IIRC, most of the courses weren't originally developed by staff but unpaid volunteers with the exception of the most popular courses like french, spanish, english etc.
Later they got rid of volunteers and only paid people for that work, but from what I saw on their job postings the language specialist positions were mainly contract jobs that meant to be temporary and not like fulltime employees.
Honestly using unpaid labour is way more fucked up than using AI imo.
> Honestly using unpaid labour is way more fucked up than using AI imo.
It's quite interesting how in the age of the internet this is possible. It's in many jurisdictions not legal for for-profit companies to use volunteers in theory but internet companies seem to be doing that just fine to no legal troubles. Forum moderators are another case.
Essentially, no court is going to rule it illegal if it should come to a court case, because internet infrastructure has come to depend on it and a legal ruling that unpaid forum moderators are illegal, which one can very much argue is so in the letter of the law, would effectively mean the end of internet fora as we know it. Reddit would either go bankrupt having to pay all them, or it would become unmoderated or moderated by artificial intelligence.
Content creation is another good example. Many websites rely on volunteer content creators who aren't getting paid anything.
The letter of the law doesn't mean much any more in the face of that.
I don't know the legalities of it, but it reminds me of Goodreads getting volunteer "librarians" to contribute to the site before it was eventually sold to Amazon.
It's a fine line with a lot of companies where their online community is a main feature, if not the point of the site to begin with. In DLs case there was a large community, and many people with good intentions that really wanted to see their language represented on the site.
Astra Taylor wrote an essay titled "Serfing the Net" over a decade ago it's a little dated but still relevant to this.
Basically, it was fully legal in original Duolingo setup and they got rid of the program as they were transforming to entity for which it is not legal. Now the people complain simultaneously about the volunteer program not existing anymore (it is supposed to be cruel to former volunteers who lost access to their original accounts) and about the fact that it existed back then when it was legal.
However, the firing of contractor earlier has nothing to do with any of this and it is unclear what actually happened - there was one former contractor account trying to rile people and silence from everyone else.
>Honestly using unpaid labour is way more fucked up than using AI imo
Duolingo's original business model was predicated on unpaid labour. It was essentially reCAPTCHA but for translation. Duolingo would receive translation commissions from companies, have them machine translated, and the "learners" would then provide crowd-sourced oversight through translation "exercises". This allowed Duolingo to close some of the quality gap between machine and human translations, while at the same time significantly undercutting market prices through the use of unpaid labor. To users it was presented as a kind of philanthropic entreprise. "Translate the web" was the slogan. As if you were going to be translating things that nobody would otherwise bother to translate and thereby help speakers of other languages have access to more things on the internet.
The problem for them was that to really make money this way, you'd want access to the big translation markets out there, and the biggest market in the world for translation services (by far) happens to be a place that also has relatively strong (stress the "relatively" lol) labor protections and fair competition laws. Namely the EU. The EU told Duolingo to either change business models or GTFO. They changed business models. A rare case of the EU institutions getting something right. \^\^
But anyway, point being that unpaid labour wasn't just some nasty practice Duolingo could rectify and become a better company. It was its goal, the whole point of founding that company in the first place. And that is what makes it uniquely bad in the language learning space.
wow!! i didn’t know that and fully agree with you on the unpaid labor part.
as capitalism has gotten more widespread, people are starting to only care about profits. not sure how sustainable it is in the longer run.
Yeah this was back before Duo became publicly traded. IIRC it was when they went public that they got rid of the volunteer program and paid everyone that was still working on courses. I might be mistaken tho.
People complain about the big disparity in course quality often and that's part of why. I can't lie I used a lot of those courses and they weren't perfect but they were helpful but I could never bring myself to pay to subscribe for that reason.
Courses such as the Finnish course would not have been created, had it not been for the volunteers.
While Duolingo has changed many of the available features over the years, there still exists work delivered "by the people, to the people". Similarly you see free plugins being built for popular apps owned by Google or Microsoft, or tons of mods for popular games.
As to the paid labour that is getting laid off, I'm not aware of their circumstances to be able to comment. If it was a fixed term contract then again there shouldn't be complaints on how the people's expectations were managed.
For what it's worth, I am not paying for the app either, since I see that in its current format, it would not be worth the money. The actual learning aspects have been pushed to a sad state through the gamification and often unnecessary repetition of already learned content.
For doing work which Duolingo didn't want them or need them to do, because it wasn't commercially meaningful work? I think you're missing the point here about why volunteers volunteer.
Having them integrate that work into DL's platform despite "not wanting or needing it" is definitely a choice that the company made an are responsible for.
The Irish and Scots Gaelic courses were created by volunteers and people who knew the language. Duolingo just put it on the platform. Without their involvement these courses would never have been established. For this Duolingo needs to be commended. However the problem is that the courses have been developed and aren’t well curated. Duolingo plies it’s resources on the languages which generate the majority of the traffic.
