stories are scattered between units and you unlock them as you read them, so by skipping to the last unit you get all of them also crowns are something from the old version of duolingo, they removed them
@Clips RANDOM HD because not all languages have stories in them you only get stories if you're learning english/spanish/french/german/italian/portuguese/japanese i'm assuming you're not learning one of these if you're learning one of these, stories should appear in the tree in the first few units
@@Daisyhatingugolyee ??? I have been studying Japanese from English for more than 1 year and before they had like 50 Stories (I don't remember very well, but I had them and they were removed ) .-.
@@Manolo144p they got removed during the version change but they added them back, they're in the practice section(the one with the dumbbell) do you have an old version of the app?
duolinguo was helpful for learning hiragana, katakana, and basic words like "mom, dad, apple, desk", but once those basics are learned you should probably move on, since like yuta shows here-- it is unreliable and can often teach you wrong things (at least for the japanese course)
What would you suggest moving onto? I tried LingoDeer for a bit and I found it helpful, but you have to pay to access lessons. However, once you've done a lesson, you can review it over and over again even if your subscription runs out.
I find Japanese to be such an amazing language. I’ve studied it for over 11 years. Direct translations can never be really done between languages. I don’t like when apps don’t explain certain grammar to learners or conjugations.
@@heartroll8719 You know when you start learning nihongo you first start learning hiragana and katana, then learn the basic particles and such, well when I tried duolingo in went straight to random words with kanji and furigana with no explanation or examples whatsover, it's honestly a terrible app to learn any language, it works more as game for someone who already knows the language than an actual resource.
You said something like "you end up learning what Duolingo wants you to say." That's so true. I have weekly lessons with my Japanese teacher and I always start out a lesson by doing duolingo. She gets so frustrated with it lol. There are so many times when she'll tell me what she would say (a Japanese native) and then be like "the app probably wants you to say something like 'xyz' but that's not natural." Or there are times when she's straight up like "no one would ever say this. I would understand it but it's not natural." It's funny watching these videos of you doing duolingo bc you guys end up saying the same exact things sometimes haha. If you're wondering why I still do duolingo knowing this, I really use it for practice. Out of all these learning apps, I think duolingo is best for practicing. Nothing compares so far.
I assume you mean nothing *free* compares. There are many better resources, especially considering that Duolingo actively degrades your ability to speak. It's likely better to not practice at all then to use Duolingo.
@@iruleatgames I actually understand now, I think the things it has to actually help with speaking is in the tips section. that's why you do mix it up with other apps and youtube.
I remember a while back I found a way to see the users who put together the course, and what percentage they contributed. The person who contributed around 80% wasn't a native speaker (no huge surprise there) and I think out of all of them there was one native speaker in total, who contributed around 12% of the course.
That's probably because a lot of natives don't know their own language enough to make a course out of it but people who consciously learned it may be better in some ways, provided they actually are meant to be course creators But it would be nice if that number was closer to 50%
@@UzumakiHarutoJPim guessing the fact nobody knows how to talk fluently while they first learn their first language, and that most people don't bother studying language very much aside from compulsory school education they probably forget soon after, so if one wants to be able to understand and explain and label meta concepts about their language, they would have to decide to go and study it. but absolutely native speakers are needed for input as well, and probably at that, native speakers of varying location, age, personality, gender, as well as both neurotypical and neurodivergent people, because all of those have an impact on how people speak
@@astral_haze precisely, well said with that said, there are some people that can somewhat teach their own language pretty well or understand and remember the teachings that they were given as a kid deeply
Duo recently purged a lot of the kanji from its lessons. To be honest, my kanji knowledge was pretty weak, but I find it even more difficult to understand sentences written completely in hiragana. I am disappointed to see that kanji don't appear in the stories either. Thanks for the video.
It’s not surprising, they probably saw the metrics after swapping to kanji, A/B tested their removal (something they’re notorious for), and decided user retention was lower under the new system. It’s a shame but it makes sense.
That is probably the reason why kanji is still in use in Japan. Would have to completely redo the whole writing system like was done with Hangul. I'm at ~100 hours of learning Japanese now on NativShark. Was checking out some other material and even for me sentences, where for example weekdays were written like 木よう日 instead of 木曜日, required more effort to read. Imo furigana should be the way to go where it is needed to add a word/part of word where kanji is not learned yet. Not removing the kanji. This way you train your brain to see words as it is actually written. When I see 木曜日 I can instantly tell that it is one of the weekdays ending ようび. I would probably not recognize the 曜 in some other unknown word let alone remember よう reading. But 曜 being there makes processing 木曜日 faster.
So he hires writers to write story for him, but would be hired by Duolingo to write story for them? Doesn't make much sense :D And to be honest, if you are thinking about language educating/learning seriously, not sure you want to be tied with Duolingo.
@@PetrSojnek He's basically giving them free advertising by making this video and mentioning how the stories section has native speakers and is much better than the normal section. Even if some parts of Duolingo are not up to par and still could be done better (it's good constructive criticism) , Duolingo is still a starting point for many learners and easily accessible. *People could work together to make better language learning communities*, or just talk trash about each other which makes more sense to you right? :D
@phen-themoogle7651 Duolingo doesn't explain grammar and language concepts well. And it will repeat the same few words/sentences at you a lot. To the point it is better to skip a lot of the repetition once you get good at it enough. And many of the words they use can be uncommon/hard to use words too. And the pronunciation apparently can be off too. Yuta has his own online course and is working on making his own textbook of sorts. It's not like he needs the collaboration.
Everyone always tests Duolingo because it’s the most known language learning app. I’d love to hear your thoughts on Memrise. It looks like it has more to it compared to Duolingo.
I also want him to review Japanese on Memrise. I’m using duolingo for more than 3 years. It’s good for learning the basics but I want to learn more details of Japanese such as grammar, formal informal speaking.
