Do you incorporate Duolingo as part of your learning approach?

[tractor]

Do you incorporate Duolingo as part of your learning approach?

No. I haven’t even tried it.

[tiia]

This reminds me of some good online resources that are made just for learning one language, websites like slovake.eu for Slovak and ikasten.net/hiru.eus for Basque. (Both are completely free of charge btw.) Those are no apps, but websites with real courses or complementary excercises, just online. Probably not too much dumbed down and they are not based on the flashcard principle like many apps nowadays. There's grammar explanation but also instant feedback when solving the excercises etc. In fact the ikasten.net course gives me sometimes more explanations than my Basque textbook does.
I don't know how they look on a mobile device though, but having all the content readily available in some kind of online format, would make it at least easy to access them on a phone. I would expect the ikasten course to work quite well on a mobile device.
I think it's sad these kind of resources seem not to be the standard on the online language learning market.(?)

I still prefer using also paper based courses. But the aforementioned courses can be a good component for the mix of resources.
If I feel the urge to do more vocabulary learning, then I can still use a flashcard app/site, as I do now for Basque. But that is only for vocabulary learning, never the only resource for language learning.

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Recently I have met a person who said they learned Spanish only through Duolingo. As this conversation was taking place in Spanish, I could not believe how far they got just by using Duolingo. - That was until I heard they were actually a teacher of French.

[vonPeterhof]

Duolinguo seems to be the default beginner course now for casual learners. In the analog past, not so long ago, people who thought it would "be nice to learn a language" went into a bookstore and browsed the language section.

My impression is that, prior to the rise of Duolingo, Rosetta Stone was the learning material brand most widely known among the casual learners while being almost universally panned among the hobbyist language learner community. Wonder if anyone here has enough experience with both to tell if Duolingo "dethroning" Rosetta Stone in this role is an improvement or not...

[dubendorf]

Duolinguo seems to be the default beginner course now for casual learners. In the analog past, not so long ago, people who thought it would "be nice to learn a language" went into a bookstore and browsed the language section.

My impression is that, prior to the rise of Duolingo, Rosetta Stone was the learning material brand most widely known among the casual learners while being almost universally panned among the hobbyist language learner community. Wonder if anyone here has enough experience with both to tell if Duolingo "dethroning" Rosetta Stone in this role is an improvement or not...

I had the same thought! I think Rosetta Stone was the only language learning course I had heard of twenty years ago because it was advertised on TV so much. I have never used it so I can't compare, but I wonder if anyone else has used both.

[Severine]

Until there is an app which can give me the opportunity to advance as well as what I can do now with analog material, I won't be using them. I can put pdf coursebooks on my tablet with audio and use them that way. I can annotate pdf format books with definitions and notes. I can review them easily. I can learn better this way than with an app like duolinguo designed to "teach me".

The only app I've tried that I thought offered useful language learning support was Lingvist, and even then I would only recommend it as a supplement to other resources and approaches.

[Granrey]

Just to give an update on my Duolingo. I was doing about 5 to 6 lessons per day but it seems to me doing all these lessons per day makes you run quickly trough the material and not necessary memorizing it.

So, I decided to add more apps to the mix and just do one lesson or their recommended amount per day in each one of them.

In French and Portuguese I'm using per day:

-Duolingo: One lesson
-Memrise: One scenario (just Portuguese as I finished the French last year)
-Mondly: daily lesson, plus one course lesson
-Lingodeer: one lesson
-Rosseta: 3 to 4 Lessons (recommended amount by app).
-Babbel: one lesson.
-Anki (5000 most common words): Reviewing about 50 words.

Now the interesting question is: Which of these apps helps you making the most progress?

Idk , but they all give you boosts and compound.

There are some that are easier: Mondly, Rosseta, Memrise and Duo.

Some are harder: Babbel and Lingodeer.

Some daily lessons are quick: Mondly and Lingodeer.

Some daily lessons are longer: Rosseta.

Some repeat the same stuff a lot: Rosseta and Duo.

Some seem to teach stuff that kind of seem not that useful: Duo.

However, they all explain things in different ways, plus they cover things that the others don't.

The most surprising thing is that there are methods not covered by any of them (or if they are there, they are not mentioned in a way I learned or even remember seeing).

For instance, I've reading a lots of books as well to learn french.

1) The house of Etre

2) Bags

These pictures are good examples. For which I found versions in vey small amount of my books. But I found them very helpful.


Also in a podcast I learned better when to use the imperfect and perfect tenses, them it compounded with other sources but before the that podcast I was not getting any of it.


I'm.convinced If I had started combining these methods earlier. I would be more advance today.

[leosmith]

Until there is an app which can give me the opportunity to advance as well as what I can do now with analog material, I won't be using them.

Then how would you define "app"? I remember you saying you've used Pimsleur, for example, and they have an app now which I use. I don't know about you, but I use a reading tool and anki. Are those apps iyo? Or maybe we should talk about different categories of apps?

[iguanamon]

Until there is an app which can give me the opportunity to advance as well as what I can do now with analog material, I won't be using them.

Then how would you define "app"? I remember you saying you've used Pimsleur, for example, and they have an app now which I use. I don't know about you, but I use a reading tool and anki. Are those apps iyo?...