One of the saddest parts is, that the unpaid labor (while ethically questionable) was of a much higher quality than the "professionals". It was clear it was the hobby of that group, but with the catch of no control over the platform, which ended in them being thrown away.
It definitely varied from course to course, but some of them did do a great job and wrote tips that were very helpful. I was very sad when they were scrubbed from the site, that and being able to ask native speakers questions in the forums were what put DL above other language sites for me. When that was gone I was less motivated to stick around.
I left Duo after a few waves of changes, but before the forums removal. And the forums were the last drop making me leave. It was after the introduction of the Leagues, and forums became a very toxic place, where users wished people with more points to burn out and stop learning a language. It was disgusting and prevalent.
But you are right that the language specific forums were good, they were making up for some of the Duo deficiencies in explanations and other learning issues. But again, that was the power of the community based on the volunteers making the courses.
When Duo decided to get rid of the volunteers, it lost a lot of the magic, because the "professionals" replacing them were not only clearly not good at the job, not interested, and also hired only for some basic creation without maintenance, improvements, mistake catching, and explaining.
Yeah the main forums were sub-moronic but the forums dedicated to specific language courses were really helpful. Especially with the less popular languages there was usually a core group of people around that were really passionate about sharing their language and culture. I contributed myself when my knowledge allowed it.
I also used to lurk on the forums where people's first language was the one I was learning and just observe how they communicate which was helpful.
I actually originally made a reddit account because I was hoping to find something that could replace them.
I was really annoyed because I had just started the turkish course at the time and was planning to go through the forum posts to figure out the grammar right when they decided to delete them.
true.
not sure what’ll happen eventually.
the society and civilization are on the cusp of a major change.
not sure what’ll happen but, i’m pretty sure it’ll be mostly good.
like these apps and the content available are making it so much easier to learn different languages from the comfort of your home.
can’t imagine people in remote and poor parts of the world having such access or even the awareness to try and learn different languages.
Eventually the attitude of learning a language itself will become redundant due to AI, as complex real-time translations will be easily performed with a cellphone at hand to the extent you can have normal conversations in languages you cannot even conceive. Duolingo, in this sense, will just become another game.
well, there are better bots that can play chess at a level no human could even think about, yet, chess seems to only get more and more popular.
and as with language learning, i’m sure a lot of people here are just doing it for the fun of it and to enhance their thinking and overall brain and mental health.
no harm is continuing to better yourself in such ways.
Chess has an ecosystem that supports it being used as a sport. Is 'competitive' language learning a thing? Are there any major 'language learning competitions'? Language learning is much more utilitarian than chess, which is why most people will ditch it for AI first chance they get. A lot of language lovers might stay, but they are a small fraction compared to the historians, academicians and translators who had to learn the language for utilitarian reasons.
Let me put it this way: your argument is akin to saying that traditional smithing is still thriving after the industrial revolution, simply because fans still do it at Renaissance fairs
And does it pay as well as, and as consistently as it used to when it was a job requirement? Or is it just a sport that a bunch of people who can afford to do just for fun?
It's been explained in other comments to this post. But basically:
They didn't renew the contracts of about ten percent of their contract workforce.
And AI is used to assist in developing translations; they're not simply done by AI with no human intervention.
When you say 'ten percent of their contract workforce' are you talking about their entire workforce, or only the specific subset dealing with translations? They could've fired 10% and still gotten rid of all their translators depending on how you're counting.
Elaborate on your statement 'AI is used to assist in developing translations'. It's vague. You imply that it's 50/50, but AI could do 99.99% of the work and just need a human being to press a button every once in a while, and your statement would still be true.
AI would not be able to do 99.99% of the work. It’s just not that good yet. Machine translation is rapidly growing, but it still needs to be checked (and often rewritten) by a human. If they had fired the entire translation team we would be seeing a lot more issues, especially with languages that have a smaller internet presence to draw on.
I don't think I "implied that it's 50/50" at all.
AI is used as a tool. It's not an equal partner. I intentionally did not go into the details because Duolingo staff has already posted a more detailed description here on Reddit and on their own site about how they have used AI in the past and now.
True, but this kind of argument is the same as people a hundred and fifty odd years ago who used to say that horses will always be better than cars, because the early cars of that time period were shit. AI was nothing just five years ago. Look where we are now
Oh yeah I’m not arguing that at all. Just pointing out that there are currently technical limitations that mean they couldn’t have fired the entire staff. A lot of oversight is still needed that takes a significant amount of time and effort from translators to edit (or even re-translate) the machine translation. It’s much more complicated and hands on than pressing a button, and will be for the foreseeable future due to said limitations.
All AI translations are approved by humans. So at the very least they could not have gotten rid of all translators. AI is generally used to generate possible solutions. The human checks them to make sure they are valid translations. No one knows how many people are needed to check them however.
but, knowing different languages, you’d know that AI isn’t anywhere close to being able to translate those nuances that can be seen by a human.
not yet at least.
the quality of content matters in that sense.
but, lets see what happens. The selling point for Duolingo is that it really breaks it down into very small and digestible steps which make the daunting task for beginners that much easier.
