@@slynt_ sure - but I first need to know what genres you enjoy. I really like horror video games, so you’ll get a lot of those recommended. But, I think the best channel for learning german would be NesfateLp simply because she plays lots of english silent games (like undertale or omori), and translates it into German on the spot.
@@thomasmannia In terms of youtubers I like: NesfateLP (she is particularly helpful for german since she often plays english games and translates them). Schauerland - horror channel Gronkh GameTube There are also lots of german vtuber now. Literature: start with Also Sprach Zarathustra. (It repeats a lot of words and concepts and I find that generally a biblical style is easy to understand) - and early book I also read was a german school bible.
When I was taking my French class, this would have been 5-7 years ago, I remember we used Duolingo quite a bit at first, but mostly as a way to build a steady foundation for the vocabulary. Then we slowly switched to other things, like having conversations, watching movies/videos, and reading book passages aloud for the class. For an added challenge, sometimes the book would be in English and we’d have to read it around in French. So for a foundation builder, I think it’s great, but as in all things, moderation and real world practice is key.
I don't like duolingo and how repetitive it is. It is easy to get boring with it imo. I watch gemplays because there's still words are repeating, it's more entertaining and I have no trouble sitting and watching someone playing for 30 minutes
I'm more than sure this goes not for learning languages, but for anything at all. Theory is never enough for being good at anything, you need to have experience, whether it's mechanical skill at something or knowing how to put something you learnt to use
I think I've seen more memes of the owl intimidating users than reports of people actually achieving their learning goal with it. I ended up rage quitting Japanese when I realized the owl wasn't even smart enough to kidnap a relative I actually care for.
As an English speaker who's put a good bit of time in on Spanish, French, Italian, and German, I find that Duolingo is indeed best at learning vocabulary words by main force. I find that it's weaker for learning grammar; particularly in German where I have had no formal instruction it really is weird learning the grammar piecemeal and it doesn't build confidence. In Italian with some of the verb forms and the black magic Italian does with prepositions and articles, grammar gets a lot more challenging as it goes on. I find French and Spanish the easiest, in part because I know them better outside of Duolingo. It's true that doing exercises on Duolingo is better than playing silly games or scrolling UA-cam videos on the phone, so definitely recommended there.
Yep, I learned the German grammar rules in school and Duo just doesn't explain what or why you're using a different word here. I'd be lost if I couldn't track the way pronouns change with the cases and how they gain contractions out of nowhere.
@@evanbasnaw There is excellent grammar reference in Duolingo (depends on the course, and it's been changing over time, but German and Italian seemed adequate to me when I was learning them). As long as you read the grammar tips for each unit, you should not be in the dark about the rules at play. It might be hard to find the exact piece of grammar reference later, but while you're doing the course sequentially, it's there.
I tried apps for about 10min, not interested. I took 3yrs of French in hs and 2yrs at college. I learned grammar, sentence structure, and the tenses past, present and future ect ect. It is alot of structure but I prefer to learn a new language in this way.
I think Duolingo's great for picking up a language. The hardest part in learning is motivation, and the app is clearly designed to urge you on with your practicing. To become conversationally fluent, you're gonna have to practice with other (native) speakers on a daily basis. There's no other way around it. I still recommend the app to any language learner, for it's helped so much with Italian and the other Romance tongues. Thumbs up!
Yeah. I use Duolingo basically as my constant ritual. So even on days when I feel otherwise unmotivated, I can at least do some little lessons to keep it "awake", so to speak. You can always force a 5 minute lesson into your day.
I remember doing Duolingo Italian lesson once, and my dad, whose native language is Italian, could hear it all. He asks me, “Why is it telling you to go up to people and call them boys and girls.” 🤣
I am a native Greek speaker and use duolingo to learn Brazilian Portuguese. I totally agree with your points. I have checked the Greek section and in my opinion it is quite good but it works better for simple sentences than the more complex ones. Of course the pronunciation is robotic as usual.
Hey, sorry for comment fishing, but as a brazilian, I'm very curious what you think of the brazilian portuguese in duolingo. Portuguese is a very similar language to latin (some scholars argue that it is even closer than standard italian), and it also considered very simple and easy. So i'm very curious. I know of some stupid shit in the language even natives get confused on, mostly the "acentos" in words and things like SS Ç and SC.
i have been doing some greek duolingo on the side as i find it interesting, and i find the course to be really strange, for example i am 3 or 4 units in and i still know only one adjective
I've done the Greek but gave up half-way because I got so frustrated for not being offered explainations for grammatical rules as an option when the app claims Im wrong. So, I bit the bullet and got myself "Greek an Essential Grammar" by David Holton et al. and now, for the first time I have A GUIDE explaining things to me. I'm definitely going back to Duolingo at some point, to use it as a practicing tool, but I can tell anyone wanting to learn Modern Greek NOT to start learning Greek with Duolingo right away. First get yourself a guide (a modern grammar as a substitute for a teacher that you can consult) whenever you need a grammar rule explained, because Duolingo ain't going to bother.
I agree with everything you've said. Duolingo has improved, especially lately. But yeah, when you're learning Greek and it says something like "green hair" and "pink butter," it's weird. Some languages on the platform are better than other languages, I agree. I'm using it for French (along with classes and talking with Francophone Africans) and I think French is one of its best languages.
That's fine because it stops you from memorizing sentences like a parrot, and forces you to analyse that phrases and sentences are made up of changing components, but does it by osmosis rather than trying to explain grammar. And sometimes it's memorable because it's weird. The French course is easily their best. Not a coincidence that it's the most popular.
@@andrewdunbar828 Totally agree. And with Duolingo's recent changes that allow you to skip ahead more easily, I've started using it again for French. Before, it was like slogging through mud, 🤣🤣which is why I stopped using it for awhile, and relied only Alliance Française classes. but yeah, other languages like Greek, Swahili (I'm a fluent Swahili speaker) are not good.
1. Duolingo for basic vocabulary 2. Busuu next for more practicality, speaking, and corrections 3. Watching series: First with subtitles in your language, Second with subtitles in objective language (same as the audio), and Third with no subtitles. 4. Conversational clubs.
I've been using DuoLingo off and on for close to 10 years. The app has changed massively since I joined back in 201X. I started using it as a compliment to WaniKani while learning Japanese, as well as listening to ANN on youtube and reading web versions of Japanese newspapers. Metatron's point - consistency and daily use - is right on the dang nose. If you're not doing something to maintain the new language in your head, you will start losing it. I think the gamification of duolingo helps with retention as it generates feelings, and things learned and experienced when you're having feelings generate stronger memories. Also, speak out loud. I do believe that it does help with more than pronunciation, but also keys the words into different areas of your brain than if you just read or hear them.
Other than pronunciation and comprehending fast speech, I almost never learn anything in any language from watching movies etc. Then again I find it hard to find material/content that's engaging in languages other than English sadly.
I have used Duolingo for a couple of years. Mainly for mandarin Chinese. My experience matches yours very closely, and I am very glad you mentioned the pronounciation issue, cause that caused me no end of confusion :) I think especially the mandarin part has been very helpful for me and has given me a lot of foundational knowledge of the language. However, when I started Vietnamese I had a very different experience. Where the mandarin course very logically started with regular things like hello and goodbye, numbers, asking and telling names etc, the Vietnamese was completely different. One of the first sentences I was given was "The bat is at the trainstation", and "the train station and the ferris wheel". I showed it to some Vietnamese friends and they said it was correct, but when would you ever need to say that? I am a teacher myself (of a sort), so I am aware that even if the student might not be able to see the idea of a lesson there might very well be an idea that will make sense later. But it still seems strange to me :)
I *think* the idea behind crazy sentences is to give your brain a jolt, as a means to remember (it's easier to remember something when something unusual happens). I recall similar stuff from when I looked at Italian ten years ago - things like "There's an elephant on the table"). But it can't be just random - I don't see how "the train station and the ferris wheel" would work like that.
@@tohaason I agree. I just find it comes far too early in the process. It would make much more sense to do that kind of thing later on. Just like it was with Mandarin or French.
On the topic of mistakes (6:37), you can report submissions that shouldn't be counted as mistakes (at least on the web app), but it's up to the course maintainers to accept your suggestions, and your mileage may vary. For example, I used Duolingo for standard Italian from 2020 to early 2021, but I received multiple emails, spread out between June and December 2022, about my suggestions being accepted.
I'm also really glad to see that you've started this channel dedicated to language and learning in general. I've always been a fan of your linguistics content. Maybe we could see a video on the linguistics of the reconstructed proto-indo-european language?
Simon Roper has some fundamental videos on proto-Indo-European. He is mainly focused on the history of English, Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Germanic languages (actually speaks some of them). He's not a content-creator or influencer, his approach is more academic, but very interesting if you're interested in linguistics.
@@magyarbondi I've been watching Simon for an extremely long time. Really, I just like Metatron and would enjoy seeing him cover more ancient topics that aren't as well documented. Maybe a video going over some interesting things we know about Early/Late bronze age European arms and armor.
While I agree with your assessment of Duo per se, I'd beg to differ on the assumption "Everyone learns another language mostly to speak it". I have no need and virtually no occasions to speak any of languages I've ever studied, even English (last time I've actually spoke it was about ten years ago). On the contrary, it's mostly reading, secondary listening and/or writing, and speaking comes last. Reading as a main reason to learn a foreign language is severely under-appreciated, even with Duolingo -- characteristically, its German course has only one lesson on Präteritum, the tense extensively used in most genres of fiction. However, on Duolingo forums I've found that I'm not that eccentric in my attitude -- many people learn German to read Goethe or listen to Rammstein, many learn Hungarian to read Molnár or Ady, etc. Add to that numerous technicians who learn English, German, Japanese or Korean to read manuals, textbooks and catalogs.
Same, I live in rural Canada. Europeans routinely assume everyone is a days travel from their target langauge. Even if I wanted to learn French you still have to travel to parts of Canada where people actually speak french. A trip to Germany isn't in the cards, I'm an adult. For me, I just like feeling like I've open the door to something outside my hyper Americanized world. I enjoy german media, watching movies in german, feeling like I've opened up to a true language of history. I also feel like learning another germanic langauge helps me understand my native english.
Agreed. I'm Canadian and speak English natively and French when the need arises. I speak Spanish when I travel if the hotel or restaurant staff don't speak English. Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, and Japanese I have no reason to speak. I learned them either for school or to read/watch TV. My ability to understand and read is fine, my ability to independently express myself is nearly non-existent, but it serves my purposes.
@@katemcdonald3634 Europeans usually assume/witness US / CAN are not interested in a 2nd language, to get to the US from Europe a long time ago I worked for a month to afford the flight, then I worked a month in Ontario and then I travelled the US for 6 weeks. Wish you to have the opportunity to travel to Germany one day. Viel Glück!
@@ernstkrudl4895 Yeah you can say what you want about Americans, but in Canada a surprising proportion of Anglos actually work at learning french. It's something like 1 in 3 Anglos either did french Immersion in school, or did extensive self study including, exchange programs, doing degrees in french etc. The problem is the french parts of Canada are largely out of reach. French Canada has a awful weather(even by Canadian standards, is sparsely populated and an underdeveloped economy. And even you're in Quebec it's hard to immerse yourself in the language because of various obstacles.
