talking" and "listening". Your attitude would be unthinkable in the UK or the US but is everywhere in Germany. I can see why communities like Turkish one are often considered as having failed to integrate in Germany, and I don't believe the blame lies with the Turks, let's put it that way.
- posterboy 4y ago
  > Your attitude would be unthinkable in the UK or the US but is everywhere in German No, it's the same. I'll just switch to English. > I can see why communities like Turkish one are often considered as having failed to integrate in Germany Das ist kulturel bedingt. Duolingo hätte jedenfalls nicht viel geholfen.
  - twixfel 4y ago
    >No, it's the same. I'll just switch to English. No it's not the same. My German girlfriend is consistently asked in Germany where she's "really from" despite being born there and living there her whole life (and her parents too!). That would be scandalous in my country, and the US too. The intolerance of imperfect grammar that can realistically only be attained by natives is adjacent to this issue. It's naive and simplistic to just state all Western countries are the same in terms of social progress. The English-speaking and German-speaking worlds are not the same. >Das ist kulturel bedingt. Duolingo hätte jedenfalls nicht viel geholfen. For sure. German culture will either change of I am sure that these waves of immigrants will not integrate properly and there will be strife. One of the benefits of immigration I hope is that Germany will change and become a friendlier and less inward looking society.

watwut 4y ago

Getting gender right is something any competent in person course will force you from the start. Having American accent is something to be expected and fine. Using wrong gender causes pain in listener. It really pops up great time. Gender in gendered language matter, unfortunately. The best advice I heard is to always memorize the word with its gendered article. (assuming language has articles)

pkulak 4y ago
What you just wrote had a few mistakes on the order of a gender error, and several worse, but I understood you just fine. What matters is that you were able to communicate with me, in my native language; and I'm grateful to you for making the effort. There was no pain involved on my part.
brozaman 4y ago
> Gender in gendered language matter, unfortunately. The best advice I heard is to always memorize the word with its gendered article. (assuming language has articles) For written language yes, spoken it doesn't really matter as people will cut you a lot of slack. In Spain there was a football comentator from England, Michael Robinson. Robinson had an obvious English accent and even though his Spanish was very very good, but he still he messed some things -including genre- and nobdy cared. He was a comentator for many years and people liked him a lot. In the US you have other examples of the same things. For instance I can think of Sofia Vergara and Charo to name the first that come to my mind. Both quite popular and I can spot their accent and some mistakes instantly and I'm not even a native speaker. Also I mess gender a lot myself when I speak English and people don't seem to care.
- JackFr 4y ago
  In the case of Charo and Sofia Vergara, the accent and grammar mistakes are a cultivated part of the brand.
  - schrijver 4y ago
    Arnold Schwarzenegger has a dialect coach: his Austrian German accent has faded through years of living in the US, but it’s what his audience expects so he trains himself in it before each new movie.

LorenPechtel 4y ago

This is my wife's main beef with the owl. She's never going to be truly fluent, her only objective is to learn enough to function in a place where that's the spoken language. You can get a lot of the grammar wrong and still be understood and that's all that matters to her. She's actually ended up learning *English* grammar from it--English is not her native language and she's missed plenty of things where she understood it but failed to put it in proper English. If anything, botched grammar can be an advantage--it lets the person they are speaking with know their ability with the language is poor and thus encourages them to keep answers as simple as possible. (This only helps if the person has some experience in trying to communicate through a language barrier, though.)