While I generally agree with many points stated in the video - such as, the intonation being incorrect, the voices sounding robotic and simply wrong uses of certain vocabulary words - I would like to elaborate further on the story part specifically. So for example, on one occasion you said that 然して could be replaced with more broadly used phrases. While this is true, I think many of the sentences in the stories are actually linked to the Units in which they have been presented. I noticed this in French: They taught an idiom and used it in a real life story later. So, no matter how inconvienient an expression might be, once it has been presented, it is a good idea to see it in *some* context, in order to get the basic idea of situations in which they potentially could be used. Maybe in a later lesson, a more colloqial expression for the same idea is taught, labeled as such in contrast to the before learned 然して and afterwards used in its own story setting, where it is clear that the situation is a lot more lax compared to speaking to someone in public. This assumption I made about Duolingo's Layout is of course speculative, but the basic idea I want to convey is that no matter how formal a phrase is: If someone wants to teach you the phrase and has decided to do so, they *have* to provide *some* scenario, where the possible usage is clearly outlined. If we put this thought into the extreme, then any advanced resource that incorporates keigo in business situations should say, after teaching a new phrase: "Well, you *could* technically use it, but let's not waste any time, here's the more colloqial phrase _____. We won't provide any example sentence for the formal expression either because you won't encounter it most of the time, anyways." So, even though the statistical amount of times where an expression might be used decreases the more formality increases, I think this cannot always be viewed purely in this continous sense. Observed descretely, formal speech on its own is just as nuanced as colloqial speech and asks for just as much prudence and awareness and therefore needs adequate examples of usage just as colloqial speech does. Although, I think, if they just simply put out stories about everyday working situations and used formal speech incorporated in actually useful settings (promotions, scoldings, instructions, assignments and you know, all the boring stuff you do at a Japanese office) rather than just being scattered around.. chaotical.. semi-fantastical writing.. it would actually benefit the learner. So, in conclusion: Providing sample sentences, even for more reserved expressions should not be withheld, if someone is serious about teaching them, but they should be incorporated into a context that actually makes some sense in total and not be scattered around otherwise rather colloqial speech because this will rarely ever happen in real life situations.
The problem is, brain is making connections when you are learning language. Learning language is subconsciously recognizing patterns. If patterns conflict it is counterproductive.
I think the biggest problem is they try to teach every language the same way. I have tried duolingo for spanish and japanese. The techniques they use to teach spanish can work there, but then not work when teaching japanese because the two languages have different nuances that isnt taken into account when creating sentences or stories. The stories are the same in both languages (as far as i checked). I assume they’re the same in all of them. Phrases that sound natural in one language arent going to sound natural directly translated to another. As great as it is that they want to teach a whole bunch of languages, the way of learning languages isnt a one size fits all for every language. I am very much a beginner in learning japanese, but i found practicing what i know for japanese in duolingo was much harder than practicing what I know in spanish. Even when I got the vocab right, they wanted it to be phrased in a specific way without explaining how or why. Seeing reviews of the app only makes me more confused as to why they want the specific phrasing when oftentimes it doesn’t even sound like native speakers think it’s correct.
Not to say the spanish lessons are perfect and the japanese lessons are trash. I don’t want to claim that at all. It’s just that it seems like they took one general idea for how to teach a language and applied it to every language whether or not it would be effective for that specific language.
Also I’ve found that duolingo loves to focus on either very strange/unimportant words. An example is how one early lesson said “what is the difference” and I’m like huh? Why is this in an early lesson, it doesn’t even make sense. It also loves to make me do literally the same questions over and over again like 5 or more times. Like repetition can be good, but this is straight up annoying and unhelpful.
I’m learning Spanish and I was shocked that the same, unedited story was here in the Japanese course. I’d assumed that all the romance languages shared content, but it’s quite absurd to insist on uniformity past that.
no joke, I'm still learning my first few kanji, and half the time, If I couldn't read it or figure out in context, I wouldn't be able to understand what they are saying. I can't hear them clearly
I would love to see you try LingoDeer! It's similar to Duolingo but it's geared towards Japanese, Korean, and Chinese (while Duolingo is more so better for latin-based languages like spanish). I believe it has a placement test but I could be wrong
The fact that i see myself purchasing your course in a few years is impressive, yuta you the best! Although I'm just a beginner and still learning hiragana Edit: i meant your course woud be great for an intermediate.
I honestly think these stories were pretty good. Maybe having weird stories can make understanding the dialog more difficult, but perhaps having stories that are fun is more important. They could have probably made better stories in both regards, but I think they did a pretty good job anyway.
I like using some apps like DuoLingo because it helps me learn hiragana and katakana, along with helping me memorize some kanji. I'm also using the genki book to help me with my kana handwriting, which is also helping me memorize them haha.
You used to be able to see way more stories, and there were so helpful. For some reason last year they changed everything so now I can’t read and study any of the stories anymore!
They recently changed the lesson structure away from the crowns thing you mentioned. It used to let you choose between 2 different lessons and work at your own pace. I do not like the new linear format. Stories used to unlock after a certain number of lessons were completed, but now they are a lesson in the path.
The long and short of it is, Duolingo is great for Romance and Germanic languages, or anything more similar to English. Its model is less and less effective the more unlike English a language is. I've used it for Swedish for years and it has worked great. I tell everyone please don't use it for Japanese except to help with kana and maybe practice vocab.
In my opinion the best apps to learn Japanese are: Aedict (best dictionary), Hey Japan, JA Sensei/JA Audiobook (now with AI support), Kana Mind (best way to learn hiragana and katakana) and Kanji Study (best way to learn kanji). Yuta Sensei should have his own app, it would definitely be the best ever.
i'm Learning Japanese and first it was very helpful to learn Katakana and Hiragana. and now they added Kanji as well in Phone apps so it is very helpful.. but i mostly use Genki and Tango books to learn japanese and i use Duolingo as a extra input... but also "Sensei" is great app to learn Kanji separately.. it has sentences with kanji so it makes sense.. very good video Yuta さん ありがとうございました。
I've been watching your channel and one thing jumped out at me from this! I write and read lots of fiction, and I find English writers can sometimes write sentences that no one would say out loud in English! It's something I try to be mindful of when I'm writing dialogue, if I can't say it naturally out loud I shouldn't have the character try to say it either. What you've mentioned about unnatural sentences in Japanese learning material, as well as in this video when Junior said something a kid wouldn't say, made me think of that.
Recently I had this weird conversation with someone. We were like both talking in Japanese, and after like 20 mins of talking he stops and tells me that I am like overly formal, and I know like since the start, I never really practiced my ため口... I can literally only speak in 丁寧語....
I will be trying a free class/session in Greek, Hebrew and Japanese. I was getting the hang of Greek with Plimseur earlier in life since I already know Spanish and moderate amounts of French.