@@katemcdonald3634 Come on, to learn another official language of one´s onwn country does not impress me. How many of them are fluent at 30 or later? Over my old years I met English speaking Canadians, French Candians and also Candians of Red Indian origin in person. I heard the French speaking English like a Creole and never heard an English speak French. The last Canadian I met here in Austria was the exception, his German grandmother took her family to Montreal, and he could easily switch in no time between English, French and German. You named the obstacles to learn French even in QUebec, so why do you want to make the impression the English part knows French well. Working in Canadian businesses I also have a Canadian social insurance card from the 70ties, so please have mercy on me ;-)
I used it for a time with the Latin on there. Mostly to help with the vocabulary retention which is my weakest aspect when learning languages. But I eventually stopped using it as it just had too many bad qualities for me to continue with it.
The Latin course on there is pretty horrible with the pronunciation the last time I looked at it, but the Greek one is not too bad. I wish it had the story option like they have for Spanish in Greek. Duolingo is one of the only apps that has Greek and the only one that has Latin.
I used to really like Duolingo. Using it on a regular basis really helped me with the languages I was studying. Unfortunately, since the path update, it became really demotivating to be stuck on a path that felt infinite and that didn't match my actual abilities. So, I wound up uninstalling it. Years of progress in DL just went down the drain with one update. I still have the language skills, obviously, but I miss Duolingo. The old Duolingo.
Duolingo is good for absolute beginners and people who think they can never learn a language as it gives them a first little taste of success. It is also useful if you have a basic understanding and want to enlarge your vocabulary to include certain situations like school, home, shopping, etc. However, normal conversation never interrupts the flow of thought after every sentence to check if you've got the right answer. It's about stringing ideas together. You can't do that with the app- in fact, it actively prevents it. For that reason alone it is impossible, I would say, to become actually fluent using it.
Really good explanations of things! I think a lot of people just want the "quick" approach at the cost of not actually learning anything, but because it "feels good" they don't bother looking at alternatives. Hopefully this helps some people try to push themselves further
Yeah, I am one of those people. I don't have a target in mind and I don't have any use for learning Spanish, I just do it for fun - what's wrong with that? Duolingo was the least intimidating way of getting started, no pressure and at least I am recognising some words here and there when I hear someone speak Spanish - I have a UA-cam playlist of Spanish language videos I fall asleep to and sometimes I am listening them while I do the chores. Knowing how to ask directions, make a hotel reservation, buy a ticket for a concert/bus/train. To order a cup of coffee, understand the main ingredients in the menu (chicken, beef, pork, fish, vegetables and fruit) and even buying a cake for dessert might be all one needs/wants to know to enjoy a holiday and have a basic, casual conversation about oneself and family.
You make it sound like duolingo is quick and easy to use. IT's still a real grind. Most people who use it get absolutely nowhere in the language, not because the app is flawed but because it's still a really challenging app if you're actually a first time learner. If you already half know the language yes it's just a game, but if you're starting from scratch, it's a real challenge.
I’m trying to learn Japanese, and I think of Duolingo as a jumping off point, in my experience it will familiarize you with the characters and writing systems and teach you basic phrases u could use if u travel.
I'm using Duolingo currently to learn Spanish and done so for 426+ days for about an average of 30 minutes a day, and I think you hit the nail with pronunciation especially. I know of specifically 2 egregious examples. The first one, which my Bolivian/Spanish exgirlfriend corrected me on was the pronunciation of double L's. Duolingo had it written out in its guidebook that it is pronounced as a J, which is apparently how Argentinians and Uruguayans say it, but most Spanish speakers would pronounce it as a "Y" as in yes, and in their pronunciations I could literally hear it be pronounced as Y instead of J. Confused the heck out of me as an Autist. The other one being the Spanish B/V sounds. While it does seem to teach it out in its guidebook correctly, the robotic pronunciations shift a ton. Some words starting with V would be pronounced with what I understand to be the correct soft plosive B sound, while other times it was a V. Sometimes the middle B/V would be that correct blend making it hard, while other times it was either a B or a V. It's a good app and does certainly get me a lot of exposure to the language I otherwise wouldn't have in a manner that suits me well, be it through its structured teaching, competition, and double xp incentives, and I think it works wonders as a first step to unlock other methods of learning. Now after discovering some some of your vids on how to learn languages, I'm starting to branch out a bit by putting some casual games or casual game modes on Spanish. Not much of a movie or series person but once I have a bit more grasp of the language, I might go into some series I've enjoyed in the past and watch it in Spanish if a Spanish version exists.
LL & Y are different in loads of spanish dialects, (in some of which, there’s even a distinction between the two) parts of argentina and uruguay use “sh” and some use something resembling “j.” just some info
I never used the app, but my mom uses it for some time now, and I noticed she doesn't speak but mostly reads. She is learning English. And that brings me back to my English classes, in which there would be a huge emphasis on speaking, conversation and pronunciation. Those would be the most essentials, in my opinion, as well as listening and understanding what the other is saying, but of course, all of that is important. To be fair, I didn't ask her what her goal is, so maybe she just wants to be able to understand the language but not so much to have a conversation. But seeing her experience with the app, turned me off to the idea of using it to learn a new language, but your video really helped out, so maybe I will give it a try and mix it up with other things to learn properly.
I tried to use Duolingo for English and Italian. It was terribly boring, full of mistakes and sometimes pretty silly. Why do I need a sentence "a pink elephant drinks my milk"? Never ever!
Most certainly not useless, helped me a lot with both Italian and Spanish. Obviously it is just one tool of many and it is only good for the first month or two, but helps a lot with vocabulary
I thought for Hiragana and Katakana, Duolingo made for a good supplement to my writing practice and helped to cement the characters in my mind quicker and easier. Otherwise I used it for Spanish and German and found that it was more or less useless fun, but at least it was useless fun in another language. One thing that can make it helpful is to remove the word bubbles whenever it will let you so that you have to type your answer. For Japanese this was especially nice as it gave me another opportunity to use the Japanese phone keyboard.
I taught myself Italian to the B1 level. I used a mixture of apps, iTalki, in-person classes, workbooks, and (my favorite) talking to random Italians around New York. But man I always thought Duolingo was a waste of time. If you like the apps I’d recommend Busuu, Babbel or MemRise. Some of the apps are brilliant.
I started using Duolingo about three weeks ago to learn Norwegian and I've already learnt almost as much as I did from several years of French and German in school. However, I think a large part of that will be down to having dyslexia and how languages are taught. The Duolingo system definitely has some benefits for myself in that respect. Sadly the speech is incredibly robotic and fast to the point where words can sound like they're overlapping. You can slow it down but there's no option for a mid-paced speaker. Ideally the speech feature should be overhauled entirely. Duolingo certainly makes it easier to read a foreign language and as I go on, I want to see how much of the band Lumsk I will be able to understand. They sing entirely in Norwegian and I can read a couple of their song titles already so it feels like progress! You are correct in stating that Duolingo won't get you proficient in speaking a language. However, the people that made it are at least honest enough to say that it works best while also having lessons with a teacher. Any and all flaws aside, I strongly recommend it to anyone who wants to learn a foreign language because you will still come away knowing some words or phrases after only a short amount of time using it.
It's all about expectations, I think. Around the end of 2018 I began learning Ukrainian on Duolingo. I finished the full course in 2021, picking up the pace around the end of that year. I think it was worthwhile. I then moved onto the Ukrainian course on Mango and finished that. Since then I've mostly stuck to watching different Ukrainian UA-camrs. To be honest, I kind of miss the structure that these apps had. Now that my learning is self-paced and the new vocab I learn is based entirely on my own interests, it's a bit of a blessing and a curse. My conversation is still shaky but I can at least say that I'm now at the point where I don't think I can ever forget how to speak Ukrainian. I still have a lot to learn and sometimes feel like my progress has been pretty slow, but conversations rarely end in dead ends for me now like they used to. So in that sense I would recommend Duolingo, But as others have commented, it's a great tool in a bigger toolbox. It shouldn't be your only one, but a hammer isn't a bad tool just because it can't do the things a screwdriver can do.
Same here. I play Left 4 dead 2, so Khomchik is Ukrainian and so I somewhat understand him because the first rendition Duolingo had of Ukrainian was really poor. The robotic sound made the Cyrillic alphabet sound awkward, and I couldn’t understand words correctly. But the grammar correctly
I had studied Spanish in college, but was getting rusty. Duolingo starts with a proficiency exam, so I began at a good level and was able to re-learn a lot within a short time. In addition to the peeves you mentioned, there was a particular female voice that pronounced words ending in "-as" as though they ended in "-os," so I paired them with adjectives ending in "-os" and got counted wrong.
Another good thing about the duo lingo app is that it's always improving. I'm sure that they will become a trail blazer language teaching app in the next few years. It has been a great help to me learning italian, portuguese, french, russian and chinese. Mostly Italian and Portuguese, French for review. I find the french make learning their language unesseraly difficult by grading very hard even though you are just trying to learn even on duo lingo, "abuse oblige".
I find it great for the written word, I periodically go back to the Latin [love the language, the language does NOT love me back] and have no issues in understanding what is written and I've never really had issues with pronunciation - my problems are grammar, remembering all the endings, declensions etc - it's when it comes to ME writing or speaking a sentence without help that I have serious problems and I have had since school. I do find the German part is good, I enjoyed this at school and am really enjoying going back to it again using DuoLingo. Not that I take up the speaking part but it is helping me with the written word and the grammar again [for some reason I find German grammar and spelling fairly easy] and when I am a bit more confident I will continue on with some books I have intended for beginners. But I know from experience that the best way is speaking the language with a native speaker [both my French and German improved when I was doing this a couple of decades ago, no English was the deal] without using anything else EXCEPT the language of choice. A lot depends on what you want to learn the language for, I am unlikely to ever visit Germany - much as I would like to - so am happy with learning to read and write the language, if you are visiting a country and want to know how to speak rather than read and write [other than basic] then no app will work, you need to ask around and find a speaker who can help you - I find asking at your local library is a good start, certainly in Europe the odds are good you will find someone in your area who speaks one of the languages you are looking for and that includes Japanese, Korean and Mandarin, often there will be a local conversation group you can join hosted by a native speaker - and the other solution is to watch lots of TV shows from the country of your choice. I was hooked on a German soap years ago when I was learning to speak the language and Italy have some really great shows as well [Montalbano being my personal favourite, both versions and my understanding of Italian improved immensely from watching them]. But DuoLingo's greatest advantage is that it is FREE, and they don't get you play really stupid games suitable for a 3yo like some apps do.
One thing I found that it's very useful to know English but it can be a hindrance. For instance, it's not easy to understand “mi piace” through English, but other languages use the same construct. I had the same experience when I started learning Polish with English textbooks. It was much easier through Hungarian as the structure and conjugation is similar, while English has none of those. My point is: learn the basics through Duolingo or something, then just try to absorb content in your target language with less and less English.
At what point would you say someone knows the basics? I’d like to do what you’re suggesting, but I’m not sure at which point I should start exposing myself to things in my target language.
