Carpe Coffeam

[Cavesa]

Ah, I had positive feelings about the latest Duo changes! More linear structure with fewer unnecessary choices, much more useful personalised practise feature, and units based around doing things in the language rather than themes. I'm getting a lot of value out of it.

It's good to hear an opinion of an experienced learner. If there are some changes for the better, good. Frankly, I have always seen the main potential advantage of digital tools exactly in being less linear. For example Kwiziq is doing it extremely well. Right now, when I compare Duo or similar tools to textbooks, I simply see textbooks as the more free tool, letting me learn more how I want. Duo right before my depart was tying me down too much (just like some other digital tools that I've tried and abandoned).

Linear approach may have advantages for some learners, but it goes even further away from what I had hoped Duo to be the start of. The main advantage may be for people using it as newbie learners and as a main resource (but we know what the drawbacks of this approach are). But it will be less useful for people using it together with something else probably.

But I only ever use the desktop web version, never the mobile app; I gave up on the app a long time ago because of the lives and other gamification, the more intrusive advertising, and problems with using the keyboard input rather than the word bank (I think it didn't work at first, then it worked but typing on a phone will always be slower and more painful than on a keyboard). I find it strange that it's so famous as an app despite the user experience being awful and far better on the desktop version, and it's a shame since a better app would actually be really handy for studying on the move.

Yes, using just the desktop surely helps, even though it is a bit sad, when an app version is so inferior. (It is true even about very good services, like Speakly). The gamification really seems to be getting out of hand.

Of course the app is more famous, it's 2022

I totally agree a good app can be very helpful. My Speexx (used for German) is very good, even though still far from perfect. I like it on the go.

My case is probably quite unusual though: an experienced learner using it to complement other courses, and someone with a general preference for doing things on a computer rather than a phone when possible. I fully agree with your criticisms based on how it's usually used, as a main/only resource on mobile by inexperienced learners.

Yes, my main criticism is how it twists the idea of what language learning is, what hard work is (I still remember the horrible congratulations screens after every five questions. They made me understand a lot of the problems people present on the internet. They are simply being conditioned into finding anything but a stupid game to be too much), what self study is.

But an honest question: how are you using it together with other tools, as it is more linear now? Could you give an example, please? Do you simply do it separately and not care about learning different stuff in various places? Or do you use a coursebook with a similar order of things?
........................

Back to my own learning! Finally started NP2! At least the coursebook for start. The 0th unit was very short, good. But it showed pretty well what I need to work on more. Now a few more units to complete this 3DP. Tiny goals are the way to go!

I am so much behind the schedule. Yesterday I hoped to study but I was instead sick, now I am finally feeling better. Good, as I will work 4 night shifts this week. hahahaha (imagine desperate laughter of a comic book villain here. I pray for at least one calm night out of the four)

I am extremely tempted to not take the Italian exam. But I won't have time later. I will decide later or at the latest tomorrow.

[LupCenușiu]

They made me understand a lot of the problems people present on the internet. They are simply being conditioned into finding anything but a stupid game to be too much)

Correct, and this is an issue deeper than it seems, with consequences to be dealt over an entire generation, or more. Instant gratification as a basic standard and very short attention span, inability to focus or buckle up for various challenging situations... I don't want to sound like the old man criticizing the youngster (I'm not that old, anyway) but this is involution from the perspective of humanity, and basically selling your future for some extra change.

I am extremely tempted to not take the Italian exam. But I won't have time later. I will decide later or at the latest tomorrow.

Of course, is your decision, but from here it looks more like a last moment self trust issue than a real lack of knowledge

[Cavesa]

They made me understand a lot of the problems people present on the internet. They are simply being conditioned into finding anything but a stupid game to be too much)

Correct, and this is an issue deeper than it seems, with consequences to be dealt over an entire generation, or more. Instant gratification as a basic standard and very short attention span, inability to focus or buckle up for various challenging situations... I don't want to sound like the old man criticizing the youngster (I'm not that old, anyway) but this is involution from the perspective of humanity, and basically selling your future for some extra change.

Yes, we do have a problem of instant gratification addiction. But in some ways, I would even see a positive side, as the other extreme is just as harmful. If medicine wasn't a too late or never gratification thing, there would be significantly fewer doctors on antidepressants or with a drinking problem.