They used to have a stories page I had read all but 4 of the Portuguese stories when they changed how their app is setup I was quite frustrated about this change and eventually left Duolingo over it entirely
When you say that the DuoLingo text-to-speech voices are using "broken" Japanese, are you saying that they're using the wrong pitch accent? I'd like to see you make a video about different Japanese text-to-speech voices, and your thoughts on how natural they sound.
There are stories earlier in German, French, and Spanish. I have noticed the English is a bit awkward in several places. I am not surprised this is magnified in Japanese.
I love Memrise because they use real people and sometimes show actions to help us. It’s not free but it’s great! I have lifetime. Like they have them bowing for greetings and that stuff. It’s native speakers that you see for words and phrases for the first time and they use native speaker videos over the AI voice or whatever they use for the voice and give you a good mix of male and female voices. It’s nice!!
As a learner you quickly realize to ignore all sounds from Duolingo that are not complete sentences. Those are usually use the correct word. Duolingo is not a good source to learn Japanese but it's good for repetition if you already know the grammar and basic words
I think the stories would be better if they changed the names to common names in that language. The stories are the same for every language too which probably doesn't help
I use duo lingo. I mainly use it to learn the basics but I hope to speak to people in person to learn the more modern version. Also, how do you tackle the shyness of using the language of the you learnt?. I want to speak japanese in person but I always chicken out because I'm afraid to say something wrong. Is this normal?. Have a good weekend yuta-san. Xx
It's refreshing to see a japanese talking about japanese accent. It wasn't that long ago no one talked about japanese pitch accent, even native japanese teachers.
I feel cheated from my learning streak. Thankfully I listen to Japanese media but I really with Duo was reliable because I already have a hearing impairment. So, even clear speaking I need to hear a lot to learn. Also, I had stories and lost them after an update.
I'm learning Japanese with Duolingo. I didn't know it was so wrong!!!! I'm amazed at how we exalt some apps or methods being so badly designed!! Is there some app for learning Japanese that is worth using?
i don't understand why duolingo is criticised so hard. the whole point is to make beginners more comfortable to learn a new language, which is a difficult to start. nitpicking pronunciation problems, i feel, is unnecessary as most people who begin with duolingo later take actual courses from real tutors after theyve reached a certain level. furthermore, even if there may be some teaching errors, in the end you still are learning vocab and grammar that will be useful in the long run. i do understand that japanese is a very intricate language, which is why there may be some problems converting it to duolingos simplified method, however this also allows many more to have the chance to try out learning it as it seems less scary with its bite sized lessons (my opinion)
The stories are the only good thing that Duolingo really has and not all languages have stories, only the most common ones. I also feel like Duolingo is really only good at European languages. And never talks about the grammar, I have to google it. I gave up on Duolingo for Japanese a long time ago and use a wide variety of other resources, but the one that I always do daily is Renshuu which is both a website and an app by a native speaker and her husband and I've found it has the most content in one place that appears, to this English native speaker, to be correct. I prefer to read, listen to, and watch content created by native speakers as they're, well, obviously, more natural.
I'm a native japanese speaker and honestly Duolinguo is a fraud. I was another day checking the app and I so surprised to see so many mispronunciation and even slangs that we dont use.
I just joined your email list and boy I was shocked. I didn’t expect to learn something brand new straight from the start. I’ve been studying Japanese for 6 months and only today did I learn that one word on its own can form a complete sentence!!
@@A_Username-kt5xi forget it I was wrong everything after that is just ads to his Japanese course ( you need spend only little, or no money at all, to learn Japanese.)
@@1Saburo Oh, I was talking about that one word you were talking about, not the email list. BUT now I see that I'd apparently read your post incorrectly. I thought that you'd meant that there was one specific word that you'd learned. Now I see that you were generally speaking that there can be just one word that could mean a whole sentence in Japanese. My bad.
honestly, at this point i only practice hiragana and katakana on duolingo to help with my memorization. i think that's the only good part of the jp course.
"checkpoints" and "crowns" are outdated terms on Duolingo. After the change from the tree to the path, they're now divided into units, and crowns no longer exist
Duolingo worked great for me to learn and practice hiragana and katakana. The main course was tiresome and the limitations of the app made the learning experience feel frustrating (for example, slightly different word order when translating to English counts as a mistake). Textbooks and regular reading remain more efficient.
I am “learning Japanese with Yuta” (his JVS Japanese Vocabulary Shortcut course) in addition to using Duolingo (which I had already paid for when I decided to start Japanese). (Yes, Yuta’s course is worthwhile. Every week, I recognize more words in other Japanese spoken content.)
I did that. I followed the 3 intro videos. But it keeps telling me... "Yuta's Basic Japanese Premium is currently closed for new members." So I have no idea what to do now???
@@zennmyst5347 You just have to wait. He really has invested in a staff of writers, etc; he needs to balance their workload. You've probably gotten an offer by now.
Another problem is I'm pretty sure the stories are the same in every language, I don't know which language they were written for originally but I'm certain it wasn't Japanese
2nd comment: Great series of how anime characters speak Japanese. Please do Itsuki Nakano from the quintessential quintuplets or any or all the 7 main characters in TQQ. How they speak Japanese I believe is very important to understanding the plot eg the honorifics, the lost in translation stuff (eg when they say things like zurui, hatsukoi, uso, tachi, fukuzatsu Vs taihen, mote etc that are removed from the dub). I compiled a lot of the lost in translation stuff in r/gotoubun Something to consider about Itsuki: The Quintessential Quintuplets' character types are: Ichika - Onee-san / ara ara, Nino - tsundere, miku - kuudere / dandere, Yotsuba - genki Itsuki - ?? - Tsundere like Nino? - Eat-suki? - Imouto? - Someone who speaks keigo to their siblings, to Fuutarou and to Raiha and to everyone basically? Actually, the main thing I learned from Yuta's videos that keigo is basically just desu, masu & their variations. I swear when I learned elementary Japanese in bachelor's (foreign language classes are required in universities in the Philippines) we were never even taught the word keigo. All this time I had no idea Itsuki was the only quint and actually only main character who was talking keigo to EVERYONE. Anyway, I have a theory as to what Itsuki's type is, but you're not gonna like it... For more japanese stuff re TQQ, see r/gotoubun r/itsuesugi r/raitsuki etc
Geemu (ゲーム) usually refers to video games. Asobu, dictionary form, (あそぶ) can mean playing with or meeting and enjoying time with. You cannot asobu a video game, if you want to create a sentence with geemu it would be written ゲームする not ゲームをあそぶ. Some examples of asobu: おもちゃとあそぶ (to play with toys) or 友達とあそぶ (to hang out with a friend)
Yuta, I think you said in some video, that words like そして or ことができます are low-frequency words in casual language, yet I heard Japanese people in podcasts using exactly these words. It seems to be not so uncommon after all?
