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The whole purpose of Duolingo is emotional and psychological manipulation to get us to override our tendencies to procrastinate, forget, etc. Otherwise we'd jus
by Sakos 2y ago
The whole purpose of Duolingo is emotional and psychological manipulation to get us to override our tendencies to procrastinate, forget, etc. Otherwise we'd just pick up a foreign language book.
I don't really get the framing of this article.
- bubblyworld 2y agoYeah, I was about to say the same - this is exactly why my partner uses it, for instance. Whether it's the most efficient or healthy method is another question entirely (I suspect not, personally, but I'm also not a fan of telling people how to live their life).
- datavirtue 2y agoI had no idea Doulingo was a Tiger parent.
- watwut 2y agoYou cant learn foreign language from a book. Or, very very few people ever succeeded to learn basics of reading and write in foreign language from a book. And you can not possibly learn listening and talking.
- Majestic121 2y agoYou can't learn a foreign language from Duolingo alone either, so the original sentence stands.
- watwut 2y agoOriginal sentence is still nonsense. No, if duolingo stopped with those messages, people would still not picked book as replacement. And book as your only resource have massive drop put rates. People generally give up very soon.
- Sakos 2y agoIt feels to me like we're in agreement, so I'm not certain why you're saying my original sentence is nonsense. > people would still not picked book as replacement Yes, exactly. > And book as your only resource have massive drop put rates. People generally give up very soon. Yes, entirely correct. That's what something like Duolingo promises to solve and these obstacles (independent of Duolingo) are why people won't pick up a book or do other forms of self-learning instead. They want a service like Duolingo, because it promises to make learning more approachable and accessible and provides mental tricks to keep you engaged regularly and long-term. Which brings me around to my original argument: The article is framing it in this weirdly malicious way as if it isn't exactly what people wanted from a service like Duolingo. It's like turning a water boiler on and then getting upset that the water is hot. I thought that was the point?
- watwut 2y agoIn that case I misunderstood your original sentence. I knee jerked, projecting something that was not present in your writing into it. So I apologize. For whatever it is worth, I know you did not wrote it, the "pick a textbook for language learning" meme is sort of my pet peeve. I kinda suspect that people saying it never learned foreign language.
- Sakos 2y agoThat's okay, I'm glad we could clear it up. I won't pretend that I have any idea how one would best learn a language and I don't know if Duolingo is effective at all. I just understand why people want services like it.
- carstenhag 2y agoWhy can't you? As someone else already said, it's a combination. I'm learning french and I'm enjoying A1/A2-specific books and newspapers (Zeit Sprachen, idk if something like this exists in other countries)
- watwut 2y agoBecause it does not have sounds, simple as that.
- carstenhag 2y agoBut at some point you understand the usual pronunciations. Even if you make mistakes at 5% of the words, learning more vocabulary by reading is probably a positive overall
- deafpolygon 2y agoIt's emotional and psychological manipulation to get you to pay for their subscription... nothing else.
- arghwhat 2y agoNot really. Psychological manipulation to increase your engagement in something you want to do and is paying for the privilege of doing is in your interest. Signing up for a physical class and have the scheduled class drive you to attend even if you weren't really in the mood at that time is also psychological manipulation. It's only negative once it stops being productive, because Duolingo has limitations.
- thaumasiotes 2y ago> Otherwise we'd just pick up a foreign language book. The problem with this approach is that it takes several hours to get through a couple of sentences. All of the effort is frontloaded; if you stick with it, your pace will rapidly improve. But starting is a challenge.
- RHSeeger 2y agoThat's more or less what I was thinking. I want something to help me learn a language. Using gamification and reminders is a way to accomplish that. I don't see where it's doing anything wrong.