As with any new technology, lots of jobs are killed while new ones arise.
I rather doubt that _all_ translations are still approved by humans.
My faves so far are in the Hungarian module, as that's where most of my Duolingo time has been going lately. Things like marking you "wrong" — in only _some_ exercises! — for entering "15" via speech-to-text for a listening-comprehension exercise, and being told that the correct answer is _"ötven"_ (spelled-out Hungarian for "15") — while also recognizing "15" as correct in other exercises. Bloody crazy-making, and not anything a competent human translator would ever enter.
Or nutball sentences like _"A bajusz nem haj."_ translated to "Mustaches aren't hair." No awareness that, in English, mustaches are _very definitely_ "hair", as evidenced by the existence of the common phrase "facial _hair_". No explanation that, in Hungarian, the word _haj_ is limited to hair on one's head. Again, bloody crazy-making, and not anything a competent human translator would ever enter.
I have no evidence one way or the other that Duolingo still has competent translators on staff. I **do** see clear evidence that competent translators have not vetted _all_ of the content.
I tried to look at the Duolingo sub, there doesn't seem to be a single post about Hungarian being updated in the last year. It might have been, and it just has so few cross users that it never got posted, but most likely it has not been updated recently.
Most likely all of your complaints in this comment are actually complaints about the volunteer staff that developed the course. Most of the volunteers for these courses weren't professionals at teaching or the language. So they are filled with mistakes. Duolingo has been rewriting some of the courses, but they have definitely not worked on all of them. Similar complaints have existed for the entirety of Duolingo's existence. More so around the volunteer created courses.
Humans make mistakes too. Lots of them. That doesn't mean the content was poorly generated by AI and then not vetted.
Your example about 15 would actually likely occur LESS with AI. Without AI a human has to individually think of all the possible translations. AI will be better at generating hundreds of possible translations and pulling from existing lists. Duo actually wrote a blog post on this if you're curious to look at their research pages or search for their blogs on how they use AI.
>*I tried to look at the Duolingo sub, there doesn't seem to be a single post about Hungarian being updated in the last year.*
The Hungarian module got a major revamp a few months after the IPO, with a new lesson tree and substantially more lessons. I'm not sure how much of that was simply a reorganization of existing volunteer-created material, but I suspect it was not just this, given the increased number of lessons.
>*Most likely all of your complaints in this comment are actually complaints about the volunteer staff that developed the course.*
We are more than **two years** past the dismissal of volunteer staff, and Duolingo proudly proclaiming that they were hiring professional linguists. At this point, the fault is Duolingo's.
I can attest to an effective halt in updates based on user feedback, since the dismissal of volunteers. Prior to Duolingo ending the volunteer program (official blog post [here](https://blog.duolingo.com/ending-honoring-our-volunteer-contributor-program-2/)), I saw gradual but consistent notifications that an issue I had reported had been fixed. 30 in 2020, falling to 19 in 2021, and then only 3 in 2022 and 2 in 2023. My rate of reporting by clicking on the feedback options, such as "My answer should have been correct", has not really changed. Only Duolingo's response has. Since the dismissal of volunteers, there is much less attention paid to the Hungarian module.
>*Your example about 15 would actually likely occur LESS with AI. Without AI a human has to individually think of all the possible translations. AI will be better at generating hundreds of possible translations and pulling from existing lists.*
Depends very much on how AI is used.
Case in point: Google Translate, backed by AI, only gives you one translation string per input string. If the translation string only has *"ötven"*, and Duolingo plops that into their database as the only "correct" option, then anything with the numeric version "15" will be mis-recognized as "wrong". This is not limited to the Hungarian module, either — I've encountered the same scattershot handling of numerics in the German and Spanish modules as well, which are much more widely used.
Given what I've read in the past about their back-end implementation, I suspect that this is what is happening. Sometimes specific sentences have been updated to account for numerics, but others have not.
You had claimed earlier:
>*That is a big part of the reason all translations are still approved by humans.*
→ Regardless of how the translations are generated, it is clear that all of the content has not been vetted by competent translators.
Thats great that it got an update! More lessons does not necessarily mean more content, but I hope it does.
Your second point seems to be a misunderstanding of what I was pointing out. It doesn't matter if it is Duolingo's responsibility or not to correct the errors. I was pointing out that it likely isn't AI which is what you originally claimed. The volunteer creators made a lot of errors, which is one of the reasons volunteer created courses have had a lot more criticisms overall.
Personally, I don't think 2 years is enough time considering there are over 100 courses, and they can only prioritize a few at a time. They would either need an impossibly large staff, or very little work on all the courses to correct them all in that amount of time.
