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Duolingo: opinions, progress, levels?

 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes Post Reply
35 messages over 5 pages: 1 24 5  Next >>
Amerykanka
Hexaglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5186 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 
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 5486 days ago

240 posts - 371 votes 
Speaks: Spanish*, English
Studies: Italian, Dutch

 
 Message 18 of 35
02 July 2015 at 9:39pm | IP Logged 
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.
2 persons have voted this message useful



Serpent
Octoglot
Senior Member
Russian Federation
serpent-849.livejour
Joined 6612 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 
My friend is doing Swedish and afaiu she did have to do some speaking practice.
2 persons have voted this message useful



geoffw
Triglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 4703 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 
Amerykanka wrote:
It also bothers me that not all the courses have audio and that they don't tell
you this anywhere. I was excited
to try a bit of Irish, but when there wasn't even a computerized voice I switched back to German.


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 3857 days ago

123 posts - 182 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Danish, Indonesian, French

 
 Message 21 of 35
03 July 2015 at 6:25am | IP Logged 
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 5186 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 
geoffw wrote:
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.


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 3871 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 
getreallanguage wrote:
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.


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 5024 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 
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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