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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

sabreW4K3 ,
@sabreW4K3@lemmy.tf avatar

I just said to someone yesterday on Mastodon that it seems as though they’re not using humans any more, because WTF is this shit?

https://lemmy.tf/pictrs/image/660e0d40-d42c-4963-9344-467490ca42bf.png

sub_ ,

Yeah, this is frustrating.

I can handle absurd sentences like “The dog is cooking the dinner”, and actually finds them beneficial because it prevents me from guessing the whole sentence.

But this is a sign that not enough human efforts are poured into create permutation of the answers.

jarfil ,

Let me guess, the full sentence was: “Last night we ate the dog cooked for dinner”… /s

sub_ ,

nope, “The dog is cooking a dinner” is that kind of absurdist sentence that works. So that I just don’t guess a human on the subject position. Or ‘eating’ for the verb

tryptaminev ,

I actually see a learning purpose in those ridicilous sentences.

I’ll far more likely remember the cat that works at the small hospital than if Juan does it.

The_Terrible_Humbaba ,
@The_Terrible_Humbaba@beehaw.org avatar

This is frustrating, but it has always been an issue; and usually the more you advance in a language tree the more it happens, because fewer people have found the problem and reported it. It’s a human problem that comes with not considering every possibility when creating an exercise. I’d imagine that using AI (in addition to humans) would actually help reduce cases like this, since they could be detected before users run into them.

flora_explora ,

Interesting, I usually question my English skills if something like this happens!

Zworf ,

It’s because a good translation is not (always) literal.

In the German version it says taglich in hamburg. In English you would indeed put an adverb (like daily) at the end. It works the other way around but it’s not really what a native English speaker would say.

intensely_human ,

Not true at all. OP’s construction is perfectly valid english.

addie ,
@addie@feddit.uk avatar

Absolutely this. I’d have argued that ‘every day’ is a more idiomatic translation than ‘daily’, and what native speakers would say, but that’s irrelevant. English tends to emphasise the end of sentences as the most important part, so all these translations are correct depending on the nuance that you intend:

  • Daily in Hamburg, many ships arrive (as opposed to eg. cars, or few ships)
  • Daily, many ships arrive in Hamburg / Many ships arrive daily in Hamburg (as opposed to eg. Bremen)
  • Many ships arrive in Hamburg daily (as opposed to eg. weekly)

Wouldn’t question any of those constructions as a native speaker. In fact, original responders’ example was why I gave up on Duolingo myself originally, some years ago. Translating ‘future tense’ sentences from Spanish into English or back again is always going to be a matter of opinion, since English doesn’t have the verb conjugations that Spanish does. Guessing the ‘sanctified answer’ is tedious, when a lot of the time it’s not even the most natural form of a sentence.

intensely_human ,

Isn’t English able to disambiguate by using helper words like “will” or “would”?

What tenses can’t be translated completely?

addie ,
@addie@feddit.uk avatar

That’s almost exactly the problem. English uses helper words exclusively for future tense, and indeed, helper words like ‘to’ to form an infinitive. ‘Will’ is the helper word to show that something is a fact, that it is definite - grammatically, it is indicative. (The sun will rise tomorrow.) ‘Would’ is the helper word to show that something is an opinion, or dependent on something else - grammatically, it is subjunctive. (If you push that, it would fall; if it was cheaper, I would buy it.)

Spanish has both helper words for future tense (conjugations of ‘ir’, analogous to ‘going to’, often used in speech) and straight-up conjugations for future tense (doesn’t exist in English; often used in writing). It also conjugates verbs differently if they’re indicative, subjunctive, or imperative (asking or telling someone to do something). This is how Spanish manages to have fifty-odd ways to conjugate every verb, which is very confusing to English speakers who make do with three ways and helper words.

Translating a ‘future tense sentence’ for Duolingo requires you to have psychic powers about whether something is fact or opinion, which helper words are wanted, and so on, and it usually comes down to guessing between multiple ‘correct’ answers, which Duo will reject all but one of.

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?

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.

Hyperreality ,

Honestly, when it comes to duolingo, you're probably best off sticking to Spanish or stuff like that.

I tried out a course in my native language, and it really wasn't great beyond the basics. Loads of mistakes.

And if you're going to be paying for that, you might as well buy (or pirate) a proper Spanish course.

zaphod ,

Spanish or French and only if you speak English. Everything else might as well not exist.

The_Terrible_Humbaba , (edited )
@The_Terrible_Humbaba@beehaw.org avatar

That’s a bit over the top, in my opinion. I’ve tried plenty of courses, and Duolingo is pretty good to get a hang of the basics of a language.