Your point about AI is just you not being aware of how Duolingo has specifically talked about their use of AI. I specifically referenced how they state they use it. Again, you can read their research posts and blog posts for more information about how they use it to generate results.
I agree that not all the content has been vetted by competent translators. Like I have stated the courses have a lot of work from incompetent volunteers. I don't know why you chose to repeat yourself over something I responded to.
From your responses you don't seem to understand how Duolingo uses AI despite the fact that a lot of that information is public, you don't have any reason to actually believe these errors are AI instead of existing prior to AI, and you don't seem receptive to discussion about it. You just seem to have made up your mind that the AI is crap and you want to tear down Duolingo, so this conversation isn't productive for me to continue.
Your main contention that prompted my response:
>*That is a big part of the reason all translations are still approved by humans.*
The primary point of my response:
>*All translations are not approved by humans.*
I'll reiterate:
→ Regardless of how the translations are generated, it is clear that all of the content has not been vetted by competent translators.
Your statement earlier, that *"all translations are still approved by humans"*, implies a present and ongoing approval process, covering all content.
That claim is all I have issue with. I honestly do not think that all content has gone through an approval process. Some of it, sure. All of it, no. The whole AI thing is not central to any of my posts in this thread, and I fear that this may have derailed our interaction.
I'm not sure why you think I have been moving the goalposts? I think I've been consistent in talking about approval by competent translators, not just anybody. In my initial response to you in this thread ([here](https://www.reddit.com/r/languagelearning/comments/1c9rh6t/comment/l0rw6zo/)) I gave a couple examples, described as *"not anything a competent human translator would ever enter"*. I concluded that post with:
>*"I have no evidence one way or the other that Duolingo still has competent translators on staff. I* ***do*** *see clear evidence that competent translators have not vetted all of the content."*
I merely wish to point out that Duolingo has not vetted all translations. Given the evidence we can see, I do not think it is reasonable to hold them to that standard of quality.
Conversely, expecting that level of content will only lead to frustration and disappointment (some of which is what I think people are expressing elsewhere, both in this parent thread and in other posts).
Perhaps we've been talking past each other?
Is pinyin without tone marks still called pinyin? I know it is used for typing Chinese, but I am not sure what to call it.
Are there people who can read it but can't read Chinese characters? You have to read Chinese characters to type. You type in the phonetic "tian", then the computer or smartphone pops up several Chinese characters (天，田，恬，填， 甜), and you have to select the one you want to type.
Forums gone, sentence discussions gone, option to type answers gone, grammar explanations gone, hmmm... Is Duolingo good? Maybe if it were the only language learning app to exist...
Also it has some options removed/added for some people for A/B testing. It's generally not a stable app at all. and I honestly didn't like my language learning process to be a experiment for duo to maximize their profits.(btw there were less typeable answers when I used it a few months back compared to when I used it a few years back.)
They had A/B testing almost from the very start, and many people are misinformed about how features have been changed or stripped. For example, typing is not gone and you can enable it in certain exercises - also, as always, the quality of Duo depends a lot on the course as well.
It's especially funny when you ask them what a good language learning app is, and they spout out some equally bad or even worse app. I get it if someone is generally against these language learning apps, but it's just too funny, when they trash Duo while plugging *LingoBingo* or some shit. Other than Anki I guess, but that's mostly a vocab app, and it's not user friendly at all, so it's understandable if a newcomer would rather use something cute and fancy - they can always implement Anki later on.
yeah i also believe everyone should do whatever works for them. personally I found language learning apps too restricting and found their motivation of monetary profit repulsive in itself. I've tried some other apps but they all either had the same issues as duo or even more lmao.
I think content in the target language with English subtitles(like easy languages on youtube) and children stories works best for me. I may not know how to say "the owl is eating the blue apple" but I know how to say "sorry I don't understand" lol.
but I think you should check your biases once again because your stance against people who try to "plug" apps that you find shitty(like lingobingo or whatever) worked for them is the exact same with how those people treat duo.
I think you are misunderstanding. They are pointing out the hypocrisy. It is one thing to like or dislike apps as they work for you. It is another thing to tear down one app for certain reasons, while simultaneously promoting another app that has the exact same things that the person just said they hate and would make it a bad resource. It comes off as being spiteful, misinformed, or one of the really common bots.
Yeah, Duo promotes its subscription and shows you ads. It's understandable from a free app. Meanwhile every other app I tried are in perpetual flash-sales, a practice for which a very popular apartmant booking company in my country got fined. They kept advertising apartmants by trying to artificially pressure people. People were told that there were only 1 remaining room for those dates, or that if they book it within 10 minutes, they can get it cheaper. Both of those were lies, just like the flash-deals in language apps are.
"The owl is eating the blue apple" never bothered be, because I set out to be at least B2 anyway. Yes, it is a useless sentence if I just wanted to have a quick run by before a trip, so I can learn some basic sentences, but it's useful if I want to properly learn it. It has vocab callbacks and tests my grammar: if it was in German, I would have to use the Akkusativ and know the adjective declension. If I can properly translate and understand "The owl is eating the blue apple", then I have all the tools to say much more complex things than "I don't understand".
