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I'm the pro Duolingo user. I used to pick up new languages just for fun. It did help me a bit when conversing with uber drivers in Spanish, but I was stumped wh

I'm the pro Duolingo user. I used to pick up new languages just for fun. It did help me a bit when conversing with uber drivers in Spanish, but I was stumped when i completed the Japanese course. I could quickly, and effectively go through the course with no hurdles. But then my sister asked me to count to ten in Japanese. I know the words, I can complete a challenge that include numbers, but I could not count to ten in the real world in Japanese. Duolingo banked on the gamification, and that works really well. However, learning a language is only incidental. I wrote an article about it and received threats to take it down. From time to time, i get a hoard of emails calling me toxic and threatening to sue. It's still up if you can find it.

Aeolun 3y ago
There’s also the other side of the coin. I can count to 10 (or 10000) in Japanese, but I couldn’t bring myself to finish the Japanese course of Duolingo.
michaelbuckbee 3y ago
I have a developer friend who failed tried to start an app/service to really teach you a foreign language as he was so frustrated with Duolingo and similar which are almost more like a "Wordle" type game for fun than actual language learning.
alexjplant 3y ago
I'm re-learning Spanish after having been vaguely conversant from taking four years of it in high school. Duolingo is only half of the puzzle; talking to friends/ChatGPT and watching Seinfeld in Spanish has been helping to close the gap.
deebosong 3y ago
I'm gonna go ahead and just throw this out there: the principle of specificity. Like, if you wanna get good at cycling, running will help an aerobic base, but will not help in terms of generative force (vs load bearing), handles, situational awareness with traffic and fellow riders and learning to pick lines, balance and weight distribution on a bike, pedaling techniques for various pitches, etc. Shoot, not even running, but Zwift vs actual cycling on the roads very much demonstrates the principle of specificity to the T. Just makes me think, if you wanna get good at a language, you gotta use it in actual real-life situations with weight and stakes, as opposed to a game where you learn incidental stuff that may or may not have bearing in the real world.
- zarzavat 3y ago
  This is absolutely true but also applies in reverse. There’s many people who can speak languages conversationally but if they have to read in that language they become lost because all their experience is in conversation. If you’re very unlucky, in some languages (Arabic, Chinese, English) the written language has little resemblance to the spoken language, most languages are more forgiving. Speaking/listening and reading/writing have overlap but if you want to master a language you also have to be doing exercises with text and reading text. After you reach a certain level of proficiency you need to start reading books (start with children’s books) As far as Duolingo goes I don’t think it’s particularly good, except as a 101 introduction to a language.
  - AlecSchueler 3y ago
    In my experience living abroad in a country where English is well spoken, text is practically far more important. You can always work an understanding out with a human, but you can't ask a signpost to repeat itself or a letter to explain something in English.
gurchik 3y ago
> I wrote an article about it and received threats to take it down. From time to time, i get a hoard of emails calling me toxic and threatening to sue. From who, Duolingo? Why do they care that much about one person's opinion?
matheusmoreira 3y ago
> I know the words, I can complete a challenge that include numbers, but I could not count to ten in the real world in Japanese. How is this possible? You know the words but you can't use them? This hasn't been my experience at all. I think I'm learning a lot from Duolingo. I still need a bit of time to parse big numbers especially when listening but I can recognize and understand countdowns when they show up in anime. I've been sort of tracking my progress by watching japanese content and it's been extremely motivating. It's like wow, they really do use those words I learned about.
- godelski 3y ago
  > How is this possible? Setting and context is really important in language learning. If you're only used to practicing in a very specific and limited setting then you're only going to be able to recall under those conditions. Some apps try to resolve this by using video conversations, allowing you to chat with other users of similar levels (extremely useful!) and canned conversations (Duolingo has this one). All these are important but you also need to practice "offline." It is also important to watch and listen to content (like you're doing), even if it is far above your level. You'll probably notice in your Japanese adventure that a big thing is that you're probably way better at parsing words and sounds (e.g. hearing differences in tones for Chinese) than when you first started. Even learning to parse words is a big step, but only unfortunately comes from exposure of longer form content, something Duolingo-like apps (not all apps) don't provide.