i get it but grammar is off. instead of using ただし、you can use けど. its more common in conversation. And if you want to say a verb you like, you have to make the verb a noun. to do that, add の after the verb to make it a noun. Also the 2nd sentence, if you are trying to say "i like practicing writing", then it would be: 書くのを練習するのが好きです And then since 好き is a noun/na adj, you cant use ます. ます is for verb conjugation. instead use です if you're trying to be formal so i'd say: 日本語学びたいけど難しいです。紙で書くのを練習するのが好きでアニメも見るのが好きです。 で after 好き just connects sentences. use it after nouns/na adj. (means something like "and")
@@KiaraLily5788 i recommend "Japanese ammo with misa". Its a youtube channel where a native explains lots of grammar points in english. its pretty good.
Also, Yuta's courses really do teach these kinds of grammar points. ( But not for free.) I really like his JVS (Japanese Vocabulary Shortcut) ongoing course.
i know it has problems but it does seem like they work on accepting variations- i have tried putting kanji from the 12 key keyboard, and it accepted them, even though it didn't teach them yet. as well as accepting あそこ/あれ for there/that when it has only shown そこ/それ. but i do have an issue with them introducing the latter without making clear that they are more specific words with alternatives for the other contexts. i think you are expected to supplement it with more nuanced material, but they don't make it clear if you are, or with what you are meant to do so
I think 将来 sounds more correct to me because it’s a little more broad, vague, and conceptual. 未来 is almost more clear and a specific. It’s really hard for me to put into words. Like a person’s future is 将来, whereas saying “___ is the future” is 未来. This might be more of a problem with English not going to lie 😆
Could you look at Bunpro's sentences next? I feel like it does a good job explaining the nuance of each grammar point but as I'm not a native speaker I don't really know
Bunpro sentences iirc were written by native speakers. There are sometimes typos and stuff very rarely aince the content has been checked but you can just report them if there are and they will be fixed.
4:28 Can you make a better language app? If so, then why not? If you were to make the language app, then what would the students be missing from the traditionally effective way of learning Japanese?
I’m curious if they still have the speaking practice with the stories. I was having issues with that and also my Japanese pronunciation is certainly not native. People didn’t have a problem understanding me, but the app did.
I’m Japanese. Watching this video, I was surprised at how many mistakes Duolingo made. All of his points are correct.
@Kiara Oxley Evil?
@@slyar 悪です
As another Japanese, I can also confirm that it is surprising how many mistakes Duolingo makes, it’s supposed to teach you Japanese after all!
@0crakhadshizzakizza0 actually, all duolingo lessons doesn't use AI, its literally written by japanese teachers, spanish teachers etc
@@harupon8.2so should I stop using it?
The Duolingo roasts become more and more wholesome.
stories are scattered between units and you unlock them as you read them, so by skipping to the last unit you get all of them
also crowns are something from the old version of duolingo, they removed them
Lie, I have unlocked several units and I don't have a story
@Clips RANDOM HD because not all languages have stories in them
you only get stories if you're learning english/spanish/french/german/italian/portuguese/japanese
i'm assuming you're not learning one of these
if you're learning one of these, stories should appear in the tree in the first few units
@@Daisyhatingugolyee ???
I have been studying Japanese from English for more than 1 year and before they had like 50 Stories (I don't remember very well, but I had them and they were removed ) .-.
@@Manolo144p they got removed during the version change but they added them back, they're in the practice section(the one with the dumbbell)
do you have an old version of the app?
@@Daisyhatingugolyee I already know that, it was totally unnecessary to make a yes by Duolingo
duolinguo was helpful for learning hiragana, katakana, and basic words like "mom, dad, apple, desk", but once those basics are learned you should probably move on, since like yuta shows here-- it is unreliable and can often teach you wrong things (at least for the japanese course)
Indeed it is helpful when you learn hiragana and katakana in there
What would you suggest moving onto? I tried LingoDeer for a bit and I found it helpful, but you have to pay to access lessons. However, once you've done a lesson, you can review it over and over again even if your subscription runs out.
@@alfu8799 Lingodeer? Pay?
🏴☠️
Are there some reliable apps for learning Japanese? Please!
@@conatchaWatch Livakivi’s guide on learning Japanese. He got me into learning, and so far nothing he has recommended was bad.
I find Japanese to be such an amazing language. I’ve studied it for over 11 years.
Direct translations can never be really done between languages.
I don’t like when apps don’t explain certain grammar to learners or conjugations.
they are in the notes before you start a segment, but not enough depth so I've looked them up on my own and asked a native tutor
@@Justcetriyaart I have a learning disorder so I like in depth descriptions of stuff.
Duolingo Japanese explains much less than Duolingo German and Spanish. In my experience.
@@michelledoty9818 how much less probably?
@@heartroll8719 You know when you start learning nihongo you first start learning hiragana and katana, then learn the basic particles and such, well when I tried duolingo in went straight to random words with kanji and furigana with no explanation or examples whatsover, it's honestly a terrible app to learn any language, it works more as game for someone who already knows the language than an actual resource.
You said something like "you end up learning what Duolingo wants you to say." That's so true. I have weekly lessons with my Japanese teacher and I always start out a lesson by doing duolingo. She gets so frustrated with it lol. There are so many times when she'll tell me what she would say (a Japanese native) and then be like "the app probably wants you to say something like 'xyz' but that's not natural." Or there are times when she's straight up like "no one would ever say this. I would understand it but it's not natural." It's funny watching these videos of you doing duolingo bc you guys end up saying the same exact things sometimes haha.
If you're wondering why I still do duolingo knowing this, I really use it for practice. Out of all these learning apps, I think duolingo is best for practicing. Nothing compares so far.
I assume you mean nothing *free* compares. There are many better resources, especially considering that Duolingo actively degrades your ability to speak. It's likely better to not practice at all then to use Duolingo.
@@iruleatgameshow does it degrade the ability to speak
@@redmhonsterz Did you not watch the video...? This was only a couple lessons too.