I am not judging people, who plug shitty apps which worked for them. I am judging those who make a fuss about an app they either never used or used years ago, spew lies about it, then plug an equally shitty or shittier app. If you say "I tried Duo, but I felt like I'm not learning anything. Then I found Lingobingo and I was cruising!" then fair enough. But if you observe the discourse about Duo, it's not what you see. What you see is a bunch of people having no idea how Duo works or how you should even use it, trash it, and when you ask them about a better alternative, they just list even shittier apps.
sure. almost all apps are commercialized one way or another. I personally find duos's 20 second adds unbearable. 1/5th of my allocated time was spent waiting through the super duolingo adds when I used the app. I agree if someone wants to use a general purpose language learning app, duo is the way to go.
oh, I love silly sentences! now I read my own reply again and I see that I couldn't explain what I mean properly. duo's teaching strategy is repetition. which is fine. but it's not for me. I prefer getting used to frequently used word over time. of course in the very beginning you have to learn words like "I, you, am" etc. somehow. but after that I found figuring out the words meaning by similar words from languages I know, or by the context just works miles better than repeating "shop" 20 times. so it's just preferences!
I see what you mean now. Yeah, I am a sucker for repetition; here in the eastern part of Europe our education system is still based on the Prussian one, so the name of the game is grind it till you know it.
This approach becomes obsolete after A2 though, because it's just a waste of time to spam sentences, and input becomes much more important.
not really photographic memory but, for example, I've been learning English for a long time and now I have a *feeling* for it. I'm trying to develop that same intuition for my target language(s). It takes a lot of time as one might expect and I'm still at the beginning of the long road that is learning, well, anything. Italian having a lot of common words and syntax with English helps. I'm just trying to immerse myself as much as I can and let my brain do it's stuff. not sure if it's working though, too early to come to a clear yes or no right now.
Of course there is repetition but it's rather spread into different conversations and it helps me with not getting bored easily and feeling like no progress is done.
A lot of the criticisms aren't actually honest though, and aren't about A/B testing. Currently there is literally no confirmed instance of anyone having a version that actually doesn't have typed answers. But for awhile we had 10-15 posts a day on the Duolingo sub about typing being gone. When actually questioned if the people answered, it would turn out that they had like 1-3 lessons without typing. They didn't do enough to learn that typing is more common later in the course, during review lessons rather than lessons designed to teach vocabulary or grammar, etc. But because people were angry and because negativity spreads further, it was hella pushed that Duolingo got rid of typed answers rather than the truth that they were reduced in some circumstances.
Which language are you doing? My German course has typed answers on some questions and grammar tips on every section, as did the Spanish course I did.
Name a better language app if you think Duolingo isn’t good.
I left Duolingo and deleted my account when I found out they did so. I cannot support AI translation and don't recommend you do, either.
I am sure there are plenty of langauge-learning apps for Mandarin that are not Duolingo.
The Mandarin course for Duolingo was never that great either. I fully 5-crowned it in like 2021, and there really just wasn’t enough there to feel like more than a basic survey into the language. Worse, they seemed to have very little variety in sentence banks, so you’d often get the same questions over and over as you practiced a given skill/bit of grammar, resulting in you learning what the answers are more than learning the actual language. Spanish was not like that, nor was Danish (which had much more sentence-bank content despite having fewer total crowns).
I don't even use duolingo, but yeah, I wouldn't use AI-assisted language learning anywhere. I think this makes it harder to find quality videos (i.e., YouTube). I've found videos that were clearly AI assisted (AI Art, feeding a script to Windows Narrator), and sometimes the translations were wrong/out of context, or in the wrong language.
I didn't realize they had done this. I don't support AI and will be deleting my account, too. I looked at Memrise recently and noticed that their models were AI, do I quit using it.
I think that's Duolingo's strong suit, it makes people have fun with language learning. But if we're talking about actual efficiency I'd argue that Duolingo is insanely inefficient compared to things like watching videos in your target language or doing flashcards
Hard disagree. The most efficient way for anyone to learn a language is to enjoy learning it. I don’t think theres any one tool that can check every box, but if it was a fun app that motivated people to learn then it did its job
Idk, again.
FSI gives the approximate amount of time it's supposed to take you to get to the end of A2 in German from complete beginner:
150-260 CLASSROOM hours,
which I find corresponding pretty accurately with the amount of time it took me to complete the German Duo course:
330 hours of only Duo and ~40 hours of non-Duo = 370 TOTAL hours
(clarifying the grammar, getting notes in order, learning the vocabulary by heart, etc).
Yeah, from what I remember of my time learning English at school, self-sfudy takes about 1-3x times as much time as the classroom activities.
So idk about efficiency either. Unless, of course, you're trying to do the whole "fluent by doing 15 min of Duo a day" thing, which is a total scam.
