A Linguist explains how to make duolingo actually work
2024 ж. 27 Сәу.
918 100 Рет қаралды
Lots of people ask my professional opinion on duolingo’s effectiveness. Like anything, it CAN work if you use it effectively. Rather than arguing about whats most effective, here’s 10 ways to make what youre probably already doing more effective.
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Correction: 10:59 pájara should be pájaro (I was thinking of palabra I guess) and urso has been oso for at least 500 years. I am not the king of Spanish.
Too many polyglots and linguists belittle Duolingo. What they fail to realize is Duolingo is a wonderful first step on the ladder towards acquiring a language. I'm grateful it gave me a start in Russian. Sure, after about 4 months I outgrew Duolingo, but it did the job required of it; it got me up and running (well crawling) -- and for free! My personal view is Duo takes you to roughly A2.
This. People mocking those who start learning a language with Duolingo, rings of people who mock unfit people at the gym. Elitist and unhelpful.
I am still using it for Spanish and have found it very helpful. It's a great app to start to get to grip with the basics. It really drills repetition and memory. I was put off by it because I listened to other people's opinions of the app, but it could be worse.
I used to knock it when I was using it way back when it started, it's gotten much better and I now recommend using it if you enjoy it. I think the people that still belittle it have not used it in a long time. There are definitely much better apps out there, but they're not free, but I agree with you, it's a great first step and can carry you through to where the boring stuff might be more fun now that you know more
@@carpevinum8645very true
@@georgeaslanidis4789I tried multiple languages and I realised it's not that good for Korean but it is really good for Spanish
Unfortunately, not all languages get the same attention in Duolingo. I was shocked when my friend who is learning German showed me she can see whole grammar explanations in the app. I'm learning Finnish and there's nothing like that. It's a guessing game why the noun form suddenly changed.
Yeah, DL sucks with Ukrainian. I use in conjunction with DuoCards (excellent) and FunEasyLearn (also really good)
Actually, Finnish used to have the best and funniest grammar instructions of all the language courses I do on Duolingo, and those are a lot. They were taken off with the new Duolingo course design, but they are still accessible in the discussions. If you google for "Duolingo Finnish Tips and Notes" you will find them all.
For whatever reason, Duolingo has been dragging their heels on letting mobile users look at the Tips section. It makes no sense.
Yeah it's similarly poor for Japanese
@@Picla_Peremohywait... 🦆, my Ukrainian friend has never corrected me when I translate things into Russian to try to help her if she doesn't recognize a word in English... I've just tried to explain a word to someone using a language that neither of us have as a first language 😅. I feel so bad now, thanks for posting this so I can fix that
My husband and I learned French to be able to go around Paris without a group or tour guide. Duolingo worked for us. We would practice what we learned at home with each other everyday and watched shows in French. We were able to go around Paris by ourselves and escape the covid lockdown by watching the news.
How much time did you dedicate to studying per day? And for how long did you study before your trip? :) Lastly, did you already know any other Latin language (e.g., Spanish, Italian, Portugués) before beginning to study French? Seeing your comment was so inspiring
+@@Diana02400 I'd like to know this too ^
@Diana02400 We studied everyday for at least an hour each day. Sometimes up to 3 hrs on a weekend. We started learning French 3-4 months before our Paris trip. I know a little bit of Spanish. I speak Tagalog and English fluently.
That's kinda the point though, isn't it? Duo is great for foundational knowledge, getting started, and for helping refresh material if used properly. What you both did right is that you supplemented Duo with other material or practice. That's the key. No single language product is going to do the job by itself. You need to do some work on top of that.
Well done! That's impressive!
What I like about Duolingo is the streak. Somehow it encourages me to keep practicing every day, even after the first few months when I am no longer feeling driven and focused on learning Russian. I am approaching a year long streak, and while I know I have not gotten as far as I could’ve if I’d used many other forms of learning, it has kept me going long after I would’ve quit. I’m so busy with school, homemaking, and my kids, I know I would’ve dropped the habit months ago without a streak.
I like the practising to recharge hearts. It's like a good reminder to do timed repetition.
@@CallowG Yes, I only recently started doing that because I hate having to keep progressing when I don’t feel solid on the other words
i commend your dedication. the most i can do is a 3 day streak, if any 💀
@@anotherday-anotherslay That’s how I always was. The key is just doing it when you think of it. Set a reminder and actually listen to it. Choose to do it when you don’t feel like it. After a couple months it becomes "well I’ve done it this long, it would be lame to drop it now" That is, of course, if you actually want to have this as a habit.
Yeah, the streak really helps to motivate you. I once had a 200 day streak which kept me doing Duolingo every day, although I then lost it and stopped doing Duolingo because I wasn't motivated anymore.
Duolingo has HIGH VALYRIAN as a language you can learn and that will never not be funny to me.
And Klingon lol😂 they need more Native American languages tho
And better quality! There’s a noticeable difference in the caliber of the courses. I’m honestly surprised the people revitalizing Lakota haven’t partnered with duo
I'd like to see them add Trigedasleng (from The 100) and Toki Pona (a real but constructed language small enough to learn very quickly).
Does it have Esperanto? I remember copying my teacher's grammar book and having a sense that I understood it, despite not knowing a single word of Esperanto. 😂 I have heard though that some country published news in the language at least once a week. Public service.
@@oakstrong1yes they have Esperanto, but I think it’s one of the more neglected languages on there
Thank you for not mocking Duolingo. For me Duolingo was like a gateway drug to Turkish. The Turkish course has a lot of flaws, but it's fun, and I still use it. It helped me decide to invest in a pro instructor via Italki.
Too many polyglots and linguists belittle Duolingo. What they fail to realize is Duolingo is a wonderful first step on the ladder towards acquiring a language. I'm grateful it gave me a start in Russian. Sure, after about 4 months I had outgrown Duolingo, but it did the job required of it; it got me up and running (well crawling) -- and for free! My personal view is Duo takes you to roughly A2.
Duolingo doesn't claim to be a complete course, they're MEANT to be a starter to get people interested and help them learn the basics. People just expect them to be both complete and something they consider a serious scholarly endeavor and then get mad when it's not.
I’ve been thinking about italki, how is that?
İyi gidiyor mu? Her zaman güzel öğretmenler araştırıyorum. Bazi gramer bilmiyor, çünkü gerçek öğretmenler değiller. Ne dersin?
@@fibanocci314 this
Duolingo is the reason I have found a love of languages. For years I would get irritated because people would call Duolingo useless when it is *far* from useless - it's just free. People in the language learning community seem to have a serious problem with free resources as a whole, for whatever reason, and it feels extremely elitist to those who can't afford a 50$ subscription for sub-par lessons. I don't agree with many of the money-snatching moves Duo has made lately, but having Duo as a resource is still better than having no free resources at all. KZhead and Duolingo are the best free resources for language learning.
I Hate how you only get 5 hearts at a time. It use to be free and you could mess up forever
@@Gaibreel if you can I would recommend doing it on a desktop, at least for me the hearts aren't there unlike if I used the app or used it on google on my phone
@Gaibreel the ads are what gets on my nerves. I can get passed the hearts issue... because I can always earn more doing the free practices.... which in the process I'm learning. Every so often if you use Duo everyday it will give to a free 3 day pass or so with unlimited hearts and the features as if you pay.
@@Gaibreelthat process has made me write down as much as possible for more practice on the stuff I'm not understanding usually with grammar or structuring the sentence.... kuz man it sucks to almost have a lesson complete and you only have 1 heart left and mess it up on something you overlooked, mistyped, or recently went over.
Exactly.
I've used Duolingo now for French for an average of at least 1 hour per day (one morning session, one evening session) for the past 207 days, after starting it as a New Years resolution at the beginning of the year. It is absolutely astonishing how much French I've learned in this time. I'm currently starting Section 5, which is approx. 80 units into the 209 total. I came into it just having very basic knowledge of counting to 10 from elementary school French and now I can comprehend French tweets & articles, watch French TV and movies, and listen to music picking up more and more on what is being said as my learning progresses. Even though I may not understand it all, I can identify grammatical devices like the passé composé or future tenses, for example, that are being used on words that I haven't yet learned the meaning of but may be able to piece it together from context clues. Their podcast for French has been extremely helpful too in hearing basic spoken French and learning to comprehend what is being said. I also switched my phone and computer to French, and with that, apps all auto switch so there's a lot of immersion happening. I've heard that their French course has always been their most developed (it was the first to get the new "path" format) and is constantly getting updated. In the most recent update, they have a new feature at the end of the stories (I assume powered by AI) that asks you open response type questions to get you thinking and writing in French that they didn't have before. Examples of the open response are "Did you like this story? Why?" or "What happened in this story?" or "What did [character] do?" and it analyzes your response and gives you bonus xp. I've also noticed that it has started asking me questions in French, rather than English. From what I've heard from friends using it for other languages, the French course definitely is more effective and robust than some other courses, but success in the French course is certainly what you make of it. If you use it for 5 or 15 minutes a day, you'll get very little from it. If you use it consistently and persistently, you'll be shocked at the results.