@@iruleatgames I actually understand now, I think the things it has to actually help with speaking is in the tips section.
that's why you do mix it up with other apps and youtube.
I remember a while back I found a way to see the users who put together the course, and what percentage they contributed. The person who contributed around 80% wasn't a native speaker (no huge surprise there) and I think out of all of them there was one native speaker in total, who contributed around 12% of the course.
That's probably because a lot of natives don't know their own language enough to make a course out of it but people who consciously learned it may be better in some ways, provided they actually are meant to be course creators
But it would be nice if that number was closer to 50%
@@UzumakiHarutoJPim guessing the fact nobody knows how to talk fluently while they first learn their first language, and that most people don't bother studying language very much aside from compulsory school education they probably forget soon after, so if one wants to be able to understand and explain and label meta concepts about their language, they would have to decide to go and study it. but absolutely native speakers are needed for input as well, and probably at that, native speakers of varying location, age, personality, gender, as well as both neurotypical and neurodivergent people, because all of those have an impact on how people speak
@@astral_haze precisely, well said
with that said, there are some people that can somewhat teach their own language pretty well or understand and remember the teachings that they were given as a kid deeply
Duo recently purged a lot of the kanji from its lessons. To be honest, my kanji knowledge was pretty weak, but I find it even more difficult to understand sentences written completely in hiragana. I am disappointed to see that kanji don't appear in the stories either. Thanks for the video.
It’s not surprising, they probably saw the metrics after swapping to kanji, A/B tested their removal (something they’re notorious for), and decided user retention was lower under the new system. It’s a shame but it makes sense.
That is probably the reason why kanji is still in use in Japan. Would have to completely redo the whole writing system like was done with Hangul. I'm at ~100 hours of learning Japanese now on NativShark. Was checking out some other material and even for me sentences, where for example weekdays were written like 木よう日 instead of 木曜日, required more effort to read. Imo furigana should be the way to go where it is needed to add a word/part of word where kanji is not learned yet. Not removing the kanji. This way you train your brain to see words as it is actually written. When I see 木曜日 I can instantly tell that it is one of the weekdays ending ようび. I would probably not recognize the 曜 in some other unknown word let alone remember よう reading. But 曜 being there makes processing 木曜日 faster.
3:00 the problem with duolingo is that it only ever pronounces the words in one way even if it's pronounced the other way.
They should hire you to write the content for them xD
And if you're a partner with DuoLingo you could pitch your content too, so it's win-win.
So he hires writers to write story for him, but would be hired by Duolingo to write story for them? Doesn't make much sense :D And to be honest, if you are thinking about language educating/learning seriously, not sure you want to be tied with Duolingo.
@@PetrSojnek He's basically giving them free advertising by making this video and mentioning how the stories section has native speakers and is much better than the normal section. Even if some parts of Duolingo are not up to par and still could be done better (it's good constructive criticism) , Duolingo is still a starting point for many learners and easily accessible.
*People could work together to make better language learning communities*, or just talk trash about each other which makes more sense to you right? :D
@@phen-themoogle7651 It's trash for Japanese.
@phen-themoogle7651 Duolingo doesn't explain grammar and language concepts well.
And it will repeat the same few words/sentences at you a lot. To the point it is better to skip a lot of the repetition once you get good at it enough.
And many of the words they use can be uncommon/hard to use words too. And the pronunciation apparently can be off too.
Yuta has his own online course and is working on making his own textbook of sorts.
It's not like he needs the collaboration.
Everyone always tests Duolingo because it’s the most known language learning app. I’d love to hear your thoughts on Memrise. It looks like it has more to it compared to Duolingo.
Yes, I'm using both apps, i believe Memrise is way better because it have a native speaker ❤
I also want him to review Japanese on Memrise. I’m using duolingo for more than 3 years. It’s good for learning the basics but I want to learn more details of Japanese such as grammar, formal informal speaking.
Yuta when you use the verb form it's "Pronounce" but when you use the noun form it's "Pronunciation". The noun form cuts out the o.
I’ve noticed this many times but never felt it was worth correcting since this mispronunciation is so slight.
@@michelledoty9818 The mispronunciation is greater than any intonation mistake that Yuta seems to get caught up on.
Thanks! At this point, it's very helpful to learn about this like of slight mistake because people don't bother correcting me.
To be fair, many native English speakers mix that up.
@@YamiSatoshi can confirm, I think pronunciation actually sounds weird even tho it's correct
I love this sort of content where a native corrects the textbook
While I generally agree with many points stated in the video - such as, the intonation being incorrect, the voices sounding robotic and simply wrong uses of certain vocabulary words - I would like to elaborate further on the story part specifically.
So for example, on one occasion you said that 然して could be replaced with more broadly used phrases. While this is true, I think many of the sentences in the stories are actually linked to the Units in which they have been presented. I noticed this in French: They taught an idiom and used it in a real life story later. So, no matter how inconvienient an expression might be, once it has been presented, it is a good idea to see it in *some* context, in order to get the basic idea of situations in which they potentially could be used. Maybe in a later lesson, a more colloqial expression for the same idea is taught, labeled as such in contrast to the before learned 然して and afterwards used in its own story setting, where it is clear that the situation is a lot more lax compared to speaking to someone in public.
This assumption I made about Duolingo's Layout is of course speculative, but the basic idea I want to convey is that no matter how formal a phrase is: If someone wants to teach you the phrase and has decided to do so, they *have* to provide *some* scenario, where the possible usage is clearly outlined.
If we put this thought into the extreme, then any advanced resource that incorporates keigo in business situations should say, after teaching a new phrase: "Well, you *could* technically use it, but let's not waste any time, here's the more colloqial phrase _____. We won't provide any example sentence for the formal expression either because you won't encounter it most of the time, anyways."
So, even though the statistical amount of times where an expression might be used decreases the more formality increases, I think this cannot always be viewed purely in this continous sense. Observed descretely, formal speech on its own is just as nuanced as colloqial speech and asks for just as much prudence and awareness and therefore needs adequate examples of usage just as colloqial speech does.
Although, I think, if they just simply put out stories about everyday working situations and used formal speech incorporated in actually useful settings (promotions, scoldings, instructions, assignments and you know, all the boring stuff you do at a Japanese office) rather than just being scattered around.. chaotical.. semi-fantastical writing.. it would actually benefit the learner.