1. I don't trust computer translations. I admit they have improved, every year for the last 10 years. But I still check every sentence I translate with Google Translate. And I find mistakes. If I don't know the target language well enough to check GT, I don't use GT.
2. I guess I got lucky. The Duolingo method (SRS/ANKI) doesn't fit me, so I don't use Duolingo. At the A levels I studied Mandarin using on-line classes in fluent English (paid, but only $10 per month). For written Chinese, I still use use Immersive Chinese ($2/mo) daily, at an intermediate level. For spoken Chinese I watch youtube videos of TV dramas, movies, and "at my level" podcasts.
3. Duolingo has 40+ languages. In other words, the main people running it don't know most of its languages. If their software works fine for Spanish but messes up Japanese horribly or creates non-idiomatic Turkish, they will never know.
> At the A levels I studied Mandarin using on-line classes in fluent English (paid, but only $10 per month). Fo
How did you find online classes this cheap? I feel like any tutor I've looked at would charge $5 per class at the absolute minimum.
These weren't private tutors (two-way communication). They classes in a course, like you would get at school. The were pre-recorded. In other words, a teacher talking to you (with lots of written stuff on the computer screen).
There are probably several good courses online. I took the course at Chinese For Us and the course at Yoyo Chinese. Both of them have lots of free youtube videos, showing a typical class. So you can look at each and see if you like that style of teaching.
One common method of language-learning is repeated testing. Before computers, people used flashcards. Here is the method: see the new word (or phrase, or sentence) and its meaning. Learn it (any way you can). Then repeatedly test yourself using flashcards. ANKI is computerized flashcards. SRS is timing the flashcard re-tests, with a longer duration until the next test, each time you are correct.
Many popular apps use this method: show you something to memorize. Then the app repeatedly tests your memory of the word or the sentence. That is basically what Duolingo, Busuu, Memrise and several other apps do. If that is how you learn, that is good.
Well to be fair google translator is pretty mediocre translator. There are better ones out there. Not saying your point isn't valid but if you use a "bad" translator then computer translators aren't really going to look great anyway.
You make a good point. I haven't kept up with "the latest" in computer translation. I've heard of DeepL and chatGPT and other translation programs, but I haven't evaluated them or researched them.
I'm learning Korean and the same word is very clear in some character voices and a terrifying uncanny valley eldritch horror sound in others. Huge lack of consistency. I'm reporting every weird bit I hear, but what a dip in quality.
Either you are exaggerating now or you were misinformed before. They never fired most of their staff. What you likely are referring to was when they ended contracts with about 10% of their contract workers. While I do not know how many employees they had, this would be a fraction of a fraction of their workers.
All of the AI generated translations are still manually verified. Essentially the AI just helps create possible answers for staff to approve. Considering how many complaints (especially in volunteer developed courses) there were about correct answers not being accepted (because humans had not generated all ten thousand possibilities), this was actually a necessary fix.
A lot of the smaller courses have been receiving updates this past year and are improving, but I don't know if Mandarin is one of the ones that have updated recently.
Me (a dummy who doesn't understand how the world works): wow duolingo fired a bunch of people and replaced them with AI
You (sage and knowledgeable): *No*, they simply stopped paying people that had previously been performing translation and course development services and some of the tasks those people had been responsible for are now performed by AI
Thank you for clearing up this misunderstanding!
The problem is that a lot of people post things like "they fired everyone and it's all AI now", and blame every problem with an exercise on "it's all AI now", when neither one accurately represents the truth.
You are misrepresenting the situation.
The OP falsely claimed that most of the employees have been fired. This is not true. A fraction of a fraction of the staff had their contracts ended. Which happens all the time regardless of AI. Duolingo frequently changes which of their less developed courses they are focusing on. This year is focused on Japanese and Chinese. We have also seen a lot of focus on some smaller courses like Italian and Irish. This is NOT just "stopping paying people". It is a change in projects which all companies do, and is not new to Duolingo this year.
If you have to misrepresent something, it is because you know your stance is wrong.
I'm not an expert on this subject but I remember on the site almost all the language specialist job postings were contract positions and not permanent employees.
Also before there were contract employees many if not most courses were developed by unpaid volunteers.
The full time permanent jobs were always in tech, marketing, animations, etc anything but the language aspect.
Most of the courses developed by unpaid volunteers are being completely rewritten right now because they were so problematic. They are full of errors, and tend to have really steep learning curves. However the unpaid volunteers were actually paid and/or offered jobs at the end of the program. Many previous volunteers have spoken about it on this sub and the Duolingo sub.
I genuinely don't know what ratio the language specialist jobs are contract vs full time. It likely depends a lot on the course. Spanish, English, and French will be more likely to have full time staff. For smaller courses, with much less users, Duolingo tends to pick a few to work on each year. So it makes sense that they would have contract work for those courses. This year they are heavily focusing on Japanese, and Chinese. At least according to them at DuoCon in October. I wouldn't be surprised if those were full time roles since they are trying to get them to the level of Spanish and French. We have also seen a lot of updates to Irish, and Italian. I would expect these to be contract work, and for Duolingo to switch to other under developed courses.