Oh this hits home! I also noticed that it is way better to immersive yourself even more and turn things you daily use into the language you are targeting like changing the language on your pc etc. that makes me for example more curious in a game where i need to know what this and that do. And its even more fun and keeps you engaged in the language. Also daily excercises with about 30minutes are super helpful! Been almost 70days into DL spanish and i am at a stage where i feel and try to have small talks (still a long way to go though!) But i am lucky to have some native speakers of that language as friends so this helps A TON.^^
Did you know any other Latin language (Spanish, Italian, Portuguese) before you began learning French this year?
Exactly no one can learn a language only with 15 minutes a day. French polyglot here
Bravo à toi Le français est dur à apprendre mais tellement gratifiant une fois que ça *click*
@@supermanuella92 En tant que française polyglotte, je suis touchée par ce commentaire.
In my professional (French and German teacher) opinion, there are only 2 motivations that can lead you to achieve fluency: 1) you REALLY want to and/or 2) you REALLY have to. Having both is a plus. Once the motivation(s) is (are) there, it is a matter of your brain sorting out what you need to become fluent -- a teacher can point out possibilities, but you personally need to figure out how your brain works. Also, the proper motivation gives you the necessary staying power. Without at least one of them, all the money in the world will not help.
For me fluency needs thinking IN the new language, NOT translating from the mother tongue. There's no substitute to a large bank of memories from listening and reading in the language to master more topic areas or needs, like sharing abstract ideas. I don't see the brain as "sorting out what is needed", it must be used, just doing it and muddling through, making mistakes is part of growing the language capabilities. Often native speakers lack fluency outside of everyday topics, the well educated have advantages, so it is not so very different really.
You are a fraud
@@skhalili9001as someone with diagnosed adhd, it is very much motivation for us as well. if i am not motivated, it is over. because i will not be able to keep up consistency without it.
und es ist unverzichtbar, de se trouver dans un environnent où on parle cette langue
3rd motivation: you wanna get in a girls pants That's a valid motivation and you can learn a language like that. For me she must be one hot girl ........I was catfished
It hurts me so bad to hear you say people should be more intentional in their language learning. Not because you said it but becase its so true! Why anyone believes that anyone can be native in 6 weeks by taking some miraculous course is beyond me. Truly learning a new language to a native level is arduous work filled with diligent study. Thank you, for bringing light to subject very close to my heart.
An infant with no understanding of what words even are can become native in a language in 5 years. Me? A grown adult that knows what language is? Shouldn't take more than 6 weeks.
@@chrismanuel9768but people generally don’t spoon feed you with linguistic training as an adult, and your brain isn’t in its first-5-years of excessively creating neurons, yeah? I’ve naively thought like you too, before learning about this.
6 weeks? I get ads promising me I'll speak like a native in 6 days. Some offer it in 6 hours.
6 weeks? I've been learning it for 8 months with over 4 month streak and I'm still an amateur who wouldn't even try to talk. It's a lot more than simply learning.
@@chrismanuel9768 The older you are, the harder it can be to learn a language. Children's brains are hardwired to learn language up to about age 12. After that point, it is still possible, but it takes much more effort and intention.
For me, Duolingo is something fun and productive that I can do in small bits of time. I see it as more of a program that competes with my social media/phone time rather than something that's trying to replace language courses/books/more traditional methods. So happy to hear a linguist that isn't bashing it since it is so widespread and accessible!
A lot of good advice. What helped me to make Duolingo actually work was turning off the word bank and typing my answers in my target language. There is a 'keyboard' option for that. I learn almost nothing from selecting sentence chunks in the correct order, but actively writing out my own sentences is entirely different. I also always use the browser version of Duolingo, not the app version. Both versions are actually quite different. Because most people use the app, many annoying changes such as the hearts system haven't made it into the browser version (at least not yet).
Hi I am absolutely in love with this idea but don't know how to turn off the word bank. Can it only be done on the browser version?
@@kammi9883 I only use the browser version so I can't really help with the app. If there is no more keyboard on the app (which may or may not be the case) maybe it would be worth switching to the web version. It currently has less nonsense like the hearts system. I also find it more convenient to type answers on a laptop than on a phone.
Ha I wish they would make this possible on the app version, too. I agree with you.
I Just learned you could do this and it has helped my learning and memorization skills tremendously!
it is on the app, you press the keyboard button on the bottom right or left of the question! @@bx1186
I'm glad I've been doing 90% of what you said already. I currently speak 5 languages and I decided to take on Russian because some of my coworkers speak it and I get to practice for free. Here is something that helped me evolve really fast besides practicing with natives: whenever I do the dishes I like to put down my phone and think of myself in the future as someone extremely rich and giving an interview in a TV show like The Daily Show or Stephen Colbert, and then I just start yapping about my life, oftentimes its just in my head but that helps A LOT to build up confidence and to assess your shortcomings. Plus you can start at an easy level with the first vocabulary you learn like "I was born in X", "I moved to Y when I was X years old", "I am rich because of Z"
Bro literally me I thought I was crazy LMAO
Please elaborate on Z 😂
@@languagejones6784 Me gusta! Yo tambien!
Five languages, and he(?) decides to throw in Russian??? Oooooh! La Fuerza es fuerte en ti! Impressive. Impressive.
Удачи!
Duo has been a game-changer for me. It is really ADHD friendly and has been helping me more than anything I've tried so far. These tips are great and I'll certainly be taking them to heart. Thank you!
For me it was good untill they changed the damn path.. But they just dont care.. i do think theyve slipped too deep into the money making hole
Yep. It's really ADHD friendly
@@mikado_m I'm sorry. I tried it before and lost interest but for some reason the new format is working for me and I don't spend at all. I hate that your experience was the opposite. :(
THISSSS. I'm auDHD and I found Duolingo several years ago, so I've been around even if I haven't actually been studying with it that entire time. Yet Duo is one of the only systems I consistently can use and learn from. I know it doesn't work for everybody, but it works for me, and whatever I don't understand, I can learn outside of Duo.
On this thread, my fellow NDs might like Yü speak for free Korean and Japanese courses, and its sister app HelloChinese. My two ND kids including at least one for sure auDHD😅, really love them after continuing 11 to 15 years of Duo. I do thank the owl for all the fun programs over the years, some of which used to connect the learners and let them interact with and help each other. The kids used to text each other insults in their target language via the app at one time for instance. I wrote many notes from comments they used to have on each question before the big format change. A while back one could award gems to the most helpful folks.
As a linguist and language learner I must say that Duolingo isn’t useless when you know how to use it. It’s a big plus. Too many course updates recently though. Some are good , some are irritating. And yes the curriculum varies depending on the language. My guess is that various teams work on various language courses, and management cannot always track everything
Sit down at a table, close your eyes, listen, and repeat in Spanish. Keep replaying the audio and trying to repeat, until you get it perfect. This has been my method for learning. That way it teaches to listen and speak the words, rather than just read/write. I completely agree with you.
0:18: 📚 Duolingo can be a useful tool for language learning, but its effectiveness varies depending on the individual. 2:59: 🎓 The video discusses the use of iTalki, a platform for connecting language learners with native speakers of their target language. 5:49: ⏰ It takes around 4.9 years to complete the French course on Duolingo if you do one skill a day. 8:47: 💡 The video encourages learners to start using the language with real people and in real-life situations, even if they feel uncomfortable. 11:47: 💡 Learning a language through Duolingo and combining it with other resources can be effective and affordable. Recap by Tammy AI
Zeel Bedankt, mevrouw
@@briankocheraabcdt4628 I think you mean "zeer" instead of "zeel", but I'd just "Heel erg bedankt" because it's sounds more natural. :)
About two years ago, I discovered that I enjoyed chaining. I sat down with a blank sheet of paper and a pen. Typically, I chose some theme, and I wrote that in the center. Then, I drew lines from there to other words I could associate with the concept in some way. And then I extended lines from those associations as well. For almost two years, this was one of my preferred ways to learn/review vocabulary (occasionally I would look up a word I wanted to include and didn't know in the target language, but I tried to keep it 90% just thinking in the target language). I found it very helpful at that stage in my journey.
I don't know if the language you were learning had gendered nouns, but I've learnt French and German at school and am trying to improve my German now, and I always find le/la and der/die/das incredibly hard to associate correctly with each noun. This is essential before you even start learning accusative, dative and the rest. Some people say get into the habit of always learning the gender with the noun and threat it as a single compound. So it's "der Hund" not "Hund" for dog in German. I've tried but it's not easy - what is - and it's not helped by language assistants like Duolingo not following this practice. Do you have any tips of your own?