So, in conclusion: Providing sample sentences, even for more reserved expressions should not be withheld, if someone is serious about teaching them, but they should be incorporated into a context that actually makes some sense in total and not be scattered around otherwise rather colloqial speech because this will rarely ever happen in real life situations.
The problem is, brain is making connections when you are learning language. Learning language is subconsciously recognizing patterns. If patterns conflict it is counterproductive.
I think the biggest problem is they try to teach every language the same way. I have tried duolingo for spanish and japanese. The techniques they use to teach spanish can work there, but then not work when teaching japanese because the two languages have different nuances that isnt taken into account when creating sentences or stories. The stories are the same in both languages (as far as i checked). I assume they’re the same in all of them. Phrases that sound natural in one language arent going to sound natural directly translated to another. As great as it is that they want to teach a whole bunch of languages, the way of learning languages isnt a one size fits all for every language. I am very much a beginner in learning japanese, but i found practicing what i know for japanese in duolingo was much harder than practicing what I know in spanish. Even when I got the vocab right, they wanted it to be phrased in a specific way without explaining how or why. Seeing reviews of the app only makes me more confused as to why they want the specific phrasing when oftentimes it doesn’t even sound like native speakers think it’s correct.
Not to say the spanish lessons are perfect and the japanese lessons are trash. I don’t want to claim that at all. It’s just that it seems like they took one general idea for how to teach a language and applied it to every language whether or not it would be effective for that specific language.
Also I’ve found that duolingo loves to focus on either very strange/unimportant words. An example is how one early lesson said “what is the difference” and I’m like huh? Why is this in an early lesson, it doesn’t even make sense. It also loves to make me do literally the same questions over and over again like 5 or more times. Like repetition can be good, but this is straight up annoying and unhelpful.
I’m learning Spanish and I was shocked that the same, unedited story was here in the Japanese course. I’d assumed that all the romance languages shared content, but it’s quite absurd to insist on uniformity past that.
no joke, I'm still learning my first few kanji, and half the time, If I couldn't read it or figure out in context, I wouldn't be able to understand what they are saying. I can't hear them clearly
I need a confidence boost today. I think I'm gonna do the Duolingo course in my mother tongue
I would love to see you try LingoDeer! It's similar to Duolingo but it's geared towards Japanese, Korean, and Chinese (while Duolingo is more so better for latin-based languages like spanish). I believe it has a placement test but I could be wrong
The fact that i see myself purchasing your course in a few years is impressive, yuta you the best! Although I'm just a beginner and still learning hiragana
Edit: i meant your course woud be great for an intermediate.
In my opinion, as a student of Yuta's courses, you can start as a beginner. Also, he has a money-back guarantee, so you can see for yourself for sure.
I honestly think these stories were pretty good. Maybe having weird stories can make understanding the dialog more difficult, but perhaps having stories that are fun is more important. They could have probably made better stories in both regards, but I think they did a pretty good job anyway.
I like using some apps like DuoLingo because it helps me learn hiragana and katakana, along with helping me memorize some kanji. I'm also using the genki book to help me with my kana handwriting, which is also helping me memorize them haha.
Stick with Genki, it will serve you better. Also consider RTK for the Kanji at one point during your studies.
You used to be able to see way more stories, and there were so helpful. For some reason last year they changed everything so now I can’t read and study any of the stories anymore!
Duolingo should hire you!
In Japanese Duolingo, you unlock your first story on unit 33.
(Still Annoying).
They recently changed the lesson structure away from the crowns thing you mentioned. It used to let you choose between 2 different lessons and work at your own pace. I do not like the new linear format. Stories used to unlock after a certain number of lessons were completed, but now they are a lesson in the path.
Where?
I haven’t seen any stories since the structure changed…
@@james4thedoctor482 Same I don't have any practice tab in my app.
@@涼宮ハルヒのキョン I think you need to have the premium version
the last update in the duolingo japanese course i feel that now sounds more realistc and less textbook
is it the anime one?
I love how you correct the pitch accent since that's something japanese learners don't get much clarity on
The long and short of it is, Duolingo is great for Romance and Germanic languages, or anything more similar to English. Its model is less and less effective the more unlike English a language is. I've used it for Swedish for years and it has worked great. I tell everyone please don't use it for Japanese except to help with kana and maybe practice vocab.
In my opinion the best apps to learn Japanese are: Aedict (best dictionary), Hey Japan, JA Sensei/JA Audiobook (now with AI support), Kana Mind (best way to learn hiragana and katakana) and Kanji Study (best way to learn kanji).
Yuta Sensei should have his own app, it would definitely be the best ever.
No, thre are stories along the way, so you dont need to unlock the HARDEST level. You need to unlock a untit with a story.
what is the first unit to unlock the story in the current version?
i'm Learning Japanese and first it was very helpful to learn Katakana and Hiragana. and now they added Kanji as well in Phone apps so it is very helpful.. but i mostly use Genki and Tango books to learn japanese and i use Duolingo as a extra input... but also "Sensei" is great app to learn Kanji separately.. it has sentences with kanji so it makes sense.. very good video Yuta さん ありがとうございました。
I've been watching your channel and one thing jumped out at me from this! I write and read lots of fiction, and I find English writers can sometimes write sentences that no one would say out loud in English! It's something I try to be mindful of when I'm writing dialogue, if I can't say it naturally out loud I shouldn't have the character try to say it either. What you've mentioned about unnatural sentences in Japanese learning material, as well as in this video when Junior said something a kid wouldn't say, made me think of that.
Recently I had this weird conversation with someone. We were like both talking in Japanese, and after like 20 mins of talking he stops and tells me that I am like overly formal, and I know like since the start, I never really practiced my ため口... I can literally only speak in 丁寧語....
I will be trying a free class/session in Greek, Hebrew and Japanese. I was getting the hang of Greek with Plimseur earlier in life since I already know Spanish and moderate amounts of French.
2:30 I remember hearing 聞いて繰り返してください in Pimsleur Japanese a lot too!
2:02 The information you searched was outdated. Duolingo had a revamp in August-November, which no one liked, that's why you can't find it
They used to have a stories page
I had read all but 4 of the Portuguese stories when they changed how their app is setup
I was quite frustrated about this change and eventually left Duolingo over it entirely
When you say that the DuoLingo text-to-speech voices are using "broken" Japanese, are you saying that they're using the wrong pitch accent?
I'd like to see you make a video about different Japanese text-to-speech voices, and your thoughts on how natural they sound.