Yes, I used Pimsleur. Pimsleur may advertise itself as a platform to learn a language, implying that it's a "one stop shop", but I consider it to be just another tool to use along with more thorough courses. So, instead of selling CD's or cassettes, the fact that the material is now disseminated via an app doesn't make it the kind of app that will take a learner to a high level without the help of a more thorough course. Don't get me wrong. I wish they had a Catalan course. It would've helped a lot. When I was actively learning, Pimsleur wasn't yet an app. Is it a true app approach, or mainly a new delivery source for their traditional CD/cassette/mp3 delivered course with a sheen of app features added in that aren't really necessary?

...maybe we should talk about different categories of apps?

Yes, there are helper apps which make our "cobbling together" of different tools to help us in our language-learning process easier such as Anki and reading apps which you have noted, and even developed. Then there are apps that claim to "teach" a language and replace the traditional textbook and audio approach, like duolinguo, that fall short.

Anki, I do not use it. Never have used it. It is not a complete method to learn a language but a tool to reinforce learning. I do not use a reading tool. I read and learn through noticing patterns, and looking up vocabulary/grammar points. Can a reading tool be effective, oh yes. For me, I personally do not feel the need to use it as part of my own language-learning tool kit.

Where I think the general/popular app market is lacking is in not developing the digital equivalent of the traditional textbook and audio approach. This is what the market is currently not delivering and why serious learners are still using old courses from the analog era. There's an opening out there for developers who can do this, but such an app would have to have be customized for each language. There could be commonalities- like the old Berlitz Self-learning courses used for example.

[leosmith]

Is it a true app approach, or mainly a new delivery source for their traditional CD/cassette/mp3 delivered course with a sheen of app features added in that aren't really necessary?

They've added bells and whistles, like congratulating you when you finish a lesson, and provide some additional reading material. But I don't use those things tbh. The subscription format is a great change for me though; much cheaper, since I do it pretty fast.

Where I think the general/popular app market is lacking is in not developing the digital equivalent of the traditional textbook and audio approach. This is what the market is currently not delivering and why serious learners are still using old courses from the analog era. There's an opening out there for developers who can do this, but such an app would have to have be customized for each language. There could be commonalities- like the old Berlitz Self-learning courses used for example.

I sort of tried to do this here. It's a text book, designed to be online, to teach only grammar with minimized vocabulary. It's not a true playstore app though. I'll probably do more in the future, but it's hard to get an app developer that will stick to a project who doesn't charge ridiculous prices. Any criticism of the book is appreciated.

[Cainntear]

Where I think the general/popular app market is lacking is in not developing the digital equivalent of the traditional textbook and audio approach. This is what the market is currently not delivering and why serious learners are still using old courses from the analog era. There's an opening out there for developers who can do this, but such an app would have to have be customized for each language. There could be commonalities- like the old Berlitz Self-learning courses used for example.

Yes, this is something I think came up fairly recently: apps are making it look like they're all you need, when they are no more that than any single book. The issue isn't one of marketing -- most books tended to claim to be all you needed, after all -- but more about modern habits.
It used to be that when you paid for a course, you'd fully expect to be told to buy at the very least a dictionary and a textbook, but even round about 2010 it was getting pretty common for people to talk about downloading torrents of textbooks because "I've paid for the course -- why should I pay for the books?" This gave a bit of impetus for publishers to go digital because then the piracy couldn't be claimed to be just not paying for the printing, but that's had knock-on effects on the market, because removing the physical book is encouraging this thing of not expecting to pick up additional materials. (Not to mention the effect of "I'll pay for something when I've finished with the free stuff and the fact that there are no course books intended for people who've finished a Duolingo course and probably can't be because of copyright stuff!)

Years ago, I remember the impending death of the audio CD -- people were using them less and less, and increasingly ripping them to MP3 to play on their phones. The publishers were starting to move towards digital downloads, and the talk was that buying the book and CD bundle wasn't you paying for the production costs, but rather you paying the distribution costs and the opportunity cost of stocking larger packages meaning having fewer actual items on sale. The claim was that with moving to free downloads from a publisher's site, they'd be able to reduce the cost of the whole course with audio to the cost of the book. Did that happen...? Not if the TY Complete Ukrainian course I bought last week is a good example. The increase over the price I used to pay for book-and-CD packages is certainly in-line with inflation, but the production cost, transport cost etc of a 2016 edition of a 1997 textbook with the CDs gone as they've moved to MP3s on the web. The cost has should have gone down to consider the cost of production. Hell, they even want you to log into their page to play the audio files*, which means you don't even get a local copy, making the usage of the product more restricted, so the price should definitely be lower.
[* Note: "want you to", not "force you to". I'm guessing most people who've been using a browser in earnest will know there's usually an option to "open link in new tab" in the either the right-click menu, and that get's the plain MP3 rather than opening it in the browser! I don't recommend doing this with the audio for books you don't own though -- not sure where that would leave you legally.]

I sort of tried to do this here. It's a text book, designed to be online, to teach only grammar with minimized vocabulary. It's not a true playstore app though. I'll probably do more in the future, but it's hard to get an app developer that will stick to a project who doesn't charge ridiculous prices. Any criticism of the book is appreciated.

...and annoyigly enough, Apple insists you don't just bundle the website to make an app, because that would be the obvious solution...