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Duolingo: opinions, progress, levels?

 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes Post Reply
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getreallanguage
Diglot
Senior Member
Argentina
youtube.com/getreall
Joined 5486 days ago

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

 
 Message 25 of 35
03 July 2015 at 8:28pm | IP Logged 
Elenia wrote:
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.


Speaking practice is turned on. I didn't get it on the Dutch course either. Maybe this is an issue with the android app, or maybe speaking practice only kicks in a few lessons in. I'm on part 2 of 4 of "Animals 1".

Edit: according to a facebook acquaintance, she didn't get speaking practice on the Swedish course on the iOS version either.

Edited by getreallanguage on 04 July 2015 at 3:25am

2 persons have voted this message useful



vowelharmony
Triglot
Newbie
United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 5654 days ago

6 posts - 7 votes
Speaks: English, Portuguese*, French
Studies: German, Swedish

 
 Message 26 of 35
10 July 2015 at 4:46am | IP Logged 
I joined Duolingo last month to try the Swedish course and so far so good. I decided to
try Spanish as well. Can anybody tell me why the Spanish course is so bad?
1 person has 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 27 of 35
10 July 2015 at 6:36pm | IP Logged 
I tried just a few levels and found these faults to the Spanish Duolingo:

1.heavy overuse of personal pronouns. Practicing sentences that include them as if Spanish was English or French, that is purely wrong and creates a bad habit, especially when the Duolingo learner is a beginner. Sentences "Yo hablo espanol." and "Hablo espanol" are different. The second is much more universal, the first is more correct in specific contexts, especially when you are stressing the fact that it is you, who speaks Speanish. (please, correct me, if I am wrong, I am not a native)

2.Really weird vocabulary. What do I mean: the vocabulary in the German Duolingo is more or less the same as used in other courses or native materials, as fas as I can judge. The vocabulary in Spanish Duolingo is totally different, quite many of the words you learn in the early levels of Duolingo are very uncommon, not often heard or read in my courses, books, tv series or spoken by the natives I've been listening to. It looks as if everytime the course creators could choose from two or three synonymes, they chose the uncommon one instead of the simple beginner word you'd find anywhere else.

Anyone has a different impression from the Spanish Duolingo, please?

Thanks for the info about the Swedish Duolingo. It sounds good.
5 persons have voted this message useful



vowelharmony
Triglot
Newbie
United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 5654 days ago

6 posts - 7 votes
Speaks: English, Portuguese*, French
Studies: German, Swedish

 
 Message 28 of 35
12 July 2015 at 3:13am | IP Logged 
Thank you! That was really helpful!
1 person has voted this message useful



garyb
Triglot
Senior Member
ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 5222 days ago

1468 posts - 2413 votes 
Speaks: English*, Italian, French
Studies: Spanish

 
 Message 29 of 35
13 July 2015 at 10:56am | IP Logged 
I thought the Italian course wasn't bad, it was on a par with the French one. However for both languages I've just used it for testing and strengthening: using the placement test to get through the first part of the tree and the "Test out" function for the rest, so I've not exactly done it in depth. I've had a couple of glitches like the "usa" example, but only rarely.
3 persons have voted this message useful



galaxyrocker
Diglot
Newbie
United States
Joined 4424 days ago

6 posts - 10 votes
Speaks: English*, Irish

 
 Message 30 of 35
23 July 2015 at 5:25am | IP Logged 
geoffw wrote:
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.


The issue with the Irish course is that there is no such thing as "Standard
Pronunciation". It doesn't exist. She doesn't speak Irish, plain and simple. She uses
English sounds in Irish, much as any learner in Ireland does. It's a huge SNAFU on
Duolingo's part.

And, no, there's no way you're A2 after Duolingo Irish. Not until you can use
all of it well, not just read it. And then your vocabulary is likely lacking.


Edit:

To everyone else, stay away from Duolingo Irish. The pronunciation is absolutely awful,
though there are recordings being made with a new voice. We'll see whether it's better
as the current team said the current voice sounded 'native', when she's clearly not.
There's also some issues with a lot of direct translations from English still being
worked out and whatnot.

Edited by galaxyrocker on 23 July 2015 at 5:26am

5 persons have voted this message useful



ilmari
Tetraglot
Newbie
Australia
Joined 5525 days ago

23 posts - 47 votes
Speaks: French*, Modern Hebrew, English, Japanese
Studies: Korean, Finnish, Yiddish, Spanish, Russian, Esperanto

 
 Message 31 of 35
26 September 2015 at 2:46pm | IP Logged 
Duolingo has an Esperanto course, which is quite a good introduction to the language: A good way to pick up
basic grammar and vocabulary.

I appreciate the fact that you can do it in short sessions, and that Duolingo keeps track of your progress,
telling you when to review.

The downside is too many Esperanto to English typing exercise which you can't turn off.

I don't like the computer voices in Spanish or other languages, but Esperanto seems to have real human
recordings.
1 person has voted this message useful



linguaholic_ch
Triglot
Groupie
IndiaRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 5063 days ago

69 posts - 96 votes 
Speaks: English, Hindi, Bengali
Studies: Japanese, Esperanto, French

 
 Message 32 of 35
30 September 2015 at 7:59pm | IP Logged 
I am doing the Esperanto course right now, and its really good. Although it gets boring
sometimes and this puts many off, but the way the vocabularies although cumbersome, are
introduced is very efficient. I feel this is because the skills have an essential amount
of words needed to be learned.The human voice recordings are very audible compared to
other languages in Duo.

Anyways, I would it is a great app albeit with some quirks.Some of my friends who never
liked learning languages have been inspired by it to study a tongue. And, we ought to
know to supplement Duolingo with other language resources.




1 person has voted this message useful



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