  - AlecSchueler 3y ago
    Comic books is what really worked for me. I'm lucky that I was learning Dutch and the Belgians are great at comic writing. When you don't quite have the vocabulary you can use the pictures for enough context clues to decipher it. When I started it took me a week to read one story. Got that down to an evening, then one hour. Now I can read them as quickly as English unless there's something very unusual happening.
  - matheusmoreira 3y ago
    > allowing you to chat with other users of similar levels (extremely useful!) Agreed. I lurk in libera's japanese language channel in order to read the messages. It's been a big help. > You'll probably notice in your Japanese adventure that a big thing is that you're probably way better at parsing words and sounds Absolutely. I'm getting a lot better at parsing out the components of sentences, especially the particles, even in fast speech. My understanding is still pretty basic but this skill allows me to at least try to infer information from context. It's a great way to puzzle out meaning and it's amazing when I get it right. > exposure of longer form content, something Duolingo-like apps (not all apps) don't provide That's partially true. Duolingo has stories but I think they're somewhat basic. It's just not the same as really immersing oneself in another culture. I'm not supplementing Duolingo with japanese books or anything but I enjoy watching japanese stuff so I have at least some exposure. The most important thing about Duolingo is it got me started. I've been progressing over 2 years now. Almost 1000 days.
shusaku 3y ago
Back in the old days I used physical flash cards I made myself. I was surprised to find that I couldn’t remember a word I was studying, until I saw a stain in the card, and recalled which answer was on the stained card. I think this is why these games don’t really work, they’re scared to have you get wrong answers, so they use the context to help. But as a result your knowledge is too superficial to be practical
- AlecSchueler 3y ago
  Duolingo actually has little characters who sort of act out the sentence you're studying to create a kind of visual association with the words.
bluedevil2k 3y ago
As an isolated counter point, in high school I went to a summer program (aka “nerd camp”) where we had Japanese drilled into us from 8am - 9am every day for 5 weeks by native Japanese speakers. I can still count to 10 today 20+ years later.
Buildstarted 3y ago
I noticed the exact same thing myself. I can't remember any of the words outside of the game. Once I'm in the game though they all come back to me. I've been trying to talk with my wife every time I learn a word now to help me cement it in my mind but it's very frustrating.
nescioquid 3y ago
I can count to ten in Japanese in my sleep because that's how we drilled when I was a child learning judo, but were you ask me to say "six" in Japanese, I'd have to start counting. To learn a language, I think you really have to create a simulacrum of lived experience in that target language culture. Drilling morphology and vocabulary will never hurt, but it is not sufficient.
__marvin_the__ 3y ago
> Duolingo banked on the gamification, and that works really well. However, learning a language is only incidental. Agree to a point. I used Duolingo as a stepping stone to studying Mandarin, up until I got bored and switched to YouTube videos. I got bored mainly due to repetition and not much new words per level. Apparently in order to get me back, Duolingo kept on giving me push notifications about how I'm gonna lose my streak, or how I'm gonna fall behind in the leaderboard. No, Duolingo. I do not care about those.
O-stevns 3y ago
I'd say like with most things, simply going through the material is not enough. You need to follow the tips like reading the script out loud. This has had major impact on my ability to learn and furthermore speak the language. I've been using Duolingo daily for soon 3 years (pro user), approx. 30 min, learning Japanese. Although I also use other apps for deeper knowledge and understanding of the grammar, I would be lying if I said duo didn't work for me. I understand most of what I've learned so far although reading is still a challenge, especially text with more complex kanji in it. You say you've gone through the course but is that still true? at least today there are 810 quests, each with a meter for you to fill up. Id be shocked if you got through all that and still didn't know how to count to ten. Duolingo is no silver bullet. You still need to be really interested in learning, practice as much as possible and last but not least, investigate and deep dive into the grammar. In case you're interested, here are the other apps I use for learning Japanese. - KanjiGarden, for memorizing kanji - Takoboto, my favorite dictionary - Renshuu, good for deeper explanation of grammar
lisasays 3y ago
I wrote an article about it and received threats to take it down. From time to time, i get a hoard of emails calling me toxic and threatening to sue. Fascinating. You might consider publishing those emails (with sender info redacted, perhaps). Duolingo banked on the gamification, and that works really well. However, learning a language is only incidental. This seems to nail it. And is exactly what repulsed me from the very start.