I love how your immediate reaction was "Bad pronunciation. Broken Japanese. Broken Japanese again."
There are stories earlier in German, French, and Spanish.
I have noticed the English is a bit awkward in several places. I am not surprised this is magnified in Japanese.
I love how he's routinely like "hm yeah that's broken japanese" "uh yeah no one would say that but i guess it's fiction so it doesnt matter 🥸" lmao
The more I used duolingo the more awkward and tedious it gets. The kana page is very good to get you started tho
And notice there's no kanji in stories, everything is written in kana.🤦
Duolingo’s regular Japanese lessons are full of kanji.
@@michelledoty9818 That doesn't mean they should not be used in Stories though...
Maybe it's his settings?
@@nermket4849 It's not. Both in the app and in the Web version there's no Stories settings of any kind.
There used to be an option to choose which way you want to read them, not in the new damn update though! Everything has become so downgraded!
I love Memrise because they use real people and sometimes show actions to help us. It’s not free but it’s great! I have lifetime. Like they have them bowing for greetings and that stuff.
It’s native speakers that you see for words and phrases for the first time and they use native speaker videos over the AI voice or whatever they use for the voice and give you a good mix of male and female voices. It’s nice!!
Hi Yuta-kun, I'd be curious what your opinion is of Memrise and Lingodeer, especially Lingodeer+
I've been waiting for your review on Duolingo ngl.
Would it be ok to complete duolingo then learn the rest from tv shows and movies along side it? Would that work
Do both. You don't have to finish Duolingo to start listening practice.
@@michelledoty9818 will it work?
@@damienbreslin5781I finished the first section and then started studying with a text book.
Is it just me or do I overlooked at this scene? 2:40
I love the stories! They're so funny 😂
1:23 you can pause here if you want to learn to read japanese.
3:12 The TTS is reading the text out of context, you can't really blame it for that
4:30 No, the stories in Japanese start around Unit 30. You started at around Unit 12
My tree starts showing them in section 3, unit 5... (or roughly 33 units into the 125 total units)
Duolingo used to have all the stories unlocked I think, but with the upload last year, you have to unlock them
After watching this, I won’t study by Duolingo anymore. Thank you. Wow.
As a learner you quickly realize to ignore all sounds from Duolingo that are not complete sentences. Those are usually use the correct word. Duolingo is not a good source to learn Japanese but it's good for repetition if you already know the grammar and basic words
Pimsluer also uses 聞いて繰り返してください in their lessons so it seems to be a common phrase in lesson apps
I wish I can fly to Japan with 500 ¥🥰
I didn't even know they had stories
I think the stories would be better if they changed the names to common names in that language. The stories are the same for every language too which probably doesn't help
Well, ðey're trying to promote ðeir fictional cast of characters.
I use duo lingo. I mainly use it to learn the basics but I hope to speak to people in person to learn the more modern version. Also, how do you tackle the shyness of using the language of the you learnt?. I want to speak japanese in person but I always chicken out because I'm afraid to say something wrong. Is this normal?. Have a good weekend yuta-san. Xx
It's refreshing to see a japanese talking about japanese accent. It wasn't that long ago no one talked about japanese pitch accent, even native japanese teachers.
I feel cheated from my learning streak. Thankfully I listen to Japanese media but I really with Duo was reliable because I already have a hearing impairment. So, even clear speaking I need to hear a lot to learn. Also, I had stories and lost them after an update.
Love the videos, man. Keep it up!!!
Can you do a video on Pinsluers Japanese?
It's definitely awkward and odd japanese but it's the most fun way to learn so a lot of people trust it
I'm learning Japanese with Duolingo. I didn't know it was so wrong!!!! I'm amazed at how we exalt some apps or methods being so badly designed!!
Is there some app for learning Japanese that is worth using?
i don't understand why duolingo is criticised so hard. the whole point is to make beginners more comfortable to learn a new language, which is a difficult to start. nitpicking pronunciation problems, i feel, is unnecessary as most people who begin with duolingo later take actual courses from real tutors after theyve reached a certain level. furthermore, even if there may be some teaching errors, in the end you still are learning vocab and grammar that will be useful in the long run. i do understand that japanese is a very intricate language, which is why there may be some problems converting it to duolingos simplified method, however this also allows many more to have the chance to try out learning it as it seems less scary with its bite sized lessons (my opinion)
The stories are the only good thing that Duolingo really has and not all languages have stories, only the most common ones. I also feel like Duolingo is really only good at European languages. And never talks about the grammar, I have to google it.
I gave up on Duolingo for Japanese a long time ago and use a wide variety of other resources, but the one that I always do daily is Renshuu which is both a website and an app by a native speaker and her husband and I've found it has the most content in one place that appears, to this English native speaker, to be correct.
I prefer to read, listen to, and watch content created by native speakers as they're, well, obviously, more natural.
I'm a native japanese speaker and honestly Duolinguo is a fraud. I was another day checking the app and I so surprised to see so many mispronunciation and even slangs that we dont use.
This is why Google Translate and other online apps can never replace the human voice.
I just joined your email list and boy I was shocked. I didn’t expect to learn something brand new straight from the start. I’ve been studying Japanese for 6 months and only today did I learn that one word on its own can form a complete sentence!!
Cool, what word was that?
@@A_Username-kt5xi forget it I was wrong everything after that is just ads to his Japanese course ( you need spend only little, or no money at all, to learn Japanese.)
@@1Saburo Oh, I was talking about that one word you were talking about, not the email list. BUT now I see that I'd apparently read your post incorrectly. I thought that you'd meant that there was one specific word that you'd learned. Now I see that you were generally speaking that there can be just one word that could mean a whole sentence in Japanese. My bad.
02:36 oh no.... Pimsluer phrased their "listen and repeat" the same way.
honestly, at this point i only practice hiragana and katakana on duolingo to help with my memorization. i think that's the only good part of the jp course.
"checkpoints" and "crowns" are outdated terms on Duolingo. After the change from the tree to the path, they're now divided into units, and crowns no longer exist
Duolingo actually is a great learning tool. but it's not the only tool that will make your languages fluent. it does allot right.
Duolingo worked great for me to learn and practice hiragana and katakana. The main course was tiresome and the limitations of the app made the learning experience feel frustrating (for example, slightly different word order when translating to English counts as a mistake). Textbooks and regular reading remain more efficient.
