
Luis von Ahn, co-founder and CEO of Duolingo - prostoalex
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-51208154
======
johnkpaul
I have a 2201 day streak playing Duolingo. I love Duolingo. I have taken
Spanish and French that whole time and German for a few years.

I find Duolingo to be an extremely fun game. My wife and I really enjoy trying
to speak other languages and even more so now that we have talking children. I
can speak passable Spanish and can string together broken sentences in French
to be effective (they get what I mean) and hilarious to native speakers.

Duolingo has never purely taught me a language. If my wife didn't know Spanish
and learning French like me, I would have never been able to practice enough
in the real world to know.

I enjoy using Duolingo immensely. For me it is a fun way to toy around with a
hobby I've had for years without committing myself to dedicated training costs
and time.

~~~
godelski
> I have a 2201 day streak playing Duolingo. I love Duolingo. I have taken
> Spanish and French that whole time and German for a few years.

> I can speak passable Spanish and can string together broken sentences in
> French to be effective

Things like this worry me. If we look at how long Spanish and French take, it
is about 600hrs[0] (probably less because specifically French is really close
to English and Spanish is close to French). If you only had 20 minutes a day
you should be reasonably fluent. But if your wife and you are talking, I'm
guessing you average more than that.

[0] [https://qph.fs.quoracdn.net/main-
qimg-688ca4d9dd1f88f5f655be...](https://qph.fs.quoracdn.net/main-
qimg-688ca4d9dd1f88f5f655be277979a480)

~~~
johnkpaul
"Worry"? That seems like a strong word here.

This is a game that I enjoy playing. I have never tracked how long I take.
Many days, I do only a single lesson. That's less than 5 minutes, sometimes
less than 3.

I'm not trying to be fluent. I'm not really _trying_ to achieve anything. The
closest I have to a goal is that I enjoy having another language's vocabulary
that I can use when speaking around my children.

~~~
andrewzah
In that case, sticking with a premade Anki deck would likely be more effective
for that amount of time.

~~~
johnkpaul
But a lot less fun!:-)

~~~
andrewzah
Such is the nature of language learning. It's not really sexy or fun to study
vocab or shadow along to something you're watching for the 10th time. I see
language learning exactly the same as working out- it's just a lot of
consistent hard work over years. ;-)

------
nmfisher
I learned Mandarin and German pre-Duolingo, both to reasonable levels of
proficiency.

I've messed around with Duolingo a few times, just to get a feel for how
useful it is. I came away feeling that it was about the same level as
flashcard vocabulary learning - useful, but only a small part of the pie.

Vocabulary is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition to be able to carry
on a conversation. Mandarin in particular is more difficult, since you need to
grind through hours and hour writing/rote learning characters to improve your
vocabulary.

The one thing that noticeably accelerated my proficiency was having an actual
conversation with a native speaker (host family/tutor/etc). That's not
something that Duolingo really replicates.

Self-plug - coincidentally, earlier today I just released a small tool for
Mandarin learners to practise their tone recognition! I've been working on a
larger app and this seemed like something that would have helped me when I
first started out. App is currently live @
[https://fluent.academy](https://fluent.academy) \- I'll be introducing more
functionality for Mandarin learners in the near future, so would really love
to hear from students of any level.

~~~
ml_giant
I agree. Duolingo is great for learning vocabulary, but if you really want to
learn a language you need to supplement this with listening to the language as
well as speaking it.

I've been learning French and have been using Duolingo for vocab, but then I
listen to a French-teaching podcast as well as trying to work on
reading/speaking it.

~~~
dghughes
I'm not at the stage where I can listen to it since it's such a fast language.
I've been reading LeMonde newspaper and trying to decipher it that way. I live
in Canada but the French here is quite different in each region; Quebec,
Acadian, Métis. Duolingo French course is France French not Canadian French I
think it's standard French aka Parisan.

~~~
ml_giant
There are podcasts for learning such as "Coffee Break French". Basically they
start with very basic french and build up. This can be good for starting to
learn to listen to french.