I find it great, when you can chop large goals into smaller ones and enjoy a sort of mini achievements. But the Duolingo and similar way of complimenting you on absolutely every cough or fart you make, just to keep you seeing more ads, that is simply a huge problem. And I agree we see it in many more areas of our lives, we are really having a society wide problem.

I appreciate how you also reflect the generational thing and try to avoid it. "The old" tend to criticise "the young" for the short attention spans and lack of focus ability. But who has taught "the young" to be this way? Who has had the power to mold "the young" both at school and in the society in general? Who has profited from majority of the products and services built on this problem, who has profited from all the marketing based on this problem? "The old" have. But sure, it is not really easy to put a hard line between the two categories, and there are surely a few exceptions in each age group.

Hard to say what to do against it. I'd say each of us has an extremely tiny bit of power, but we should use it. For ourselves, for those around, for one's kids (hopefully my future kids). But that's it

I am extremely tempted to not take the Italian exam. But I won't have time later. I will decide later or at the latest tomorrow.

Of course, is your decision, but from here it looks more like a last moment self trust issue than a real lack of knowledge

It seems like I am making a very wrong impression in this log. I've just started my B1-B2 coursebook

[badger]

(btw do native Arabic speakers of various dialects get different foreign accent in their French or other non native language? No clue).

I have no experience of this, but I don't see why they wouldn't, in the same way that someone with a dialect/regional accent of some other language would. did you mean that there's something different about Arabic or have I misunderstood what you meant ?

[Lawyer&Mom]

Your Spanish is just fine. Portuguese just has a very different pronunciation, especially European Portuguese. Lots of vowel reduction, European Portuguese is stress-timed instead of syllable-timed like Brazilian Portuguese, which makes European Portuguese harder to follow.

[Cavesa]

(btw do native Arabic speakers of various dialects get different foreign accent in their French or other non native language? No clue).

I have no experience of this, but I don't see why they wouldn't, in the same way that someone with a dialect/regional accent of some other language would. did you mean that there's something different about Arabic or have I misunderstood what you meant ?

Yes, the Arabic dialects (some of them) are rather distant. So much that natives of some dialects have a big difficulty understanding some other dialects. They are considered one language mainly for political reasons. So, I was wondering whether a native of Syrian Arabic would be likely to have a different accent in English/German/French than a native of Moroccan Arabic.

In the more closely knit languages (=those where dialects are still not that distant and each dialect isn't spoken by as many people as the Arabic dialects), you can usually expect similar problems among various natives of the same language.

Your Spanish is just fine. Portuguese just has a very different pronunciation, especially European Portuguese. Lots of vowel reduction, European Portuguese is stress-timed instead of syllable-timed like Brazilian Portuguese, which makes European Portuguese harder to follow.

Thanks! It's interesting to know why I have the difficulty.

My Spanish is not fine, but the comprehension is still there, which is good

[garyb]

Frankly, I have always seen the main potential advantage of digital tools exactly in being less linear. For example Kwiziq is doing it extremely well. Right now, when I compare Duo or similar tools to textbooks, I simply see textbooks as the more free tool, letting me learn more how I want.

When I'm starting to learn an overwhelmingly big and complicated thing like a new language where it's hard to know where to start, I quite like to just be given a structured course to follow rather than have to decide what order to do things in for myself, which I don't feel capable of doing even with my experience. So as a beginner with the task of learning the basics before getting to the point where I can meaningfully choose my priorities, linear suits me. Sure, course designers don't always get it right either and there are often issues like too much useless thematic vocabulary before getting onto important everyday language, but Duo's latest update seems to be a step in the right direction there. This could mostly just be a case of personal preference and what works for me.

I agree that there's a lot of untapped potential for less linear resources for intermediate and advanced learners, and Kwiziq is a good example of that potential although its development has been disappointingly slow since it came out a few years ago. These positive thoughts on Duo are very much from my perspective as a beginner in German, and I wouldn't waste my time with it for my more advanced languages.

I still remember the horrible congratulations screens after every five questions

Yep, they're awful. On desktop at least, you can turn them off, but there's a "feature not a bug" where these settings are only stored in browser storage and are reset every few weeks or so so the messages keep coming back. As you say "it's 2022" and we're all becoming conditioned to expect to have our intelligence insulted every time we go onto a website or app, but it's still a bit much...

