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Anki is Free and Open Source Software and it's way more effective. Why waste any time on Duolingo when you could be using Anki instead?

joshdavham 1y ago
The actual reason is that the vast majority of Duolingo users are only using the app because they like to play Duolingo. I don't say this to insult Duolingo users, but they're not actually serious language learners. They just really like playing Duolingo and if Duolingo stopped existing, they would simply stop "learning" languages all together.
snapetom 1y ago
Sorry, maybe I'm not using it right in learning a language, but isn't Anki just flashcards?
- dgacmu 1y ago
  It's flashcards++: They can have audio attached, for example, and multiple "sides" to the flashcard, but the most ++ part of it is the integrated spaced repetition algorithm(s) that automagically adapt the next time a card is shown based upon its difficulty to improve long-term recall without having to look at all of the cards super often. This is termed spaced repetition. It's really good. It's still flash cards and best for things where you just have to memorize something (I use it for mandarin characters, for example, for which it's really excellent). But it's great at what it does.
kobebrookskC3 1y ago
because setting up and using anki is a pain? using and configuring anki is not intuitive. if you're just starting, you'll probably need to find a good premade vocab deck. once that's done, you'll need to make cards. making cards manually is a pita, i would probably not make any if i didn't have a good mining setup (yomitan/ttsu reader/asbplayer). i've spent countless hours getting my mining setup just right (setting up anki and yomitan, tweaking card fields/templates). yomitan probably works well because japanese conjugation is so regular. i imagine for languages with less regular conjugation, it wouldn't be so nice.

joshdavham 1y ago

The actual reason is that the vast majority of Duolingo users are only using the app because they like to play Duolingo. I don't say this to insult Duolingo users, but they're not actually serious language learners. They just really like playing Duolingo and if Duolingo stopped existing, they would simply stop "learning" languages all together.

snapetom 1y ago

Sorry, maybe I'm not using it right in learning a language, but isn't Anki just flashcards?

dgacmu 1y ago
It's flashcards++: They can have audio attached, for example, and multiple "sides" to the flashcard, but the most ++ part of it is the integrated spaced repetition algorithm(s) that automagically adapt the next time a card is shown based upon its difficulty to improve long-term recall without having to look at all of the cards super often. This is termed spaced repetition. It's really good. It's still flash cards and best for things where you just have to memorize something (I use it for mandarin characters, for example, for which it's really excellent). But it's great at what it does.

kobebrookskC3 1y ago

because setting up and using anki is a pain? using and configuring anki is not intuitive. if you're just starting, you'll probably need to find a good premade vocab deck. once that's done, you'll need to make cards. making cards manually is a pita, i would probably not make any if i didn't have a good mining setup (yomitan/ttsu reader/asbplayer). i've spent countless hours getting my mining setup just right (setting up anki and yomitan, tweaking card fields/templates). yomitan probably works well because japanese conjugation is so regular. i imagine for languages with less regular conjugation, it wouldn't be so nice.