😮 the glasses suit you so well!!!
16:28 true... The good things it has, thw things it removes
Learn Japanese with Yuta: bit.ly/3oz1R4f
ok
I am “learning Japanese with Yuta” (his JVS Japanese Vocabulary Shortcut course) in addition to using Duolingo (which I had already paid for when I decided to start Japanese). (Yes, Yuta’s course is worthwhile. Every week, I recognize more words in other Japanese spoken content.)
@@michelledoty9818 You don’t even need to pay for Duolingo
I did that. I followed the 3 intro videos. But it keeps telling me... "Yuta's Basic Japanese Premium is currently closed for new members." So I have no idea what to do now???
@@zennmyst5347 You just have to wait. He really has invested in a staff of writers, etc; he needs to balance their workload. You've probably gotten an offer by now.
Another problem is I'm pretty sure the stories are the same in every language, I don't know which language they were written for originally but I'm certain it wasn't Japanese
how do i learn the correct pitch accents for every single word?
1:09 escalated quickly
I STARTED JAPANESE LEARNING FROM DUOLINGO, SHOULD I take it seriously and continue learning from it or Should I drop and go for something else?
2nd comment: Great series of how anime characters speak Japanese. Please do Itsuki Nakano from the quintessential quintuplets or any or all the 7 main characters in TQQ. How they speak Japanese I believe is very important to understanding the plot eg the honorifics, the lost in translation stuff (eg when they say things like zurui, hatsukoi, uso, tachi, fukuzatsu Vs taihen, mote etc that are removed from the dub). I compiled a lot of the lost in translation stuff in r/gotoubun
Something to consider about Itsuki:
The Quintessential Quintuplets' character types are:
Ichika - Onee-san / ara ara,
Nino - tsundere,
miku - kuudere / dandere,
Yotsuba - genki
Itsuki - ??
- Tsundere like Nino?
- Eat-suki?
- Imouto?
- Someone who speaks keigo to their siblings, to Fuutarou and to Raiha and to everyone basically?
Actually, the main thing I learned from Yuta's videos that keigo is basically just desu, masu & their variations.
I swear when I learned elementary Japanese in bachelor's (foreign language classes are required in universities in the Philippines) we were never even taught the word keigo.
All this time I had no idea Itsuki was the only quint and actually only main character who was talking keigo to EVERYONE.
Anyway, I have a theory as to what Itsuki's type is, but you're not gonna like it...
For more japanese stuff re TQQ, see r/gotoubun r/itsuesugi r/raitsuki etc
The "kid" sounds like Kyubey XDDD
／人◕ ‿‿ ◕人＼
I'm currently at section 2 unit 9, anybody has any idea when I'll unlock the stories ?
Maybe 1 more section?
Stories start in Section 3 Unit 5
@@rcforge1 Thank you
Is there a difference between geemu and asobi?
Geemu (ゲーム) usually refers to video games.
Asobu, dictionary form, (あそぶ) can mean playing with or meeting and enjoying time with. You cannot asobu a video game, if you want to create a sentence with geemu it would be written ゲームする
not ゲームをあそぶ. Some examples of asobu:
おもちゃとあそぶ (to play with toys) or 友達とあそぶ (to hang out with a friend)
@@リディア-p6i Arigato 🙏
@@nathanbeer3338 glad i could help! 頑張ってね！
Yuta, I think you said in some video, that words like そして or ことができます are low-frequency words in casual language, yet I heard Japanese people in podcasts using exactly these words.
It seems to be not so uncommon after all?
日本語学びたい、ただしそれ難しい。それ紙で練習書く好きます。私もアニメ見る好きます。if that makes any sense at all I’ll be surprised tbh
It's understandable
i get it but grammar is off.
instead of using ただし、you can use けど. its more common in conversation.
And if you want to say a verb you like, you have to make the verb a noun. to do that, add の after the verb to make it a noun.
Also the 2nd sentence, if you are trying to say "i like practicing writing", then it would be: 書くのを練習するのが好きです
And then since 好き is a noun/na adj, you cant use ます. ます is for verb conjugation. instead use です if you're trying to be formal
so i'd say:
日本語学びたいけど難しいです。紙で書くのを練習するのが好きでアニメも見るのが好きです。
で after 好き just connects sentences. use it after nouns/na adj. (means something like "and")
Thanks for the help, it’s difficult to pick up on small details in the sentences
@@KiaraLily5788 i recommend "Japanese ammo with misa". Its a youtube channel where a native explains lots of grammar points in english. its pretty good.
Also, Yuta's courses really do teach these kinds of grammar points. ( But not for free.) I really like his JVS (Japanese Vocabulary Shortcut) ongoing course.
The advice about checkpoints and crowns is old advice before they updated DuoLingo
1:32 Duolingo used to let you skip individual lessons, but not anymore
The plushy next to him made me traumatized 💀
i know it has problems but it does seem like they work on accepting variations- i have tried putting kanji from the 12 key keyboard, and it accepted them, even though it didn't teach them yet. as well as accepting あそこ/あれ for there/that when it has only shown そこ/それ. but i do have an issue with them introducing the latter without making clear that they are more specific words with alternatives for the other contexts. i think you are expected to supplement it with more nuanced material, but they don't make it clear if you are, or with what you are meant to do so
I think 将来 sounds more correct to me because it’s a little more broad, vague, and conceptual. 未来 is almost more clear and a specific. It’s really hard for me to put into words. Like a person’s future is 将来, whereas saying “___ is the future” is 未来. This might be more of a problem with English not going to lie 😆
I’d like to learn Japanese with you. How do I start?
Should I stop Duolingo? I have made progress it helps me with sentence creation but too many people say it is bad
Could you look at Bunpro's sentences next? I feel like it does a good job explaining the nuance of each grammar point but as I'm not a native speaker I don't really know
Bunpro sentences iirc were written by native speakers. There are sometimes typos and stuff very rarely aince the content has been checked but you can just report them if there are and they will be fixed.
4:28
Can you make a better language app? If so, then why not?
If you were to make the language app, then what would the students be missing from the traditionally effective way of learning Japanese?
I’m curious if they still have the speaking practice with the stories. I was having issues with that and also my Japanese pronunciation is certainly not native. People didn’t have a problem understanding me, but the app did.
@ThatJapaneseManYuta Can you review Clozemaster's sentences? I'm curious to know your impressions.