@@matchmade44I learned French nouns with their corresponding articles. Tedious, but (mostly) effective. It was also helpful to memorize a few clues based on the spelling/pronunciation of many common words. Here are the ones I recall: 1. Nouns ending in -ence, -anse, etc. are all feminine…except “le silence.” 2. Words ending in -tion, -sion are all feminine. 3. Words ending in -age are all masculine…except la cage, la nage, la page, la rage, la plage, and l’image (f.) Good luck! 💐
I really like that idea! Seems good for making relevant vocab
@@matchmade44 I take German at school and my teacher taught some rules to memorise (like, that words ending in -chen are usually neutrum) and that, accompanied with a lot of repetition. Learning the gender with the noun also helps, on tests at school we are typically asked to be able to correctly recall the gender as well. I've asked my teacher how to better memorise these articles and she laughed and said it was a matter of practice and that many Germans still mess them up. Hope this helps!
essentially, mind mapping or spider diagramming, for language learning.
I began using Duolingo back in early 2022 simply because someone asked me what I thought of it. (I'm already multilingual and a professional translator and interpreter.) I couldn't very well give an opinion on something I knew nothing about. What you are describing here with the skills is no longer the case in Duolingo. The setup changed completely in late 2022 from the old tree structure to a "linear learning path" where you can no longer select which skill you want to practice and are forced to follow the path Duolingo has chosen for you. In some courses, the grammar notes (tips) which had been previously included in the skills suddenly disappeared and have not reappeared since. After the switch, the courses kept throwing up grammar concepts and vocabulary that had not been introduced before. This was a massive put-off for many people, who then quit in droves. However, having got half way through the Scottish Gaelic course when the switch occurred, I decided to persevere, got over the hump, and have now finished it after 14 months. I was using plenty of other online resources at the same time, including another learning platform, watching videos, listening to Gaelic radio, reading news items, reading a couple of learner books, newsletters in Gaelic, etc. I also started using Gaelic in daily life, writing my shopping lists in Gaelic, doing a run-down of the day's activities in my head. The only drawback with Gaelic is that, as it is a minority language, it's hard to find teachers or language partners on iTalki or other sites.
yes, that change put me off too. when you are no longer a beginner, having to do a course from learning the alphabet to going through basic words is a nusicance...
I only knew the new way... it's not terrible... but it's also not sufficient... it's a good tool, but not the only tool...
"This was a massive put-off for many people, who then quit in droves"
*I actually have a tip for people struggling with this change. I was learning Japanese when the switch occurred, and they changed it to teach kanji later (as the general method recommends). However, I had already learned most of the content and was now far earlier than I should be. *I used Duolingo on the computer and typed out all my answers instead of pre-selecting words, and it ended up moving me super far ahead in my course to the point it's challenging me again. So, try that- go on computer (if possible), type out your answers with a perhaps more advanced way of solving it, and it will move you ahead :)
@@prinxen1733 I was using both the mobile app and the web version from the beginning. I began typing (rather than selecting words) on both of those very early on, after I'd been using Duolingo for about two weeks. The reason I did that was because although the Scottish Gaelic slphabet uses Latin letters, it has only 18 letters and uses completely different letter combinations to represent vowel and consonant sounds from any Romance or Germanic language that I already know. When the switch occurred I was 3/4 of the way through the course. It put me back to half-way and started mixing up really elementary beginner stuff with new material, but all the grammar tips had disappeared. They never came back. It took two months for the "Guidebooks" to start appearing, and they just contained "sample sentences" and "key phrases" with no explanation of what they were supposed to be teaching and the audio was missing on nearly all of those sentences (it still is six months later). I was only able to overcome that "roadblock" by consulting all sorts of other sources. Now I've learnt two languages by full immersion in the country itself with practically no formal tuition in the early stages, so I know what challenges are like. But when you are doing that you are interacting with people and can get explanations in context. Here, Duolingo was throwing stuff at you with no useful explanations at all and no context. Not good at all.
Thanks for this. I use Duolingo for Spanish and though it does help, I often feel like I'm just getting better at "the Duolingo game of Spanish" rather than actual Spanish. This has given me food for thought. Edit: Immediately after writing this comment I got the "Practice or else" notification and then my first perfect lesson in over a week 😅👍🏽
exactly how i feel
yep same, when am I supposed to be able to make proper sentences? I don't care about diamonds and trophies
have you tried the mini course from spanishwithpaul here on KZhead? if not, do it, trust me.
@@alleygh0st Duolingo is a supplement... not a main dish. Read books and watch movies, engage in online forums and practice shitposting, then you'll naturally get better at forming sentences.
Im learning Spanish as well with duolingo. I just started 3 weeks ago. I try to talk to myself or compose sentences with what little I have learned so far. Like I imagine I'm on stage and I'm trying to introduce myself and tell the imaginary crowd what I did yesterday. My grammar is all over the place but I think I'm progressing.
Honestly, I kind of follow most of the tips you gave. But undoubtedly, Duolingo has helped me a lot. It got me to Portuguese A2 in less than 6 months back in 2013, along with some other self-study. I recently started learning German, and I passed from A0 to A1 in basically a month just using Duolingo. One of my sister also told me that a great amount of the VOC, phrases, and expression she was tested to get the A1 German certification, were part of her Duolingo learning path.
Yup. I’m currently able to communicate somewhat with native Spanish speakers after just 2 months. On Duolingo I’m currently in the middle of A1. It’s incredible how well it can teach you.
I became fluent in French by playing RuneScape on the French server. There were far fewer players so I didn't have to compete with resources, but I DID have to learn French
People don't get that doing Duolingo alone will not get you where you want to be in your target language. I love Duolingo and I use for Russian and Korean but I also pair it with a workbook and a grammar book. Most times it follows what I am learning in Duolingo. Also doing the circle once and moving on won't work. I usually do two or three of the previous circles before I start my lesson for the day and on the weekend do a whole unit review. I also write out a lot of the sentences and not individual words so I know how to use them as well and taking those words and making my own sentences to get used to forming things in my own words. Duolingo is a great tool that is part of a tool box. Using only a screwdriver won't get all your repairs done.
And what people tend to not mention is that no method ALONE will make you fluent
Thank you for your comment, coincidentally I’m trying to learn Russian and Korean myself. I actually hated using Duolingo for Korean and often wanted to throw my phone across the room at times (it did get me through learning Hangul however) but after watching this video and reading your comment, I may give it another try. 의견은 많은 도움있는데, 간사합니다. (As you can see I still need a lot of help).
This also is true of any one tool, in my opinion. I majored in foreign languages (German and French) after also taking Spanish and Latin, and even German MAJORS did not spend time outside of class on German. They hoped a few hours a week would get them "fluent" and then they all used English when we went to Germany. They can do what they want, but I mean to say, the reason I supplemented the uni classes with films, other books, internet forums, music, etc. was so that I could actually speak it in German-speaking countries. So I'd say DuoLingo is fine for what it is, but it's still only one tool.
(Me watching my sim fix his computer by shoving a screw driver into the closed case) But yes I agree. Duolingo isn’t even intended to be a stand alone language learning system. It’s meant to be supplemented. Also each language is put together by a group of volunteers; so the features on a language or the effectiveness of the languages course on Duo can vary from language to language.
Can I ask what your favorite grammar and workbooks for Korean are? I am trying to get into the language and struggling to find good books to add to duolingo
Great tips. I use Duolngo myself for Spanish and Portuguese, and I recommend it to all my high school French students. Here's something I use to encourage them to use it. A new kid, (from Iran and enrolled only in ELL classes) in grade 8 asked me how he could learn French. Natch, I said to use Duolingo. The following year, his counsellor enrolled him in French 9 when he'd never done a formal class in the language in his life, only Duolingo. He hit the ground running, getting on average around 70% on his tests right from the get go, and doing better than a number of kids who had taken French 8 the previous year. He kept using it and continued to improve throughout the year. Proof positive that it works, and if people put your handy hints into practice, they could benefit even more from it.
Natch? Seriously? Come on man, don't go inventing words to save yourself from having to write a few letters. This is a language page - not everyone will be a native English speaker, or able to understand your abbreviations! And googling it won't help them either...
Duolingo is like a starter pack to start learning a new language
I have been using Duolingo for almost 3 years and in early this year I thought I didn't make the desired progress but I didn't ditch Duolingo instead I changed my methods. I started recording myself talking about how my day went in languages that I learn. In few weeks I make a significant progress, I speak more fluently and remember words strongly (words that I relate to my routines).
I'm a native Hebrew speaker, currently learning a bit of French. I've been using duolingo and some other methods, but recently I find much more joy in watching French movies with French subtitles. I've found a few that I like and are not too difficult to understand (mainly sitcoms). I'm watching them over and over again and understand a little bit more each time. I'm not trying to be perfect, I'm not trying to understand everything, and I do very little memorization. Without a translation to a different language, I get to explore the language directly. It's not like having conversations with native speakers, but it is gives a good idea of how natives *really* speak, surely in terms of speed and connecting words, but also in vocabulary. There are several words (or filler words) that appear *very* commonly in *every* French show that I've seen, but you can complete an entire French course without getting to know any of them. (not just curse words...)