If you’re learning French, German, Italian, or Spanish, and probably a few (but not most) other languages, go to the PRACTICE section, scroll to the bottom, and choose SPEAK. This gives exercises where you listen and repeat out loud. Repeat very many times to get any kind of fluency in pronouncing one of these languages.
The Japanese placement test on duolingo pissed me off. I've gotten so used to speaking with casual grammar from my 2.5 years studying it with a native speaker teacher back in college that, according to Duolingo, I am a complete beginner who translates everything incorrectly. No one says "watashi wa" outside of EXTREMELY formal situations. I didn't include it and similar common term drops when translating English to Japanese and flunked the test! I was furious! Somehow I passed the Spanish placement test with almost 100% correct answers despite only being able to understand many written sentences in Spanish. I should have only been at, maybe, the 2nd level rather than skipping, like, 5 levels. Their placement tests suck. Also, pro-tip if you grew up around French dialects from the Americas and try to learn French with duolingo, don't. Parisienne French is far more different from our dialects than I thought. I know people who've learned Parisienne French and then worked on getting the specific dialect they actually wanted to learn down after that. You can do it. I wouldn't do it with this app, though. I, like many people with French-Canadian ancestry who are from New England, want to bring back the dialects our parents, grandparents, or great-grandparents actively stopped passing down in the family but no one offers classes on it; the dialects are all but gone. Having heard my grandparents speak Lowell French/New England French together growing up, I could NOT say "en" correctly nor the other one that Parisienne has switched around with the way "en" is pronounced here. All of those small words were frustrating the hell outa me because I'd pronounce them instinctively the way I grew up hearing my grandparents pronounce them (I can't translate much from what I would overhear them say and I'm honestly surprised with how much I am finding myself able to pronounce and recognize tbh). I kept flunking the exercises. If you are from a French-Canadian family and want to learn Parisienne French, skip the AI and just get a teacher. Save yourself the headache.
9:05 As an American learning a European that isn't Spanish, speaking the language is a long term goal but for me personally reading and listening comprehension are current priority for me.
Agreed, I completed the entire Portuguese course, and while I could probably read pretty well at a 5th or 6th grade level and could get by with some phrases, but I certainly don't speak Portuguese now. But sure, it's a better app to fire up on your phone than almost any of the dumb games, but it's not better than any other way of learning languages I've tried as far as results. I think the problem (for me at least) is because it's set up as a game I treat it as a game, so I'm trying to 'beat' the game, rather than focusing 100% on learning.
9:06 You know, I actually am learning Japanese mostly to read (💀) and listen to things. Talking to natives would be nice, but tbh it's kind of secondary to the main goal of consuming their wealth of content in the original. And tbh even if I were not a WEEB, but just had one interest that's super localized, I can see someone just wanting to learn listening/reading.
Duolingo is a great supplementary tool for language instruction. It shouldn't be the only resource a student uses, but it's really useful for picking up vocabulary.
This review is in line with all the honest reviews I have seen and my own experience.. and even the reccomendations of the devs. It is a fun way to get some quick daily practice but you need to use other tools if you want to improve... and the criticisms are very real.
as you mentioned vocab retention, i instantly recalled a bunch of Latin words i learnt on the app - a few weeks ago, without revising them ever since, not having used the app ever since either. so yeah the effect is actually quite impressive.
Speaking is critical. How do we learn our first language? We make sounds that eventually form into words we've been hearing. I'm taking an advanced conversation class but because I don't have anyone to speak to during the week, I read out loud to myself and I say my prayers in Italian. The Italian of the Scriptures is pretty high grammar but I'm getting it. I actually had gotten to third level in university and we were reading "I Promessi Sposi" but that was 50 years ago. My grammar regarding verb tenses is very basic now. But while I can read Italian pretty well, it is the speaking that is getting me back to a degree of fluency.
I've used Duolingo to learn more Italian, and it's surprising how lexically close it is to Portuguese, especially when Spanish uses an entirely different word - ie, biscotto, biscoito, galleta; pront@, list@. I do the minimum 1 lesson a day for Duolingo. My main courses are those of Assimil. Even with that, when I get back to German I'm going to use a different resource to learn all the ways the verb 'werden' is used, perhaps even a grammar book.
I use Duolingo for a host of different European languages but it made a difference in my learning of Spanish in particular because I knew that I needed to learn it for work and also because of my grounding in French and Italian, the latter in particular being close to Spanish. Overall, my experience of using it was pretty good and it still is, I can get to learn lots of new words because of Duolingo's game format. In the end, I agree with Metatron that Duolingo alone is not enough but it needs to be paired with other learning tools like books, watching movies, listening to radio programs and talking to people. With all of these other aids along with Duolingo, I managed to reach a certain level of fluency in Spanish because of regular practice with other Spanish learners and natives. Another point in question is that I feel that Duolingo was helpful for me because of my grounding in other similar languages like French and Italian because for those other languages, I had attended language courses. The brain has this ability to retain sentence structures and patterns with other similar languages that can get transferred to a new language which facilitates the learning of the new language over time. However, I am not sure of how useful Duo would be for those who learn their first foreign language with it and attempt to speak it (at least without attending a proper language course).
So right. I’ve done a lot of Duolingo. It’s fine for some basics but you need other tools and a way to exchange conversation with other speakers. I liked it mostly because it was free. I don’t know why but was doing Latin. Bought a book to build the conjugation etc for independent sentence structure. I couldn’t get that with something like Duolingo. But still don’t know anyone who wants to chat in Latin yet. 🙂
I hate the gamification. I am not interested in silly cartoon characters or winning streaks. The lack of structure - no conjugation tables etc. is unhelpful.
Been playing Duolingo since 2015 and loved it for French. I've been knocking around with Latin in it for the last four months and I have no clue how good it is with that language. Would love to know what you think on its Latin lessons.
Fully agree. Spanish is not a issue. Italian? Mandarin? For f* sake English is not my first language and Duolinguo always declined my answer if I had minor mistake in answer translating eg from mandarin to english
I agree with your review of the app. I used it to review Hawaiian because I don't really get to speak it very much in California. A lot of the mistakes I supposedly made seemed wrong to me...but it is a fun app and I think it is just good to at least give you a base line knowledge of a language. I think the only way to become fluent is to speak to people that know the language you are learning.
I have been using Duolingo along with tv/movies and I have friends that are native speakers. I mostly use it to refresh my 20 years unused Spanish so for me its not like I don't know the basics of the language. When I ask my friends about the translations and why some are the way the are, they tell me I am learning the formal language not the stuff most native speakers use. They say its basically a way for natives to know you are a tourist. They help me with the more commonly spoken phrases.
I started to use back in 2018 on an off through the years. I'm actually doing a language which is now kind of in the cancel culture, baddys list. From using it, plus some other audio book curse I got I can follow a little bit of what I see in the news or recognize some words on telegram or twitter. The fact I had to get used to an entirely different set of letters makes it harder, but I guess is a good mental exercise on its own. Great to see you have another channel for me to follow :-)
I've used Duolingo a few times, it's decent for providing the basics before you start consuming media and seek conversations in the language of your choice but it would be difficult to become fluent by using Duolingo only. And now a question for Metatron: will we hear you adopt american accent in the future?
It definitely helped me brush up on my German that I hadn't touched much since College. Recently started using it for Polish because I have a lot of friends and acquaintances who are Polish, and I'm going to pick up some books on it too, so I'll have plenty of resources for that. It is fun, so that helps.
I think the reason that some of the sentences are things that people would never say, is so that the user can practice actually building a sentence in chunks, rather than predicting what might be said. We can say a lot of strange things that have never been said before, and that kind of gets at the construction rather than rote memorization of familiar phrases.
I found Duolingo really quite good for revising a language that I’d learned previously but in which I was very rusty. I didn’t need explanations, just structured practice. I honk it would be difficult to learn a language de novo just using Duolingo; there isn’t enough explanation, especially of grammar and tricky concepts.
I use Duolingo to refresh my French after I learned it for a decade in school, but after leaving school I had forgotten so much. Now I use Duolingo as a daily mini immersion and expand my vocabulary bit by bit. But I also take a French class at a school in my town once in a while to get different input. I noticed that is incredibly helpful to have already learned English (German native) because English as you said has a lot if French influence, but sometimes French is very similar to German when it comes to sentence structure or words based on Latin that also exist in German. So knowing to other languages already that are similar to French is indeed helpful.
Keeping up with my German, Duolingo is great for, but I learned that in school for 2 years and duo is just maintenance for me. Learning Japanese, I use Duo for daily practice alongside Lingodeer, Pimsleur audiotapes (good for pronunciation), Mirai Japanese (good app for beginners), A basic method book set, Translation dictionaries, and some occasional reading of manga & watching of anime (if that counts). I've found the same issue with Duo getting pronunciations (and sometimes whole kanji wrong) or not accepting answers I know are correct. It also doesn't explain the grammar at all so you're left on your own to guess some of the rules if you didn't get them from somewhere else. Duolingo is also good for reinforcing my writing because I like to copy down the phrases as I practice them. Kanji is proving especially difficult to pick up. Pimsleur audiotapes use native speakers and give you a pause interval for response to train both your listening and speaking skills. It's amazing how you can know exactly what to say, but then trip over it trying to pronounce the actual phrase. Also, it's practice for keeping up the cadence of conversation because you tend to slow way down when learning.
Spot on.... I've used it for over 10 years now...both Portuguese and Vietnamese. I love it...and always rail against those that criticise it...but you're spot on. It's a very very useful tool, but no one tool is going to ever get you fluent!
I completed their Scottish Gaelic course and now in addition to going back through it, I'm using SpeakGaelic. It's definitely given me a good foundation to the point I'm breezing through the early lessons on SpeakGaelic.
Stating that no one wants to be able to read in a language or understand it witout being able to speak is the generalisation you shoudn't have made. Thanks for a great video!
I did use Duolingo to study Latin. I mostly liked it, although I was annoyed that there were no macrons marked on the words, and even though it was said in the introduction that voice samples were using classical pronunciation, many times it was way off. Anyway, I did use it on a daily basis for several months, until there came an exercise that required me to translate a Latin sentence into English. My translation was correct but Duolingo did not accept it, so that is when I quit using it. By the way, Duolingo is not just an app; it can be used with a computer's web browser as well.
From my personal experience the biggest (but luckily not very common) problem they could fix is the quality of some of the recordings. Sometimes it get's too fuzzy for someone who is still learning to understand what was said. Not because it was too fast (you have slow mode in most cases anyways) or quiet (although there may be bugs with the volume at times) but because it is just pronounced not that well or the sound quality being too bad to clearly distinguish between syllables. It's not a problem for a native or advanced speaker. You can just fill from context what it should be. But if you are not experienced in the language and/or the pronunciations, especially since it's on something you are suppose to learn at that moment, it makes exercises where you have just the voices much harder than they had to be. Some of the voices are always fine. Both the pronunciations and sound quality are very nice. It's just some of the voices and it's just a problem if you don't have the text to fall back on. The other problem is the lack of explanation. Examples only get you so far. Ironically the acceptance of different ways of saying things is adding to this when the app is trying to teach you an alternative. You just automatically go for the version you already know. At the least they should add some kind of instruction to an exercise. Overall I think it is a great tool to use. But it is still just a tool and not a replacement for speaking with people, watching videos etc. The convenience and ease to use is great, the mistakes/oversights seem to be very rare. Thumbs up for sure.
