Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5009 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian
| Message 9 of 19 11 February 2013 at 10:39pm | IP Logged |
The idea is really good, and they have been recently advertising or something (as duolingo got back to me from a completely different direction). I did quit because I wasn't having so much fun. The content wasn't that interesting (which could have changed had I progressed further) AND I enjoy more reading in L2 only. I do translation exercises sometimes, but I don't pretend they are anything more than that.
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AlexMoby Diglot Newbie FranceRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4312 days ago 13 posts - 15 votes Speaks: French*, English Studies: German, Italian, Spanish, Dutch
| Message 10 of 19 13 February 2013 at 6:03pm | IP Logged |
It is an interesting site. The first lessons are very easy, particularly if you have already taken some courses about the target language.
However, there are, in my opinion, two things that upset me concerning this website.
-it's extremely challenging to type during the bonus rounds. During this kind of exercises, you are forced to forget accents (Spanish) and capital letters (German) in order to succeed before the timer runs out. So it does not help at all to learn the target language properly.
-the translations exercises are difficulty for beginners. And some translations provided by the users are horrible.
But it's worth a try !
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Gala Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 4550 days ago 229 posts - 421 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Italian
| Message 11 of 19 15 February 2013 at 9:18pm | IP Logged |
I've been fooling around with both it and Mango (free with my library card) for beginning
French (false beginner here, in truth) and think that Duolingo is decent for practicing
things in your spare time that you're already somewhat familiar with, but not very useful
for introducing elements other than vocabulary.
Mango moves at a snail's pace, but is the first thing that has really helped me with
French pronunciation. There's a thread on here where someone compares it to Pimsleur with
text and I think that's quite accurate.
Edited by Gala on 15 February 2013 at 9:25pm
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espejismo Diglot Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 5051 days ago 498 posts - 905 votes Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: Spanish, Greek, Azerbaijani
| Message 12 of 19 15 February 2013 at 9:46pm | IP Logged |
I gave Duolingo a try yesterday with Portuguese (beta). It seems to be awfully similar to livemocha lessons
and exercises, at least the way they were about three years ago (haven't done them since).
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espejismo Diglot Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 5051 days ago 498 posts - 905 votes Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: Spanish, Greek, Azerbaijani
| Message 13 of 19 06 March 2013 at 1:20am | IP Logged |
I got this email from Duolingo today: Study: How well do people learn on Duolingo?
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tmp011007 Diglot Senior Member Congo Joined 6069 days ago 199 posts - 346 votes Speaks: Spanish*, English Studies: French, Portuguese
| Message 14 of 19 06 March 2013 at 6:43am | IP Logged |
"34 Hours of Duolingo = 1 University semester"??? I'm afraid duolingo isn't that good (or maybe there are too many poorly performing institutions nowadays)
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evol Triglot Newbie Hong Kong Joined 4330 days ago 28 posts - 39 votes Speaks: Cantonese*, English, Mandarin Studies: French, German, Spanish
| Message 15 of 19 06 March 2013 at 8:13am | IP Logged |
I'm afraid the advertising is not too far from truth. Obviously it's not comparing with those serious top
institutes, but there are unfortunately far more undesirable programs out there. Some programs teach
languages 3 hours a week, 12 weeks in a semester, and they are dedicated to take you only through A2
after 3 years of university studies. But they still call you a German major.
Edited by evol on 06 March 2013 at 8:15am
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MultipackCan Newbie Ireland Joined 4284 days ago 20 posts - 28 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Esperanto
| Message 16 of 19 06 March 2013 at 11:03am | IP Logged |
I agree with what's been said about Duolingo being a good supplement for learning
languages. Very useful for 15 minutes here and there brushing up.
Portuguese has only just finished Beta and a lot of people are having problems with it
saying it should go back into Beta. The whole program is still relatively new and I
imagine the quality of the content will be a bit more diverse in time.
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