But an honest question: how are you using it together with other tools, as it is more linear now? Could you give an example, please? Do you simply do it separately and not care about learning different stuff in various places? Or do you use a coursebook with a similar order of things?

I'm working through a textbook (Spektrum), again in a linear way, from front to back. There's quite a lot of overlap between it and Duo (as I say, the basics are the basics), but the book has longer units that go into more detail. So Duo works well for extra practice and filling in gaps.

It's not a perfect resource, it has many flaws and probably does do more harm than good for language learning as a whole so I'd like to avoid it just out of principle (and did for many years), but for my case as quite a casual beginner learner it simply ticks many boxes. It conveniently gives me lots of short and repetitive exercises with instant feedback that make me listen, read, write, speak, and translate, and it helps me to maintain my knowledge and maybe even improve it slightly during times when I'm not able to commit to more serious study.

[Cavesa]

Finally studying Italian more. Need to update my 6WC score. This week I worked 4 nights, so in the meantime, I managed just to watch the Manifest in Italian. It was good. I am enjoying it again (there was a bad moment with several boring episodes that made me want to give up on this show, but then I saw tons of praise online. Or perhaps it was the Netflix marketing, that worked). But I need above all to complete my coursebooks. Oh and after the nights, I was too lazy and recuperating for a day and half.

Nuovissimo Progetto: In unit 1 of the second book and in unit 10 of the first workbook.

I doubt I can pass my exam, but who cares. Fortunately, I can afford to lose the investment, I will just be sad about the lost opportunity to apply for the italophone jobs. A pass would be a beautiful surprise. Let's see whether it can still happen.

My main sources of hope:
-very strong comprehension skills
-as I see in the coursebooks all the time, the time spent learning the basics really pays off at all the levels
-I can learn intensively and have some time during the days till the exam.

So as a beginner with the task of learning the basics before getting to the point where I can meaningfully choose my priorities, linear suits me. Sure, course designers don't always get it right either and there are often issues like too much useless thematic vocabulary before getting onto important everyday language, but Duo's latest update seems to be a step in the right direction there.

Yes, you're right that it is overall an approach with advantages for a rather big group of learners. Those are valid points.

But I dislike how Duo tries to be more and more "the only thing you need and the only thing you should follow", I would really love (and that is just subjective and unreasonable, I know) more of a digital workbook. Or perhaps just Kwiziq finally for more languages .

I saw a thread on this on reddit, including the AMA of the Duo director. People trying to use Duo with other resources complain, but also neurodivergent people (a lot of people with ADHD) and also some people who used to like knowing what to expect. Especially whether the next lesson will be a short or long one, a harder or an easier one. And being able to pick from several options, they could manage their time better and squeeze more practice in their schedule. Or their energy (an older learner had a very good post about that).

While many of the arguments fall in the end to the personal preferences and needs, I was rather disgusted by the tone of some of the responses. People with ADHD were raising valid points, and the answer of Duolingo's director was something like "I have heard the neurodiversity arguments before and never understood them", which is not something acceptable in PR of a mass used app that tries to be accessible education.

And I overall also disliked the tone towards people, who are paying for a product and it gets completely changed. Duolingo has never understood they needed to communicate differently with the free users (who agree to get ads and experiments in exchange for not paying) and with their paying customers.

I'm working through a textbook (Spektrum), again in a linear way, from front to back. There's quite a lot of overlap between it and Duo (as I say, the basics are the basics), but the book has longer units that go into more detail. So Duo works well for extra practice and filling in gaps.

It's not a perfect resource, it has many flaws and probably does do more harm than good for language learning as a whole so I'd like to avoid it just out of principle (and did for many years), but for my case as quite a casual beginner learner it simply ticks many boxes. It conveniently gives me lots of short and repetitive exercises with instant feedback that make me listen, read, write, speak, and translate, and it helps me to maintain my knowledge and maybe even improve it slightly during times when I'm not able to commit to more serious study.

