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Completely agree. Duolingos user interface and gamification might have become more annoying, but the real problem is that this approach to language learning is

Completely agree. Duolingos user interface and gamification might have become more annoying, but the real problem is that this approach to language learning is incredibly inefficient at best and probably does not work at all. It just feels productive. In reality, going from duolingo to reading anything more complex than a childrens book and holding a conversation more complex than ordering a coffee is only marginally easier than just trying to learn that directly. It allows you to postpone the difficult parts of learning a language indefinitely while making it feel like steady progress. And our brains absolutely love that.

zoltrix303 4y ago
I'm genuinely curious, is there other ressources you would recommend to use? I've been learning Japanese for 2-3 months on Duolingo, and I do feel I'm getting more and more comfortable with the characters. I will start taking lessons with a teacher in April when i move there, but I wanted to arrive with some base.
- ivank 4y ago
  https://cijapanese.com/ https://cijapanese.com/ Comprehensible Japanese
- sw104 4y ago
  If you find the right teacher, you shouldn't need a base, as such. If you really want a head start you could use books, but honestly language exchange / tutoring is the best way to go for starting any new language. Don't worry about trying to impress a teacher from scratch. I'd at the least throw away apps and learning games, in favour of books (especially those with audio samples available). If the Duolingo Japanese course is anything like the Duolingo Russian course I did, there's no explanation for anything and they just throw sentences at you to translate. I think they only give actual information to the French/Spanish courses as that's what most users are looking for.
- naet 4y ago
  Japanese on Duolingo honestly sucks in my opinion, even just compared to other Duolingo programs. Duolingo isn't optimized for Japanese and it shows some major pain points especially around kanji and Japanese grammar. There are a lot of more specialized Japanese learning apps if you need an app, and also many good textbooks and video lessons that are probably better than most apps.
- Tor3 4y ago
  If you want to learn the basics of Japanese in a reasonably effective manner, you could try Human Japanese, you can use the 'light' version (free) first (on e.g. Android), it'll give you the first 7 chapters I think, and if that works for you then buy the full version for just a few dollars. It definitely worked for me and had the right progression, and teaches the very basics quite well. It even understands and explains how the は particle is never a subject particle.. unlike so many other tools out there. Stay away from Duo. There's no structure to its teaching of Japanese, and it's not set up to let you intuit the grammar or structure either.
- Tainnor 4y ago
  I you want to get a head start on something, Kanji is probably a good idea - there are about 2000 of them in common use (more, if you read more advanced stuff or in names), and teachers probably won't have a lot of time going over them. Plus, you essentially just have to memorise them, something you can only do on your own. There are several ways of learning Kanji, each with their benefits and drawbacks, such as WaniKani, Remembering the Kanji, Kodansha Kanji Learner's Course, etc. Ultimately, Kanji are painful and time-intensive to learn, so none of these will be perfect, but you can maybe spend some initial time trying to find out which works best for you and then just stick with it.
- majewsky 4y ago
  For learning Kanji, I wholeheartedly recommend WaniKani (https://wanikani.com https://wanikani.com). Not saying that you should stop Duolingo if it works for you, but you'll likely get much more out of 30 minutes spent on WaniKani than 30 minutes spent on Duolingo.
- tokinonagare 4y ago
  > I've been learning Japanese for 2-3 months on Duolingo, and I do feel I'm getting more and more comfortable with the characters. Well you see the exact issue with Duolinguo as pointed by others is that you feel you progressed for some months while in reality you didn't. If by the "characters" you mean hiragana and katakana both set can be learn to basic proficiency in a week (actually over a weekend for motivated people). If you mean kanji, the first set of 80 can be done quietly in a month (3 weeks in my case, when I was in high school, no tutor, no class, wikipedia only).
The_Colonel 4y ago
I think the basic problem with Duolingo is that it sells a lie - that learning a language can be easy. It's not. Duolingo can help you with the absolute start, dipping the toes. But it won't teach you a language on even a basic level. It can work as a tool to exercise basic vocabulary, but that's not a language. I've had success with learning a language passively just by reading books (there are easier ones for learners) and watching TV shows (with subtitles) / listening to podcasts. It takes time and can be sometimes frustrating, but can be down on your own. Learning to speak and write is a different matter, and basically you need a tutor for that and a lot of practice.
- pqb 4y ago
  I somewhat disagree. This application is not meant to "teach" you a foreign language but "help" you with a grammar and commonly used sentence, so it can be used only as a companion and not the only source to learn. Similar as in the story previously discussed on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30467597 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30467597 / https://runwes.com/2020/02/11/howilearnedfrench.html https://runwes.com/2020/02/11/howilearnedfrench.html Frankly, there are 3 things that I find annoying / frustrating: - Pronunciation: Sometimes the recorded audio is in so bad quality or spoken in robotic way, that is very hard to repeat it. - Gamification: After reaching 1st place in the Diamond League, I found the constant nagging about my ranking annoying. However, some users I follow have found it fun and have been in the Diamond League for over 70 weeks. I have also noticed that some players like to compete with others, it sometimes leads to visible competition for the top 3 places (especially in the Obsidian League), which is really fun. - Catchy answers: It is not a problem to spend a whole day with Duolingo, but after 15 minutes you need to take a short break. Otherwise you lose your focus and may find that the answer you have entered is not one that Duolingo would accept. This is because many answers look good enough, but in reality the other one is correct. Personally, I have had to click on the icon several times to open a forum to find an explanation of the error. Disclaimer: I am paying Duolingo user with 340+ day streak trying to learn French. I have never had a French classes, but recently I had no problem to chat with other real person in French.
  - majewsky 4y ago
Tor3 4y ago
"Duolingos user interface and gamification might have become more annoying, but the real problem is that this approach to language learning is incredibly inefficient at best and probably does not work at all. It just feels productive." ^This. Spot on. I was fooled by Duolingo and wasted way too much time on it before I caught on and deleted everything Duolingo from all my devices. Now I'm finally making actual progress in my language learning. I never used Duolingo alone, of course, but the effort I spent there impacted my learning negatively and made everything ineffective. Stay away from Duolingo. It's fool's gold.
watwut 4y ago
I think I had actually good results with it. Both with my kids who did improved a lot after starting to use it - their grades from language in school were going down before it. And for myself too. I did had improvements I never got with self learning before. For me the gamification is the big thing that actually helps to keep on doing. One large reason for why I would not be to improve in language without duolingo is that makes the boring parts actually fun and keeps you engage to keep going. It wont make you fluent on itself, but it makes learning language feel less like horrible chore.

