Do you like Duolingo?

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Re: Do you like Duolingo?

Postby lavengro » Fri Jan 11, 2019 9:29 pm

CarlyD wrote:...

Yesterday, a number of comments were made elsewhere about some changes Duolingo had made to their sentences. Apparently, they've decided to "take sides" on a variety of political/social issues and from the screenshots are offering sentences that make me wonder what their agenda is.

If I were actually learning something from their modules, I'm sure I'd just figure out how to ignore the sentences that are offensive.


Hi CarlyD,

Would you be able to link to the comments that you refer to? The observations do not accord at all with my experience with Duolingo Italian (which I have been using daily for quite a while), nor in the early stages recently of Turkish. I have yet to come across any offensive sentences, though plenty of unusual ones.
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Re: Do you like Duolingo?

Postby WildGinger10 » Sun Jan 13, 2019 4:42 am

lavengro wrote:
CarlyD wrote:...

Yesterday, a number of comments were made elsewhere about some changes Duolingo had made to their sentences. Apparently, they've decided to "take sides" on a variety of political/social issues and from the screenshots are offering sentences that make me wonder what their agenda is.


Would you be able to link to the comments that you refer to? The observations do not accord at all with my experience with Duolingo Italian (which I have been using daily for quite a while), nor in the early stages recently of Turkish. I have yet to come across any offensive sentences, though plenty of unusual ones.


In the English-German tree, I came across a number of sentences that were subtly "woke" or vaguely political - like "My gender is not important" or "The President has small hands." Both real sentences used in the English-German tree. I suppose conservative Americans might find these sentences to be offensive as they seem to "support" liberal ideas.
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Re: Do you like Duolingo?

Postby Prodgy1 » Sun Jan 13, 2019 12:23 pm

It was ok at the very beginning. After some time I realised that some features are premium but things which are available apeals to me.
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Re: Do you like Duolingo?

Postby garyb » Mon Jan 14, 2019 10:27 am

I saw a Facebook ad for Duolingo that was based around an obviously topical, controversial and simplistic political phrase. I just figured it was typical "debate-bait" designed (and succeeding pretty well) to to boost the page's reactions and comments as most marketers are doing these days, so I didn't think too much of it and just blocked the page and scrolled on. Like most companies who get political, their own agenda might not necessarily match the one they're appearing to promote, with the latter just being based on what makes them look good to the part of their target audience that agrees and is one-sided enough to attract "debate" from the part that doesn't.

If they're actually adding that stuff into their programme though, that's more concerning and I'd be put off using it. Currently I just use it as a way to keep my Greek studies alive on days when I don't have time or can't be bothered with proper study, so it's useful but I could live without it.
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Re: Do you like Duolingo?

Postby IronMike » Mon Jan 14, 2019 2:52 pm

I stopped loving Duolingo when I thought I'd go through the Russian tree as a refresher. Can't remember exactly (and can't login for some reason now from my work computer), but it had something to do with the Cyrillic translations.

Then when Navajo came out, I went in and tried it, but no audio. Why even have a course if you're not going to have audio?!
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Re: Do you like Duolingo?

Postby Lianne » Mon Jan 14, 2019 5:38 pm

I find the concerns about "offensive sentences" kind of funny. I'm redoing Pimsleur French 1 right now and am struck by how many of the conversations involve a woman saying no and a man harassing her in response. But Duolingo's "My gender is not important." is offensive? :lol:

I like Duolingo. But my experience with it is mainly with French (the only skill tree I've completed), and I went into it not being a real beginner. Since they switched to the crown system, I'm still working on building up all the skills, as I still find it to be a useful review. I've also found the discussions to be really useful in the French tree; there are several mods who are active and answer questions with very detailed explanations.

IronMike wrote:Then when Navajo came out, I went in and tried it, but no audio. Why even have a course if you're not going to have audio?!


That's the problem I have with the Klingon course!! I was SO excited for it to come out. Then it did, and there's no audio. Klingon pronunciation can be very tricky, and I find it really hard to remember the words without having heard them. I hope they add it eventually.
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Re: Do you like Duolingo?

Postby lavengro » Mon Jan 14, 2019 6:20 pm

Lianne wrote:I find the concerns about "offensive sentences" kind of funny. I'm redoing Pimsleur French 1 right now and am struck by how many of the conversations involve a woman saying no and a man harassing her in response. But Duolingo's "My gender is not important." is offensive? :lol:

I like Duolingo. But my experience with it is mainly with French (the only skill tree I've completed), and I went into it not being a real beginner. Since they switched to the crown system, I'm still working on building up all the skills, as I still find it to be a useful review. I've also found the discussions to be really useful in the French tree; there are several mods who are active and answer questions with very detailed explanations.....


Agreed. I find the comments section, across a few of the Duolingo language offerings, to be really useful.

If the sentence had read "Gender is not important," that would be an entirely different matter. There are plenty of legitimate contexts where "My gender is not important" would be appropriate (although it would be a factually wrong thing to say if applied to motor vehicle liability insurance applications. 'Cause ladies are really bad drivers. Am I right fellows?). Desperately looking for the joking font setting.....