Regarding the differences between Canadian and France French, are there that
many differences that it would make it difficult to understand someone from
another region?

~~~
dghughes
In addition to what others have said I can only offer anecdotal evidence.

I have friends and former coworkers some from Quebec, some from New Brunswick
all fluently bilingual. We've all worked with people from France on projects
and my Acadian friends remarked they couldn't understand a word the people
from France said.

Although the reverse of that a friend went to northern France on vacation.
When he was there he said everyone asked him where he was from he told them
New Brunswick Canada. From what I understand Acadian (French dialect of New
Brunswick, Canada) is older and closer to northern France than the Quebec
dialect. I'm not sure if my friend meant the regional dialect or standard
Parisian French, I'm pretty sure he meant the former.

And this may be totally wrong but I believe the southern France dialect
(Occitan) is quite different than the north. I've had to call Monaco (I know
it's not France) and I was surprised at just the accent of the French person
speaking English. I've been around French all my life but southern France to
me sounds like stereotypical cartoon French like Pepe LePew.

The entire history of standard French for their language is quite interesting.
It's not been accepted for as long as you may think and there are many
dialects.

edit: I think Canadian French has a lot of slang not used in France which
makes it hard to understand. Kind of like a Cockney from England coming to the
US, sure you can understand his language but not the meaning the way he uses
words.

------
keiferski
Personally, I've found Duolingo to be almost universally worse than any other
language product. It seems to have become successful and widely-known purely
from marketing. It is the current generation's Rosetta Stone.

In general, I recommend Glossika or Pimsleur over Duolingo. Depending on the
language you're learning, there are also more niche sites that do a far better
job; _Turkish Tea Time_ or _RealPolish.pl_ are some good examples.

[https://turkishteatime.com](https://turkishteatime.com)

[https://realpolish.pl](https://realpolish.pl)

~~~
mindingdata
>It is the current generation's Rosetta Stone

To be fair. Rosetta Stone got it's "reputation" because of it's insane price
point comparative to what you learnt. Duolingo on the other hand is completely
free.

~~~
plapetomain
It’s freemium, which I don’t feel is “completely” free.

~~~
throwaway41968
There are only marginal benefits to Duolingo plus that can't be obtained with
a proper adblocker. Many people who choose to subscribe admit they only do so
to support the company.

------
michalu
I learned couple of languages with the help of Duolingo. They claim t be the
fastest way to learn a language.

I recently realized is only valid if you don't want to put the work in. People
who are not willing to put serious effort into learning a new language will
find Duolingo useful.

It's also useful if you come from similar language. E.g. you speak Italian and
you want to learn Spanish (latin langauge). Or you're Czech and you want to
learn Polish (slavic language, same grammar and compsition)

But if you are serious about learning a language, Duolingo will only slow you
down. You learn conversational stuff and progress often with big holes in the
knowledge and understanding the core principles and structures of the
language.

For serious learners of a new language, keen to progress properly and fast
Duolingo should be avoided.

~~~
Fnoord
Duolingo works by means of repetition. The user can learn as much as they
want. You need to define "serious learning" and "serious effort" if you want
to make a well written critique. Which alternatives do you suggest? How much
do they cost? How much time per month would you spend on these? Versus
Duolingo? What is/are your end goal(s). In how many months would you reach
your end goal(s)?

~~~
michalu
Serious effort is when you drill the grammar and memorise tense and forms of
words. You'll have a base to build on.

Take English for example, difference between past simple vs. past continuous
is easier explained once than randomly coming across on Duolingo never fully
comprehending the principle. Therefore it's faster.

And form someone coming from non-Germanic language this will take time to
comprehend, kind of like when you first learned some math concepts as a child,
some took a while to click.

Now take words and their past forms, give, gave, given.

In order to use it in a natural way, you first have to drill and memorise many
words ... not possible on Duolingo as one lesson you work with a bunch of
"gave" and suddenly several lessons you use "given" ...

Yes, you can learn language in way that you go China and you're able to make
primitive conversations. I know a lot of people speaking French that they
learned conversational way and all of them struggle with grammar and despite
being able to talk and communicate fluently their language is not enough for
professional level or academic level.

