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As someone who waffles back and forth between how conversational I am based on the topic and how much I've studied recently, this comes as no surprise. Nothin

As someone who waffles back and forth between how conversational I am based on the topic and how much I've studied recently, this comes as no surprise. Nothing about Duolingo gives the impression they actually want you to learn the language. It presents itself as an easy way to start, but if you are more than a single undergrad class into the language and have used any outside resources, it's an obvious waste of time. Everything on the platform is just a slower form of the most basic note cards. Anki does everything the platform does faster. Anki isn't suitable for all task but Duolingo takes the basic note card and makes you learn at a slower pace.

theshrike79 1y ago
It's gamified Anki with social pressure. If finding proper Anki decks for languages wasn't such a massive pain in the ass (Along with navigating the weird 30€ mobile apps for it, are they official, are they not? Can a free alternative do the same?), people would use Anki a lot more. With Duolingo you can just install, launch, pick a language and get going.
- xdfgh1112 1y ago
  Anki is literally free on android. I made my own deck but there are plenty to go around. People spend so much energy making excuses for not learning a language that could be spent on... Just fucking getting on with it!
  - theshrike79 1y ago
    I don’t have the time to “make my own deck”. The UI for Anki is janky at best. I seriously tried making a deck for my kid for math and holy shit it was a chore and a half. The same with trying to find a deck for a specific language, no luck there. For iOS there are about a dozen “Anki” apps? One for 30€, the rest have some kind of in-app purchases. I’ll rather pay for Duolingo
    - malicka 1y ago
      The 24€ one is the official one: > AnkiMobile is the official iOS app and all purchases help fund Anki's development.[1] You could always use the web UI in your phone browser, Ankiweb[2], which is very kindly hosted for free by the developers. You could also write your cards as CSV, HTML, or really any format you want and import them, if the interface isn’t to your liking. Shoot, you can even use an Emacs package[3] if you want to. [1] https://apps.ankiweb.net/ https://apps.ankiweb.net/ [2] https://ankiweb.net/ https://ankiweb.net/ [3] https://github.com/eyeinsky/org-anki https://github.com/eyeinsky/org-anki
      - theshrike79 1y ago
        From the Anki search on iOS App store: One is made by AnkiApp Inc. (28€-99€ IAP subscription) One by Ankitects Pty Ltd (30€) Which one is the official one? The problem isn't the format of the source, I COULD write it in windows .ini -files. The point is that I want to learn the language, not spend time writing the book about the language first. How do I know what words to add to the deck? Should I add different inflections? How about pronouns, does the language use gendered pronouns? What's the best way to study them, are there rules for it? I'm willing to pay money for a properly researched and made Anki deck for a language rather than spend time building it word by word.
        fao_ 1y ago
        > What's the best way to study them, are there rules for it? The best way to study is to make a basic card and just start doing it immediately. A lot of this is individual so using other people's tips isn't going to work (although if you really wanted to do this, you would have very quickly learned by now that there's a whole industry of blog posts and youtube videos and Opinions on how to optimize your deck if you really need that, and there's a whole industry trying to sell you on things to buy to Optimize your Learning Experience). The thing is, overthinking isn't going to work here. Just make a 2 field note, like the default, and start adding words and doing reviews. You'll very quickly find out what information you find yourself wanting to remember when you're sat there writing sentences in the language, you'll also find out what you find interesting to learn that helps you learn. After the point that you are actually learning, it's really easy to add fields to a note or to switch note types. Not only are there literally a ton of docs that come with Anki that go over the best way to deal with Anki for learning, but making the deck as you go is ideal for your situation because you're building memory. Inputting sentences and words or whatever you find meaningful to remember into the deck is also building that memory. Spending hours reading blog posts and figuring out which service to pay for, uh, is the opposite of learning. This might sound harsh, but it literally comes down to "you have to walk to learn how to walk, you have to pedal to learn how to ride a bike". Spending hours or weeks or months deciding if you want to do training wheels or not, what height you want the bike seat, route planning, finding the best bike and the best seat — none of that is riding the bike, all of it is based on preferences that you won't have until you've ridden your first bike, and every inch of it is overthinking and procrastination. Nobody can tell you, beforehand, what the best way to ride a bike is, and that information is meaningless to you until you are physically riding the bike. Nobody can tell you what riding a bike is like and there is no way to learn outside of you physically sitting down on the bike, and pushing off, and pedalling — which is something you can do with a 20$ bike that you found at goodwill. You can, however, find yourself wasting hours or weeks or months thinking about riding a bike and never doing it.
- Tainnor 1y ago
  > If finding proper Anki decks for languages wasn't such a massive pain in the ass https://ankiweb.net/shared/decks https://ankiweb.net/shared/decks The difficulty, obviously, is in finding out which decks are good and which aren't. But that's a discoverability problem that is hard to avoid since people are just going to have different requirements and preferences. You can try going by the ratings or check language learning subreddits for recommendations, but ultimately it's up to you to try out decks and see if they work for you. If you just use Duolingo instead, you're arguably not using a better deck, just one with better marketing.
marssaxman 1y ago
How could you replicate all the speaking & hearing exercises with note cards? I can't imagine how that would work.
- pfych 1y ago
  The Anki deck I'm using for common Japanese phrases has audio embeds that I can listen to and repeat.
dgimla20 1y ago
It's selling a lifestyle change, and one which is "easy" and fun. Once you're hooked in, they gamify everything to make you feel like you're doing well. There's the leaderboards, the daily streaks, the ba-ding every time you rearrange 7 word tiles into the only possible sentence that makes any sense. Go and look at the Duolingo subreddit. When I looked a few years ago, it's just people showing off their 3000+ day streaks. Anki is a better tool, but its not as polished. Duolingo hooks people with all the little gamified bits, the animations, and it's self-fulfilling popularity loop. Unfortunately being polished is genuinely an incredibly important feature for the majority of people.

