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> It's amazing to me that in all this time Duolingo hasn't added a "supplementary materials" section. They have(had?) one on the web version, but I think they

> It's amazing to me that in all this time Duolingo hasn't added a "supplementary materials" section. They have(had?) one on the web version, but I think they cut it.

rcarr 3y ago
On the mobile apps at least (but I also believe they exist on the web app as well) there is a supplementary materials button on most lessons. They are also lessons for learning the individual characters of languages in non-latin alphabets. The comment is wrong about both of these things.
- godelski 3y ago
  I just checked, I wouldn't equate the end of lesson material with what I'm asking for. I checked both Korean and Spanish. Spanish had more. Both had a few example sentences. Spanish has a few "tips" like "you also use esta when you're talking about something that's only temporarily true." This gets slightly better for Spanish as near the end it includes some conjugation (part of what I'm asking for) but Korean never has more than a few examples. I'll admit that I was a bit too critical on the Korean about letters. There is an existence of a specification of learning characters. It did explain the consonant-vowel relationship, but once through I don't see how to access these slide again. Humans are far from one-shot learners. It is good practice, but it seems like a weird way to start, especially given that Hangul can be picked up pretty quickly (part of why it is interesting linguistically). This makes Duolingo a good side app, but I still maintain the position that it is poor for learning and that there are clear additions that could greatly improve its utility. That's my main argument: Duolingo could do more and a small amount of effort would greatly increase the utility.
  - rcarr 3y ago
    I agree that the fact it only asks you to draw the character once isn’t great. At the same time, I do wonder how much drawing with your finger is going to translate into remembering how to do the same thing when you’re holding a pen (although I suppose you could do the same thing using a pen if you were on iPad or an Android device). As for the learning notes, they are more thorough on French and Spanish and they could definitely be better. I believe the other languages are still using the original crowdsourced content and that is a major limitation to the app that I have a tendency to forget about (I’m leaning Spanish). I wouldn’t recommend the app for more than the very basics if you’re learning something other than French, Spanish or German. My hunch from reading the blog posts they put out is that they’re using Spanish and French to try things out and perfect the course structure and content and once they’ve got something locked in they will then replicate that across the other less popular languages. They’ve moved the French and Spanish courses so that they’re now in line with the official EU educational framework guidelines and I reckon their long term strategy will be to offer an official certification on completing a course which holds equal value to one acquired a traditional college or university. They’ve already taken steps in this direction in that non English speakers can take the Duolingo English test and use it as an official qualification to study at English language universities.
    - godelski 3y ago
      > I do wonder how much drawing with your finger is going to translate into remembering how to do the same thing when you’re holding a pen Having done it for both Chinese and now Korean, I can say pretty well. I mean you'll have messy penmanship but it does translate. But I think the more important part is that it is forcing you to pay attention to the actual construction of the letters and believe that this is the main motivation for this practice. Similar to how it is good to take notes in a class even if you never reference them. > My hunch from reading the blog posts they put out is that they’re using Spanish and French to try things out and perfect the course structure and content and once they’ve got something locked in they will then replicate that across the other less popular languages. They have had a series H, ~200M in funding (over 12 years), a multi-billion dollar evaluation, over 500 employees, and over 10 years of experience. I think this argument would make sense in the first 5 years but past the 10 year mark things need to be better. Honestly, the app does not seem significantly better than when I first used it in 2013/2014. At this point there isn't an excuse to hire top tier language teachers and have them generate material for the app. They ask for $7/mo and I'll admit I'm impressed that 25% of their daily active users (6.5% of monthly) subscribe when the main selling point is no ads. I'd put money down betting that there's a low renewal rate in subscriptions (probably why the ads have become so much more annoying). Annoying your users with ads is not a successful business model (disclaimer: I haven't started a company and am not a successful entrepreneur while the Duolingo founders are billionaires. So I could be way off base). I've paid for other learning apps, such as Hello Chinese, because those give you more tools and resources. Apps I have paid give you more material (and remove ads) for the service and I'm even willing to pay more for this. I think there's very good reasons why apps like Hello Chinese are more well loved than Duolingo. In comparison, look at Scritter[0]. This is the go to app for Chinese and Japanese, costs $100/yr ($14/mo; frequent discounts of 50% fwiw) and has significantly better learning outcomes while having under 10 employees. There's flashcards, lessons, videos, and lots of reading material. Like I said before, I'm not a successful founder (or even a founder) nor a VC, but I cannot understand how any rational person would continue to give Duolingo money as everything just screams extra fat to me. I can only assume that Goodhart's Law is going strong and there's a huge focus on DAU (something I think apps like Scritter could get were they to have half the marketing department). Forgive me, but I just don't get it (I'm known to be pretty dumb though) Edit: also surprising to me is that there are things like Duolingo podcast, but that this is not accessible in-app. This is a phone app focused product, so why make your users use spotify to use a different part of your product? I clearly don't get businesses. Never make me a CEO. [0] https://skritter.com/ https://skritter.com/
  - Izkata 3y ago
    > Spanish has a few "tips" like "you also use esta when you're talking about something that's only temporarily true." This gets slightly better for Spanish as near the end it includes some conjugation (part of what I'm asking for) but Korean never has more than a few examples. Japanese used to have stuff like this, but they removed almost all of it when they redid the app to be more linear sometime within the past year (forget when exactly they did it).

