Shame it's Duolingo though. HelloChinese and DuChinese are way better for actually learning the language.
this post was submitted on 16 Jan 2025
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Yeah good luck with this on Duolingo lol. I'm years down the line and also having studied full-time over there, still far from "fluency".
I think it's great for basic grammar and vocabulary. Pair it with a grammar text book, dictionary, and media in the target language (written and spoken) and you should be able to understand the language fairly quickly. If you can get conversation practice with a native speaker, you'll learn so much faster.
As with learning anything, you have to commit yourself to using multiple resources. Duolingo has been a great way for me to pick up vocabulary. Do I use it for sentence structure and grammar lessons? No. But it's a fun way to replace the monotony of flashcards.
Yes, as any resource it shouldn't be discarded completely, but there are always much better resources out there which for me makes Duolingo a time waster. Even if I would start anew with another language. It's an app made by a company who doesn't care about learning or languages, they just want to make people to stay for as long as possible on the app and pay for stuff like to restore their streak. Especially now since they've started using AI to generate content
Duolingo is a game for points and badges. it's not actually useful for learning anything.
I believe it is called a classical education
Firefly timeline!
FIREFLY TIMELINE!!
FIREFLY TIMELINE!!!!!!
I guess it's better than some alternatives, at least because we never found out what the Space Confederates were fighting for
Real anti capitalists learn Esperanto
Nah, they'd learn Toki Pona, because it's an amazing interlanguage.
I'm no anti capitalist, but I also learned Esperanto a few years ago. But nobody really speaks it, so I switched to learning something a bit more practical (SO's native language so I'm less helpless when we visit their country).
May I ask why?
Because it's a W language meant to foster international communication and understanding.
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Esperanton estas bona lingvo. Ĉu vi parolas Esperanton?
Jes. Mi lernis paroli Esperanton antaŭ kelkaj jaroj. Estas amuze, sed neniu parolas ĝin.
I don't get the connection between losing access to tik tok and starting a +20 years journey to learn chinese
I believe that a clickbait title about 400 idiot people starting the first lesson in Duolingo and then quickly quitting without deleting their accounts is the through line here.
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It shouldn't take quite that long.
你们还要学中文？
老子一出生就已懂中文了。
你们已经迟到了，party 早就开始啦！
This Tiktok ban is going to make people in the US do what they never did before and learn a second language. 万岁
More like start learning a second language and give up after a week.
This may be a stereotype, but TikTok specifically caters to people with short attention spans.
Yeah learning to speak Mandarin is one thing but learning to read it feels fucking impossible if you don't start young.
Step 1: Die
Step 2: Reincarnate in Taiwan (don't pick mainland China like I did in my current incarnation)
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No one is learning any language using shitty Duolingo all they are learning is how to parrot useless phrases and vocab with no explanation on how to form sentences or actually use the language properly for themselves.
That depends on how you use it.
I use DuoLingo as daily practice, and I add a bunch of other stuff to it as well. I did really well learning Esperanto this way, and have learned a fair amount of Spanish and Korean as well. Generally:
- Duolingo for a couple weeks, blitzing as many lessons as I can
- Find lessons elsewhere (YouTube, books, etc), while using Duolingo for 5-10 min/day
- Read childrens books (look up everything you don't understand) and watch children's shows (write down what you don't understand) in the language, and use that to review grammar and vocab
- Read the news in the target language, looking up unknown words
- Watch TV in the target language
- Finish up the Duolingo course while doing the above
Duolingo by itself won't get you fluent, but it'll teach you basic grammar (if you read the grammar notes), vocab, and build a habit of learning with a minimal time commitment. Use it as a sort of stretching routine before more serious study.
All this hatred for a tool that is bridging the gap between not speaking a language and being able to understand basic sentences.
Except for the fact that it is designed to keep you coming back and hopefully paying them for the privaledge whilst making people believe they are learning something useful.
It is in fact counter productive to actually learning a language properly. I used it for a year and a half trying to learn Spanish and in that time I never really learnt anything of worth. On top of that my native Spanish speaking girlfriend told me on numerous occasions that the things it was "teaching" me were flat out incorrect.
I learnt more useful language skills in a month on Busuu than I did in a year and a half using Duolingo. So yes there is a lot of hate because it wasted a lot of my time for absolutely zero benefit and in some cases taught me the wrong things so I had to go back and "unlearn" all the bullshit it constantly pushed to me.
It isn't a tool to bridge a gap, it is a word game designed to get you addicted to "streaks" and then hopefully remove money from your wallet under the guise of teaching you something.
People that seriously want to learn a language should be dissuaded from using this trash app as it is only counter productive to the learning process, they should instead check out Busuu or listen to Language Transfer which is free and vastly superior!
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