I have a lifetime goal of learning a language every 10 years for fun (and for brain health) and I've been doing the same thing but (and this is weird to admit) in the past few years I also watch protest live streams. Some French guy straps a camera to his head and mutters to himself about his surroundings and occasionally finds a group of friendly people to chill with, sometimes they have food and share, and they talk about the food. Sometimes they tell all their life stories, or instead of monologue about their life, they will have a back in forth conversation about directions, the current surroundings, theories about what the anti-riot cops will do that day, or politics. when I can't follow it, I at least get more in tune how to "Euhhhhhhh..." properly also I learned "Oh'la'la" is not what English speakers think it is and francophones often yell it when hurt :( This method is definitely not for everyone
Dear God I’m French and our sitcoms suck so much, I hope you dont judge our people by the quality of our tv… 😆 (We have decent movies if you’re willing to look around a bit)
@@josrodsedre5142 It's alright, don't worry 💗. And I don't watch Israeli sitcoms at all 😁
Watch movies you already know in the new language. Read books you already know in the new language. Note down the words you can't deduce the meaning of/are unsure about and look them up later.
@@grain9640 0.0 name?
It really depends on what language you want to learn. I'm German and learning Dutch with Duolingo. Knowing German and English most of the grammar and word order are familiar to me. When I don't get a rule a quick google search solves this. Have been testing my Dutch skills in the Netherlands recently after one year of learning and it worked really good! It would definitely be another story with a language that is not so closely related to mine but my experience is totally positive!
I started learning Spanish on Duolingo the moment I learned I may one day have Peruvian grandchildren. We've got a few years for that to happen, which is perfect timing for me, but my son is married and living in Peru now! It's been fun, and a little strange, because I still "think first" in French, having taken two years of high school French.
Hey something similar happened to my best friend, and now I want to be able to speak to those future grandchildren as well lol
that's cool! i hope your family is doing well. but just a warning, coming from someone from a peruvian family: spanish can vary from region to region, and some words in peruvian spanish are different to the ones in the duolingo course. for example, the word for "pen" listed there is "bolígrafo", but in peru, they usually say "lapicero".
I studied quite a bit of Spanish on Duo as prep for travelling South America, but once I got there I found that what I had learned amounted to nothing. In retrospect, this is because I "blindly" followed their course instead of being active and ask questions about the lessons. These tips make a lot of sense ahora que puedo hablar y mantener conversaciones un poco mejor. BTW, an Israeli here! And one who will start studying Linguistics next year! מדהים שאתה לומד את השפה שלי!
crazy how i my brain instantly switched to understanding spanish when u started writing
You switched to Spanish when he started to write Hebrew?😊
!De acuerdo! Los consejos tienen mucho sentido ..
The funny thing is I can read your comment after using Duolingo, but that was also for a ridiculous amount of years lol
So glad you called out the AI text-to-speech at the end. That struck a nerve with me when I began studying Hungarian with real voices on Duolingo, only to have them pull out the rug and switch to TTS junk. Thanks to real voices in the beginning, I picked up on the intonation specific to yes-no questions that TTS doesn't impart. For a beginner, I think TTS can do more harm than good.
“When you’re on the toilet and Reddit is down.” I don’t appreciate being called out like that.
Lol
🤣
The main issue I have with Duolingo right now is the audio. I can't learn something like Japanese when it's going to reinforce bad or sometimes straight up incorrect pronunciations. It used to even say the wrong kanji reading sometimes but it's a bit better about that now. The whole app reminds me of the uncanny valley. It teaches you something that approximates the language but is off by just enough to leave you sounding very strange. So until they work out all the bugs I'll be sticking to native content, language tutors and textbooks. As sad as it is to say there are no shortcuts to language learning. You just have to commit the hours to it no matter what.
With Japanese, I think you have the right approach. Unfortunately, while their Hebrew course is woefully subpar compared to their others, it’s also somehow the best thing out there. For a language like Japanese you are faced with an embarrassment of riches, and there’s no real justification for making duolingo one’s primary source of instruction
The audio issue with Japanese is a bit different to other languages because of the issues with multiple readings for kanji in Japanese. I don’t think the same criticism holds as true for the other languages in Duolingo. I have used Duolingo for Spanish and Dutch as a complete beginner, and it was fine. But while I do use it a lot for Japanese, I recognise that my existing knowledge of kanji and Japanese have made that journey much much easier than if I was coming at that course from no Japanese. I would not recommend Duolingo for beginner Japanese learners, but would have no hesitation making that recommendation for beginner Dutch or Spanish learners.
the only thing I've noticed is they don't really teach the tone differences which tbf university courses in the west don't teach either. you ofcourse need to expose yourself to a language beside an online platform outside that platform to become fluent in it. I've tried it with dutch and german at which I'm fluent and it teaches you really static basic forms of the language but what it does, is give you a broad basic vocabulary which is more essential than pronounciation and grammer when you're starting to learn anything. watch listen anything in the language you're studying which is essential to become more fluent.
@@holycameltoe124I've been studying the language for 5 years and only really know the tone difference between hashi and hashi. I think it's because people will understand you perfectly fine without the tone.
Agree re the audio!! I thought I was going crazy one day when I heard the AI voices for the recordings. I started working through the Cantonese course around July or August of 2022 and thought the voices were better than I expected. I'm a heritage speaker and was using Duo to reinforce + learn the characters since I've only been exposed to it colloquially. About 8 months later (around May 2023) my ears picked up some odd differences one day while plugging away on Duo; the voices suddenly sounded much more robotic. Was super bummed out. Never mind C2 or B2 fluency, with this scale-down, Duo is teaching bad habits, and I say that as an overall Duolingo supporter.
I’m an English teacher and a language learner - Spanish, Dutch, Chinese and Japanese (I am not claiming fluency in any of them, although my Japanese is pretty good😂). I love Duolingo, and pay for the subscription - this video is spot on about how to get the best out of it and supplement it. I’m going to save it and share it with people who ask me about the best way to use Duolingo - easier than me repeating all these points. Other resources - I’ve started using Langotalk to have inane conversations in Spanish with an AI and to read silly short stories. That is a good addition and well priced (in my opinion. I also use HelloTalk for finding other language learners to talk with - iTalki is much more reliable for finding teachers, but HelloTalk is good for a more social media approach to seeing friends’ feeds in different languages.
An excellent presentation. Thank you! In my late thirties I started to learn Welsh, one of two official languages of my country of Wales, and the language of a tiny corner of the Chubut Valley in Argentina. it took me six months to reach fluency; well, good enough to apply to attend university, and on my 45th birthday I graduated with a bachelor´s degree in Welsh. I am 68 years old now. Around 3 years ago I started to learn Spanish. You are never too old to learn a language. A cliché, perhaps, but true. However, for me it is taking far longer to reach a high level of competency. Not because, I believe, I have lost the ability to learn as thoroughly, but because I am easily distracted and I lack discipline, but not self-belief. I know I´m capable of reaching a high level of fluency. Many years ago, when I was in my mid 20s, I lived in Andalucía, Spain and in Gibraltar. I was in that southern corner of the Iberian Peninsula for around a year, moving from place to place, I learned some phrases, enough to get by. I was not shy to use what I knew and I am not shy to use what I know now; even if I get it wrong. Something strange has happened, perhaps it is normal, but I pronounce Spanish now with an Andaluz accent despite not learning much at all in 1980/81. So, back to the point of this long reply. Duolingo is where I started this time around and it was very useful. I still use it for a lesson a day, and although it is not the best way to learn, it helps me focus, then I move on to my main courses. One of which is Dreaming Spanish, a series of presentations where you listen and concentrate. I have learned so much from Dreaming Spanish. Another course is with Spanish Dictionary (SpanDict). My advice to others is to read as much as you can. What I will take from this presentation is your advice to keep notes, no matter how disorganised they may seem, they will mean something to me. And to focus more on the task in hand! Thanks again 'laungaugejones'. I´ve subscribed.
The only guy I know who took the huge fire all seeing eye from loads of the ring and put it in a lamp
Immersion with intensive daily classes is the only thing that works for me. I learned more German in three months this way than French in four high school years and two college semester courses
Thanks for taking the time to make this video! Very helpful 😊
One of my favorite things to play with is imagining getting asked questions and then formulating my would-be responses.
I started off on Duolingo learning Korean on top of using Talk To Me In Korean (TTMIK) as another source. Now being 7 months into learning & having a tutor, Duolingo has been quite beneficial in terms of vocabulary learning and verb conjugation. I would be completely lost if I solely used Duolingo, but having it has an additional way to practice has been a great help. Also, for fellow Korean learners, Lingory has been fun! The ads are a nuisance, but it explains the sentence structure + conjugation and all the “why” questions you may have!
Yüspeak is great too, and no ads.