Aeolun 3y ago

There’s also the other side of the coin. I can count to 10 (or 10000) in Japanese, but I couldn’t bring myself to finish the Japanese course of Duolingo.

michaelbuckbee 3y ago

I have a developer friend who failed tried to start an app/service to really teach you a foreign language as he was so frustrated with Duolingo and similar which are almost more like a "Wordle" type game for fun than actual language learning.

alexjplant 3y ago

I'm re-learning Spanish after having been vaguely conversant from taking four years of it in high school. Duolingo is only half of the puzzle; talking to friends/ChatGPT and watching Seinfeld in Spanish has been helping to close the gap.

deebosong 3y ago

I'm gonna go ahead and just throw this out there: the principle of specificity. Like, if you wanna get good at cycling, running will help an aerobic base, but will not help in terms of generative force (vs load bearing), handles, situational awareness with traffic and fellow riders and learning to pick lines, balance and weight distribution on a bike, pedaling techniques for various pitches, etc. Shoot, not even running, but Zwift vs actual cycling on the roads very much demonstrates the principle of specificity to the T. Just makes me think, if you wanna get good at a language, you gotta use it in actual real-life situations with weight and stakes, as opposed to a game where you learn incidental stuff that may or may not have bearing in the real world.

zarzavat 3y ago
This is absolutely true but also applies in reverse. There’s many people who can speak languages conversationally but if they have to read in that language they become lost because all their experience is in conversation. If you’re very unlucky, in some languages (Arabic, Chinese, English) the written language has little resemblance to the spoken language, most languages are more forgiving. Speaking/listening and reading/writing have overlap but if you want to master a language you also have to be doing exercises with text and reading text. After you reach a certain level of proficiency you need to start reading books (start with children’s books) As far as Duolingo goes I don’t think it’s particularly good, except as a 101 introduction to a language.
- AlecSchueler 3y ago
  In my experience living abroad in a country where English is well spoken, text is practically far more important. You can always work an understanding out with a human, but you can't ask a signpost to repeat itself or a letter to explain something in English.

gurchik 3y ago

> I wrote an article about it and received threats to take it down. From time to time, i get a hoard of emails calling me toxic and threatening to sue. From who, Duolingo? Why do they care that much about one person's opinion?

matheusmoreira 3y ago

> I know the words, I can complete a challenge that include numbers, but I could not count to ten in the real world in Japanese. How is this possible? You know the words but you can't use them? This hasn't been my experience at all. I think I'm learning a lot from Duolingo. I still need a bit of time to parse big numbers especially when listening but I can recognize and understand countdowns when they show up in anime. I've been sort of tracking my progress by watching japanese content and it's been extremely motivating. It's like wow, they really do use those words I learned about.