I’d say, in my experience, the hardest part of learning a language is getting started, and I feel Duolingo is perfect just for that. To get deeper knowledge and become more comfortable, one should probably switch once they start feeling more comfortable with the alphabet (if there is a specific one), and with the basic vocabulary and grammar.

EDIT: Forgot to add but another advantage of Duolingo, is that it’s also great to get a taste and basic feel for different languages; and that can be especially useful for someone who is looking to learn a new language but can’t quite decide on one.

Kalothar ,

Been using a multifaceted approach to cramming Italian in my little brain:

  • Anki flashcards (this is my main thing)
  • conversational pod casts
  • movies, shows and music
  • lastly, Duolingo

Any suggestions on what I could be using instead of Duolingo?

The_Terrible_Humbaba , (edited )
@The_Terrible_Humbaba@beehaw.org avatar

The podcasts and other media consumption will probably be what most benefit you in the long term, and something like Anki and Duolingo I think are good complements for that.

Any alternatives to Duolingo that I think would be worth replacing it, would have to be something that is more focused on the specific language that you are learning, i.e. Nicos Weg for German (and I don’t personally know any for Italian, sorry). Most other general language learning websites/apps would probably be running into the same issues and limitations as Duo, and which one to use depends most on personal preference; however, there is one I’ve heard of called Italki (there may be more) which basically acts as a language exchange app, where you connect talk to people who natively speak the language you are learning, and they can give you input. I’ve never tried it, but I’ve heard good things.

Other than that, you have certified online/in person courses, but obviously those are not as convenient as Duo, and they cost money (probably significantly more than even a Duo subscription).

EDIT: Oh, I forgot to mention, but one thing which I personally enjoy is looking up and trying to read children’s books; and I mean like “90% picture & 10% text” books which are made for parents to read to their very young kids. And as you get more comfortable, try finding and reading increasingly harder books/stories online.

MadBob ,

I notice Duolingo is your only form of output. Is that a conscious decision? Otherwise I’d second the recommendation for something involving speaking to someone with the patience to, or who agrees to, have a conversation with you.

Kalothar ,

Yeah, it is at the moment for the most part. My girlfriend is fluent in Spanish, and I have talked to her about general concepts that overlap.

We decided after I started getting deeper into the language that we should maybe not do that as much so I don’t pick up bad or flat out wrong habits.

I myself am of an Italian descent, however the relatives I have that speak it either live in Italy still and are estranged or sadly have passed away. There is an Italian grocery store near me, and I have heard them speaking it so I was hoping to strike a couple friendships up over time there.

MadBob ,

Well best of luck with it!

Kit , (edited )

I noticed that they stopped giving free streak freezes two weeks ago. I have a 1200 day streak and my premium sub renews this month but I might just switch to another platform.

Edit: Canceled my subscription and left feedback about streak freezes. Three days later I get a free streak freeze. Not sure if it was a glitch or what. I’m gonna wait to confirm before renewing my sub.

Haagel ,

What other platform is available?

AndrasKrigare ,

I’ve found Babble to be okay

jherazob OP ,
@jherazob@beehaw.org avatar

Do you mean Babbel? Hadn’t heard of it, will keep it in mind

AndrasKrigare ,

Yup, that’s the one

Radiant_sir_radiant ,

Sadly it didn’t work for me. I liked the concept but gave up after two weeks because I didn’t enjoy the experience at all and didn’t seem to make any progress (Swiss learning Spanish). YMMV of course.

PhobosAnomaly ,

Anecdotally, a friend who’s pretty handy at languages uses more Memrise than Duolingo now. Similar sort of setup, but with a different style of delivery - more visual cues and a better repetition approach.

noodlejetski ,

in my experience, Memrise teaches you useful phrases much faster, while Duolingo drills you about horses eating blue apples and turtles wearing yellow hats.

I_am_10_squirrels ,

Learn how to say “two tabs of acid” in 10 languages

MadBob ,

To be fair, as a Duolingo hater myself, I do see the logic in teaching wacky phrases. It at least gives me the impression that it makes it easier to improvise sentences based on the grammar you’ve learnt by drilling “the bear should eat some cheese when it rains” or whatever.

Duke_Nukem_1990 ,

They also use AI.

https://feddit.de/pictrs/image/628a3e02-d68c-4635-a14c-5628798387ac.jpeg

oeverbloem ,

I just tried it out and I like it a lot better than duolingo.

Duolingo is super gamified and you can’t keep practicing after you made a few mistakes. I just practiced for an hour with memrise and it was nice. There’s also video exercises in the app, and you can also practice chatting (with an AI probably?). I hope it holds up.

I would love to compare babbel too, but Arabic is not available there.