E.g. my girlfriend and I speak English, a language native to neither of us ...
we can live a complete life together and we can talk but to a native speaker
her mixing of tenses and grammar would sound like nonsense.

This is the case with many of my foreign friends who learned English in a
conversational way.

Duolingo does the best what it's designed for. It's a way to learn for the
lazy, so it is a game.

~~~
spectramax
Could you please recommend an alternative to Duolingo?

~~~
andrewzah
Glossika (basically a modern pimsleur) is the best app that I've found for
practicing a language.

If you actually want to learn a language?

\- find one or three good textbooks and follow them completely with exercises

\- find a language exchange, but it won't be helpful for speaking until you
know 200-300 words and can speak a little. exchanges can be good for making
friends, though. they're great for getting feedback on your pronunciation,
speaking, etc, but always take things with a grain of salt. native speakers
are not always good teachers.

\- find graded readers or native content that is catered to early, medium,
advanced levels, etc. immersion is really important

\- use Anki for spaced repetition, to memorize vocabulary (that you found from
native content like tv shows / books / etc)

\- make friends thru language exchanges or apps like Hello Talk / Tandem

\- in general try to get as much input and output as possible. people usually
neglect speaking and listening.

\- finding a weekly tutor can help you iron out personal issues, particularly
with pronunciation

Doing an app for a few mins a day is never going to teach you a language to a
"fluent" degree, despite what marketing they have. Learning a language
requires serious study and practice- speaking (and writing, etc) are muscles
that you have to train over time by interacting with real people.

I don't consider making a few contrived sentences like "my name is X, i do y
for a living, where is the bathroom" to be _fluent_. Not at all. That's called
being barely functional. Real fluency depends on your native language and
target language, but requires years and years of work. It's not sexy like the
idea of using an app and magically becoming "fluent" in a language.

~~~
spectramax
Totally, appreciate your insight. Just wanted to say thanks!

------
yuchi
I’ve been using Duolingo to restore my limited knowledge of Japanese and
worked pretty well. I managed to keep a two month every-day habit, but
collapsed as soon as I skipped few days — there’s something to learn about too
much aggressive gamification here.

Nonetheless I suggested my mother and grandmother to start using it to get
better at their english and they’ve been using it every single day since 8
months ago — and I’ve seen incredible results. They start to understand basic
online content and they are asking me to translate content less and less every
week.

This is an incredible result IMHO.

------
mantap
I see duolingo as a kind of modern equivalent to the language textbooks we had
in school. You aren't going to seriously learn a language using it, but it
gives you enough of a taste that you might be motivated to decide to pick up a
language after using it.

I do think that using duolingo too long is an inefficient way to learn a
language even at beginner level, I wouldn't use it for more than a few weeks
before graduating to a SRS like Anki.

For intermediate to advanced I really love clozemaster. It's especially good
for learning grammar, you probably want to supplement it with some pure
vocabulary in an SRS.

------
matt_the_bass
I speak English (native), French and German. I’m currently learning Dutch with
Duolingo. I’ve only used the iPhone app for about 2 months at the free tier.

I’ve already learned similar languages the traditional way and I go to the
netherlands at least 1-2x year for work.

Personally, I feel I get enough value from Duolingo to make it worth my time.
But I admit I’m a particular use case.

IMHO it is not was way to learn language if it is one’s only tool. But then
again neither is only classroom instruction or only books or only tv. I think
that is where people get hung up on critiquing it.

I see it as ONE valuable tool in my toolbox.

~~~
matt_the_bass
FYI recent discussion here:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21702424](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21702424)

------
kgraves
I'm hesitant to use duolingo, after seeing the amount of funding rounds and VC
capital they have taken. I would steer clear of using it.

Are there any free and open source alternatives to duolingo out there? I
wouldn't want to use something that could shutdown after an 'incredible
journey'.

~~~
cptwunderlich
I don't think there is anything comparable OSS wise. Creating such an
alternative wouldn't only be very difficutl tech-wise, but someone would also
have to create the content.

Anyway, I've been using Duolingo since ca. 2014 and it didn't shutdown...
Plus, it's free - what do you have to lose? Your progress on some language
learning app? You won't lose the knowledge gained.