zoltrix303 4y ago

I'm genuinely curious, is there other ressources you would recommend to use? I've been learning Japanese for 2-3 months on Duolingo, and I do feel I'm getting more and more comfortable with the characters. I will start taking lessons with a teacher in April when i move there, but I wanted to arrive with some base.

ivank 4y ago
https://cijapanese.com/ https://cijapanese.com/ Comprehensible Japanese
sw104 4y ago
If you find the right teacher, you shouldn't need a base, as such. If you really want a head start you could use books, but honestly language exchange / tutoring is the best way to go for starting any new language. Don't worry about trying to impress a teacher from scratch. I'd at the least throw away apps and learning games, in favour of books (especially those with audio samples available). If the Duolingo Japanese course is anything like the Duolingo Russian course I did, there's no explanation for anything and they just throw sentences at you to translate. I think they only give actual information to the French/Spanish courses as that's what most users are looking for.
naet 4y ago
Japanese on Duolingo honestly sucks in my opinion, even just compared to other Duolingo programs. Duolingo isn't optimized for Japanese and it shows some major pain points especially around kanji and Japanese grammar. There are a lot of more specialized Japanese learning apps if you need an app, and also many good textbooks and video lessons that are probably better than most apps.
Tor3 4y ago
If you want to learn the basics of Japanese in a reasonably effective manner, you could try Human Japanese, you can use the 'light' version (free) first (on e.g. Android), it'll give you the first 7 chapters I think, and if that works for you then buy the full version for just a few dollars. It definitely worked for me and had the right progression, and teaches the very basics quite well. It even understands and explains how the は particle is never a subject particle.. unlike so many other tools out there. Stay away from Duo. There's no structure to its teaching of Japanese, and it's not set up to let you intuit the grammar or structure either.
Tainnor 4y ago
I you want to get a head start on something, Kanji is probably a good idea - there are about 2000 of them in common use (more, if you read more advanced stuff or in names), and teachers probably won't have a lot of time going over them. Plus, you essentially just have to memorise them, something you can only do on your own. There are several ways of learning Kanji, each with their benefits and drawbacks, such as WaniKani, Remembering the Kanji, Kodansha Kanji Learner's Course, etc. Ultimately, Kanji are painful and time-intensive to learn, so none of these will be perfect, but you can maybe spend some initial time trying to find out which works best for you and then just stick with it.
majewsky 4y ago
For learning Kanji, I wholeheartedly recommend WaniKani (https://wanikani.com https://wanikani.com). Not saying that you should stop Duolingo if it works for you, but you'll likely get much more out of 30 minutes spent on WaniKani than 30 minutes spent on Duolingo.
tokinonagare 4y ago
> I've been learning Japanese for 2-3 months on Duolingo, and I do feel I'm getting more and more comfortable with the characters. Well you see the exact issue with Duolinguo as pointed by others is that you feel you progressed for some months while in reality you didn't. If by the "characters" you mean hiragana and katakana both set can be learn to basic proficiency in a week (actually over a weekend for motivated people). If you mean kanji, the first set of 80 can be done quietly in a month (3 weeks in my case, when I was in high school, no tutor, no class, wikipedia only).