PhobosAnomaly ,

Awesome, I think I may go back to a language myself. Thanks for checking it out and letting us know!

mondoman712 ,

Just fyi you can keep practicing as much as you want in Duolingo, just tap the heart in the top right and click practice to earn more hearts.

oeverbloem ,

Huh, I didn’t know that. I just tried it out and it worked.

I think I’ll stick with memrise for now.

Thanks though!

bluGill ,

The duolingo format was never popular with polyglots. The game format makes it easy to feel like you did something which is a great thing, but the is the only pro people who have learned multiple languages find with it.

There is a lot of debate about what the best way to start is, but all agree that you need to interact with the real language in real world type settings (watching a movie in the language with subtitles is real world, though you need to make an effort to listen not just read!) They also agree that time is important, you need to study at least an hour every day to make progress.

tryptaminev ,

You definetely do not need to study an hour every day to make progress.Otherwise everyone learning a second or third language in school would be entirely fucked. For me personally the gamification has helped a lot with learning the basic concepts and words of a language.

If you want to get to the level of a native speaker of course no app can do that and i guess somewhere around B1/B2 you need to use the language in a real setting like you said.

bluGill ,

While technically you don't need to study an hour every day, if you don't put that much time into it you will eventually look back and see you have spend a year+ and don't know anything and then give up. An hour a day means it is likely you have made progress between reviews of your life and thus the effort is worth continuing. At 10 minutes per day you will be dead before you know the language, so giving up is the right answer.

Enough people fail to learn a language in school as to consider the whole idea of school bunk. (but some do learn, and some schools are better than others - but the better ones all feature time as a factor)

tryptaminev ,

But that is relative. Of course if you spend ten minutes a day you will have a smaller progress. But still you make steady progress. It took me two month now with Spanish to get from nada to being able to say how many siblings i have, where my parents are from, where i live and what job i have. It is not much, but last week i didn’t know how to express my workplace and by next week i’ll be able to express something more.

This is the same like for everything you learn or train. You want to be a concert violinist? Yeah better practice multiple hours a day. But just practicising ten minutes a day will still get you to be a decent player after a few years. Want to look like Schwarzenegger in his best times? You got to hit the gym regularly and on a proper plan and diet. You just want to be fit and build some muscles? Ten minutes of planks, pushups and situps and you’ll notice your shape changing after a few weeks.

As you said, with the small steady work you’ll hit a wall eventually, be it languages, physical training or instruments. And then you need to put more effort for really filling the gaps.

jarfil , (edited )

Back in the day, I found Rosetta Stone to be a decent approach, it’s the only reason I still know how to say “the kid is under the plane” in Arabic, without barely knowing any Arabic (it was in the first free demo lessons). The context turned a bit dark after 9/11, though…

MadBob ,

CDs are often available at libraries too!

smeg ,

Free streak freeze? As in an option to stop an arbitrary counter that does nothing from being reset?

Overzeetop ,

Humans are so massively susceptible to gamification. It’s nice for providing motivation, but it ends up being like an addiction the way companies leverage it.

mondoman712 ,

I want my language learning app to have things like that, to help motivate me to keep coming back every day.

msage ,

I just got free streak freezes 11 days ago.

So perhaps it’s regional.

aard ,
@aard@kyu.de avatar

I wasn’t quite sure what to think about this, so I’ve asked my local LLM. Seems it is fine.

https://kyu.de/pictrs/image/75740d07-1543-4702-8f61-3a71212aa04b.png

Admetus ,

Holy shit it’s on the money

aard ,
@aard@kyu.de avatar

It generally doesn’t have a high opinion of translators (note that the emojis here are inserted as path markers to help with prompt debugging - but everyting else is from the LLM):

https://kyu.de/pictrs/image/9abadcd3-1000-4112-9c3e-d4831c8eb751.png

jarfil ,

…soon to come to your favorite corporation’s C suite’s Windows 11 desktop’s Copilot assistant for empowering the synergies of staying relevant in a high stakes market environment.

auf ,
@auf@lemmy.ml avatar

lmao what’s wrong with your llama

aard ,
@aard@kyu.de avatar

https://kyu.de/pictrs/image/e00ee66c-e8b3-40fd-939b-a8073f730906.png

originalucifer ,
@originalucifer@moist.catsweat.com avatar

duolingo is a textbook example of a nice small startup, with great ideas that is then completely overtaken my MBAs who run it into the ground as soon as there is enough of a client base to Sell. you fucking fucks all suck.

refurbishedrefurbisher ,

Enshittification

Thisfox ,

Similar to Memrise, which was really fun when you could make your own mems using imagesearch and customise everything… And now is a rubbish duolingo clone.

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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