I recommend "How to study Korean" for grammar explanations and looking things up on Naver Korean-Eng dictionary. Billy Go's Korean Made Simple wasn't perfect but it was by fat the best language learning textbook I have come across. If you use a textbook I recommend listening to the audio files until you can remember the m perfectly (with the intonation and prosody included). I will say Duolingo has good vocabulary for Korean in the late lessons but it is atrocious early on and gives you no grasp of how politeness or speech styles work and has an unreliable AI voice (I disable audio on Duolingo to avoid misleading input) Anyway, once you are advanced enough to understand spoken Korean and have a brief conversation Duo becomes extremely good for increasing vocabulary and practicing making sentences since they are often so unpredictable (I remember one of the first words it tried to teach me was the Korean word for 'cornea'...). As a beginner "I have a dog, and I walked him this morning" is more useful than "The blue duck walked to work with a briefcase" or "it is a cornea"
@@Kyle-uo5bg I started out learning korean a few days ago and i also started with duolingo. It really helped me with learning the alphabet, but after that it soon lost me because of using the romanization all the time and using words where syllables are pronounced differently without explaining why. Then i also came across 'how to study korean' and now i'm slowly doing the grammar lessons while learning the introduced vocabulary and i'll see how that goes. I really like how it introduced the basics in a unit 0 with alphabet and pronunciation and then dropping romanization completely with the start of unit 1 to not build bad habits.
Same! I use TTMIK to explain the grammar and Duo to drill the vocab. It has been helpful by being addictive and creating familiarity in the grammar patterns (although it is annoyingly inflexible on word order in both K and E that I know can be switched around, so not perfect hence why good to rely on multiple sources).
This is my first time viewing your channel. Congrats on studying Hebrew. As I’ve been “studying” it since the age of 7, it’s hard for me to know whether it’s actually easy…but I’ve told people it is. The grammar is quite simple and you’re “up and running” with sentences from the very start, because To Be doesn’t exist in present tense. I started using (free) Duolingo 2 years ago to learn Norwegian. What a hoot! I never knew it was so close to English. Sometimes I out and out giggle! Thanks for all these tips. I had a feeling I wasn’t getting the most out of DL, and you have confirmed it. I’m definitely going to look into italki. I need a new dimension to my studies.
I *love* Duolingo. I currently have a streak of over 3 years (and have been using it for 6 years) and it has been absolutely instrumental in my learning. The great majority of my learning is Duolingo + italki. My italki tutors are consistently impressed with how much vocabulary and grammar I've learned from Duolingo. Some thoughts: -Looking at the comments for each question is SUPER helpful (actually, I was surprised it wasn't one of the tips here!), as people often ask and answer clarifying questions, provide more info, etc. -It forces topic variation. When talking to italki tutors, we often slip into talking about the same subjects over and over, like travel and food. Duolingo forces me to use vocab that I otherwise wouldn't think to practice but that I do actually want to have at my disposal. -The strength of Duolingo's focus on translation is that it makes sure you say what you mean. When talking to a live tutor, you might want to say that you went to college, but instead you say that you *will go* to college-totally different meaning, but if what you said was grammatically correct and they don't know what you actually meant to say, they likely won't know to correct you. -The feature for learning other alphabets is very helpful. -It's a great way to practice a language for a few minutes on days/at times that you aren't able to do full italki lessons. -A lot of the criticisms of Duolingo are years out of date and/or only apply to certain courses. (Course quality does definitely vary a lot...) Also: You mentioned that Duolingo doesn't have imagery, but at least some courses do, and occasionally you can't answer a question without interpreting the image.
What courses did you take?
My problem with Duolingo is that once they moved to ad revenue the primary goal become time on the app rather than making you a competent enough user of the language to crowdsource translation. The result is a focus on review and repetition so far beyond the point of diminishing returns that it will take orders of magnitude longer to make progress than practically any other method. *Edit, well further into the video it seems you agree, haha.
The “path” weirdly imposes repetition but only 3/5 of what they previously allowed for. I really, really liked managing my skill tree, and I’m still pissed about the path.
@@languagejones6784 I had high hopes the path would reintroduce automatic SRS while pushing users AWAY from the review treadmill, but alas. Le sigh.
SRS is great for vocabulary, but it is not sufficient for fixing grammar patterns. Repetition is important - which we can get through daily conversations, but if we just have Duolingo, then we do need plenty of repetition to build up our grammar fluency. Individual subscribers will bring more revenue to Duolingo than individual ad viewers - I think Duolingo is just as likely to be motivated to retain subscribers as it is to feed ad-viewers’ eyeballs to advertisers. I’m willing to trust Duolingo’s argument that they are using data analysis to get the level of repetition right.
@@chrislowe6926That's a bold assumption to make
DL has major problems. Just speaking from 460 days and almost 300,000 XP i find the gamification disingenuous, especially in the Diamond level challenges that are impossible to complete without paying for more gems to buy timer boosts (micro transactions) I could have hired a live tutor for what I spent to stay on top of the leaderboard. Second, I started catching funny errors in XP calculations. Let’s say you win 120 XP and this is reflected. Come back in oh say 5 minutes and all those points are gone replaced with only 25 or 30 XP. I started taking screenshots and submitting to DL who denied any problem. Then they would try to blame my cell signal where the screenshot even shows I was on a 5 bar WIFI signal, from home, with over 340 MPS bandwidth. I didn’t renew the subscription. And just use the free version with the annoying ads. I spend more time with DuoCards (much more robust) and FunEasyLearn. Both have greater vocabulary depth and practical sentences (A lot). DuoCards also drills down to some more in-depth vocabulary discussions. Language learning on Netflix is also good.
Great summary! I've used Duolingo successfully to get started on German. My three most effective ways to learn are music, books, and italki. I'm doing learning Spanish. I think in your list you missed out on listening to tons of music in your target language, as once you get a song stuck in your head you get memorization of the lyrics for free. Still, Duolingo's superpower is definitely keeping you engaged and keeping you practicing day in and day out. A year of ten minutes a day is worth more than a single intensive week and then not touching it the rest of the year.
I didn't originally like Duolingo. But after studying German for a few years using first Pimsleur, then Fluent Forever, Memrise, in-person classes, trips to Berlin, and finally grammar study with Laura Bennett, I came back to Duolingo and am totally enjoying it. I now understand enough about the grammar that I can see what each lesson is teaching (your #1 tip), and it gives me tons of repetition with simple enough vocabulary that I've started really internalizing the grammar. One other useful tool I've discovered (similar to something else you mentioned in your tips) is to take vocabulary that's introduced in Memrise (good for slang and hearing native speakers, but terrible for recalling what's been taught before) and make my own flash cards in Fluent Forever so I get the repetition I need to retain what I've been taught.
I downloaded Duolingo back in November, and have taken lessons of mainly French and Spanish every single day. I’ve also been watching some of my favorite media in these languages and have recently gone back to my reviews on Duolingo on what I’ve learned and taking notes using Quizlet. My goal is to start having conversations with people who are fluent in French/Spanish and also German cause I use that mainly too even if it starts awkward at first. I might look into iTalki with that soon.
I've recently started using Duolingo for French, and I can definitely see how how one uses it can make a big difference. I have definitely found looking up stuff outside of Duolingo helpful. Also, sometimes the discussion feature within DuoLingo.
I wish they kept it! The comments were so useful
@@languagejones6784 - They still have the comments for each question!
@@greg.jordan.detamore But you can't add new comments. The forum has been locked for a year, with no ability to post anything new.
WOW, What a great video! Thanks that was helpful.😊
For me Duolingo has such an insane ability to motivate me. (and I'm not sure why, but they're doing something right) My issue with every language I've tried to learn is actual practice outside of a class, so daily practice, if only a little doing it every day makes a huge difference and over time I've started constructing rudimentary sentences in Chinese mentally instead of English. For me the biggest changes occurred when I would cover the word banks with my hand and go through as much of any given exercise mentally and verbally before inputting the data, speak every exercise even if the app doesn't ask you to and when selecting individual words think about at least 1 sentence you'd use it in. With something like an app it's too easy to let your brain subconsciously use tricks like process of elimination and memorizing app patterns to avoid learning the thing you're trying to sit down and learn.
one thing i think that really works me is having a diary of sorts in the language I'm currently learning. It's good for privacy, and because I know what words I use most to describe my day, feelings and thoughts. plus it gets me used to reading and writing in that language
Hey that sounds like a very good idea. I never thought to do that but I think I'll give it a try
I personally find Duolingo to be more effective at keeping up the languages I already can speak to some degree rather than learning new ones from scratch.
