Which app?
So you mean that you use the version meant for Japanese speakers learning English? I tried the placement test for that and got kinda frustrated by the the fact that it insisted on things like matching the verb tenses even though English and Japanese tenses don’t always work like that. Basically trying to force 1:1 translations without considering how unnatural it might sound. Has this gotten any better in your experience?
EDIT: I should say up top here for clarity that I’ve been using the app and not the web version.
I mentioned this on the POLL thread, but I downloaded Duolingo this weekend because a friend on a Discord server is using it to learn Irish in order to get back in touch with her roots, and it gave me a jonesing to go back to it and some more languages I haven’t looked at in years. I’m just sticking to Irish for now, and once I’m done that … whenever (taking it a bit at a time) I’ll move onto French and German and then see where the rhythm takes me. If I was going to use it for Japanese I’d probably only have it on hand as a supporting app, even before I read through this thread. I have downloaded LingoDeer (thanks for the recommendation everyone!) and plan on using that at… some point. Perhaps. I’m fortunate in that I have no shortage of resources on hand and available to me when it comes to grammar, but also unfortunate in that it can lead to feeling overwhelmed at times!
As for Duolingo? I dunno. It’s all right. I’m gonna stick with it.for now, but it’s not quite what I expected. I admit to enjoying the gamification aspects, I like that it has placement tests even if I’m not entirely sure I deserved to get as much wrong as it did, the UI is very clear and elegantly laid out… but it does also kinda throw you in at the deep end and to an extent have you muddle through by yourself. Which is a valid approach, certainly, though maybe not what I was looking for. And it does have learning to offer but it’s an oddly subtle and seemingly half-structured learning, where you need to click on the words to see what’s been thought. It’s also very heavy on repetition and driving concepts into your head with constant iterations on the given ideas, which I can respect. And certainly you don’t need to do all the levels and get all the crowns, and you can skip levels with tests if you want, but it’s pretty good at making you want to get all the crowns.
So ultimately? I quite like Duolingo, I’d definitely suggest that someone look into it, but it won’t necessarily be a magic bullet, and I’d argue again that it’s best considered as one of a number of things people use to bulk up their learning.
(Does anyone have any opinions on Mango? My friend is planning on moving onto it once she finished with Duolingo, and I ask because I’ve heard of it but don’t really know a whole lot. Apparently it’s focussed more on hearing and repeating practical phrases.)
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I use Mango for conversational and survival type Japanese expressions . It does have a feature to compare your speech to the audio provided so it kind of works as a shadowing tool. Unlike Duolingo there is no kanji and the grammar is acquired incidentally rather than taught. There is a lot of vocabulary for a beginner. Your friend might benefit from doing it simultaneously with DL. Some libraries give free access to the web version and lessons can be played offline.
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worth a try. Mine was about a year old.
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If you can get logged in make sure to update it too. It’s been polished a lot and the audio has all been replaced.
I didn’t think it was very helpful in terms of grammar, and I definitely wouldn’t use it by itself, but I use it when I’m bored. Sometimes I unexpectedly learn some random vocab I didn’t know before. Really, it’s just repeated exposure.
@Frosty-chan I think @inusagi-chan was telling you that.
Yeah, they keep updating Lingodeer with new stuff.
The story mode is really good for reading new vocabulary and understanding through context.
And the short quiz and flash cards as well.
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This is really exciting news. I’ve been experimenting with mixing and matching Japanese learning resources recently, and while I still don’t like how Duolingo handles (or rather doesn’t handle) grammar, I’ve found that it remains useful for just the sheer number of example sentences it’s capable of throwing at you. Basically, I get my serious grammar and vocab elsewhere, but then I just let Duolingo drown me in sentences for practice.
So yeah, this is me feeling happy that I can probably keep using Duolingo somewhat effectively for a while longer. I’ve got a couple hundred day streak to keep up, after all.
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Yaaah! I gotta keep up my streak too, so I do a little bit of it every day!
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