theshrike79 1y ago

It's gamified Anki with social pressure. If finding proper Anki decks for languages wasn't such a massive pain in the ass (Along with navigating the weird 30€ mobile apps for it, are they official, are they not? Can a free alternative do the same?), people would use Anki a lot more. With Duolingo you can just install, launch, pick a language and get going.

xdfgh1112 1y ago
Anki is literally free on android. I made my own deck but there are plenty to go around. People spend so much energy making excuses for not learning a language that could be spent on... Just fucking getting on with it!
- theshrike79 1y ago
  I don’t have the time to “make my own deck”. The UI for Anki is janky at best. I seriously tried making a deck for my kid for math and holy shit it was a chore and a half. The same with trying to find a deck for a specific language, no luck there. For iOS there are about a dozen “Anki” apps? One for 30€, the rest have some kind of in-app purchases. I’ll rather pay for Duolingo
  - malicka 1y ago
    The 24€ one is the official one: > AnkiMobile is the official iOS app and all purchases help fund Anki's development.[1] You could always use the web UI in your phone browser, Ankiweb[2], which is very kindly hosted for free by the developers. You could also write your cards as CSV, HTML, or really any format you want and import them, if the interface isn’t to your liking. Shoot, you can even use an Emacs package[3] if you want to. [1] https://apps.ankiweb.net/ https://apps.ankiweb.net/ [2] https://ankiweb.net/ https://ankiweb.net/ [3] https://github.com/eyeinsky/org-anki https://github.com/eyeinsky/org-anki
    - theshrike79 1y ago
      From the Anki search on iOS App store: One is made by AnkiApp Inc. (28€-99€ IAP subscription) One by Ankitects Pty Ltd (30€) Which one is the official one? The problem isn't the format of the source, I COULD write it in windows .ini -files. The point is that I want to learn the language, not spend time writing the book about the language first. How do I know what words to add to the deck? Should I add different inflections? How about pronouns, does the language use gendered pronouns? What's the best way to study them, are there rules for it? I'm willing to pay money for a properly researched and made Anki deck for a language rather than spend time building it word by word.
      - fao_ 1y ago
        > What's the best way to study them, are there rules for it? The best way to study is to make a basic card and just start doing it immediately. A lot of this is individual so using other people's tips isn't going to work (although if you really wanted to do this, you would have very quickly learned by now that there's a whole industry of blog posts and youtube videos and Opinions on how to optimize your deck if you really need that, and there's a whole industry trying to sell you on things to buy to Optimize your Learning Experience). The thing is, overthinking isn't going to work here. Just make a 2 field note, like the default, and start adding words and doing reviews. You'll very quickly find out what information you find yourself wanting to remember when you're sat there writing sentences in the language, you'll also find out what you find interesting to learn that helps you learn. After the point that you are actually learning, it's really easy to add fields to a note or to switch note types. Not only are there literally a ton of docs that come with Anki that go over the best way to deal with Anki for learning, but making the deck as you go is ideal for your situation because you're building memory. Inputting sentences and words or whatever you find meaningful to remember into the deck is also building that memory. Spending hours reading blog posts and figuring out which service to pay for, uh, is the opposite of learning. This might sound harsh, but it literally comes down to "you have to walk to learn how to walk, you have to pedal to learn how to ride a bike". Spending hours or weeks or months deciding if you want to do training wheels or not, what height you want the bike seat, route planning, finding the best bike and the best seat — none of that is riding the bike, all of it is based on preferences that you won't have until you've ridden your first bike, and every inch of it is overthinking and procrastination. Nobody can tell you, beforehand, what the best way to ride a bike is, and that information is meaningless to you until you are physically riding the bike. Nobody can tell you what riding a bike is like and there is no way to learn outside of you physically sitting down on the bike, and pushing off, and pedalling — which is something you can do with a 20$ bike that you found at goodwill. You can, however, find yourself wasting hours or weeks or months thinking about riding a bike and never doing it.
Tainnor 1y ago
> If finding proper Anki decks for languages wasn't such a massive pain in the ass https://ankiweb.net/shared/decks https://ankiweb.net/shared/decks The difficulty, obviously, is in finding out which decks are good and which aren't. But that's a discoverability problem that is hard to avoid since people are just going to have different requirements and preferences. You can try going by the ratings or check language learning subreddits for recommendations, but ultimately it's up to you to try out decks and see if they work for you. If you just use Duolingo instead, you're arguably not using a better deck, just one with better marketing.

marssaxman 1y ago

How could you replicate all the speaking & hearing exercises with note cards? I can't imagine how that would work.

pfych 1y ago
The Anki deck I'm using for common Japanese phrases has audio embeds that I can listen to and repeat.

dgimla20 1y ago

It's selling a lifestyle change, and one which is "easy" and fun. Once you're hooked in, they gamify everything to make you feel like you're doing well. There's the leaderboards, the daily streaks, the ba-ding every time you rearrange 7 word tiles into the only possible sentence that makes any sense. Go and look at the Duolingo subreddit. When I looked a few years ago, it's just people showing off their 3000+ day streaks. Anki is a better tool, but its not as polished. Duolingo hooks people with all the little gamified bits, the animations, and it's self-fulfilling popularity loop. Unfortunately being polished is genuinely an incredibly important feature for the majority of people.