I’m an ESL teacher on summer vacation. I’ve been layering on top of DuoLingo Spanish with an online class in which I verbally translate, a vocabulary memorization app, ConjuGato app for verb conjugation drills, watching Modern Family in Spanish, and taking to the dog in Spanish. I’ve also found a group that meets once a week to practice speaking Spanish. Going back to my teaching job in a week, but I’m hoping to be able to practice with my Spanish speaking students, families, and bilingual coworkers. I do practice saying the whole sentence before typing it. I love your idea of trying new sentences. That’s what I do constantly as an ESL teacher! Somehow I forgot about using sentence frames in Spanish.
I love your humor. So many tips but little asides crack me up and make you memorable. In this one, critiquing your own language as sounding like Klingon. A gem in itself. Keep it going.
great video with a lot of useful tips! i'm also learning hebrew and french so it made me smile whenever you've mentioned these two
Great video. I’m happy that Duolingo renewed my interest in learning French. It has been an effective way to build vocabulary. My learning started to plateau until I started taking lessons with online instructors. I tried iTalki but for French prefer Lingoda because it has a lesson plan that is independent of the individual instructors. Taking classes with different instructor, with different accents has REALLY helped me improve my listening comprehension.
i started learning french when i was seven, independently, because my dad is canadian and we were visiting montreal. when i was eleven i started classroom learning, increasingly intensive. supplemented with duolingo in the summers. when my family could afford it, we went to france which gave me great practice. i put in a lot of time and effort into this (1200+ day duolingo streak as well) and this past year i was officially certified by my state as bilingual. i will continue to practice and improve my french, as i still have so much vocabulary to learn, but i am wanting to build on one of the languages i started the basics of on duolingo. this is a great video to help me supplement duo as i no longer have access to that consistent classroom environment (not taking a language first semester of uni). thank you!! i think i might work on italian - my reading comprehension is great but recall and speaking not so much. i'd love to be more proficient in speaking, so i will definitely keep these tips in mind.
I’ve found so much of this is true! I studied French and Spanish at university and I find DuoLingo a little frustrating because it’s quite repetitive and doesn’t go into the nitty gritty of grammar which I really enjoy. I think it’s great for kids though - my 8 year old niece likes playing on it. When I started Italian I went straight to italki and progressed so much faster than when I was at school. I’ve got past the embarrassment of making mistakes and really love the mental gymnastics of trying to get my point across. I also like to chat to myself in other languages just for fun and to check I can still speak them, as I don’t always get chance to have conversations with others. Also agree on watching content - I like subscribing to KZhead channels in the target language so I can do short bursts of practice
The 9th tip is EVERYTHING, to me at least. Back in high school, my English teacher kind of pushed us to not just remember the basic translations of the words we were supposed to memorise. A lot of the test questions were about synonyms, antonyms, or explaining stuff in simpler terms. In fact, most of the points you could get came from these kind of tasks. It boosted my vocabulary immensely, and even though I wasn't a fan of her method back then (more studying, duh, I've got 15 other subjects to learn), right now I'm really thankful to her.
I've found Duolingo to be effective at teaching me how to say basic sentences in Spanish, but despite being 3 years in and halfway through the courses, I still am horrible at hearing Spanish. I would like to practice listening to Spanish, but I feel lost while watching videos in Spanish
Turn on subtitles. Then, when you feel confident, you turn them off.
one huge tip for learning any language, is when you do lessons, speak with all your words jumbled into one. try your best to make the sentence you say into ONE word. it will help you get an ear for “fast native speakers” they aren’t “fast” they just connect beginning and ends of words more efficiently, which makes it hard to catch
The best remedy for this is repetition and perseverance. You will have to watch LOTS of hours of content if you really want to improve your listening. Even if you don’t understand it, the more your brain hears the language, the easier it becomes to recognize words you do know.
Yeah you won't get it from Duolingo. Look for a friend who will go slow ,or a video , starting slowly, and as you practice same sentence 30 or 100 times , you will never forget it. Try yelling the phrases, loud over and over. ....find friend
Check out the channels Easy Spanish and Spanish After Hours for more beginner friendly videos. There are also a ton of Spanish podcasts aimed at learners (I think DuoLingo even has their own)
This is extremely helpful and practical! Thanks!
These are awesome tips, thanks for sharing! I've been consistently using Duo for French and Greek for a year and a half now and I can definitely speak and understand enough to keep me going. The monetization of Duolingo started destroying its original intentions, I think, but it's not too bad yet. I hope they can push resources towards supplementing their courses more and more and getting the audio to a better state than it is now. Especially in Greek.
I’m a native English speaker learning Spanish on duolingo, and I found this video super helpful, thanks! And may I also sayכל הכבוד על הלימודים!
9:00 I went to the Netherlands not long after I completed my A1 course in Dutch. I am the only student in my class without a "Dutch person" (relative, SO, etc) to practice with. The Dutch people were very kind and helpful and respected when I wanted to speak in my rudimentary Dutch vs native English. I learned a lot of vocab (thanks 3 a.m. infomercials!) and just speaking became immensely more comfortable. A lot of things clicked. I was there for 7 days and really felt like I "leveled up". Even my instructor and classmates commented. Basically, I agree - you really don't have to be too far into your language studies to go visit/vacation and use it. The language we use in daily "get around town" life is generally not sophisticated, more about building vocab. I had an amazing time. Also @languagejones, I want to thank you for introducing me to italki. I've found the most amazing taalmaatje - sometimes we drill down into a concept I need additional help with from class, sometimes we just have really enjoyable chit chats in Dutch where he gives me minor corrections/explanations. Every lesson I learn something key and it's made learning Dutch and Italian just a little more fun/personal.
This is so great to hear! I never really know how these videos are going to land, and I’m so glad to hear that you found something helpful in them and that you are enjoying italki. What was your favorite experience in the Netherlands?
I like when Duo give you a funny sentence like "my cat like to read" or similar makes it fun. To learn how about trying to write a super simple kids story? It got me the the level I need which is to order food at restaurant and making small talk.
I'm happy with your honest review. My kids and I love Duolingo. It's been only 4 days since using it for Portuguese. I value your italki advice. Thx
I just finished a Duolingo lesson when this popped up. 😂 Kinda freaky like when an ad on a website/app appears that shows you something you were just thinking of buying/searching for
The reason I use Duolingo: it keeps me coming back every day. The "streak" and the "early bird" and "night owl" awards, combined with short time requirements, are enough to motivate me to practice every day and usually twice a day. Do I expect it to get me to fluency? Absolutely not. I expect to visit my favorite native speaker's KZhead channel for lessons sometimes. I expect to (eventually) buy a book on grammar, or at least visit a web site that teaches grammar. I expect to use flash cards. I expect to drill declensions and conjugations. But keeping up motivation is both necessary and frequently difficult. Duolingo takes care of that.
Young man, I'm never going to undertake a language course in the remainder of my life, but that was a very good video, and you are an insightful and probably good person. Thank you.
Great video and advice. Thank you so much! :)
Fantastic video! I'm not a big fan of Duolingo if the students has the discipline and possibility of more rigorous approaches, but it's fantastic as a low-friction way to get started for most students. Thank you for providing some insights in how to make the best of a tool almost all students already use.
Some strategies I use. 1. Transliteration instead of translation. I don't care how rediculous the English sounds it is only a tool to learn the target language. My language is a "verb first" language. Problem with Dualingo is that it demands you to be exact with your English translation when in fact my language doesn't have indefinite articles so when I leave out an 'a' it gives me the red correct solution(wrong). Still Dualingo is useful. 2. I don't believe in the easy to difficult approach. I have a friend who speaks four languages.When I asked about her approach she said she starts self study courses in the middle and branches out both ways. She said it helped her because she wasn't thinking subconsciously that the lessons are getting harder. 3 Revision is my cornerstone. I revise the previous nights lessons in the morning and the morning lessons in the evening. Then every Sunday I revise the last seven days. This gives me a nice consistent,well spaced overlap to reinforce what I've completed. 4 When I revise those seven days I work backwards so as not to expose my memory to predictability. A liar cannot remember backwards which means I put more demands on my memory than a sequential revision starting from the previous Sunday. LanguageJones if you happen to read this could you give me your opinion on these techniques. 👍Hwyl. 🏴
Your video was great confirmation for me. After I started learning Swedish on Duo... I went out and found Swedish children's stories, Swedish shows with subtitles, and KZhead videos of actual Swedish speakers. I didn't know about italki, but will be checking that out. Thanks! P.S. What always killed me when I was learning Spanish was that the native speakers would have us listen to music... I can't pick out English lyrics much less Spanish lyrics... it was of little help to me, but it must work for others. :)
I like your method, as always thanks for sharing.
I started learning Spanish with DL about 3 weeks ago. I have used it every day so far. I usually do 15-20 minutes per day. I have the paid service, so I can go back and review past lesson content. I appreciate the top 10 list for enhancements. I probably do a few things on the top 10 currently. I do have access to Spanish speakers, so I will try to talk to them. I will try writing also.
Duolingo is a great START to the language learning process - It gave me enough Esperanto to allow me to cope with more advanced material an a2/b1 level books from which i bootstrapped to my current b2 level- of course Esperanto is almost certainly the easiest fully functional language to learn but hey - if it works it works.