> It's amazing to me that in all this time Duolingo hasn't added a "supplementary materials" section. They have(had?) one on the web version, but I think they cut it.

rcarr 3y ago

On the mobile apps at least (but I also believe they exist on the web app as well) there is a supplementary materials button on most lessons. They are also lessons for learning the individual characters of languages in non-latin alphabets. The comment is wrong about both of these things.

godelski 3y ago
I just checked, I wouldn't equate the end of lesson material with what I'm asking for. I checked both Korean and Spanish. Spanish had more. Both had a few example sentences. Spanish has a few "tips" like "you also use esta when you're talking about something that's only temporarily true." This gets slightly better for Spanish as near the end it includes some conjugation (part of what I'm asking for) but Korean never has more than a few examples. I'll admit that I was a bit too critical on the Korean about letters. There is an existence of a specification of learning characters. It did explain the consonant-vowel relationship, but once through I don't see how to access these slide again. Humans are far from one-shot learners. It is good practice, but it seems like a weird way to start, especially given that Hangul can be picked up pretty quickly (part of why it is interesting linguistically). This makes Duolingo a good side app, but I still maintain the position that it is poor for learning and that there are clear additions that could greatly improve its utility. That's my main argument: Duolingo could do more and a small amount of effort would greatly increase the utility.
- rcarr 3y ago
  I agree that the fact it only asks you to draw the character once isn’t great. At the same time, I do wonder how much drawing with your finger is going to translate into remembering how to do the same thing when you’re holding a pen (although I suppose you could do the same thing using a pen if you were on iPad or an Android device). As for the learning notes, they are more thorough on French and Spanish and they could definitely be better. I believe the other languages are still using the original crowdsourced content and that is a major limitation to the app that I have a tendency to forget about (I’m leaning Spanish). I wouldn’t recommend the app for more than the very basics if you’re learning something other than French, Spanish or German. My hunch from reading the blog posts they put out is that they’re using Spanish and French to try things out and perfect the course structure and content and once they’ve got something locked in they will then replicate that across the other less popular languages. They’ve moved the French and Spanish courses so that they’re now in line with the official EU educational framework guidelines and I reckon their long term strategy will be to offer an official certification on completing a course which holds equal value to one acquired a traditional college or university. They’ve already taken steps in this direction in that non English speakers can take the Duolingo English test and use it as an official qualification to study at English language universities.
  - godelski 3y ago
    > I do wonder how much drawing with your finger is going to translate into remembering how to do the same thing when you’re holding a pen Having done it for both Chinese and now Korean, I can say pretty well. I mean you'll have messy penmanship but it does translate. But I think the more important part is that it is forcing you to pay attention to the actual construction of the letters and believe that this is the main motivation for this practice. Similar to how it is good to take notes in a class even if you never reference them. > My hunch from reading the blog posts they put out is that they’re using Spanish and French to try things out and perfect the course structure and content and once they’ve got something locked in they will then replicate that across the other less popular languages. They have had a series H, ~200M in funding (over 12 years), a multi-billion dollar evaluation, over 500 employees, and over 10 years of experience. I think this argument would make sense in the first 5 years but past the 10 year mark things need to be better. Honestly, the app does not seem significantly better than when I first used it in 2013/2014. At this point there isn't an excuse to hire top tier language teachers and have them generate material for the app. They ask for $7/mo and I'll admit I'm impressed that 25% of their daily active users (6.5% of monthly) subscribe when the main selling point is no ads. I'd put money down betting that there's a low renewal rate in subscriptions (probably why the ads have become so much more annoying). Annoying your users with ads is not a successful business model (disclaimer: I haven't started a company and am not a successful entrepreneur while the Duolingo founders are billionaires. So I could be way off base). I've paid for other learning apps, such as Hello Chinese, because those give you more tools and resources. Apps I have paid give you more material (and remove ads) for the service and I'm even willing to pay more for this. I think there's very good reasons why apps like Hello Chinese are more well loved than Duolingo. In comparison, look at Scritter[0]. This is the go to app for Chinese and Japanese, costs $100/yr ($14/mo; frequent discounts of 50% fwiw) and has significantly better learning outcomes while having under 10 employees. There's flashcards, lessons, videos, and lots of reading material. Like I said before, I'm not a successful founder (or even a founder) nor a VC, but I cannot understand how any rational person would continue to give Duolingo money as everything just screams extra fat to me. I can only assume that Goodhart's Law is going strong and there's a huge focus on DAU (something I think apps like Scritter could get were they to have half the marketing department). Forgive me, but I just don't get it (I'm known to be pretty dumb though) Edit: also surprising to me is that there are things like Duolingo podcast, but that this is not accessible in-app. This is a phone app focused product, so why make your users use spotify to use a different part of your product? I clearly don't get businesses. Never make me a CEO. [0] https://skritter.com/ https://skritter.com/
- Izkata 3y ago
  > Spanish has a few "tips" like "you also use esta when you're talking about something that's only temporarily true." This gets slightly better for Spanish as near the end it includes some conjugation (part of what I'm asking for) but Korean never has more than a few examples. Japanese used to have stuff like this, but they removed almost all of it when they redid the app to be more linear sometime within the past year (forget when exactly they did it).