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I have a bit of a different perspective. Sure, Duolingo is suboptimal and won't teach you a language on its own, but I'd say that language classes themselves is

I have a bit of a different perspective. Sure, Duolingo is suboptimal and won't teach you a language on its own, but I'd say that language classes themselves is no better. Specifically, I consider the fundamental missing piece to allow achieving language intermediacy or fluency to be confidence and sporadic language use, and you have to be lucky for a language class to give you this. Hearing about grammar and having Q&As is nice, but that teaches language theory, not fluency. Trying to converse about a specific topic with other non-fluent and disinterested individuals does not teach fluency, and not every conversation will be with the teacher - the only (hopefully) fluent person in the room - and even if the option is present, some might be uncomfortable with it. On the other hand, if you have achieved some confidence and means to exercise the language - which you don't acquire from a language class - then I'd consider Duolingo to be a decent vocab and sentence exercise tool. Some cultures rely on flashcard approaches to teach their written language to locals, so it's not that silly. Duolingo does also have reading and listening comprehension tests. Furthermore, I'd argue that newer LLM-based exercises might end up being superior to both traditional "pool of random non-fluent people" language classes and duolingo's current model, and arguably the task that large language models are most suited for. (Note that Duolingo classes differ a lot between languages - my experience is from Mandarin.)

Tor3 1y ago
I do agree with a lot of what you write. I maintain that Duolingo is the wrong approach to actually learn a language (even though there are differences between the various languages covered by Duolingo). However, I did somewhat successfully use Duolingo to refresh some intermediate-level Italian grammar (not grammar training, but I could observe various grammatically different sentences), after having been away from the language for fifteen years. This was some twelve years ago, and Duolingo has changed so much for the last few years (mostly for the worse, while I was still wasting time on Duo for for another language), so I don't know the state of the Italian course now.
- pbhjpbhj 1y ago
  You've twice written about what is the wrong way to learn a new language -- what's your right way? Why did you use Duo' instead of 'the right way'? Perhaps that explains why one might create a OSS version of Duo.
  - skydhash 1y ago
    The method that worked for me: A 90 day course for learning the basic of the grammar and some thematic vocabulary (better than duolingo as it has whole conversation, both written and spoken). An awful lot of reading book, listening to shows, sporadic speaking and writing. Learned English that way without ever travelling to an English speaking country.
    - dkarbayev 1y ago
      I've learned English by scrolling endless memes on Imgur (back when it used to be an image storage for Reddit), and watching a lot of Youtube videos on the topics that interested me (tech and car reviews - like LTT and Doug DeMuro). But that only developed my passive vocabulary (reading and listening). I only really learned speaking English once I started working remotely for an australian company, and further improved the fluency after moving abroad (to the Netherlands). I'm currently doing German lessons on Duolingo, and what I dislike the most is that it keeps shoving "useless" words into my face (the words that are irrelevant for me and that I'll most likely never use) - I wish there was an option to choose the topics that I find interesting so that it'd mix the words that more relevant with the everyday use words to better taylor the vocab for me. Another shortcoming is that it never actually explains the grammar rules, you can only try to analyze the examples yourself, trying to notice any patterns. Some are good in that, others are bad - so why don't they spare us that mental gymnastics and provide at least minimal explanation?
  - bluGill 1y ago
    Comprehesible input. find something basic you can understand and immerse your self in it. Often this is childrens books/shows or similar level designed for adults. at the start you use a translation dictionary to look up ever word which is boring - which is why approaches like duolingo where they give you around 2000 common words to memorize quickly are useful. However the goal is to learn just enough of that list that you can find something you understand to start the real learning on.
rvba 1y ago
Using AI for conversations is really interesting approach - it generally speaks the language correctly (not like classmates).
isaacremuant 1y ago
Next time pay enough for a class or have a good private tutor and all you've said becomes true. But hey, the alternative is pretending classes are not better than Duolingo so go do that and you'll have the same results.
- arghwhat 1y ago
  No, private tutors are definitely better but they are no silver bullet. Having a great private tutors often and long enough to exercise sporadic conversation and gain confidence in language use - a class a few times a week at least - is also a prohibitively expensive solution suggestion for most people, making it a non-solution. You also end in a false dichotomy.
  - isaacremuant 1y ago
    This site is full of web developers telling people they get what they pay for but then call tutors "prohibitively expensive". You want that education, invest in it. With time and money. Of course, the "a few minutes per day in the commute for 9.99" feels attractive and it even gets you to a basic stage but then it's what we already discussed.
    - arghwhat 1y ago
      Private tutoring for 1 hour, 3 times a week at the current rates offered by local freelancers where I live would be ballpark 1000 USD per month for a long time. If you start nitpicking about quality and put in some more serious hours I wouldn't be surprised if you hit two grand. Language should not be reserved for people that can throw that kind of money monthly at their random hobbies, and suggesting that this is "the solution" is grotesque at best.
      - isaacremuant 1y ago
        I don't know what kind of hours and dedication that private tutoring is but you could do online classes with good tutors for way less than that. You can't chase me with the "it's only reserved for people with money". There's ways to invest well and less than those numbers. Those numbers may not be bad either if you compare it with how much people invest in other types of education in the US, which I presume is what you're talking about.