~~~
angry_octet
It isn't free -- you have to watch ads, which detracts severely from the
learning and enjoyment.

~~~
oska
Plus being a betrayal of their user-base which is heavily weighted towards
young and impressionable learners. And, by the way, a betrayal of their
initial promise, that they would never do advertising (expressly stated in the
first promo video they released, which is still on YouTube).

------
zojirushibottle
has anyone used duolingo for an extensive period of time and can confirm it
helps with actually speaking a new language? my experience with tools like
these is that they help build vocabulary but you can't actually hold a
conversation for a long time...

~~~
ainar-g
I'm a linguaphile with a lot of experience with Duolingo. I've joined in the
very first months of Duolingo. There are many problems with it:

* First and foremost, Duolingo isn't a product, it's a series of products, which all have different characteristics. A person using Duolingo on Android will have an experience completely different from the experience of someone who uses iOS. And the difference is even more drastic when comparing mobile with the desktop version. The desktop version is sometimes three or four time more challenging.

* Even within one platform, the A/B testing has become so large-scale that even two Android users might see a completely different product.

* Courses for “popular” languages get way more attention than the “unpopular” ones. And the quality varies greatly.

* The ads they show are sometimes loud and obnoxious, NSFW, or straight up scams. That doesn't happen that often, thankfully, but I've had my portion of loud-as-hell game ads and borderline pornographic hentai game ads. And before you say what people always say when it comes to NSFW ads, Duolingo says that ads aren't personalised, so no, my search history has nothing to do with them.

* Finally, it is indeed a good way to learn _some basics_ and acquire _some basic vocabulary,_ but there is no way you'll get fluent with it. A friend of mine has summed Duolingo up very well: it gives you a _feeling_ that you learn something, even if you don't progress at all.

That's just the stuff I could remember off the top of my head. It's still nice
to have it, but we still should remember that the service has lots of issues,
some of which could be eliminated, if the management wanted to do so.

~~~
Riverheart
I'll second this. Another problem is the subscription, which IMHO, is
overpriced for what you're getting. They also seem to spend an unusual amount
of time redesigning already functional UI's.

------
andrewzah
Duolingo functions on the premise that "being conversational" means "cobbling
together words shakily into passable sentences". I find that people in general
have a low bar for "being fluent" and "being conversational".

Have you ever tracked a conversation you've had with your friends? A
conversation can broach many different topics, and can go deep into those
topics. Are you "conversational" if you can only say a few sentences and are
completely out of your depth once the conversation switches to any other topic
like politics, etc? No. Conversations can also last hours.

Doing things like duolingo will never have you reach fluency or even being
fully conversational. It may be a good start, but it should always be
complemented by studying with textbooks or online resources like instructors
on youtube. Anki (or memrise) is necessary to start memorizing heaps of
vocabulary words so you can begin to have simple conversations. Glossika is
good for making yourself practice saying sentences and listening to sentences.

Native material is by far the most important aspect. That's how you find
vocabulary and practice things like listening and shadowing along.

------
angry_octet
Can we pause for a moment to appreciate the manifest destiny of a name like
Severin Hacker?

~~~
shacker
:)

------
dghughes
I like Duolingo because it's easy to get going and quick to take lessons
during my free time.

It's easy enough to get going and hard enough to feel like you're doing
something but not so much you give up.

The points system, scoreboard, and email prompts are a good way to encourage
you without being annoying. The ranked scoreboard really has me wanting to
stay there and compete to stay in the top 10 each week.

One thing I miss is the speaking option. Not all languages offer it but some
did and that option seems to be missing or at least on my device it is.

Another problem is some languages are hit and miss with pronunciations if
there are few native speakers. I know there are computer generated voices but
sometimes there is no sample of the words at all (Irish being one example).

