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Duolingo: opinions, progress, levels? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| Amerykanka Hexaglot Senior Member United States Joined 5171 days ago 657 posts - 890 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish, Polish, Latin, Ancient Greek, Russian | Message 17 of 35 02 July 2015 at 4:23pm | IP Logged | ||
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I did a lot of the Italian course, and it wasn't anything special. It has a computerized voice and once it got
past the basics weird things started happening. For example, when we learned the verb usare, the voice thought that the third person singular was the abbreviation "USA" (as in United States), so it would pronounce the letters separately. So you would hear stuff like "Lui U-S-A il cucchiao", which drove me crazy. Also, I seem to remember there being nonsensical sentences such as "the girl is a book", at which point I basically gave up. I didn't finish the course and I'm not an expert in Italian by any means - all I can say is that the part of the course which I completed did not inspire confidence. Edited by Amerykanka on 02 July 2015 at 4:25pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| getreallanguage Diglot Senior Member Argentina youtube.com/getreall Joined 5471 days ago 240 posts - 371 votes Speaks: Spanish*, English Studies: Italian, Dutch | Message 18 of 35 02 July 2015 at 9:39pm | IP Logged | ||
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The Swedish course has a computerized voice, and (at least on the android app) no speaking practice. Other than that I can't evaluate it very well because I've never studied Swedish any other way, and I'm really just dabbling.
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| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6597 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 19 of 35 02 July 2015 at 10:41pm | IP Logged | ||
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My friend is doing Swedish and afaiu she did have to do some speaking practice.
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| geoffw Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4688 days ago 1134 posts - 1865 votes Speaks: English*, German, Yiddish Studies: Modern Hebrew, French, Dutch, Italian, Russian | Message 20 of 35 03 July 2015 at 3:48am | IP Logged | ||
It is absolutely not correct to say that the Irish course has no audio. Irish is one of the courses that has a human voice. Not every single sentence has audio, but the course creators claim that each word taught by the course is spoken at some point. While the human voice is pleasant, there have been numerous complaints about pronunciation--she uses primarily the Official Standard, but then there are some Munster pronunciations thrown in there, and some others where the general consensus is that they are just wrong. There also are a few lessons where the wrong audio clip is used with a number of sentences. But all in all, Duolingo Irish is awesome (and did I mention FREE???). I went from zero Irish to caveman Irish (maybe a solid A1, pushing A2?) in about a month or two, primarily (but not exclusively) with the Duolingo course. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| redflag Senior Member Australia Joined 3842 days ago 123 posts - 182 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Danish, Indonesian, French | Message 21 of 35 03 July 2015 at 6:25am | IP Logged | ||
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I've finished the French tree and am dabbling in the Danish and Esperanto. I just turn
off the voice and audio and do it as a reading/writing exercise. Much better. Not really a knock on Duo because I'm sure the technology to do the speaking/listening exercises is very tricky to get right but I find it more of a hindrance than anything. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Amerykanka Hexaglot Senior Member United States Joined 5171 days ago 657 posts - 890 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Polish, Latin, Ancient Greek, Russian | Message 22 of 35 03 July 2015 at 6:48am | IP Logged | ||
Huh, that's weird. I definitely couldn't get the audio to work. Maybe the first few lessons don't have it? Or maybe my phone started malfunctioning, although it gave me the German, Spanish, and Italian audio no problem. It wouldn't be the first time my phone acted up . . . EDIT: Okay, I think it must be the first lesson. I got the audio to work on the placement exam. Thank you for the correction - I guess I just didn't get far enough. I'm very glad to hear this; I'd like to pick up a bit of Irish on the side. Edited by Amerykanka on 03 July 2015 at 6:51am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Elenia Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom lilyonlife.blog Joined 3856 days ago 239 posts - 327 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: German, Swedish, Esperanto | Message 23 of 35 03 July 2015 at 11:22am | IP Logged | ||
It could be that you have speaking practice turned off? Do you get it on any of your other courses? I turned speaking practice off because it annoyed me, and so now even when I add new courses I don't have to do speaking practice. I really enjoy the Swedish course, for what it's worth. The creators are really helpful as well, and on hand to answer any questions. They're also good about fixing mistakes in the course. I see it a little like doing FSI drills, except slightly more fun. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5009 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 24 of 35 03 July 2015 at 12:09pm | IP Logged | ||
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Well, the speech recognition software is trull a tricky thing. This one is surely better than those I have seen before (even though I haven't seen that many) but there are still things bothering me. Sometimes it felt like it didn't take my correct pronunciation and waited for me to sound more beginner like but that is just my perception.
The fact Duolingo is free for now is great, true, but I still wouldn't take it as a shield towards any criticism, I actually think the Spanish version could be even harmful to a learner who would rely too much on it. Another great thing is that they actually create, in general quite good, content for other languages than the most popular few. I'd say that's where a lot of potential lies. 3 persons have voted this message useful |
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