Longtime subscriber here...I love this new channel! I was totally hoping for a language channel from you! Thank you. Just one minor thing....can you stop the screen behind you that says no signal from changing back and forth? Its reallly distracting and takes away from your wonderful content on both of your channels.
When I saw the thumbnail I had to stop and listen, as a long time viewer of another Metatron channel your range of opinions are usually very insightful. Thank you for the tips and devil may care honesty be it Cleopatra's or language learning apps, happy hunting.
I learn language purely for the sake of learning. So i do japanese for on single unit or two everyday. It’s super good for exposure like u have said, especially, when you dont need to learn the language fast and effectively
brooooooooooooo i love watching your main channel. I am trying to learn Spanish and I typed in "the problem with duolingo" and I had no clue you had a whole dedicated channel for language learning. Hyped subbed spreaded (wings)
I used Duolingo last summer to prepare me for our holiday to Crete. I wanted to know some basic Greek just to be able to say something or understand simple things as I hate being somewhere and not understanding the first thing they are saying. I did not expect to able to speak fluently at all as I only did it for a month, but in that month, I learned some basic things that helped me a lot there and it was just fun relearning the greek alphabet (I took 1 year of ancient greek in high school), being able to read things over there and just recognising words here and there. It's not much, but I feel much more comfortable that way. Reminds me that I'm going to Poland in april for a small week with a friend and I should start preparing..
I have been using Duolingo for over 10 years now. The app has improved a lot over time. While I have played around with using it for several different languages, I have put by far the most hours into learning Italian and Portuguese. One positive I can definitely say is that I achieved a pretty solid level of reading comprehension and writing ability in those two languages, with the caveat that I already had several years of training in Spanish in school, so that probably helped as well. The major shortcoming of Duolingo from my point of view is that it has no way to provide an opportunity to practice speaking with real people, and so I would still say that I’m not very comfortable speaking in either of those languages, apart from mostly simple sentences. However, I think my listening comprehension has gotten pretty good, and the little I do speak I have been told by natives that my pronunciation is good, so it has definitely helped in a lot of ways, it’s just missing that last piece of building speaking proficiency.
For me I grew up speaking Romanian, but hardly ever use it here in the United States. I do still use Romanian sometimes in daily life, but it's very rare, and when people do speak to me in Romanian, I typically end up responding in English rather than trying to respond in Romanian. However, as someone who used to be fluent in the language, (not anymore) I think Duolingo is a great way to remember how to say or do certain things in the language. It also helps me feel more confident to actually talk to others in my native tongue, rather than just responding in English when they speak it. It's like a hammer. It's very useful for hammering in nails in tough places. However, sometimes a nailgun is still better, or sometime a screwgun or screwdriver is needed for something which requires more friction. It's one tool out of many, so while you can use it to help you better your understanding of a language, talking to people in that language is still the best way to learn. Also, taking actual classes that focus on your own pronunciation is very useful. Overall, right now I use it mainly to remember things I've forgotten in my mother language (Romanian) or in French, a language I took classes on but was never fluent in. I have also used it's Latin and German courses a little bit just for fun, but I find it's hard to learn a language from scratch on the app. It's better used as a supplement to what you already know, and what you've already learned. I will however continue to use it as I learn more languages, and try to improve at the ones I already know a little about.
I use duolongo for 2 years. It helps me to get kind of intuitively basic grammar and basic vocabulary and keep in touch with language. Also it really helps me to be consistent consistent. And you are absolutely right that it's better to combine with some other ways to learning or immersion.
As regards correcting mistakes that are not really mistakes, you can flag it and say that your answer should have been accepted. They review it and sometimes add your suggestions to the accepted list of answers :)
Very useful review. I suppose I always knew what you said was true, but I haven't been acting on it...completely. I have been using Duolingo every single day for almost 2 years now, I've learned a lot, but I'm definitely not fluent in anything yet. With the exception of Italian I haven't been using any methods other than Duolingo. For Italian I have also been playing Skyrim and Fallout 4 in Italian (which isn't exactly enough exposure either), but for the rest, I pretty much only use Duolingo, which I suppose is ok since I'm not focusing on them anyway. I never thought to read the Duolingo sentence out loud, since they are being read to me. I'll definitely start doing that (assuming me talking wouldn't disturb others).
I used duolingo a while ago for Swedish- because I wanted to understand music and videos in Swedish and it was pretty good at getting me started. As someone who grew up learning Hebrew it was super frustrating to try its Hebrew because as you said, it doesn’t always know the usual way people talk or give the options.
It's a great aid in learning a language for introductory of said language. For example Japanese was very good but I noticed that it will not make you speak like a native. I don't mean that it will make you speak sentences incorrectly but but would as best to describe be the formal way of saying the sentences instead of real life speaking of the sentences. For example My name is Mark. When most people wouldn't say My Name they would say I'm Mark.
I’ve considered stopping after recent updates. It pushes my progress too far ahead in one of my courses and when writing the kanji for the Japanese ones, I can’t write it in a way that will help me personally learn it faster. That and the speaking lessons for the Japanese course don’t fully register what you’re saying no matter how clearly you say it. There’s only so many times I can say kutsu before I get upset
When Duolingo first put Japanese as a learnable language, I was so excited and happy, that I got the Sharpshooter achievement for which the condition is to get 30 lessons correct without making a mistake That was now years ago and today I'm not as excited or motivated to learn from the app, not that it's bad (ok, the different voices from the characters makes it quite annoying to do anything as well as the ads on the app on the phone) but rather the passion is gone, though it is building up again, slowly, but surely I should get back to excitingly learn Japanese, right? Right?
I LOVE Duolingo. At the most basic level, I think it's the best free language app available. I always struggle with vocabulary retention, and Duolingo is so repetitive that it WILL make you remember these words, there's no way they won't get stuck in your head. I like that they teach you words by giving you a lot of sample sentences and not e.g. word definitions. When it comes to grammar, you really need to do some extra thinking to figure out some things, because they don't always give you straightforward rules in advance, but I actually like this process of "working it out" better than if I had a set of rules in a course book. Also, there's the "discussion" feature where people ask questions and natives or advanced learners explain things that might be unclear in any given sentence. IMO Duolingo is the best app if you're just starting with a new language, up to maybe lower intermediate level, at which point you can move on to other things, such as music, films, series and eventually books etc. Very good point about the pronunciation, especially languages that don't use the latin alphabet could use some extra work on that front, but they keep updating the app so let's hope it will be improved.
I'm almost at a year now of using Duolingo to learn Spanish. What I have found is that I can actually read Spanish pretty well, I can listen to conversations in Spanish and understand (quite) a lot - but when it comes to speaking Spanish, that is where I am weakest. That's not to say that I can't speak a lot of Spanish now but my reading and even writing is disproportionately further advanced.
As an experiment, I have tried to use Duolingo in languages I've studied, German, Russian, Korean, and Japanese. The German one was ok. I could use it to learn some vocabulary and maybe practice a grammar role. I wouldn't think anyone could come anywhere close to fluent though using it. The Korean, Japanese, and Russian courses, at least when I tried it a few years ago, were horrible. There is no explanation of the writing systems, sentence structures, cultural influences, and a long list of other things. An actual beginner would be so lost within a few hours as it started to ask questions about concepts that were never explained in writing systems that a beginner couldn't read. I would say that Duolingo is completely a waste of time for anyone who actually wants to learn a language. Anki is much more effective for learning even if it's not as fun.
Duolingo is great for certain situations. In 2019 I wanted to learn some Hungarian for a trip to Budapest. The only app I found for Hungarian was Duolingo. It's also great for learning languages with a different writing system than the latin alphabet, such as Russian and Japanese. It's also good for picking up a new language from scratch. It's impossible to start with TV/movies if you know absolutely nothing of the language. On the other end of the scale, it's also good as a refresher for a language you studied years ago in school. I agree that vocabulary is the strong point. For grammar, it depends. When the grammar is similar to your own language, you can figure it out from Duolingo by context. If the grammar is very different from your own, you'll probably need to use resources outside Duolingo. For example, as an English speaker, cases are confusing. For German, I watched UA-cam videos explaining when to use Dative, when to use Accusative, which prepositions use which case, etc. It was too hard to pick up the case rules from Duolingo alone.
I use Duolingo to make sure that I can get some practice in every day and also it helps expand my vocabulary. There's tonnes of mistakes in the Italian course though (that I have learned by having lessons with a teacher) and it doesn't seem to be very well maintained as lots of these errors have been there for years. I find that very, very demotivating because you end up having to just learn an answer by rote, not because it's correct but because you can't progress "the game" unless you do But I also combine that with actual classroom lessons as well. In it was Duolingo that inspired me to take that next step. I knew that I would never really be able to speak it just by using the app. Finally, I also socialize with my Italian teacher and classmates as well where we will often converse in Italian. Apart from anything else, being able to speak to each other in Italian is like having a secret code that nobody else in the pub understands and we can talk about people without them knowing 😂 I'm not fluent, but I am least partially conversant, provided people speak to me slowly. I really struggle to understand it when native speakers talk to me at their natural speed. And that's even with classroom lessons
I think Duolingo and Memrise are definitely great stepping stones. You can possibly reach B1, or possibly B2 if you're good with languages, and you're learning a language similar to your own. It's one thing to use Duolingo to reach B1 in Mandarin as an English speaker versus reaching B1 in Norwegian.
I've been using duolingo for the past 6 months and it's really helped me with German in school, I usually use Duolingo just to learn new words and to practice sentences, for grammar I find explanations on UA-cam
To learn a language you need to submerge yourself in the language. I’m trying to listen to lectures, watch tv shows, movies, and make the language on most of my electronics
The best part was where you suggested folks speak out loud. I always did this instinctively, but I didn't know if it was just silly, now you confirmed it's a good technique
In the last part of the video you described me 😅. I am good at listening as I watch movies and youtube videos in English and even I am able to watch this video at 1.5x but I am not so good at speaking because I have no one to talk with 😢
Duolingo should be one of SEVERAL tools you use when learning a language. When I learned German, I use duolingo; German youtube and German literature.
Yeah
When I hear "THE" tool or "THE" method it's a red flag for me
Can you recommend some German youtubers you used?
@@slynt_ sure - but I first need to know what genres you enjoy. I really like horror video games, so you’ll get a lot of those recommended.
But, I think the best channel for learning german would be NesfateLp simply because she plays lots of english silent games (like undertale or omori), and translates it into German on the spot.
Which UA-camrs and pieces of literature would you recommend?
@@thomasmannia
In terms of youtubers I like:
NesfateLP (she is particularly helpful for german since she often plays english games and translates them).
Schauerland - horror channel
Gronkh
GameTube
There are also lots of german vtuber now.
Literature: start with Also Sprach Zarathustra. (It repeats a lot of words and concepts and I find that generally a biblical style is easy to understand) - and early book I also read was a german school bible.
When I was taking my French class, this would have been 5-7 years ago, I remember we used Duolingo quite a bit at first, but mostly as a way to build a steady foundation for the vocabulary. Then we slowly switched to other things, like having conversations, watching movies/videos, and reading book passages aloud for the class. For an added challenge, sometimes the book would be in English and we’d have to read it around in French.