Anything that gets people interested in languages is a good thing. Duolingo
may not be perfect but it's a popular and easy to use app. We unilingual
English speakers need to get to with the times and learn at least one second
language, maybe even more.

~~~
moojd
I've been using the voice-to-text included with the google keyboard on android
to practice speech on duo. I'd be interested to hear from a native speaker how
accurate the voice-to-text model is but I find it fun getting a computer to
understand me in a different language. It can be pretty unforgiving for
certain sounds that aren't in my native language so I feel like I really have
to nail the pronunciation.

------
walterkrankheit
It's true that it's tough to learn a language from scratch with just Duolingo
- only language classes truly worked for me. But as a means of review or for
giving my friends who would probably never learn the language properly a leg
up, it's invaluable. Rosetta Stone used to be a $700 investment and this made
it obsolete.

------
theriddlr
I've done a beginners' course with a tutor but had forgotten most of it
without regular practice. Duolingo is really useful for ingraining the
language into my long-term memory. I would probably enrol in an intermediate
course in the future when I can pass the test. I live in the UK where there is
a big Spanish community and can easily go on holiday to Spain.

I can make grammatically correct sentences in the Duolingo domains and can
understand the gist of unknown [written] sentences using contextual clues and
words similar to English. There is a Flag question icon on the app where you
can read the community's comments for an explanation on the grammar.

------
3dprintscanner
Duolingo works reasonably well when used as a supplementary aid to learning a
language. I've found that it has reasonable utility when combined with taking
a physical class as a low-effort boredom filler for building familiarity with
the vocabulary of a language.

What I find pressingly missing is any meaningful way of learning about the
grammar of a language. When learning German there was absolutely nothing in
the lessons which even hinted at the rules of tenses, cases, conjugations etc
and the lack of that content stunts the possibility of building much more than
a rote-learning knowledge of a language.

The app does seem to have a great gamification mechanic and is good at driving
user engagement, so I guess they have that though.

~~~
Boltgolt
The web version of Duolingo used to have detailed explanations for each lesson
that explained a lot of grammar, they seems to have disappeared recently

~~~
nyordanov
They are still there, but they've changed the UI and removed the lesson
permalinks, so it's now harder to both find and use these explanations.

Click on a lesson's circle and there is now a lightbulb icon which opens the
detailed lesson.

------
nandkeypull
Clozemaster has been my go-to app for language study now. It uses the
"sentence mining" concept advocated by Glossika to show you thousands of
sentences and learn new vocabulary in context.

After I got to a certain level, Duolingo and Rosetta Stone became too easy,
and I found myself grinding on things that I already knew to try to get to
"the good stuff". The signal-to-noise ratio was just too low.

Anki was the next step up for me and improved my vocabulary by leaps and
bounds, but it became tedious to look for example sentences and make new
flashcards from them. Clozemaster does this automatically, and you can choose
whatever difficulty level you like.

~~~
throwaway41968
That's the approach I've had recently. Duolingo into Clozemaster, with
generous helpings of Memrise on the side. Too bad Clozemaster is awfully
limited in its free version.

------
trhway
sideways: reading about his sale of reCAPTCHA to Google stumbled on

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ReCAPTCHA](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ReCAPTCHA)

" In 2018, Google started beta testing a completely invisible reCAPTCHA system
which does not present any human verification visually. Instead, the new
system actively monitors user actions across the entire property and returns a
score which represents the probability if it is a human or a bot."

Once the bots successfully emulate humans ... what happens once the system
concludes you're a bot? How do you prove that you aren't?

------
jonathanjaeger
I use Duolingo for Portuguese and I would highly recommend sticking as much to
desktop as possible, given that it requires you to work more at the exercises
than on mobile. Better for ingraining concepts in your head.

Duolingo, along with other resources, gave me a great foundation for when I
added Italki and started talking to Brazilians in Portuguese for 30-60 chunks
of time. I probably should have started Italki ("out loud" conversations
sooner), but Duolingo's Portuguese tree definitely gave me a great start on
vocab and all the different grammar types (subjunctive in Portuguese is
intense!).

------
seanwilson
I've used Duolingo and like it for learning grammar and vocabulary. Why would
someone pay for it though?

I would have been prepared to pay but I don't see why I would. The only paid
features I see are to remove ads (which you rarely see compared to how long
you use the app for), offline use (which isn't an issue if you have good
mobile internet) and to skip to harder stages (which seems counterproductive).