godelski 3y ago
> How is this possible? Setting and context is really important in language learning. If you're only used to practicing in a very specific and limited setting then you're only going to be able to recall under those conditions. Some apps try to resolve this by using video conversations, allowing you to chat with other users of similar levels (extremely useful!) and canned conversations (Duolingo has this one). All these are important but you also need to practice "offline." It is also important to watch and listen to content (like you're doing), even if it is far above your level. You'll probably notice in your Japanese adventure that a big thing is that you're probably way better at parsing words and sounds (e.g. hearing differences in tones for Chinese) than when you first started. Even learning to parse words is a big step, but only unfortunately comes from exposure of longer form content, something Duolingo-like apps (not all apps) don't provide.
- AlecSchueler 3y ago
  Comic books is what really worked for me. I'm lucky that I was learning Dutch and the Belgians are great at comic writing. When you don't quite have the vocabulary you can use the pictures for enough context clues to decipher it. When I started it took me a week to read one story. Got that down to an evening, then one hour. Now I can read them as quickly as English unless there's something very unusual happening.
- matheusmoreira 3y ago
  > allowing you to chat with other users of similar levels (extremely useful!) Agreed. I lurk in libera's japanese language channel in order to read the messages. It's been a big help. > You'll probably notice in your Japanese adventure that a big thing is that you're probably way better at parsing words and sounds Absolutely. I'm getting a lot better at parsing out the components of sentences, especially the particles, even in fast speech. My understanding is still pretty basic but this skill allows me to at least try to infer information from context. It's a great way to puzzle out meaning and it's amazing when I get it right. > exposure of longer form content, something Duolingo-like apps (not all apps) don't provide That's partially true. Duolingo has stories but I think they're somewhat basic. It's just not the same as really immersing oneself in another culture. I'm not supplementing Duolingo with japanese books or anything but I enjoy watching japanese stuff so I have at least some exposure. The most important thing about Duolingo is it got me started. I've been progressing over 2 years now. Almost 1000 days.

shusaku 3y ago

Back in the old days I used physical flash cards I made myself. I was surprised to find that I couldn’t remember a word I was studying, until I saw a stain in the card, and recalled which answer was on the stained card. I think this is why these games don’t really work, they’re scared to have you get wrong answers, so they use the context to help. But as a result your knowledge is too superficial to be practical

AlecSchueler 3y ago
Duolingo actually has little characters who sort of act out the sentence you're studying to create a kind of visual association with the words.

bluedevil2k 3y ago

As an isolated counter point, in high school I went to a summer program (aka “nerd camp”) where we had Japanese drilled into us from 8am - 9am every day for 5 weeks by native Japanese speakers. I can still count to 10 today 20+ years later.

Buildstarted 3y ago

I noticed the exact same thing myself. I can't remember any of the words outside of the game. Once I'm in the game though they all come back to me. I've been trying to talk with my wife every time I learn a word now to help me cement it in my mind but it's very frustrating.

nescioquid 3y ago

I can count to ten in Japanese in my sleep because that's how we drilled when I was a child learning judo, but were you ask me to say "six" in Japanese, I'd have to start counting. To learn a language, I think you really have to create a simulacrum of lived experience in that target language culture. Drilling morphology and vocabulary will never hurt, but it is not sufficient.

__marvin_the__ 3y ago

> Duolingo banked on the gamification, and that works really well. However, learning a language is only incidental. Agree to a point. I used Duolingo as a stepping stone to studying Mandarin, up until I got bored and switched to YouTube videos. I got bored mainly due to repetition and not much new words per level. Apparently in order to get me back, Duolingo kept on giving me push notifications about how I'm gonna lose my streak, or how I'm gonna fall behind in the leaderboard. No, Duolingo. I do not care about those.

O-stevns 3y ago

I'd say like with most things, simply going through the material is not enough. You need to follow the tips like reading the script out loud. This has had major impact on my ability to learn and furthermore speak the language. I've been using Duolingo daily for soon 3 years (pro user), approx. 30 min, learning Japanese. Although I also use other apps for deeper knowledge and understanding of the grammar, I would be lying if I said duo didn't work for me. I understand most of what I've learned so far although reading is still a challenge, especially text with more complex kanji in it. You say you've gone through the course but is that still true? at least today there are 810 quests, each with a meter for you to fill up. Id be shocked if you got through all that and still didn't know how to count to ten. Duolingo is no silver bullet. You still need to be really interested in learning, practice as much as possible and last but not least, investigate and deep dive into the grammar. In case you're interested, here are the other apps I use for learning Japanese. - KanjiGarden, for memorizing kanji - Takoboto, my favorite dictionary - Renshuu, good for deeper explanation of grammar

lisasays 3y ago

I wrote an article about it and received threats to take it down. From time to time, i get a hoard of emails calling me toxic and threatening to sue. Fascinating. You might consider publishing those emails (with sender info redacted, perhaps). Duolingo banked on the gamification, and that works really well. However, learning a language is only incidental. This seems to nail it. And is exactly what repulsed me from the very start.