The_Colonel 4y ago

I think the basic problem with Duolingo is that it sells a lie - that learning a language can be easy. It's not. Duolingo can help you with the absolute start, dipping the toes. But it won't teach you a language on even a basic level. It can work as a tool to exercise basic vocabulary, but that's not a language. I've had success with learning a language passively just by reading books (there are easier ones for learners) and watching TV shows (with subtitles) / listening to podcasts. It takes time and can be sometimes frustrating, but can be down on your own. Learning to speak and write is a different matter, and basically you need a tutor for that and a lot of practice.

pqb 4y ago
I somewhat disagree. This application is not meant to "teach" you a foreign language but "help" you with a grammar and commonly used sentence, so it can be used only as a companion and not the only source to learn. Similar as in the story previously discussed on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30467597 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30467597 / https://runwes.com/2020/02/11/howilearnedfrench.html https://runwes.com/2020/02/11/howilearnedfrench.html Frankly, there are 3 things that I find annoying / frustrating: - Pronunciation: Sometimes the recorded audio is in so bad quality or spoken in robotic way, that is very hard to repeat it. - Gamification: After reaching 1st place in the Diamond League, I found the constant nagging about my ranking annoying. However, some users I follow have found it fun and have been in the Diamond League for over 70 weeks. I have also noticed that some players like to compete with others, it sometimes leads to visible competition for the top 3 places (especially in the Obsidian League), which is really fun. - Catchy answers: It is not a problem to spend a whole day with Duolingo, but after 15 minutes you need to take a short break. Otherwise you lose your focus and may find that the answer you have entered is not one that Duolingo would accept. This is because many answers look good enough, but in reality the other one is correct. Personally, I have had to click on the icon several times to open a forum to find an explanation of the error. Disclaimer: I am paying Duolingo user with 340+ day streak trying to learn French. I have never had a French classes, but recently I had no problem to chat with other real person in French.
- majewsky 4y ago

Tor3 4y ago

"Duolingos user interface and gamification might have become more annoying, but the real problem is that this approach to language learning is incredibly inefficient at best and probably does not work at all. It just feels productive." ^This. Spot on. I was fooled by Duolingo and wasted way too much time on it before I caught on and deleted everything Duolingo from all my devices. Now I'm finally making actual progress in my language learning. I never used Duolingo alone, of course, but the effort I spent there impacted my learning negatively and made everything ineffective. Stay away from Duolingo. It's fool's gold.

watwut 4y ago

I think I had actually good results with it. Both with my kids who did improved a lot after starting to use it - their grades from language in school were going down before it. And for myself too. I did had improvements I never got with self learning before. For me the gamification is the big thing that actually helps to keep on doing. One large reason for why I would not be to improve in language without duolingo is that makes the boring parts actually fun and keeps you engage to keep going. It wont make you fluent on itself, but it makes learning language feel less like horrible chore.