That escalated quickly 😬

Comments

• NocturnalEngineer@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  You’re in an abusive relationship with Duolingo. Support is available.

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  • Agent641@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Overly-attached language app

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• bdonvr@thelemmy.club ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  DuoLingo isn’t really that great for learning languages anyway

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  • Lyre@lemmy.ca ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    This is kind of the hot take going around right now but honestly duo has a lot of advantages. Huge selection of languages, gameified lessons, and the app is really streamlined and responsive.

    Im not sure if its better or worse for learning than other apps, but i suspect “learning” a language has a lot more to do with personal drive and dedication than whatever app you chose to learn with

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    • bdonvr@thelemmy.club ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      I mean yes a ton of it has to do with motivation, but the “gamification” is hugely overstated. It is incredibly, unbearably, repetitive and bland. Most people start with a lot of desire and determination, see little result for the time they put in, get bored of the same three formats of questions, then quit or just do the absolute bare minimum to keep their streak for a while before eventually missing that. The way they present the questions makes it so easy to guess that you hardly have to think a lot of times. The larger courses are so dauntingly long that once you realize how much time you’re going to have to spend selecting words from a bank, clicking the corresponding icon, or typing what you hear.

      I’ve tried many times. Many people I’ve known have been through the same cycle. I don’t think I’ve seen it work.

      This time around I wanted to learn Spanish, and tried the Comprehensible Input method. Man, for me at least, it has worked so so much better that it’s not even comparable. In terms of progress, fun, and motivation it’s been great for me. It basically boils down to listening to a ton of the language, but at a level you can at least follow along even if you don’t know every word. You start with really simple stuff with lots of visual aids, hand gestures, repetition. After a while you move on to content with a little less aids, and shows for young children, etc. No translation or teaching of grammar.

      I’ve been at it for about four months and have listened to over 300 hours of content in Spanish. The beginning is absolutely a slog still because at that level you can’t understand much that’s actually interesting, but the moment you get to the point that you can follow some simpler dubbed content and easier stuff like travel/lifestyle vlogs on YouTube it becomes ridiculously easy. You become more focused on the CONTENT than the language. Reading comes later when you’ve really got the sounds of the language ingrained in your brain, so you don’t practice/reinforce bad pronunciation as you read.

      Admittedly though, in most languages you will find it incredibly hard to find content for the very beginner level like this. Spanish has Dreaming Spanish which is a godsend, English has plenty of resources. Perhaps for most languages you’ll have to use more traditional methods to work your way up to the point that you can understand. Or have a patient one on one teacher (friend) that can do what’s called “crosstalk” in which you speak your language to them, and they speak to you in the language you’re learning. (With as much visual aid as necessary for your level). There’s been effort to create more beginner content for languages other than Spanish, but I don’t think anything has touched the library of content Dreaming Spanish has yet.

      At this point, I can follow most day to day conversations if they don’t stray into odd topics. I can watch dubbed shows for kids/young adults (just finished Avatar: The Last Airbender) and follow enough to be more than enjoyable. News and simpler unscripted content is no issue as well. Native media, especially scripted media, is still too hard. I notice I struggle far less with abstract things other learners seem to have problems with like “ser vs estar”, “por vs para”, etc. One just feels more right in whatever situation but I couldn’t tell you why. For only four months self-directed learning for a few hours a day I think that’s pretty incredible. I can tell week by week that I’m improving.

      For a more thorough explanation check out this playlist (turn on subtitles it’s in Spanish.) youtube.com/playlist?list=PLlpPf-YgbU7GrtxQ9yde-J…

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    • Demdaru@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Learned english through games (slept through actual school) and trying to understand torrent sites. Can affirm a lot is tied to what motivates you. Heh.

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  • catharso@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    is there a better app?

    i’m not really in a situation where i can live among natives until i have the basics down

    real in-person courses are also nothing i wanna do right now 😅

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    • bdonvr@thelemmy.club ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      What language are you learning?

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    • Scraft161@iusearchlinux.fyi ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      The best course of action is to consume as much content in the target language as possible, tv shows, music, YouTube videos… Your brain will eventually pick up on certain parts of the language naturally. Also the best thing you can do is to not force yourself to speak or write in that language until you are comfortable doing so (this is one of the biggest things doulingo does wrong).

      I can attest to this method working as I went from barely knowing a couple of English words to speaking it in about 4 months (you could probably do less if you stick to what I outlined above). To back up this method I suggest you look at antimoon which is written by people who have used this to learn English as well.

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  • tjtherealbest@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    For me, Duolingo plus middle school and highschool spanish has helped me tremendously. It does get repetitive and daunting at points but that’s honestly a good thing as it reinforces and reminds you of certain things you may forget or get wrong.

    The gamification of it actually helped me push harder than i would have thought being competitive for the weekly rankings as well as with my ADHD.

    Of course I’m still not amazing at spanish but I can hold a very simple conversation, follow along with conversations people are speaking and pick up on context, speak to spanish speakers where they compliment it and say it’s perfect, and I can read it and write it very well.

    It could very well just be me and my dedication to it but with a 61 day streak and at minimum of 15 minutes a day while using a journal to write down any and everything I can and practicing Spanish at work, while watching spanish cartoons, I would say Duolingo has been absolutely worth it for me

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  • angrystego@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Except it works, I’ve seen people learn a language with it to the point they’re capable of quite good communication in about 2 years.

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    • meliaesc@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Last christmas, I got my recently retired mother a year subscription for her gift. She’s buying tickets to Spain in Spring. Image

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  • A_Chilean_Cyborg@feddit.cl ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Is useful to not get rusty.

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  • naonintendois@programming.dev ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    It’s great for getting started at understanding. You can not become fluent with it though.

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  • Signtist@lemm.ee ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    I’ve been using it for a couple of weeks now, and I’ve absolutely loved it. I’ve tried learning Japanese many times in my life, but this if the first time where I feel like I’m really beginning to understand it. I’m using the pro version, though, so maybe it’s less annoying than the free version.

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• FlyingSquid@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  The Five Stages of DuoLingo.

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  • PsychedSy@sh.itjust.works ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    The fifth is uninstall.

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• RIP_Cheems@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Spanish or vanish, bendeho

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  • hexabs@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    It’s pendejo

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    • RIP_Cheems@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Oh God, he’s coming for me. FUCK.

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• BoastfulDaedra@lemmynsfw.com ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  I think you may have an abusive relationship with this app…

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• Syrus@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  I’m just here to plug www.reverso.net It’s a really great language learning app powered by (just trust me bro) A.I. It’s an amazing app really and it sold me on what A.I. can do.

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  • clothes@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    The homepage makes me think that it’s a translation tool similar to DeepL. Is that the part you’re recommending?

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    • Syrus@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Never heard of deepL. I just found reverso after duolingo started feeling like a chore. I tried looking for a new app to learn languages and reverso really pulled through, it actually just gives me common phrases i’m interested in. I’m finding it easier to learn the things i’m looking for.

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• Swarfega@lemm.ee ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Duolingo is one hell of a spammy application. I uninstalled it just because it was so noisy.

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