I’ve been really curious about esperanto! How do you find it? Does it live up to the hype?
So, you spent time learning the most useless “language” in existence. Who do you speak to?
I've been learning french on Duo for two years come this April and have recently started Korean. What I can say about my experience is that it provides a safe space for me to learn. I used to be very shy. About my french and would freeze whenever I had to speak it. Duo was the app where I could practice the language without feeling awakard. I agree it is not going to get you to all the way to speaking like a native, but it does keep me engaged. I like having that streak. The gamification aspect of it is catchy. Plus, after a while you naturally start to look for music, books, tv shows...
Well explained … thanks for the hints
Not sure if anyone struggles with this, but something I would recommend too is that you *_completely_* ignore the league, or at least don't make it part of your main goal to stay at the top. Duolingo definitely wants to make money and, as far as I can see, the competitive spirit of the weekly league is one way of keeping people glued to the app. The problem is... wanting to place higher in the league all the time might completely shift your focus from _learning_ , to simply racing through all your lessons so you can earn as much EXP as possible. Forget that! Please take the time to go through your lesson and understand what you're doing. Don't rush, you're not in a race with anyone to learn the language. This is _your_ learning journey! ✨😤✨ ✓ *Listen to the audio and repeat the sentences* to improve your pronunciation, intonation and speed (although, it _is_ true that the Duolingo audio is unreliable sometimes... so try finding audio elsewhere if you're uncertain) ✓ After getting an answer wrong - or even correct, *check out the Discussion tab* to see if anyone addressed the issue/any questions you might have about the sentence. Unfortunately all the discussions seem to be locked, so you can't post anything new there... but checking out the old posts has cleared up a lot of confusion for me in the past. If you don't find anything helpful there, make note of your question and look it up after the lesson. ✓ *Try **_responding_** to the sentences as though you're having a conversation.* This might encourage you to think and speak in the language more, especially when you don't have many solid options for speech practice. For example, one of my German sentences was something like "Wir trinken Bier am Samstag"... so I, with my clumsy accent and unconfident pauses, decided to ask aloud: "Warum..? Warum trinken Sie Bier.. und nicht Wein?? Es ist Schabbat!" (It gets better with time and effort haha, I just have fun with it and even plug in English words when I don't know the German equivalent. I would definitely seem crazy if anyone else was around though 😂) ✓ *Try to recognise when there are multiple ways of translating to your target language,* and answer in a different way each time. This helps me familiarise myself with the various conjugations. Using German again as an example, I might get a sentence like "Would you like to go to the movie theatre?" and I could translate it differently based on the _"you"_ I'm referring to: • *Casual singular:* _Möchtest du_ ins Kino gehen? • *Casual plural:* _Möchtet ihr_ ins Kino gehen? • *Formal singular OR plural:* _Möchten Sie_ ins Kino gehen? Duolingo _usually_ accepts variations like these, but just report it if they mark your answer wrong when you think it should be right. Orrrr check the Discussions tab first to see where you might have been wrong 👌 ✓ *Do not only memorise specific sentences, focus on the structure* and think about how you could substitute some of the words to make the sentence your own. If you get a sentence like *"I don't like the carpet, because it is red"* , try to think of OTHER reasons why you wouldn't like the carpet and see if you can say it in your target language. Or, maybe you _do_ like the carpet but you don't like something else? Play around with it! "I don't like the carpet, because it is old and dirty" "I don't like the bed, because it is too small" "I don't like my job, because it is too stressful" When trying to substitute, you might notice that your vocabulary is lacking... but that's okay! Make a habit of always looking up words you're curious to know, and try to use apps/sites like HiNative and Reverso Context for more natural word choices and sentence examples. ✓ If you're feeling adventurous... *check if there's a Duolingo course made for native speakers of your target language* . For example, I use the American English course _for German speakers_ to supplement my regular German course (for English speakers). Basically, I put myself in the shoes of a native German speaker learning English; but what I focus on is the exposure to _German_ vocabulary that I don't get at my current level in the German course. Sometimes it's helpful, sometimes it's not... but for me, it's an interesting way of switching things up from time to time. I also get some nice immersion since the User Interface language also changes to German. Those are the things I find myself doing usually and they keep me engaged on Duolingo! I'm still behind in the languages I study, but that has more to do with my lack of consistency than anything else haha 😅 _[Comment Edits: Formatting adjustments + adding in a missing sentence]_
I use some of these and I left them out. I should make a follow up!
I wouldn't recommend repeating sentences aloud in the early stages because your brain isn't used to picking up all the sounds.
In Irish course, all discussions that were "locked" have now completely disappeared!
The killer tip here is definitely all the ones about babbling to yourself and daydreaming. One thing I do when out and about is to take all the little conversations you have in a shop or wherever and re-play them in my head, but in the target language. Anything I don’t know how to say, I try to improvise and then make a note to look up later. I like the idea of combining this with an outlandish twist - ‘what if we had that conversation again, but in German and I’m now a werewolf trying to subtly discover whether there’s any silver in the store’
I have done that for years. I have an imaginary time-traveller friend to whom I explain all the modern contraptions and the world around us :)
I used to do something similar, a lot: just sitting there trying to translate my thoughts into French. I know a lot of people say you're not supposed to translate, but I guess my brain is too linear to know how you're supposed to do it any other way. It was a lot easier when I still remembered all the verbs and conjugations and whatnot! Now, I'm lucky to be able to say "When I get home, I need to..." :P
This is amazing! I'd love one of these videos for the Mondly app, because I find I don't review vocabulary enough in it and forget everything!
Congratulations on the baby! 🎉🎉
I got to B2 in Swedish through casual daily learning over a couple of years, using exclusively Duolingo - It suits my learning style perfectly.
His is an excellent video. Apart from techno babble in the middle "use anki add notes, add audio" etc. Love the messy notes advice. I am surprised that the owl has invented ways to make the student rush.I do 3 and 6 which takes time but oh I only have double XP for 15 mins! I think Kate's top tip is "invesy in an old glove. Slap yourself with it if you catch yourself thinking any of the following. I need XP, I need to stay up or ascend a league, your friend in the friend quest is relying on you etc etc. I so enjoyed this video. Thank you
I'm not sure how talking about Anki is technobabble, it's a fairly commonly used app among language learners.
Amazing video, great advice!
I appreciate the call-out of generated audio / generated text, it's something that can confuse a beginner ("why is _that_ right?") and as you get more proficient you'll notice it more and start answering "correctly for Duo". I'm not sure it's the same issue, but I often notice pronunciation and word-choice differences using Innovative / LanguagePod101, especially with the free offerings.
This is some good advice. I use Duolingo for learning Norwegian for two main reasons. 1) it's free and I can't afford anything else, 2) I don't have to go anywhere or talk to anyone. I know going places and interacting with people is really good for learning a language, but I have a lot of things that make that difficult. Social anxiety and autism (struggling to understand how to function socially and also getting overwhelmed by sensory stuff easily) make it daunting, and on top of that I'm also hard of hearing, so it's difficult enough to understand my native language of English without seeing it written at the same time as hearing it, let alone an entirely new language. I probably will seek out personal interaction in Norwegian after I finish my Duolingo course, but for someone who's just been too intimidated to learn a language AT ALL, or giving up partway through, I'm going to stick with what works, and that means mostly solo study is actually what works best for me right now to build my confidence, gain a foundation of understanding, and make me feel like it's ok if I make mistakes because they don't have to be public until I'm ready. I'm almost 8 months into learning and still nowhere close to done, but I'm enjoying myself, learning a lot, and going at my own pace. :) I supplement my lessons with google searches on things I don't understand (I was really confused where to use 'sin/sitt/sine' at first, for instance, rather than 'hans' or 'hennes' or such). I also connect Norwegian to my other hobbies or things I enjoy, like looking at recipes and actually making them and reading the blurbs at the beginning/watching youtube recipe videos (I actually learned the word for mustard 'sennep' early like that, and I've made some salmon burgers and buns), or trying to translate songs from Norwegian (I've done 'Stjernestøv' by Aurora and 'Når Snøen Smelter' by Astrid S, not good enough yet to translate English songs to Norwegian unfortunately, except for the meme song 'Here Comes The Boy' which actually sounds just as nice in Norwegian). I also talk to my cats in Norwegian to tell them how cute they are or what my train of thought is, or narrate myself while making lunch or what the weather is when looking out the window. I hope to become good enough to do creative writing in it without having to use Google translate. Duolingo isn't perfect, but it's working for me shockingly well, and I always get super excited when I get an opportunity to practice outside of lessons or get an opportunity to test my comprehension. A bit of a silly example, but the video game TF2 recently got a new map added called 'Selbyen', and I learned the word for seal from it (sel), and also was excited that I was able to translate every other word in Norwegian present in the map, like the name of the animal relocation company on the van the seal comes out of, and explain to my siblings why some of the signs in a fish market part said 'kr' which is short for 'kroner', the currency in Norway. While there's maybe more in depth or effective ways to learn other languages, I think it's a little reductive when some people discount it as a tool to learn. I knew absolutely zero Norwegian before I started using the app, and honestly that probably would've continued. Now that I have some success under my belt, I'm feeling confident enough that I'm planning to learn some of the other languages on my to do list that would be more relevant to my daily life, like ASL, or Spanish or Latin.