So for a foundation builder, I think it’s great, but as in all things, moderation and real world practice is key.
I don't like duolingo and how repetitive it is. It is easy to get boring with it imo. I watch gemplays because there's still words are repeating, it's more entertaining and I have no trouble sitting and watching someone playing for 30 minutes
I'm more than sure this goes not for learning languages, but for anything at all. Theory is never enough for being good at anything, you need to have experience, whether it's mechanical skill at something or knowing how to put something you learnt to use
I think I've seen more memes of the owl intimidating users than reports of people actually achieving their learning goal with it.
I ended up rage quitting Japanese when I realized the owl wasn't even smart enough to kidnap a relative I actually care for.
>I realized the owl wasn't even smart enough to kidnap a relative I actually care for.
u wot m8
As an English speaker who's put a good bit of time in on Spanish, French, Italian, and German, I find that Duolingo is indeed best at learning vocabulary words by main force. I find that it's weaker for learning grammar; particularly in German where I have had no formal instruction it really is weird learning the grammar piecemeal and it doesn't build confidence. In Italian with some of the verb forms and the black magic Italian does with prepositions and articles, grammar gets a lot more challenging as it goes on. I find French and Spanish the easiest, in part because I know them better outside of Duolingo.
It's true that doing exercises on Duolingo is better than playing silly games or scrolling UA-cam videos on the phone, so definitely recommended there.
Yep, I learned the German grammar rules in school and Duo just doesn't explain what or why you're using a different word here. I'd be lost if I couldn't track the way pronouns change with the cases and how they gain contractions out of nowhere.
@@evanbasnaw There is excellent grammar reference in Duolingo (depends on the course, and it's been changing over time, but German and Italian seemed adequate to me when I was learning them). As long as you read the grammar tips for each unit, you should not be in the dark about the rules at play. It might be hard to find the exact piece of grammar reference later, but while you're doing the course sequentially, it's there.
I tried apps for about 10min, not interested. I took 3yrs of French in hs and 2yrs at college. I learned grammar, sentence structure, and the tenses past, present and future ect ect. It is alot of structure but I prefer to learn a new language in this way.
I think Duolingo's great for picking up a language. The hardest part in learning is motivation, and the app is clearly designed to urge you on with your practicing. To become conversationally fluent, you're gonna have to practice with other (native) speakers on a daily basis. There's no other way around it. I still recommend the app to any language learner, for it's helped so much with Italian and the other Romance tongues. Thumbs up!
Yeah. I use Duolingo basically as my constant ritual. So even on days when I feel otherwise unmotivated, I can at least do some little lessons to keep it "awake", so to speak. You can always force a 5 minute lesson into your day.
I remember doing Duolingo Italian lesson once, and my dad, whose native language is Italian, could hear it all.
He asks me, “Why is it telling you to go up to people and call them boys and girls.” 🤣
Probably that Duolinguo is Tuscan, lol
?
I am a native Greek speaker and use duolingo to learn Brazilian Portuguese. I totally agree with your points. I have checked the Greek section and in my opinion it is quite good but it works better for simple sentences than the more complex ones. Of course the pronunciation is robotic as usual.
Hey, sorry for comment fishing, but as a brazilian, I'm very curious what you think of the brazilian portuguese in duolingo. Portuguese is a very similar language to latin (some scholars argue that it is even closer than standard italian), and it also considered very simple and easy. So i'm very curious. I know of some stupid shit in the language even natives get confused on, mostly the "acentos" in words and things like SS Ç and SC.
i have been doing some greek duolingo on the side as i find it interesting, and i find the course to be really strange, for example i am 3 or 4 units in and i still know only one adjective
I've done the Greek but gave up half-way because I got so frustrated for not being offered explainations for grammatical rules as an option when the app claims Im wrong.
So, I bit the bullet and got myself "Greek an Essential Grammar" by David Holton et al. and now, for the first time I have A GUIDE explaining things to me.
I'm definitely going back to Duolingo at some point, to use it as a practicing tool, but I can tell anyone wanting to learn Modern Greek NOT to start learning Greek with Duolingo right away. First get yourself a guide (a modern grammar as a substitute for a teacher that you can consult) whenever you need a grammar rule explained, because Duolingo ain't going to bother.
I agree with everything you've said. Duolingo has improved, especially lately. But yeah, when you're learning Greek and it says something like "green hair" and "pink butter," it's weird. Some languages on the platform are better than other languages, I agree. I'm using it for French (along with classes and talking with Francophone Africans) and I think French is one of its best languages.
That's fine because it stops you from memorizing sentences like a parrot, and forces you to analyse that phrases and sentences are made up of changing components, but does it by osmosis rather than trying to explain grammar. And sometimes it's memorable because it's weird.
The French course is easily their best. Not a coincidence that it's the most popular.
@@andrewdunbar828 Totally agree. And with Duolingo's recent changes that allow you to skip ahead more easily, I've started using it again for French. Before, it was like slogging through mud, 🤣🤣which is why I stopped using it for awhile, and relied only Alliance Française classes. but yeah, other languages like Greek, Swahili (I'm a fluent Swahili speaker) are not good.
1. Duolingo for basic vocabulary
2. Busuu next for more practicality, speaking, and corrections
3. Watching series: First with subtitles in your language, Second with subtitles in objective language (same as the audio), and Third with no subtitles.
4. Conversational clubs.
Interesting approach
I also think in the languages where it's offered, their script learning system is also great. For Greek, Japanese, and Russian it works pretty well.
I hate conversational clubs
tbh i honestly find duolingo too repetitive and boring
I've been using DuoLingo off and on for close to 10 years. The app has changed massively since I joined back in 201X. I started using it as a compliment to WaniKani while learning Japanese, as well as listening to ANN on youtube and reading web versions of Japanese newspapers. Metatron's point - consistency and daily use - is right on the dang nose. If you're not doing something to maintain the new language in your head, you will start losing it. I think the gamification of duolingo helps with retention as it generates feelings, and things learned and experienced when you're having feelings generate stronger memories. Also, speak out loud. I do believe that it does help with more than pronunciation, but also keys the words into different areas of your brain than if you just read or hear them.
i learned more turkish while bingewatching turkish lessons on YT at 3AM in the night than after a month of duolingo
but i acknowledge it helped me remember some basic nouns
Yeah, I learned more of English by playing videogames in English then I ever did with these dumb apps or even from school xD
Other than pronunciation and comprehending fast speech, I almost never learn anything in any language from watching movies etc. Then again I find it hard to find material/content that's engaging in languages other than English sadly.
@@andrewdunbar828 try to learn Japanese? Anime and Manga are a huge help.
@@TheSabaton1 we can speak Turkish if you want.
I have used Duolingo for a couple of years. Mainly for mandarin Chinese. My experience matches yours very closely, and I am very glad you mentioned the pronounciation issue, cause that caused me no end of confusion :)
I think especially the mandarin part has been very helpful for me and has given me a lot of foundational knowledge of the language.
However, when I started Vietnamese I had a very different experience. Where the mandarin course very logically started with regular things like hello and goodbye, numbers, asking and telling names etc, the Vietnamese was completely different. One of the first sentences I was given was "The bat is at the trainstation", and "the train station and the ferris wheel". I showed it to some Vietnamese friends and they said it was correct, but when would you ever need to say that?
I am a teacher myself (of a sort), so I am aware that even if the student might not be able to see the idea of a lesson there might very well be an idea that will make sense later. But it still seems strange to me :)
I *think* the idea behind crazy sentences is to give your brain a jolt, as a means to remember (it's easier to remember something when something unusual happens). I recall similar stuff from when I looked at Italian ten years ago - things like "There's an elephant on the table"). But it can't be just random - I don't see how "the train station and the ferris wheel" would work like that.
@@tohaason I agree. I just find it comes far too early in the process. It would make much more sense to do that kind of thing later on. Just like it was with Mandarin or French.
On the topic of mistakes (6:37), you can report submissions that shouldn't be counted as mistakes (at least on the web app), but it's up to the course maintainers to accept your suggestions, and your mileage may vary. For example, I used Duolingo for standard Italian from 2020 to early 2021, but I received multiple emails, spread out between June and December 2022, about my suggestions being accepted.
I think you can on the app too.
I'm also really glad to see that you've started this channel dedicated to language and learning in general. I've always been a fan of your linguistics content. Maybe we could see a video on the linguistics of the reconstructed proto-indo-european language?
Simon Roper has some fundamental videos on proto-Indo-European. He is mainly focused on the history of English, Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Germanic languages (actually speaks some of them).
He's not a content-creator or influencer, his approach is more academic, but very interesting if you're interested in linguistics.
@@magyarbondi I've been watching Simon for an extremely long time. Really, I just like Metatron and would enjoy seeing him cover more ancient topics that aren't as well documented. Maybe a video going over some interesting things we know about Early/Late bronze age European arms and armor.
While I agree with your assessment of Duo per se, I'd beg to differ on the assumption "Everyone learns another language mostly to speak it". I have no need and virtually no occasions to speak any of languages I've ever studied, even English (last time I've actually spoke it was about ten years ago). On the contrary, it's mostly reading, secondary listening and/or writing, and speaking comes last.
Reading as a main reason to learn a foreign language is severely under-appreciated, even with Duolingo -- characteristically, its German course has only one lesson on Präteritum, the tense extensively used in most genres of fiction. However, on Duolingo forums I've found that I'm not that eccentric in my attitude -- many people learn German to read Goethe or listen to Rammstein, many learn Hungarian to read Molnár or Ady, etc. Add to that numerous technicians who learn English, German, Japanese or Korean to read manuals, textbooks and catalogs.
Same, I live in rural Canada. Europeans routinely assume everyone is a days travel from their target langauge. Even if I wanted to learn French you still have to travel to parts of Canada where people actually speak french. A trip to Germany isn't in the cards, I'm an adult. For me, I just like feeling like I've open the door to something outside my hyper Americanized world. I enjoy german media, watching movies in german, feeling like I've opened up to a true language of history. I also feel like learning another germanic langauge helps me understand my native english.
Agreed. I'm Canadian and speak English natively and French when the need arises. I speak Spanish when I travel if the hotel or restaurant staff don't speak English. Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, and Japanese I have no reason to speak. I learned them either for school or to read/watch TV. My ability to understand and read is fine, my ability to independently express myself is nearly non-existent, but it serves my purposes.
@@katemcdonald3634 Europeans usually assume/witness US / CAN are not interested in a 2nd language, to get to the US from Europe a long time ago I worked for a month to afford the flight, then I worked a month in Ontario and then I travelled the US for 6 weeks. Wish you to have the opportunity to travel to Germany one day. Viel Glück!
@@ernstkrudl4895 Yeah you can say what you want about Americans, but in Canada a surprising proportion of Anglos actually work at learning french. It's something like 1 in 3 Anglos either did french Immersion in school, or did extensive self study including, exchange programs, doing degrees in french etc. The problem is the french parts of Canada are largely out of reach. French Canada has a awful weather(even by Canadian standards, is sparsely populated and an underdeveloped economy. And even you're in Quebec it's hard to immerse yourself in the language because of various obstacles.