We are using nearly the same resource, I am using Erkundungen (the earlier version of Spektrum) B2 and I am using it totally non-linearily. It is thanks to the language school's curriculum. Someone took the time and actually made a list correlating various exercises to the main structure, the Speexx. It is very helpful, even though I don't always agree and find more exercises useful and especially the explanations (which I suppose the school expects you to study, but doesn't mention on the list).

I really like the non-linear path, as it lightens the overall heavy impression this wonderful coursebook series makes, but I totally agree that an independent learner isn't likely to just find such a path through the book right away.

It is interesting that there is overlap between the Spektrum and Duo, do they approach new topics in a similar order?

And you and all the mentioned changes made me try Duo for ten minutes again. I don't think the main problem is just the linear structure, even though I don't like it much. I really disliked it wasn't possible to just type, I had to do word boxes and similar silly stuff. I also dislike a lot of the new features of the design, the animated "speakers", the look of the site. But most of those things really come with me liking to be treated as an adult.

But! I tried out the alphabet learning course in Hebrew and I think I will use that,when I finally have time to really dive in Hebrew! I really liked the first lesson.

[Cavesa]

Right now in unit 4 of the NPI2 coursebook. It is much faster than the workbook of course. A good sign is, that most things are easy for me. The first "totally new" thing comes now, passato remoto.

Need to focus also on German today.

Btw some news about my little sister's German learning. Some of you followed our quest last year. She succeeded, passed into the next year. Aaaaand got a new German teacher instead of the freshly retired lady. So, she is now saying how her German has actually gotten worse since our hyperintensive learning together. Yep, school is often the enemy of education.

The new teacher is younger than the old one (who had some normal minor flaws, but had the huge advantage of being systematic, following a coursebook, and making her expectations clear), more modern. Good at German, fortunately with a normal personality without pathological behaviour towards the students, but bad at keeping a structure in the class, incapable of pushing them to a reasonable pace (the class is noticing that they are falling behind, and the final exams are next year), not too clear about expectations. Fortunately, they are using Begegnungen B1, which is a high quality coursebook (I impressed my little sister, when I clearly described the book based on half the name. Yep, this is YKYAALLN stuff), but the classes are too slow and don't seem to have a clear direction.

So, she wants to push herself for a B2 in 2023, and take an exam (it counts for some points at university admissions). I cannot take a month off for her anymore, we'll have to find something else, perhaps she'll need to use the experience and finally become an independent learner. it would be useful to learn before her university studies.

And perhaps a stupid question: Why on earth did Schubert Verlag name their main coursebooks Begegnungen and Erkundungen? It took me several months to memorise the name of my coursebook (I had to check it every time, to be sure I was saying or writing it correctly!), and I am B2!!! Yes, they are right to rename the updated series Spektrum. Usually, I complain about too much marketing of something. But this is crazy, this is negative marketing of a wonderful product!

[Cavesa]

I was so close to buying NPI3 in a bookstore. But they had only copies without a digital code, that should have been in all of them! Probably a print mistake, but I am not gonna buy half the thing and then contact the editor in hopes they'll reply soon enough. Nope, only digital it is. It will also be slightly cheaper and without any delivery wait, or waiting for a command in store.

Oh, and I finished the last B2 German class today.

Now, I am extremely far behind my written assignments, that's the project for right after my Italian exam. I should have sent them in already! And I need to complete he Erkundungen. The few exercises I should have done but didn't, and the like two thirds of the book that haven't been asked of me (partially due to having "skipped" a part of the B2 level, partially because they are not on the list)

Today's teacher was one of my preferred ones. Good methods, a mix of guided exercises and tons of speaking. And it's not everyday that an intelectual looking lady, and like twenty years older, reacts to my "I watch Startrek in German" by "Which one? Discovery or the normal one?" "Which one do you take for normal? I am watching Voyager now" "Yeah, Voyager is the one with captain Janeway!" And last time we met, like three classes ago, we discussed classical music. And yes, this exchange was also in German. And I need to continue Voyager, haven't found the time for weeks! Again, right after the Italian exam.

I am tired. I'll try to do at least the rest of chapter 4 in coursebook before going to sleep. Fortunately, I have only an 8 hour work day tomorrow, will be nice. And for the rest of the week too. Nights and 12 hours are exhausting. 8 hours are the right dose for a day, I'd say.