I've been using Duolingo Hebrew for 3 years, doing about a lesson or two a day. It serves my needs because I am very familiar with the language outside of the app and I'm using it for vocabulary expansion (especially for subjects I dont think about) and regular mental reinforcement. That said, I agree its absolutely atrocious for someone who has no experience with the language and it doesn't teach the grammar in any effective manner (beyond some notes outside of lessons), but as a supplemental tool to keep the language on your mind, it can be helpful.
“Here’s 40 hif’il verbs!” “What’s a hif’il verb?” “We’ll never say!” …later… “Here’s a lesson with the last tense of all the verbs you’ve learned, where each lesson is organized by binyanim. But we won’t ever actually say that”
I've been doing exactly this, but with Japanese. I studied Japanese in college so I've already got a lot of the grammar. I can casually do the lessons and learn the vocabulary without running into a grammar wall. But I also tried Hebrew for a while (twice, actually, with a gap in between) and ran into all sorts of confusion over which version of numbers to use where, and which gender of adjectives to use with nouns when there are exceptions, and things like that. I also struggled with trying to remember vocabulary words when the system hadn't yet told me how to pronounce them (just consonants aren't enough!). I got to the point where I can mostly puzzle out words phonetically, especially if they have vowel points, but I can't say that I can speak much of anything or understand very much, especially when the app kept insisting that doves like wine or other inane sentences. The most fun part was making connections between modern Hebrew vocabulary words and Biblical Hebrew terms I'd learned elsewhere, like "kotev" for write and "Ketuvim" for "Writings" (as part of the Tanakh).
@@reikoyukawa4873 As a native Hebrew speaker, I took Duolingo's Hebrew course to improve my English (because there is no reverse option - Hebrew to English), and I agree with most of what you said. I think that Niqqud should be added to the words (at least when they are presented for the first time) or a Latin transliteration. Regarding the "doves like wine": At the beginning there was no supplement to the course that teaches the Hebrew alphabet, so the beginning of the course was dedicated to teaching the alphabet using words that used the same letters until they presented all the letters and moved on to teaching normal sentences. That's why there're sentences like: "אבא, האהבה באה"
You mentioned that French has 180 units in Duolingo but I've discovered that they increase units after a period of time. The total for me was 206 but just recently increased to 219. I googled to find out why, and it appears that it is to help me achieve B2 level. What I personally find helpful with Duolingo is the continual repetition with verb conjugations.
Thank you. This was very helpful.
I've noticed a few problems with Duo . This is such a great video. Thank you for your tips.
I find Duolingo works well as a vocabulary builder and it is doing a great job at maintaining my A2/B1 level in French. I do find the lack of explanation frustrating - even a little explanation would really help speed things up, pure discovery is OK, but it is (I find, for myself) slower than having access to grammar (oh! That's #1!) The quality does vary a lot across languages - and I tried the Duolingo Arabic, which starts with the sounds of the abjad, _but_ as we get into words, the focus in on words using the letters you already have rather than simple phrases that you might not learn the words for 'hello' and 'goodbye' until you are pretty far along - it is very frustrating not being able to say even the simplest thing for a long time. The quality of speech varies quite a bit. As does the quality of each lesson. I don't think Duolingo will get you to B2 in every language they offer - but for the biggies: French, German, Spanish, Portuguese - yeah, probably - Irish Gaelic? Latin? Not sure. For me - Duolingo is a great support for a different primary method. I find _lessons_ with a _teacher_ go a long way, especially at the lower (A2/A1) levels. To improve my French further, I think I will (when I have the time to dedicate to it) use italki (or some other one-on-one tutoring setup with a native speaker, for French, I can do it through my local Alliance Francaise). I think for a more difficult to find language - italki teachers would be where I begin.
They do have notes, at least for Spanish, French, and German. The notes definitely help to explain some of the trickier bits going on. They used to have notes for other languages too, but only in the browser interface and not in the app. Now, though, the notes for other languages are only available from third-party archives. I miss my notes for Dutch 😢
@@jabur81 Even the notes that are there for French and German (the only two languages I've gone in depth on Duolingo) aren't great and don't align well with the actual unit (though they may have at one time). Some languages have no notes at all.
@@jabur81 And - to be fair, there are comments that can help too - though the discussions are all locked and the help is halphazard, but better than nothing at all.
@@Phylaetra Yes, they did align at one point, at least for German. I get the feeling that the notes have aways been kind of a low priority for them, like they’re just tucked in the background. It’s too bad, because with the languages I’ve checked out the notes have been invaluable to actually understanding what’s going on instead of just regurgitating phrases
Irish for a while didn't have sounds/voices...then had 2 completely different versions while they tried to pick one! (Connaucht irish & munster irish). Haven't tried it in a few years since the new update.
If you have a topic do you like to learn about, find children's media about that in your target language. I have subscribed to various children's shows on KZhead from German educational television. Even the stuff for preschoolers about learning the alphabet and making arts and crafts teaches me a whole bunch I never would have known otherwise. Verbs, structures, how children describe things, what's culturally relevant to them, etc. Also, get used to the idea of being less fluent than a preschooler for awhile. Have fun, make mistakes, build your knowledge. Anyway, if you have a topic you're interested in, search KZhead for the phrase "[topic] for kids" in your target language.
It's great to hear someone not slating duo. I had no knowledge of Spanish at all. But, duo plus definitely helped me start my journey and my confidence to use of methods.
These are some really good tips. Thanks for sharing. I’ve been learning French with Duo, and am about 2/3 through the program, but when I watch French tv I don’t really understand any of it, even the kids shows. I think you are right about the need to talk with real people, and will give the app you suggested a try.
In Duolingo I have found it useful to dictate my responses rather than type the text. That way, I have to clean up my pronunciation enough for the speech recognition system to know what I’m saying. And you are right … it’s best to get the whole sentence in my head before saying it out loud.
I am studying Chinese with Duolingo and I am an A2 hope to get to B2. Thank you for the Tips. I found them really informative and I will try to incorporate some of them in my practice. I think I can afford to stay on track with Duolingo for 5 years and get a B2. It’s an amazing language and culture and I love all of it. I also try to write it. And I bought several grammar books. I dedicate 5’ a day and sometimes I go to 30’ a day for a couple of week. Not a straight path.
I m also using Duolingo for learning Chinese, though I m much less advanced than you. I pair it with other apps, like Hello Chinese and Chinese skills. For reading I use Niu. Aand watching Chinese dramas. I try not to use Eng subs too often :) DuoLingo for Chinese. Hmm. One of main drawbacks is that it has no character drill and no stories to practice reading.
@@foxitt2266 I agree. I'm also learning Chinese, and although I've used Duolingo to learn several languages up to different levels, I didn't really like the way the Chinese course there is structured. I felt that I was able to make more progress with apps that focus only on Chinese, for example HelloChinese that you mentioned.
Great tips video! I've been using Duo for a long time but wasn't really getting anywhere. I remember getting to a specific tree (it wasn't a linear path before) and was doing the lessons and I wasn't understanding nor remembering anything. So what I did was a full reset of my progress and started over. On my next run, something changed. I was actually doing your tip #1, I was tryiing to grasp what the lessons were about. I also read aloud the sentence until I can say it comfortably. I started to consume a ton of content in my target language (Spanish) via songs, texts, videos, games, etc. I even changed the default language of my phone. All of this helped a lot and I can now understand intermediate Spanish. But I do agree, talking with other people especially native speakers would really be beneficial, so I should do that. Thanks!
Duolingo has made a lot of progress over the years. I started Spanish in January and I’m excited to see the new features!
I had a 1yr streak with Duolingo Japanese and while I got some familiarity with the language out of it I more learned to recognize Japanese-like patterns while still not really fully parsing the meaning. I'm finding LingoDeer to be a lot more explicit about how it introduces words and concepts, and at least for Japanese, I feel like the UI is nicer with more options for annotation. Overall I think I'm getting more out of LingoDeer for an equivalent time spent.
I’m currently studying Latin with Duolingo. I’m having fun and enjoying the challenge, but it’s REALLY hard to find native speakers to practice with. 😅
Haha u could summon some demons to speak with haha
I like learning whole sentences and then substituting by adding direct or indirect objects to it or switching verbs or changing tenses. I also became obsessed with my handwriting while trying to learn Hebrew with Duolingo. I will stop doing that thanks to your reminder. Free associating is a great idea which I will use in my French and Spanish. Thank you. Great lesson!