Tor3 1y ago

I do agree with a lot of what you write. I maintain that Duolingo is the wrong approach to actually learn a language (even though there are differences between the various languages covered by Duolingo). However, I did somewhat successfully use Duolingo to refresh some intermediate-level Italian grammar (not grammar training, but I could observe various grammatically different sentences), after having been away from the language for fifteen years. This was some twelve years ago, and Duolingo has changed so much for the last few years (mostly for the worse, while I was still wasting time on Duo for for another language), so I don't know the state of the Italian course now.

pbhjpbhj 1y ago
You've twice written about what is the wrong way to learn a new language -- what's your right way? Why did you use Duo' instead of 'the right way'? Perhaps that explains why one might create a OSS version of Duo.
- skydhash 1y ago
  The method that worked for me: A 90 day course for learning the basic of the grammar and some thematic vocabulary (better than duolingo as it has whole conversation, both written and spoken). An awful lot of reading book, listening to shows, sporadic speaking and writing. Learned English that way without ever travelling to an English speaking country.
  - dkarbayev 1y ago
    I've learned English by scrolling endless memes on Imgur (back when it used to be an image storage for Reddit), and watching a lot of Youtube videos on the topics that interested me (tech and car reviews - like LTT and Doug DeMuro). But that only developed my passive vocabulary (reading and listening). I only really learned speaking English once I started working remotely for an australian company, and further improved the fluency after moving abroad (to the Netherlands). I'm currently doing German lessons on Duolingo, and what I dislike the most is that it keeps shoving "useless" words into my face (the words that are irrelevant for me and that I'll most likely never use) - I wish there was an option to choose the topics that I find interesting so that it'd mix the words that more relevant with the everyday use words to better taylor the vocab for me. Another shortcoming is that it never actually explains the grammar rules, you can only try to analyze the examples yourself, trying to notice any patterns. Some are good in that, others are bad - so why don't they spare us that mental gymnastics and provide at least minimal explanation?
- bluGill 1y ago
  Comprehesible input. find something basic you can understand and immerse your self in it. Often this is childrens books/shows or similar level designed for adults. at the start you use a translation dictionary to look up ever word which is boring - which is why approaches like duolingo where they give you around 2000 common words to memorize quickly are useful. However the goal is to learn just enough of that list that you can find something you understand to start the real learning on.

rvba 1y ago

Using AI for conversations is really interesting approach - it generally speaks the language correctly (not like classmates).

isaacremuant 1y ago

Next time pay enough for a class or have a good private tutor and all you've said becomes true. But hey, the alternative is pretending classes are not better than Duolingo so go do that and you'll have the same results.

arghwhat 1y ago
No, private tutors are definitely better but they are no silver bullet. Having a great private tutors often and long enough to exercise sporadic conversation and gain confidence in language use - a class a few times a week at least - is also a prohibitively expensive solution suggestion for most people, making it a non-solution. You also end in a false dichotomy.
- isaacremuant 1y ago
  This site is full of web developers telling people they get what they pay for but then call tutors "prohibitively expensive". You want that education, invest in it. With time and money. Of course, the "a few minutes per day in the commute for 9.99" feels attractive and it even gets you to a basic stage but then it's what we already discussed.
  - arghwhat 1y ago
    Private tutoring for 1 hour, 3 times a week at the current rates offered by local freelancers where I live would be ballpark 1000 USD per month for a long time. If you start nitpicking about quality and put in some more serious hours I wouldn't be surprised if you hit two grand. Language should not be reserved for people that can throw that kind of money monthly at their random hobbies, and suggesting that this is "the solution" is grotesque at best.
    - isaacremuant 1y ago
      I don't know what kind of hours and dedication that private tutoring is but you could do online classes with good tutors for way less than that. You can't chase me with the "it's only reserved for people with money". There's ways to invest well and less than those numbers. Those numbers may not be bad either if you compare it with how much people invest in other types of education in the US, which I presume is what you're talking about.