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Computerchairgeneral ,

Disappointing, but not surprising. I know I'm not going to "learn" a language with Duolingo, but it's been nice recognizing a few words and phrases when I hear them. But I don't really trust that a bunch of overworked and underpaid contractors are going to catch every error using AI is going to introduce. At least there are already alternatives in this thread for me to look through.

jjjalljs ,

I think a lot about writing a story about some sort of Enshittification Avenger. So when a reasonably good service decides to enshittify, the avenger breaks into their board’s house and beats the living shit out of them.

orca ,
@orca@orcas.enjoying.yachts avatar

I use Duolingo for German but I’d happily switch to something else if they’re going to pull this shit. I’ll often times take things from Duolingo and run them through the Translate app on iOS to see if there are differences. It’s not ideal, but I also have no allegiance to companies.

sabreW4K3 ,
@sabreW4K3@lemmy.tf avatar

Clozemaster!

sylverstream ,

Coming from Duolingo I found it a bit overwhelming. I tried one collection, but as I already know Spanish a bit, it was too easy. Any tips?

sabreW4K3 ,
@sabreW4K3@lemmy.tf avatar

Scroll down to the bottom and do the random collection.

onlinepersona ,

People, there is an opensource alternative just waiting for your contributions librelingo.app

CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

Capitao_Duarte ,

As far as I LOVE this kind of thing, people really should stop using Libre something for their versions. Sounds weird

Zworf ,

Why? It’s just Spanish for “free”. And it’s become pretty much of a standard to represent FOSS.

Capitao_Duarte ,

I know! I’m Brazilian and it’s almost the same as here, “livre”. It’s not a real problem, just a thing I don’t like. Too many consonants

derbis ,

Any languages besides Spanish planned?

onlinepersona ,

Basque AFAIK, but it’s one dude. He’s working on making it possible to contribute language courses without his help or much technical knowledge.

Basically, a lot of the core code is done, what’s missing is a nice UI for learning and language course editor, because at the moment it’s just a bunch of files.

ExLisper ,

With Spanish and Basque you can work as a translator in Spanish parliament. Nice.

sub_ ,

I’ve seen quality drops of Duolingo, ever since their … IPO, sadly.

Anyway, here’s some ways you can milk the rest of the Duolingo before completely abandoning it.

  • Use the web version, and type in all the answers if it’s possible. Selecting words are good for introducing new words (and reminder in case you forgot), but by typing it on your own, it’s faster to commit into memory.
  • Use classroom mode to get unlimited hearts, create your own classroom and invite yourself in. I assume that Duolnigo will probably eventually stop this loophole
  • Use search engine to search for the sentences you’re unsure of. No, don’t use machine translation, but search on the internet, and see if the sentence ever being used by the sites (news, academic, or personal homepage) using the target language.

I sadly still don’t know what other comparable free alternatives to Duolingo. Anki is great, but it’s largely flashcard for words, not sentences (unless you want to create your own deck). The others require subscription fee.

Other methods? Search for pdf of language grammar files, there are a lot out there. Some are godawful to read, especially those ‘Comprehensive Grammar Guide’ books. Some are amazing, e.g. Tae Kim’s Guide to Japanese.

vanderbilt ,
@vanderbilt@beehaw.org avatar

To add to the list of resources:

Todaku Books offer leveled difficulty, so even if you are starting out with Japanese there is something for you to read. The books are Creative Commons licensed, so don’t pay for them if you don’t want to.

tadoku.org/japanese/en/what-is-tadoku-en/

shakcked ,

Another option is rocket language. It seems to be a lot focused on developing conversational skills. It’s is paid but not subscription which I’m a fan of. You just buy the language you want. The first few lessons of a language are free if you want to try it. I’m test running it right now to start my switch away from Duolingo

Kwakigra ,

Duolingo, the app to work on something every day for years and be no more skilled in that ability than if you did nothing. Now fewer people will have useless jobs which is a problem since in many ways it’s difficult to survive working a useful job.

sag ,

I need some more copium. Not Again :'(

JimmyBigSausage ,

Much will be lost. Language is human. Idioms and more will be missed. There is no doubt that the Duolingo product will not be as accurate.

Rozauhtuno ,
@Rozauhtuno@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

What could be possibly go wrong?

autotldr Bot ,

🤖 I’m a bot that provides automatic summaries for articles:

Click here to see the summaryThe popular language-learning app Duolingo cut 10 percent of its contracted translators last month amid a push to integrate generative AI into its services, multiple outlets have reported. It’s another alarming turn in an increasingly AI-laden labor market in which company leaders continue to implement automated technology wherever they can — often, as in this case, at the cost of human jobs. According to Bloomberg, the firings were doled out just a few weeks after Duolingo bragged in a November letter to shareholders that the company was harnessing AI to produce “new content dramatically faster.” Duolingo also reportedly uses AI to generate some of the voices heard in various in-app language scripts and to prompt AI-generated feedback to users. To make matters even more depressing: in a late December Reddit thread, a site user claiming to be one of the fired Duolingo translators alleged that their former team’s remaining contractors are now tasked with simply checking AI-generated text for errors. Trusting translation AI — meanwhile pushing remaining contractors to fact-check presumably high numbers of those “dramatically faster” content outputs — may well come at the cost of such nuance, potentially flattening the learning process and rendering language robotic. — Saved 52% of original text.

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