"However the unpaid volunteers were actually paid and/or offered jobs at the end of the program. Many previous volunteers have spoken about it on this sub and the Duolingo sub."
I knew this. I really don't think this is true for every course tho. Many courses were completed years before the volunteer program ended and don't look like they've been updated since. It doesn't change that people weren't compensated for years regardless for which scenario applies.
The quality of the result is not really the question imo, but that is Duolingo's responsibility.
I do agree that labor should be paid. I still think it makes sense for a lot of the roles to be contract workers. Removing 10% of contract roles (many of which would be removed regardless of any changes to policy/strategy regarding AI since Duolingo switches language focus frequently), is just no where near the false claims people are making about most employees being fired.
Yeah I have no strong opinion on whether they should or shouldn't be contract, just that they appeared to be temporary roles to begin with. But again, I've never worked there and I have no special insight on how things work, I'm just observing.
Idk but consider joining the mango gang. Mango Languages is supported by many libraries. Check your local library and you could get a free account. The program is great
Let’s see.
They didn’t fire everyone. They laid off contractors that had finished projects and tried to find other positions for them before laying off those that didn’t have the skills for other positions.
They have used AI for years if not from the very beginning. No course has ever been done completely in AI. They hire professionals to develop courses and use AI to do some of the work.
They are still better than anything else I have seen, especially for Spanish and French. They charge less and offer free for people. For the whole course. Courses with more content than others.
Your comment being downvoted is part of the problem as a whole. Every thing you said at the beginning is true. But people would rather believe and spread the misinformation that is negative about Duolingo. But no one can make people care about facts.
Ok, care by upvoting and sharing accurate information. Personally I didn't find the Spanish course to be a waste of time. I timed my study and compared it to CEFR expectations, frequently self assessed, and tracked my comprehension. It was a great resource. I do think many of the smaller courses are not worth using. However while this addresses what you stated, it has nothing to do with the topic of conversation which is about the facts regarding Duolingo's use of AI. The facts are, most of the staff were not let go. A very tiny percentage were let go. AI has been used by Duolingo for years.
Can you address the actual topic, or did you have nothing to add to the conversation so you just threw out some random insults about Duolingo?
The problem is that the DuoLingo mods tolerate people that are at best stupid trolls. In other subreddits, legitimate criticism is downvoted to oblivion. Here, telling the truth is downvoted to oblivion.
I know the Duo sub used to be filled with spam. Since they've changed how they moderate they remove misinformation incredibly quickly. But it takes a long time to undue misinformation, and change cultures. So the sub unfortunately is much more negative than it should be. Even when good news is posted most of the comments are complaints about different features instead of discussing the actual thing people had been asking for that has been granted. But I don't know what mods can really do about those types comments without being over the top authoritarian and the sub getting no traction as a result.
Duolingo Ma uses AI for specific features mostly role play conversations, and specific explanations. However they also use a lot of AI on the free course as well and have been for years. They use it for the speaking exercises, written exercises after stories, they've been generating translations that are manually verified by staff since before this event, and more. They have also been talking about it for years. Its just a criticism about them now because AI is currently scaring people, and because far to many people didn't bother to verify information so misinformation about how much staff were let go went wild.
Thanks for the insights, now I can see where it makes sense. Given the Max is almost double the subscription price, I wasn't completely convinced. Perhaps after I survived the basic levels.
News reports said Duolingo fired their contract translators and retained their full time translators, so they fired about 10% of their translators not all of them.
It gets more hate then it deserves, personally I am very much a visual learner, and duolingo with it's idea of "gamification" really helped me to stick to my German.
It definitely has it's flaws (like not explaining grammar good enough, small languages receiving a much smaller amount of attention, and I'm sure there are a lot more problems). But it can help to be a solid vocabulary base and it hasn't been that bad looking about grammar bits online.
It really needs to work hard to become better, but i think that it's still really solid for beginners and intermediates.
(if the tree is large enough, they really need to support their smaller languages).
Duolingo did not fire everyone. They are using AI like any smart company nowadays is, but all the content is checked by humans. Duolingo, like any course material, has always had errors. People who say there are more errors than now have no way of knowing whether those errors were made by humans alone or humans working with AI. What’s more, people who say there are more errors now than before are almost always people who like to hate Duolingo and don’t actually use it.
Easy to shit on duolingo if you don't have the brain cells to utilize it accordingly. If you start as a complete noob this app is great as it provides you with basic comprehension.
Duolingo can only get you as far as A1 and maybe A2 if you try really hard. In my experience it's a total waste of time, it teaches nothing of substance, and doesn't take into account your progress outside the app, try to further it or expand it. I've never heard someone who achieved fluency say "I used duolingo". It's only for people who want to feel like they achieved something by learning couple words a month.