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Re: Do you like Duolingo?

Postby Cainntear » Tue Jan 15, 2019 12:12 am

I've said a lot about Duolingo in the past, so there's a fair chance I'll be repeating myself here.

First up, it's great that Duolingo encourages people to keep at it, but it's a squandered opportunity. Once you've got the habit, you should be upping the complexity.
Von Ahn says that upping the learning means upping the drop-out rates... in that case he's doing it wrong -- both teaching and gamification.

Teaching:
"Fun" is the name we give to the sensation of having our brain stimulated. Learning stimulates the brain. Therefore learning is fun -- what is not fun is not learning. Duolingo could use their massive user base to experiment and identify the "fun" point, identifying the really good learning.

Gamification:
The single biggest mistake Duolingo has suffered since day one is that they've totally misunderstood XP. In Duolingo, every correct answer is worth 1 xp, from matching milk to Milch in a multiple choice question to translating My two cats' four kittens have taken the aubergine to the dentist (not a real DL sentence!!) in a heavily case-marked language. Of course people aren't going to appreciate difficult tasks if they don't get any reward or recognition for completing them!

In a role-playing game (RPG), you'll get 1 XP for swatting a fly, and 1000 XP for killing a dragon, which motivates the players to take on harder and harder challenges. Would you risk your life fighting a dragon for 1 XP when you could get them the easy way?

A related problem with XP is that they've copied the idea from RPGs that "levels" need progressively more XP the higher you get... but that's done explicitly to encourage taking on harder, higher-risk fights, which is not an option in Duolingo.

They compound the problem by bundling questions together, and only giving you XP when you get all questions right (previously all but 3, but the hearts have been gone for a while). This means that the difficult questions not only aren't getting a fair reward, but end up being an obstacle that stops you getting rewarded for what you did do right. It triggers problems of "loss aversion", so yeah, of course people are going to dislike difficult tasks (you know, the ones that lead to actual learning).

It wouldn't be that hard to do right. Reward players for what they get right. Reward players for taking on bigger challenges. Present things like stories and dialogues as a big challenge that you're training for -- a goal, a target; not something that just gets in the way. Hell, even make them boss fights to get you the final crown or something.


But no. It's easier to just Skinner-box the thing to death and keep the customers coming back and working through a bunch of multiple choice questions and fridge magnet exercises.


And I don't think Duolingo have opened up the market for language apps either, because by running for years on a $0.00 price tag funded by immense amounts of venture capital, they've killed the value of language apps in the public imagination. There have been people trying to do interesting things with language technology, but who's really got anywhere? Babbel is actually pretty old-school when you look at it -- it's just a slick version of the sort of language course that's been around since the 90s. Anyone who has tried to make an incremental improvement on Duolingo is killed by being too small and invisible, and not being able to charge enough money to stay alive.

As I say, I reckon Duolingo is a squandered opportunity that has actually hampered innovation.

[Edit: fixed unclosed [I] tag.]
Last edited by Cainntear on Tue Jan 22, 2019 5:35 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Do you like Duolingo?

Postby Chupito » Tue Jan 15, 2019 3:37 pm

lavengro wrote:
Hi CarlyD,

Would you be able to link to the comments that you refer to? The observations do not accord at all with my experience with Duolingo Italian (which I have been using daily for quite a while), nor in the early stages recently of Turkish. I have yet to come across any offensive sentences, though plenty of unusual ones.


I am not CarlyD and I have not personally been offended by any sentence so far but I've seen people be offended by sentences like "My fathers like apples". The bar to get offended is pretty low for some people (not implying CarlyD, I don't know them).
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Re: Do you like Duolingo?

Postby Eves » Mon Jan 21, 2019 1:50 am

I've been using Duolingo as my primary learning tool for learning German, and I think it's generally ok. When I first started out, it was using the spaced repetition method where your skill bar would erode over time. When they switched over to the Crowns system, I got frustrated as I came across topics with far too many repetitive lessons that were necessary to complete the skillset and move on ("Gilding"). So I eventually quit and lost interest because of that. However last month I came back and noticed that you can now test out of skill levels without having to complete all the lessons in a level, and that has got me motivated again.

In short, I think it's a decent tool to at least introduce you to a language and get some basics structure and vocabulary under your belt. It doesn't explain topics very well, if at all. I've also noted that it doesn't do a good job of teaching you a lot of the idiomatic expressions that would not make sense when doing a 1-to-1 translation between English and German. But alas, it is completely free of charge, and I have no delusions that I'm going to get anywhere near fluency with Duolingo. In fact, based on how the lessons are progressing, I'm not sure if I will eventually be able to formulate basic sentences when completed with the tree. However, I am beginning to realize that I can pick out certain parts of German conversation when I hear it, at least understand and pick out some words. I think it's a good beginner's resource. I plan to stick with it and complete the German tree before moving on to other things (Clozemaster, News in Slow German, etc.)
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