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+--- Thread: Duolingo (/thread-10191.html)
Duolingo - tylerdevlin - 2012-11-20
I think it's been mentioned once or twice on the forum, but it deserves its own thread.
Check it out: http://duolingo.com
As far as I can tell, it's free, effective, and beautiful.
It's just French, Spanish, Portuguese, and German right now, but I don't know if they plan to add more languages.
Thoughts?
Edit: By the looks of it, they're planning on adding Chinese at some point in the future.
Duolingo - yudantaiteki - 2012-11-20
Looks bad to me. I'm immediately suspicious that they give almost no details, just a flashy ad with a lot of vague talking points and a request to sign up through facebook or e-mail before you can see anymore. The method sounds ridiculous; that doesn't necessarily mean it's bad but I'm skeptical.
Duolingo - Daichi - 2012-11-21
yudantaiteki Wrote:Looks bad to me. I'm immediately suspicious that they give almost no details, just a flashy ad with a lot of vague talking points and a request to sign up through facebook or e-mail before you can see anymore. The method sounds ridiculous; that doesn't necessarily mean it's bad but I'm skeptical.It's more interesting if you watch this video instead.
http://www.ted.com/talks/luis_von_ahn_massive_scale_online_collaboration.html
Duolingo - Jumpluff13 - 2012-11-21
Thank you so much! I checked the German version, and so far I'm liking it. It's a language I always wanted to learn (after Japanese of course
).
Duolingo - nadiatims - 2012-11-21
Seems pretty good. I'm sure there are a lot of minor errors created through the crowd translation but as a learning tool it seems quality.
I could see myself getting into it if they offered some languages I'm more interested in.
Duolingo - michellsesommer - 2012-11-21
Yeah this is an awesome idea! Hopefully they add more languages.
Duolingo - hirata - 2012-11-21
I watched the video, and I think this could be pretty great, but I can't get over the fear that learning by constantly translating might train you to translate everything when you encounter your L2 later, instead of trying to understand it. Maybe I'm over-thinking it, though.
Duolingo - tylerdevlin - 2012-11-21
I know we've all heard the warnings against translating in your head, but when it comes down to it, you can't translate something well without understanding it first. So I think you train understanding by means of translation.