@@katemcdonald3634 Come on, to learn another official language of one´s onwn country does not impress me. How many of them are fluent at 30 or later? Over my old years I met English speaking Canadians, French Candians and also Candians of Red Indian origin in person. I heard the French speaking English like a Creole and never heard an English speak French. The last Canadian I met here in Austria was the exception, his German grandmother took her family to Montreal, and he could easily switch in no time between English, French and German. You named the obstacles to learn French even in QUebec, so why do you want to make the impression the English part knows French well. Working in Canadian businesses I also have a Canadian social insurance card from the 70ties, so please have mercy on me ;-)
I used it for a time with the Latin on there. Mostly to help with the vocabulary retention which is my weakest aspect when learning languages. But I eventually stopped using it as it just had too many bad qualities for me to continue with it.
The Latin course on there is pretty horrible with the pronunciation the last time I looked at it, but the Greek one is not too bad. I wish it had the story option like they have for Spanish in Greek. Duolingo is one of the only apps that has Greek and the only one that has Latin.
I used to really like Duolingo. Using it on a regular basis really helped me with the languages I was studying. Unfortunately, since the path update, it became really demotivating to be stuck on a path that felt infinite and that didn't match my actual abilities. So, I wound up uninstalling it. Years of progress in DL just went down the drain with one update. I still have the language skills, obviously, but I miss Duolingo. The old Duolingo.
Duolingo is good for absolute beginners and people who think they can never learn a language as it gives them a first little taste of success. It is also useful if you have a basic understanding and want to enlarge your vocabulary to include certain situations like school, home, shopping, etc. However, normal conversation never interrupts the flow of thought after every sentence to check if you've got the right answer. It's about stringing ideas together. You can't do that with the app- in fact, it actively prevents it. For that reason alone it is impossible, I would say, to become actually fluent using it.
Really good explanations of things! I think a lot of people just want the "quick" approach at the cost of not actually learning anything, but because it "feels good" they don't bother looking at alternatives. Hopefully this helps some people try to push themselves further
Yeah, I am one of those people. I don't have a target in mind and I don't have any use for learning Spanish, I just do it for fun - what's wrong with that? Duolingo was the least intimidating way of getting started, no pressure and at least I am recognising some words here and there when I hear someone speak Spanish - I have a UA-cam playlist of Spanish language videos I fall asleep to and sometimes I am listening them while I do the chores.
Knowing how to ask directions, make a hotel reservation, buy a ticket for a concert/bus/train. To order a cup of coffee, understand the main ingredients in the menu (chicken, beef, pork, fish, vegetables and fruit) and even buying a cake for dessert might be all one needs/wants to know to enjoy a holiday and have a basic, casual conversation about oneself and family.
You make it sound like duolingo is quick and easy to use. IT's still a real grind. Most people who use it get absolutely nowhere in the language, not because the app is flawed but because it's still a really challenging app if you're actually a first time learner. If you already half know the language yes it's just a game, but if you're starting from scratch, it's a real challenge.
I’m trying to learn Japanese, and I think of Duolingo as a jumping off point, in my experience it will familiarize you with the characters and writing systems and teach you basic phrases u could use if u travel.
I'm using Duolingo currently to learn Spanish and done so for 426+ days for about an average of 30 minutes a day, and I think you hit the nail with pronunciation especially. I know of specifically 2 egregious examples.
The first one, which my Bolivian/Spanish exgirlfriend corrected me on was the pronunciation of double L's. Duolingo had it written out in its guidebook that it is pronounced as a J, which is apparently how Argentinians and Uruguayans say it, but most Spanish speakers would pronounce it as a "Y" as in yes, and in their pronunciations I could literally hear it be pronounced as Y instead of J. Confused the heck out of me as an Autist.
The other one being the Spanish B/V sounds. While it does seem to teach it out in its guidebook correctly, the robotic pronunciations shift a ton. Some words starting with V would be pronounced with what I understand to be the correct soft plosive B sound, while other times it was a V. Sometimes the middle B/V would be that correct blend making it hard, while other times it was either a B or a V.
It's a good app and does certainly get me a lot of exposure to the language I otherwise wouldn't have in a manner that suits me well, be it through its structured teaching, competition, and double xp incentives, and I think it works wonders as a first step to unlock other methods of learning. Now after discovering some some of your vids on how to learn languages, I'm starting to branch out a bit by putting some casual games or casual game modes on Spanish. Not much of a movie or series person but once I have a bit more grasp of the language, I might go into some series I've enjoyed in the past and watch it in Spanish if a Spanish version exists.
LL & Y are different in loads of spanish dialects, (in some of which, there’s even a distinction between the two) parts of argentina and uruguay use “sh” and some use something resembling “j.” just some info
I never used the app, but my mom uses it for some time now, and I noticed she doesn't speak but mostly reads. She is learning English. And that brings me back to my English classes, in which there would be a huge emphasis on speaking, conversation and pronunciation. Those would be the most essentials, in my opinion, as well as listening and understanding what the other is saying, but of course, all of that is important. To be fair, I didn't ask her what her goal is, so maybe she just wants to be able to understand the language but not so much to have a conversation. But seeing her experience with the app, turned me off to the idea of using it to learn a new language, but your video really helped out, so maybe I will give it a try and mix it up with other things to learn properly.
I tried to use Duolingo for English and Italian. It was terribly boring, full of mistakes and sometimes pretty silly. Why do I need a sentence "a pink elephant drinks my milk"? Never ever!
Most certainly not useless, helped me a lot with both Italian and Spanish.
Obviously it is just one tool of many and it is only good for the first month or two, but helps a lot with vocabulary
I enjoy Duolingo and agree with your comments.
I thought for Hiragana and Katakana, Duolingo made for a good supplement to my writing practice and helped to cement the characters in my mind quicker and easier. Otherwise I used it for Spanish and German and found that it was more or less useless fun, but at least it was useless fun in another language. One thing that can make it helpful is to remove the word bubbles whenever it will let you so that you have to type your answer. For Japanese this was especially nice as it gave me another opportunity to use the Japanese phone keyboard.
I taught myself Italian to the B1 level. I used a mixture of apps, iTalki, in-person classes, workbooks, and (my favorite) talking to random Italians around New York.
But man I always thought Duolingo was a waste of time. If you like the apps I’d recommend Busuu, Babbel or MemRise.
Some of the apps are brilliant.
I started using Duolingo about three weeks ago to learn Norwegian and I've already learnt almost as much as I did from several years of French and German in school. However, I think a large part of that will be down to having dyslexia and how languages are taught. The Duolingo system definitely has some benefits for myself in that respect.
Sadly the speech is incredibly robotic and fast to the point where words can sound like they're overlapping. You can slow it down but there's no option for a mid-paced speaker. Ideally the speech feature should be overhauled entirely.
Duolingo certainly makes it easier to read a foreign language and as I go on, I want to see how much of the band Lumsk I will be able to understand. They sing entirely in Norwegian and I can read a couple of their song titles already so it feels like progress!
You are correct in stating that Duolingo won't get you proficient in speaking a language. However, the people that made it are at least honest enough to say that it works best while also having lessons with a teacher.
Any and all flaws aside, I strongly recommend it to anyone who wants to learn a foreign language because you will still come away knowing some words or phrases after only a short amount of time using it.
It's all about expectations, I think. Around the end of 2018 I began learning Ukrainian on Duolingo. I finished the full course in 2021, picking up the pace around the end of that year. I think it was worthwhile. I then moved onto the Ukrainian course on Mango and finished that. Since then I've mostly stuck to watching different Ukrainian UA-camrs. To be honest, I kind of miss the structure that these apps had. Now that my learning is self-paced and the new vocab I learn is based entirely on my own interests, it's a bit of a blessing and a curse. My conversation is still shaky but I can at least say that I'm now at the point where I don't think I can ever forget how to speak Ukrainian. I still have a lot to learn and sometimes feel like my progress has been pretty slow, but conversations rarely end in dead ends for me now like they used to. So in that sense I would recommend Duolingo, But as others have commented, it's a great tool in a bigger toolbox. It shouldn't be your only one, but a hammer isn't a bad tool just because it can't do the things a screwdriver can do.
Same here. I play Left 4 dead 2, so Khomchik is Ukrainian and so I somewhat understand him because the first rendition Duolingo had of Ukrainian was really poor. The robotic sound made the Cyrillic alphabet sound awkward, and I couldn’t understand words correctly. But the grammar correctly
I had studied Spanish in college, but was getting rusty. Duolingo starts with a proficiency exam, so I began at a good level and was able to re-learn a lot within a short time. In addition to the peeves you mentioned, there was a particular female voice that pronounced words ending in "-as" as though they ended in "-os," so I paired them with adjectives ending in "-os" and got counted wrong.
Another good thing about the duo lingo app is that it's always improving. I'm sure that they will become a trail blazer language teaching app in the next few years. It has been a great help to me learning italian, portuguese, french, russian and chinese. Mostly Italian and Portuguese, French for review. I find the french make learning their language unesseraly difficult by grading very hard even though you are just trying to learn even on duo lingo, "abuse oblige".
I find it great for the written word, I periodically go back to the Latin [love the language, the language does NOT love me back] and have no issues in understanding what is written and I've never really had issues with pronunciation - my problems are grammar, remembering all the endings, declensions etc - it's when it comes to ME writing or speaking a sentence without help that I have serious problems and I have had since school. I do find the German part is good, I enjoyed this at school and am really enjoying going back to it again using DuoLingo. Not that I take up the speaking part but it is helping me with the written word and the grammar again [for some reason I find German grammar and spelling fairly easy] and when I am a bit more confident I will continue on with some books I have intended for beginners.
But I know from experience that the best way is speaking the language with a native speaker [both my French and German improved when I was doing this a couple of decades ago, no English was the deal] without using anything else EXCEPT the language of choice.
A lot depends on what you want to learn the language for, I am unlikely to ever visit Germany - much as I would like to - so am happy with learning to read and write the language, if you are visiting a country and want to know how to speak rather than read and write [other than basic] then no app will work, you need to ask around and find a speaker who can help you - I find asking at your local library is a good start, certainly in Europe the odds are good you will find someone in your area who speaks one of the languages you are looking for and that includes Japanese, Korean and Mandarin, often there will be a local conversation group you can join hosted by a native speaker - and the other solution is to watch lots of TV shows from the country of your choice. I was hooked on a German soap years ago when I was learning to speak the language and Italy have some really great shows as well [Montalbano being my personal favourite, both versions and my understanding of Italian improved immensely from watching them].
But DuoLingo's greatest advantage is that it is FREE, and they don't get you play really stupid games suitable for a 3yo like some apps do.
I wonder how Latin did not love you back when you were learning Italian?
One thing I found that it's very useful to know English but it can be a hindrance. For instance, it's not easy to understand “mi piace” through English, but other languages use the same construct.
I had the same experience when I started learning Polish with English textbooks. It was much easier through Hungarian as the structure and conjugation is similar, while English has none of those.
My point is: learn the basics through Duolingo or something, then just try to absorb content in your target language with less and less English.
At what point would you say someone knows the basics? I’d like to do what you’re suggesting, but I’m not sure at which point I should start exposing myself to things in my target language.