In terms of making an income, it feels they give far too much away for free.
Do they make most of their money from the ads? Or so many people use it for
free that it's okay if only a low percent convert?

~~~
jborden13
Ultimately, I primarily opted for the paid version of DuoLingo to support
their mission of free language learning for all. The ad removal and offline
use (great for planes and while traveling) were secondary reasons.

~~~
yakshemash
I opted for the paid version for exactly the same reason, but I was sorely
disappointed to learn that they don't allow the app to be installed in my home
country when I went there for a visit and was hoping to introduce my young
nephews to the joys of learning a foreign language. It happens that third
world countries don't generate enough ad money to be part of the free language
learning for all mantra. Needless to say, I didn't renew my subscription. I
must admit though that the app contributed toward my goal of attaining
reasonable proficiency in Portuguese in one year, though I got much more out
of obstinately listening to podcasts and regular radio even though I
understood little at the beginning, and also making native speaker friends
online. I used [https://www.hellotalk.com/](https://www.hellotalk.com/), an
app to meet language learning partners to chat with, and where Brazilians
happen to be extremely active and eager to exchange with people willing to
help them with their English or French.

------
cmrdporcupine
I would love one of these vocabulary building apps if it came in the form of
an Android Auto application that I could use while driving my 45 minute
commute. Doesn't seem to exist, though.

------
OJFord
I'm using Duolingo to learn Hindi, but not alone; I also have a couple of
(Snell's) books.

I find that a good combination - I favour reading as a means of study anyway,
and that gives an understanding of the grammar, tips, gotchas, etc., and then
Duolingo puts it into practice, tests me on it, and instills vocabulary and
recognition of sounds and characters through repetition.

------
sharcerer
Does Duolingo have Spaced-repetition? Spaced-repetition tools like Anki are
quite customizable too.

~~~
rgoulter
I used DuoLingo for quite some time before using Anki. My experience with Anki
was much better.

My experience was that I was much better at recalling vocabulary from using
Anki than DL. Possibly because the "yes/no" to DL is at a phrase/sentence
level rather than per-word.

Without putting effort in, DL makes it easy to recall what the DuoLingo-
defined accepted translation of phrases is. It's easy to fall into the habit
of 'gaming' it and just remembering the answer in a very shallow sense.

With Anki, using flashcards of words, the 'effort' you need to put in is being
honest about whether you recalled the word.

I felt that when I started using Anki, I was _much_ better at answering DL.

------
vonnik
Since we're recommending other language tools, I've found the Michel Thomas
method to be really effective. Better than Pimsleur:
[https://www.michelthomas.com/](https://www.michelthomas.com/)

------
ColinWright
Still doesn't have European Portuguese.

And yes, I've dabbled enough to know that I _could_ learn Brazillian
Portuguese and try to convert, but I've also dabbled enough to know that to do
so would be really hard, and leave behind some undesirable remnants.

~~~
santiagobasulto
> I've also dabbled enough to know that to do so would be really hard.

No, that's not true. Learn Brazilian Portuguese and you'll be 95% there. The
major differences are in the voçe vs. tu (second-person singular pronoun).
There are other differences (mainly pronunciation), but the core of the
language is the same.

Source: I'm from Argentina and learned Brazilian (travel often). I have a few
Portuguese friends and I have 0 issues talking and understanding them.

~~~
ColinWright
Talking with and understanding them is not the remnant to which I refer. I'm
not sure I can explain it, but I've found in generally, converting a "near
enough" version to a "proper" version is something I find difficult.
Experience of my own learning tells me that if I start with Brazillian PT then
I will forever be labelled as a speaker of Brazillian PT, even if I try hard
to leverage it across into European PT.

Understanding and being understood is not the entire point here. Having said
that, I'm finding virtually no resources for learning Euro-PT, so I'm likely
to have to resign myself to always being thought of as a speaker of Br-PT,
despite living a few hundred kms from Portugal.

(BTW - thanks for the response, it is a useful data point)

------
dang
A large thread about Duolingo from a couple months ago:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21702424](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21702424)

------
wwarner
A great example of how a creative application of entrepreneurial spirit can
make the world a better place.

