The biggest issue I had with duolingo when learning Norwegian was at the beginning and when introducing new concepts like definite articles.
The fucking app for some reason does not have tips (well they do now, but they are not really tips just the lesson vocab) but the website has them and they really are way better at explaining how some things work or are formed. The lesson just throws words at you and expects you to figure out how the concept works completely on your own.
I had so many mistakes when I was learning the definite article because some words were only ever given in the definite form and I had no idea and just thought that is how the words were.
The system works alright when you get the grammar and the basic langiage structure and the lessons basically just add more vocabulary. But the beginning of a course is unstructured and sucks absolute ass without any real explanations. Maybe more popular languages are more structured but that has just been my experience and I have a 1320 day streak currently
The lesson just throws words at you and expects you to figure out how the concept works completely on your own.
Yeah I feel like most of the big language learning apps do this to a degree, but Duolingo is especially lazy about it. They’ll justify it by saying “it’s the natural way to learn a language” or “this is how native speakers learn the language as children”. But like, I’m not a child, I don’t care about the “natural way”, I just wanna know how to speak the language without sounding like a fucking dunce. I’m an adult now, I understand the overarching structures and concepts of languages like grammar and conjugation. Tell me those rules up front and I promise I will learn the language faster.
That being said, the more “brute force” approach that duolingo and others employ can work, it just takes a really long time of consistent practice to pick up on the subtleties. I think that’s part of why they put so much emphasis on the gamification aspect - it keeps people coming back for 1320 days in a row lol, and you figure things out eventually. It’s also easier to build lessons around simple flashcard-based exercises, rather than actually figuring out and documenting the rules and structures of a language in the app. It’s also way easier to monetize the lessons when they’re gamified.
So all that to say, I totally agree with you, Duolingo kinda sucks, but I also kinda understand the reasoning behind why they structure it the way they do.
Yeah I have gone over that hard phase quite a long time ago and now the system is alright as I basically just learn new words. But yeah as I said I could not for the life of me figure out that definite articles attach to the end of words and when they do that (does not help that my native language is a slavic one that does not even have articles like a and the).
The thing that actually pisses me off most about that is that these tips and actual rules are explained in the tips on the web version of duolingo. The app version only got tips for norwegian about a year ago and for some god damn reason they are not even the tips from the website but just the fucking lesson glossary.
Oh yeah thanks very much it really helps me to understand how a concept works when I can see 4 sentences that appear in the lesson without any additional info.
Edit:
I guess most of my rant just got invalidated. I just opened the app and apparently they updated the system.
I mean it still sucks you can only look at that after finishing a section but at least it is there.
The biggest issue I had with duolingo when learning Norwegian was at the beginning and when introducing new concepts like definite articles.
The fucking app for some reason does not have tips (well they do now, but they are not really tips just the lesson vocab) but the website has them and they really are way better at explaining how some things work or are formed. The lesson just throws words at you and expects you to figure out how the concept works completely on your own.
I had so many mistakes when I was learning the definite article because some words were only ever given in the definite form and I had no idea and just thought that is how the words were.
The system works alright when you get the grammar and the basic langiage structure and the lessons basically just add more vocabulary. But the beginning of a course is unstructured and sucks absolute ass without any real explanations. Maybe more popular languages are more structured but that has just been my experience and I have a 1320 day streak currently
Yeah I feel like most of the big language learning apps do this to a degree, but Duolingo is especially lazy about it. They’ll justify it by saying “it’s the natural way to learn a language” or “this is how native speakers learn the language as children”. But like, I’m not a child, I don’t care about the “natural way”, I just wanna know how to speak the language without sounding like a fucking dunce. I’m an adult now, I understand the overarching structures and concepts of languages like grammar and conjugation. Tell me those rules up front and I promise I will learn the language faster.
That being said, the more “brute force” approach that duolingo and others employ can work, it just takes a really long time of consistent practice to pick up on the subtleties. I think that’s part of why they put so much emphasis on the gamification aspect - it keeps people coming back for 1320 days in a row lol, and you figure things out eventually. It’s also easier to build lessons around simple flashcard-based exercises, rather than actually figuring out and documenting the rules and structures of a language in the app. It’s also way easier to monetize the lessons when they’re gamified.
So all that to say, I totally agree with you, Duolingo kinda sucks, but I also kinda understand the reasoning behind why they structure it the way they do.
Yeah I have gone over that hard phase quite a long time ago and now the system is alright as I basically just learn new words. But yeah as I said I could not for the life of me figure out that definite articles attach to the end of words and when they do that (does not help that my native language is a slavic one that does not even have articles like a and the).
The thing that actually pisses me off most about that is that these tips and actual rules are explained in the tips on the web version of duolingo. The app version only got tips for norwegian about a year ago and for some god damn reason they are not even the tips from the website but just the fucking lesson glossary.
Oh yeah thanks very much it really helps me to understand how a concept works when I can see 4 sentences that appear in the lesson without any additional info.
Edit:
I guess most of my rant just got invalidated. I just opened the app and apparently they updated the system.
I mean it still sucks you can only look at that after finishing a section but at least it is there.