If you’re learning French, German, Italian, or Spanish, and probably a few (but not most) other languages, go to the PRACTICE section, scroll to the bottom, and choose SPEAK. This gives exercises where you listen and repeat out loud. Repeat very many times to get any kind of fluency in pronouncing one of these languages.
The Japanese placement test on duolingo pissed me off. I've gotten so used to speaking with casual grammar from my 2.5 years studying it with a native speaker teacher back in college that, according to Duolingo, I am a complete beginner who translates everything incorrectly. No one says "watashi wa" outside of EXTREMELY formal situations. I didn't include it and similar common term drops when translating English to Japanese and flunked the test! I was furious! Somehow I passed the Spanish placement test with almost 100% correct answers despite only being able to understand many written sentences in Spanish. I should have only been at, maybe, the 2nd level rather than skipping, like, 5 levels. Their placement tests suck.
Also, pro-tip if you grew up around French dialects from the Americas and try to learn French with duolingo, don't. Parisienne French is far more different from our dialects than I thought. I know people who've learned Parisienne French and then worked on getting the specific dialect they actually wanted to learn down after that. You can do it. I wouldn't do it with this app, though. I, like many people with French-Canadian ancestry who are from New England, want to bring back the dialects our parents, grandparents, or great-grandparents actively stopped passing down in the family but no one offers classes on it; the dialects are all but gone. Having heard my grandparents speak Lowell French/New England French together growing up, I could NOT say "en" correctly nor the other one that Parisienne has switched around with the way "en" is pronounced here. All of those small words were frustrating the hell outa me because I'd pronounce them instinctively the way I grew up hearing my grandparents pronounce them (I can't translate much from what I would overhear them say and I'm honestly surprised with how much I am finding myself able to pronounce and recognize tbh). I kept flunking the exercises. If you are from a French-Canadian family and want to learn Parisienne French, skip the AI and just get a teacher. Save yourself the headache.
9:05 As an American learning a European that isn't Spanish, speaking the language is a long term goal but for me personally reading and listening comprehension are current priority for me.
Agreed, I completed the entire Portuguese course, and while I could probably read pretty well at a 5th or 6th grade level and could get by with some phrases, but I certainly don't speak Portuguese now.
But sure, it's a better app to fire up on your phone than almost any of the dumb games,
but it's not better than any other way of learning languages I've tried as far as results.
I think the problem (for me at least) is because it's set up as a game I treat it as a game,
so I'm trying to 'beat' the game, rather than focusing 100% on learning.
9:06 You know, I actually am learning Japanese mostly to read (💀) and listen to things. Talking to natives would be nice, but tbh it's kind of secondary to the main goal of consuming their wealth of content in the original. And tbh even if I were not a WEEB, but just had one interest that's super localized, I can see someone just wanting to learn listening/reading.
All your arguments are so valid - I tried it so agree totally!
Duolingo is a great supplementary tool for language instruction. It shouldn't be the only resource a student uses, but it's really useful for picking up vocabulary.
This review is in line with all the honest reviews I have seen and my own experience.. and even the reccomendations of the devs.
It is a fun way to get some quick daily practice but you need to use other tools if you want to improve... and the criticisms are very real.
as you mentioned vocab retention, i instantly recalled a bunch of Latin words i learnt on the app - a few weeks ago, without revising them ever since, not having used the app ever since either. so yeah the effect is actually quite impressive.
Speaking is critical. How do we learn our first language? We make sounds that eventually form into words we've been hearing. I'm taking an advanced conversation class but because I don't have anyone to speak to during the week, I read out loud to myself and I say my prayers in Italian. The Italian of the Scriptures is pretty high grammar but I'm getting it. I actually had gotten to third level in university and we were reading "I Promessi Sposi" but that was 50 years ago. My grammar regarding verb tenses is very basic now. But while I can read Italian pretty well, it is the speaking that is getting me back to a degree of fluency.
For pronunciation I just go to Wikipedia and look at the phonology of said language, there’s typically a chart that shows all the sounds.
And use wiktionary for grammar and pronunciation
I've used Duolingo to learn more Italian, and it's surprising how lexically close it is to Portuguese, especially when Spanish uses an entirely different word - ie, biscotto, biscoito, galleta; pront@, list@. I do the minimum 1 lesson a day for Duolingo. My main courses are those of Assimil. Even with that, when I get back to German I'm going to use a different resource to learn all the ways the verb 'werden' is used, perhaps even a grammar book.
I use Duolingo for a host of different European languages but it made a difference in my learning of Spanish in particular because I knew that I needed to learn it for work and also because of my grounding in French and Italian, the latter in particular being close to Spanish. Overall, my experience of using it was pretty good and it still is, I can get to learn lots of new words because of Duolingo's game format. In the end, I agree with Metatron that Duolingo alone is not enough but it needs to be paired with other learning tools like books, watching movies, listening to radio programs and talking to people. With all of these other aids along with Duolingo, I managed to reach a certain level of fluency in Spanish because of regular practice with other Spanish learners and natives.
Another point in question is that I feel that Duolingo was helpful for me because of my grounding in other similar languages like French and Italian because for those other languages, I had attended language courses. The brain has this ability to retain sentence structures and patterns with other similar languages that can get transferred to a new language which facilitates the learning of the new language over time. However, I am not sure of how useful Duo would be for those who learn their first foreign language with it and attempt to speak it (at least without attending a proper language course).
I always appreciate the nuanced takes, Duolingo is a good tool, but it shouldnt be the only tool
So right. I’ve done a lot of Duolingo. It’s fine for some basics but you need other tools and a way to exchange conversation with other speakers. I liked it mostly because it was free. I don’t know why but was doing Latin. Bought a book to build the conjugation etc for independent sentence structure. I couldn’t get that with something like Duolingo. But still don’t know anyone who wants to chat in Latin yet. 🙂
I hate the gamification. I am not interested in silly cartoon characters or winning streaks. The lack of structure - no conjugation tables etc. is unhelpful.
Been playing Duolingo since 2015 and loved it for French. I've been knocking around with Latin in it for the last four months and I have no clue how good it is with that language. Would love to know what you think on its Latin lessons.
Fully agree. Spanish is not a issue. Italian? Mandarin? For f* sake English is not my first language and Duolinguo always declined my answer if I had minor mistake in answer translating eg from mandarin to english
I agree with your review of the app. I used it to review Hawaiian because I don't really get to speak it very much in California. A lot of the mistakes I supposedly made seemed wrong to me...but it is a fun app and I think it is just good to at least give you a base line knowledge of a language. I think the only way to become fluent is to speak to people that know the language you are learning.
I have been using Duolingo along with tv/movies and I have friends that are native speakers. I mostly use it to refresh my 20 years unused Spanish so for me its not like I don't know the basics of the language. When I ask my friends about the translations and why some are the way the are, they tell me I am learning the formal language not the stuff most native speakers use. They say its basically a way for natives to know you are a tourist. They help me with the more commonly spoken phrases.
Always happy when you upload!
I started to use back in 2018 on an off through the years. I'm actually doing a language which is now kind of in the cancel culture, baddys list. From using it, plus some other audio book curse I got I can follow a little bit of what I see in the news or recognize some words on telegram or twitter. The fact I had to get used to an entirely different set of letters makes it harder, but I guess is a good mental exercise on its own.
Great to see you have another channel for me to follow :-)
Such a timely video!
I've used Duolingo a few times, it's decent for providing the basics before you start consuming media and seek conversations in the language of your choice but it would be difficult to become fluent by using Duolingo only. And now a question for Metatron: will we hear you adopt american accent in the future?
It definitely helped me brush up on my German that I hadn't touched much since College.
Recently started using it for Polish because I have a lot of friends and acquaintances who are Polish, and I'm going to pick up some books on it too, so I'll have plenty of resources for that.
It is fun, so that helps.
I think the reason that some of the sentences are things that people would never say, is so that the user can practice actually building a sentence in chunks, rather than predicting what might be said. We can say a lot of strange things that have never been said before, and that kind of gets at the construction rather than rote memorization of familiar phrases.
I love your new channel, keep working
I found Duolingo really quite good for revising a language that I’d learned previously but in which I was very rusty. I didn’t need explanations, just structured practice. I honk it would be difficult to learn a language de novo just using Duolingo; there isn’t enough explanation, especially of grammar and tricky concepts.
I use Duolingo to refresh my French after I learned it for a decade in school, but after leaving school I had forgotten so much. Now I use Duolingo as a daily mini immersion and expand my vocabulary bit by bit. But I also take a French class at a school in my town once in a while to get different input. I noticed that is incredibly helpful to have already learned English (German native) because English as you said has a lot if French influence, but sometimes French is very similar to German when it comes to sentence structure or words based on Latin that also exist in German. So knowing to other languages already that are similar to French is indeed helpful.
Duolingo is so bad it's almost like not doing anything.
I was using duolingo but quickly stopped when I was getting literally same things to do for few days
Keeping up with my German, Duolingo is great for, but I learned that in school for 2 years and duo is just maintenance for me.
Learning Japanese, I use Duo for daily practice alongside Lingodeer, Pimsleur audiotapes (good for pronunciation), Mirai Japanese (good app for beginners), A basic method book set, Translation dictionaries, and some occasional reading of manga & watching of anime (if that counts).
I've found the same issue with Duo getting pronunciations (and sometimes whole kanji wrong) or not accepting answers I know are correct. It also doesn't explain the grammar at all so you're left on your own to guess some of the rules if you didn't get them from somewhere else.
Duolingo is also good for reinforcing my writing because I like to copy down the phrases as I practice them. Kanji is proving especially difficult to pick up.
Pimsleur audiotapes use native speakers and give you a pause interval for response to train both your listening and speaking skills. It's amazing how you can know exactly what to say, but then trip over it trying to pronounce the actual phrase. Also, it's practice for keeping up the cadence of conversation because you tend to slow way down when learning.
Spot on.... I've used it for over 10 years now...both Portuguese and Vietnamese.
I love it...and always rail against those that criticise it...but you're spot on. It's a very very useful tool, but no one tool is going to ever get you fluent!
I completed their Scottish Gaelic course and now in addition to going back through it, I'm using SpeakGaelic. It's definitely given me a good foundation to the point I'm breezing through the early lessons on SpeakGaelic.
Stating that no one wants to be able to read in a language or understand it witout being able to speak is the generalisation you shoudn't have made. Thanks for a great video!
I did use Duolingo to study Latin. I mostly liked it, although I was annoyed that there were no macrons marked on the words, and even though it was said in the introduction that voice samples were using classical pronunciation, many times it was way off. Anyway, I did use it on a daily basis for several months, until there came an exercise that required me to translate a Latin sentence into English. My translation was correct but Duolingo did not accept it, so that is when I quit using it.
By the way, Duolingo is not just an app; it can be used with a computer's web browser as well.
From my personal experience the biggest (but luckily not very common) problem they could fix is the quality of some of the recordings. Sometimes it get's too fuzzy for someone who is still learning to understand what was said. Not because it was too fast (you have slow mode in most cases anyways) or quiet (although there may be bugs with the volume at times) but because it is just pronounced not that well or the sound quality being too bad to clearly distinguish between syllables.
