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Duolingo: opinions, progress, levels?

 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes Post Reply
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Jeffers
Senior Member
United Kingdom
Joined 4924 days ago

2151 posts - 3960 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German

 
 Message 1 of 35
16 March 2013 at 11:46am | IP Logged 
I did a text search for Duolingo, and it came up with no results, so I thought it would
be good to start a thread.

I just started Duolingo for French yesterday, and so far it's pretty good. I like the
fact that a lesson is pretty quick, and involves a variety of response types. You type
responses in English or French, you see a sentence to translate, you hear a sentence to
type in, and so on. I haven't got a microphone, so I switched off that option and
can't comment on how good that is.

I know some people say it gets boring after a while, but my initial feeling is that it
is pretty fun, and the idea of working through the level tree adds motivation. So far
I am working at a level far below what I know, but as it is helping my spelling, I am
working up from the bottom.

The final point I will make is that there are two main learning sections in Duolingo:
a sort of course where you work your way through language levels. And a translation
section where you read sections of the internet and translate it into your tl (or the
other way around). I have looked at this part, but not tried it. However, when you
read Duolingo's advertising, that seems to be most of what they talk about.

Here are a couple questions I have about Duolingo:
Does anyone have any idea of what sort of level you could be at when you've finished
your language tree? How many words does it cover, does it cover all the main points of
grammar?

What is the best way to approach the translation section? And before anyone says
"There is no one best way," etc, I mean, what has been effective for you? ;)
2 persons have voted this message useful



vrvitor
Diglot
Newbie
Brazil
Joined 4293 days ago

7 posts - 10 votes
Speaks: Portuguese*, EnglishC2

 
 Message 2 of 35
16 March 2013 at 6:10pm | IP Logged 
I have tried out the French and the German courses of Duolingo so far. I haven't gone
too far in any of those, but I've already done a few lessons. For me, Duolingo seems to
cover a good amount of vocabulary, even at the first lessons. And, as you mentioned, it
can be of good help to improve spelling skills.

As far as grammar is concerned, Duolingo is fairly helpful in German, but not at all in
French. Almost all German lessons (at least the first ones) have a section named "Tips
and notes", containing clear explanations of grammar topics. On the other hand, there
isn't such thing in the French lessons and, therefore, sometimes it gets extremely
complicated to understand why sentences that are presented to us during the lessons are
structured in certain ways. It's a good thing that there is a discussion topic for
every task, where people can post their questions and are often answered by other users
of the website.

To sum up, my opinion is that Duolingo can be a pretty useful tool to develop reading
and writing skills as well as to acquire vocabulary. Used along with other methods, I
believe it can make a difference in the learning process!
1 person has voted this message useful



Gala
Diglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 4565 days ago

229 posts - 421 votes 
Speaks: English*, Spanish
Studies: Italian

 
 Message 3 of 35
17 March 2013 at 2:09am | IP Logged 
From looking at the topics (both grammatical and lexical)covered on the skill trees for
French & Spanish, it looks like it covers pretty much the same ground as most college
textbooks used over the course of 2 semesters of beginning language classes, in the US.
Of course, such classes in many colleges often haven't completed an entire textbook of
that sort after 2 semesters. Anyway, after finishing Duolingo, you should be at lower
intermediate level. I won't try to equate that to a CERF level, as their criteria
includes much more than what grammar and vocab you have "learned," but rather how much of
it you can effectively use which, IMO, cannot be determined by the completion of any
course.
2 persons have voted this message useful



MultipackCan
Newbie
Ireland
Joined 4299 days ago

20 posts - 28 votes
Speaks: English*
Studies: Japanese, Esperanto

 
 Message 4 of 35
17 March 2013 at 11:25am | IP Logged 
I think it's a great supplementary tool but I'd imagine it's very frustrating to 'learn'
from.
1 person has voted this message useful



Jinx
Triglot
Senior Member
Germany
reverbnation.co
Joined 5708 days ago

1085 posts - 1879 votes 
Speaks: English*, German, French
Studies: Catalan, Dutch, Esperanto, Croatian, Serbian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Italian, Spanish, Yiddish

 
 Message 5 of 35
17 March 2013 at 6:48pm | IP Logged 
Warning: the advanced levels of their courses include enough inaccuracies and even actual mistakes that they are not worth using. I enjoyed the basic levels as well, but when I reached the higher levels I was frankly very disappointed by the low-quality content. It's too bad, because I love the concept, but I'm afraid I can't recommend the site to other learners yet.
8 persons have voted this message useful



vrvitor
Diglot
Newbie
Brazil
Joined 4293 days ago

7 posts - 10 votes
Speaks: Portuguese*, EnglishC2

 
 Message 6 of 35
17 March 2013 at 7:29pm | IP Logged 
Jinx wrote:
Warning: the advanced levels of their courses include enough inaccuracies
and even actual mistakes that they are not worth using. I enjoyed the basic levels as
well, but when I reached the higher levels I was frankly very disappointed by the low-
quality content. It's too bad, because I love the concept, but I'm afraid I can't
recommend the site to other learners yet.


Just out of curiosity, which language did you take on Duolingo and from which level the
mistakes and inaccuracies started to show up?
1 person has voted this message useful



schoenewaelder
Diglot
Senior Member
Germany
Joined 5575 days ago

759 posts - 1197 votes 
Speaks: English*, French
Studies: German, Spanish, Dutch

 
 Message 7 of 35
18 March 2013 at 3:43pm | IP Logged 
Jeffers wrote:
I did a text search for Duolingo, and it came up with no results...


Here's a thread from ... last month

Don't use "text search", use "g search" or just use google directly to do a site search, which turns up the same results.

Edited by schoenewaelder on 18 March 2013 at 3:57pm

3 persons have voted this message useful



Jinx
Triglot
Senior Member
Germany
reverbnation.co
Joined 5708 days ago

1085 posts - 1879 votes 
Speaks: English*, German, French
Studies: Catalan, Dutch, Esperanto, Croatian, Serbian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Italian, Spanish, Yiddish

 
 Message 8 of 35
19 March 2013 at 10:09pm | IP Logged 
vrvitor wrote:
Jinx wrote:
Warning: the advanced levels of their courses include enough inaccuracies
and even actual mistakes that they are not worth using. I enjoyed the basic levels as
well, but when I reached the higher levels I was frankly very disappointed by the low-
quality content. It's too bad, because I love the concept, but I'm afraid I can't
recommend the site to other learners yet.


Just out of curiosity, which language did you take on Duolingo and from which level the
mistakes and inaccuracies started to show up?


I did the basic levels of Spanish, and French and German at more advanced levels. From about levels 10-15-ish for the latter two languages, I was noticing enough incorrect/incomplete content to make it frustrating to use. Another problem is that the computer-generated voices often mispronounce or "swallow" syllables, which makes the dictation lessons pointless.


3 persons have voted this message useful



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