It's not a problem for a native or advanced speaker. You can just fill from context what it should be. But if you are not experienced in the language and/or the pronunciations, especially since it's on something you are suppose to learn at that moment, it makes exercises where you have just the voices much harder than they had to be.
Some of the voices are always fine. Both the pronunciations and sound quality are very nice. It's just some of the voices and it's just a problem if you don't have the text to fall back on.
The other problem is the lack of explanation. Examples only get you so far. Ironically the acceptance of different ways of saying things is adding to this when the app is trying to teach you an alternative. You just automatically go for the version you already know. At the least they should add some kind of instruction to an exercise.
Overall I think it is a great tool to use. But it is still just a tool and not a replacement for speaking with people, watching videos etc. The convenience and ease to use is great, the mistakes/oversights seem to be very rare. Thumbs up for sure.
Longtime subscriber here...I love this new channel! I was totally hoping for a language channel from you! Thank you. Just one minor thing....can you stop the screen behind you that says no signal from changing back and forth? Its reallly distracting and takes away from your wonderful content on both of your channels.
I wish you had more views, these videos are so good
When I saw the thumbnail I had to stop and listen, as a long time viewer of another Metatron channel your range of opinions are usually very insightful. Thank you for the tips and devil may care honesty be it Cleopatra's or language learning apps, happy hunting.
I learn language purely for the sake of learning. So i do japanese for on single unit or two everyday. It’s super good for exposure like u have said, especially, when you dont need to learn the language fast and effectively
brooooooooooooo i love watching your main channel. I am trying to learn Spanish and I typed in "the problem with duolingo" and I had no clue you had a whole dedicated channel for language learning. Hyped subbed spreaded (wings)
Thank you for this review. It will be very helpful in my journey working to learn Portuguese.
I used Duolingo last summer to prepare me for our holiday to Crete. I wanted to know some basic Greek just to be able to say something or understand simple things as I hate being somewhere and not understanding the first thing they are saying. I did not expect to able to speak fluently at all as I only did it for a month, but in that month, I learned some basic things that helped me a lot there and it was just fun relearning the greek alphabet (I took 1 year of ancient greek in high school), being able to read things over there and just recognising words here and there. It's not much, but I feel much more comfortable that way.
Reminds me that I'm going to Poland in april for a small week with a friend and I should start preparing..
I have been using Duolingo for over 10 years now. The app has improved a lot over time. While I have played around with using it for several different languages, I have put by far the most hours into learning Italian and Portuguese. One positive I can definitely say is that I achieved a pretty solid level of reading comprehension and writing ability in those two languages, with the caveat that I already had several years of training in Spanish in school, so that probably helped as well. The major shortcoming of Duolingo from my point of view is that it has no way to provide an opportunity to practice speaking with real people, and so I would still say that I’m not very comfortable speaking in either of those languages, apart from mostly simple sentences. However, I think my listening comprehension has gotten pretty good, and the little I do speak I have been told by natives that my pronunciation is good, so it has definitely helped in a lot of ways, it’s just missing that last piece of building speaking proficiency.
8:21 don't use your phone if you are IN the toilet, unless it's waterproof :P
For me I grew up speaking Romanian, but hardly ever use it here in the United States. I do still use Romanian sometimes in daily life, but it's very rare, and when people do speak to me in Romanian, I typically end up responding in English rather than trying to respond in Romanian. However, as someone who used to be fluent in the language, (not anymore) I think Duolingo is a great way to remember how to say or do certain things in the language. It also helps me feel more confident to actually talk to others in my native tongue, rather than just responding in English when they speak it. It's like a hammer. It's very useful for hammering in nails in tough places. However, sometimes a nailgun is still better, or sometime a screwgun or screwdriver is needed for something which requires more friction. It's one tool out of many, so while you can use it to help you better your understanding of a language, talking to people in that language is still the best way to learn. Also, taking actual classes that focus on your own pronunciation is very useful.
Overall, right now I use it mainly to remember things I've forgotten in my mother language (Romanian) or in French, a language I took classes on but was never fluent in. I have also used it's Latin and German courses a little bit just for fun, but I find it's hard to learn a language from scratch on the app. It's better used as a supplement to what you already know, and what you've already learned. I will however continue to use it as I learn more languages, and try to improve at the ones I already know a little about.
I use duolongo for 2 years. It helps me to get kind of intuitively basic grammar and basic vocabulary and keep in touch with language. Also it really helps me to be consistent consistent. And you are absolutely right that it's better to combine with some other ways to learning or immersion.
As regards correcting mistakes that are not really mistakes, you can flag it and say that your answer should have been accepted. They review it and sometimes add your suggestions to the accepted list of answers :)
Very useful review. I suppose I always knew what you said was true, but I haven't been acting on it...completely. I have been using Duolingo every single day for almost 2 years now, I've learned a lot, but I'm definitely not fluent in anything yet. With the exception of Italian I haven't been using any methods other than Duolingo. For Italian I have also been playing Skyrim and Fallout 4 in Italian (which isn't exactly enough exposure either), but for the rest, I pretty much only use Duolingo, which I suppose is ok since I'm not focusing on them anyway. I never thought to read the Duolingo sentence out loud, since they are being read to me. I'll definitely start doing that (assuming me talking wouldn't disturb others).
I used duolingo a while ago for Swedish- because I wanted to understand music and videos in Swedish and it was pretty good at getting me started. As someone who grew up learning Hebrew it was super frustrating to try its Hebrew because as you said, it doesn’t always know the usual way people talk or give the options.
Just as I expected, this is my favorite review of this app. Thank you Metatron🙏🏼
It's a great aid in learning a language for introductory of said language. For example Japanese was very good but I noticed that it will not make you speak like a native. I don't mean that it will make you speak sentences incorrectly but but would as best to describe be the formal way of saying the sentences instead of real life speaking of the sentences. For example My name is Mark. When most people wouldn't say My Name they would say I'm Mark.
I’ve considered stopping after recent updates. It pushes my progress too far ahead in one of my courses and when writing the kanji for the Japanese ones, I can’t write it in a way that will help me personally learn it faster. That and the speaking lessons for the Japanese course don’t fully register what you’re saying no matter how clearly you say it. There’s only so many times I can say kutsu before I get upset
When Duolingo first put Japanese as a learnable language, I was so excited and happy, that I got the Sharpshooter achievement for which the condition is to get 30 lessons correct without making a mistake
That was now years ago and today I'm not as excited or motivated to learn from the app, not that it's bad (ok, the different voices from the characters makes it quite annoying to do anything as well as the ads on the app on the phone) but rather the passion is gone, though it is building up again, slowly, but surely I should get back to excitingly learn Japanese, right? Right?
The moment I realized Duolingo uses TEXT TO SPEECH of all things to teach pronunciation, they lost any educational authority in my eyes.
I LOVE Duolingo. At the most basic level, I think it's the best free language app available. I always struggle with vocabulary retention, and Duolingo is so repetitive that it WILL make you remember these words, there's no way they won't get stuck in your head. I like that they teach you words by giving you a lot of sample sentences and not e.g. word definitions. When it comes to grammar, you really need to do some extra thinking to figure out some things, because they don't always give you straightforward rules in advance, but I actually like this process of "working it out" better than if I had a set of rules in a course book. Also, there's the "discussion" feature where people ask questions and natives or advanced learners explain things that might be unclear in any given sentence. IMO Duolingo is the best app if you're just starting with a new language, up to maybe lower intermediate level, at which point you can move on to other things, such as music, films, series and eventually books etc. Very good point about the pronunciation, especially languages that don't use the latin alphabet could use some extra work on that front, but they keep updating the app so let's hope it will be improved.
I'm almost at a year now of using Duolingo to learn Spanish. What I have found is that I can actually read Spanish pretty well, I can listen to conversations in Spanish and understand (quite) a lot - but when it comes to speaking Spanish, that is where I am weakest. That's not to say that I can't speak a lot of Spanish now but my reading and even writing is disproportionately further advanced.
As an experiment, I have tried to use Duolingo in languages I've studied, German, Russian, Korean, and Japanese. The German one was ok. I could use it to learn some vocabulary and maybe practice a grammar role. I wouldn't think anyone could come anywhere close to fluent though using it. The Korean, Japanese, and Russian courses, at least when I tried it a few years ago, were horrible. There is no explanation of the writing systems, sentence structures, cultural influences, and a long list of other things. An actual beginner would be so lost within a few hours as it started to ask questions about concepts that were never explained in writing systems that a beginner couldn't read. I would say that Duolingo is completely a waste of time for anyone who actually wants to learn a language. Anki is much more effective for learning even if it's not as fun.
Duolingo is great for certain situations. In 2019 I wanted to learn some Hungarian for a trip to Budapest. The only app I found for Hungarian was Duolingo. It's also great for learning languages with a different writing system than the latin alphabet, such as Russian and Japanese. It's also good for picking up a new language from scratch. It's impossible to start with TV/movies if you know absolutely nothing of the language. On the other end of the scale, it's also good as a refresher for a language you studied years ago in school. I agree that vocabulary is the strong point. For grammar, it depends. When the grammar is similar to your own language, you can figure it out from Duolingo by context. If the grammar is very different from your own, you'll probably need to use resources outside Duolingo. For example, as an English speaker, cases are confusing. For German, I watched UA-cam videos explaining when to use Dative, when to use Accusative, which prepositions use which case, etc. It was too hard to pick up the case rules from Duolingo alone.
I use Duolingo to make sure that I can get some practice in every day and also it helps expand my vocabulary. There's tonnes of mistakes in the Italian course though (that I have learned by having lessons with a teacher) and it doesn't seem to be very well maintained as lots of these errors have been there for years. I find that very, very demotivating because you end up having to just learn an answer by rote, not because it's correct but because you can't progress "the game" unless you do
But I also combine that with actual classroom lessons as well. In it was Duolingo that inspired me to take that next step. I knew that I would never really be able to speak it just by using the app.
Finally, I also socialize with my Italian teacher and classmates as well where we will often converse in Italian. Apart from anything else, being able to speak to each other in Italian is like having a secret code that nobody else in the pub understands and we can talk about people without them knowing 😂
I'm not fluent, but I am least partially conversant, provided people speak to me slowly. I really struggle to understand it when native speakers talk to me at their natural speed. And that's even with classroom lessons
I think Duolingo and Memrise are definitely great stepping stones. You can possibly reach B1, or possibly B2 if you're good with languages, and you're learning a language similar to your own.
It's one thing to use Duolingo to reach B1 in Mandarin as an English speaker versus reaching B1 in Norwegian.
I've been using duolingo for the past 6 months and it's really helped me with German in school, I usually use Duolingo just to learn new words and to practice sentences, for grammar I find explanations on UA-cam
To learn a language you need to submerge yourself in the language. I’m trying to listen to lectures, watch tv shows, movies, and make the language on most of my electronics
I'm always glad to learn the correct pronunciation of words. Thank you!
The best part was where you suggested folks speak out loud. I always did this instinctively, but I didn't know if it was just silly, now you confirmed it's a good technique
In the last part of the video you described me 😅. I am good at listening as I watch movies and youtube videos in English and even I am able to watch this video at 1.5x but I am not so good at speaking because I have no one to talk with 😢