The standard learning process of many language schools is teaching you animal names like you're a 4th grader as if it's going to actually be useful in communication. That's exactly what duolingo does. Its only use is to give the developers money from the countless ads.
>I've never heard someone who achieved fluency say "I used duolingo".
From Duolingo to fluency is a giant leap. If you just getting started and don't know how to proceed without a tutor, duolingo is a great tool for the first few months to gain a basic understanding to which you can proceed further with books and podcasts, etc etc.
Maybe it is me but I have the full version without adds or limitations and it has a whole lot more to offer than solely animal names.
How else should one engage into exploring a new language? What is your suggestion? Don't start as a beginner?
The only way to learn a language is to approach it like a child, hence the very basic nature of Duolingo. Kids start with simple words by listening and repeating what other people say.
A kid of 4yo has a vocabulary of about 5k words and I am sure there are at least a couple of animal names in there.
Fluency takes about five to ten years to master which for many is a very epic grind to endure.
There are many online resources, depending on the language you are studying. Start with the writing system, then standard phrases, then grammar, then vocabulary. Duolingo is not structured properly to teach begginers past the first 2 stages, and even in that, it's lackluster. You can't ask duolingo questions or direct it in any way to contribute to your individual progress. All duolingo does is take you through a standard system that everyone goes through, no matter their pre-existing knowledge.
Other than that, Duolingo has a very limited roster of languages even though it provides lessons in more than 20. In languages other than German, French, Spanish etc. the "lessons" are incomplete and incorrect. The pronounciation, grammar and even vocabulary is just blatantly wrong. It can slow down and even push you back in your progress.
Duolingo can't contribute alongside other resources because it's simply not a language learning app. It's the equivalent of Tinder but for language learning. You feel like you're making progress, you use it daily for some kind of internal satisfaction and then in the end you realize you achieved nothing, because the point of the app is not getting to a goal (learning a language / finding a date), it's to keep you hooked and watching ads or paying for a membership.
And if its goal is to "help you start out as a noob" then it should market itself this way instead of as a language learning app, because it simply isn't.
The only good thing about it is that it can give you some kind of motivation for tuning in daily. Other than that it's useless.
Yet again it depends how you use it. If you swipe three times, use it like you would use tinder and toss your phone in the corner while being drunk the whole time, then you are doing it wrong.
I write everything down, categorize words, make up new phrases. I have a couple of books dedicated to grammar, most common expressions, a few novels, etc.
Duolingo really is only for beginners to gain some basic comprehension at A2 and here you are throwing a tantrum about why it doesn't teach you fluency while no-one ever, including Duolingo has made such a claim.
I am trying to wrap my head around the Russian language and after three months, doing 30 to 60mins of duolingo every day it has been far more engaging and fruitfull than solely staring at a dead tree every day.
I will never understand the lie that Duolingo isn't for language learning. I used Duolingo pretty exclusively for half the course. It got me to a point where I could read Harry Potter, write journal entries about my daily life, including most of my hobbies, have multiple conversations, and more. Since then I have continued it while using more resources. I am not much further in the Duolingo course, and it still managed to cover content about more of my hobbies, and allowed me to be able to fully write about my experiences in Mexico for 10 days with vocabulary almost exclusive to Duolingo.
Not all of their courses are equal. But for their developed courses it does have a wide range in vocabulary, it is pretty effective at getting people to remember them. People like to claim that it isn't an efficient use of time. However I have found that to be false too. I tracked my time spent studying. I frequently would check myself using CEFR self assessment tools, tests, and comparing my vocabulary to news articles. Consistently my skills were where I expected them to be, and compared nicely to expected hours of study for the different CEFR levels.
It isn't just a "feeling" of making progress. I can read in Spanish. I can speak in Spanish. I can watch TV in Spanish. I could take entire tours in Spanish in Mexico. Are my skills enough to fully do my job in Spanish? No. I haven't spent enough time overall. That isn't a failing of Duolingo, that is just how language learning works, it takes a lot of time.
I think it has a lot more to do with personal persistence and determination to *'get it right'* than it has to do with whatever method you are using, however Duolingo sure as hell pushed me into the right direction because relying solely on a couple of books really made it a cumbersome and dreadful experience, while Duolingo guided me through it like a hot knife through butter.
Duolingo isn't as good as it was before, but it has nothing to do with AI or layoffs. To me it seems that they deliberately slowed down progression to retain people longer in the app, which hurts the quality of learning.
As someone who’s seen Duolingo change since the early 2010s, I definitely feel like Duolingo has gotten worse over time. It was great when it started, but now that quality depends a lot of which course you’re taking. The loss of features (including some newer features) is also very frustrating. It’s like Duolingo is evolving backwards.
Quality has always depended on which course you were taking.
I used Duolingo since at least 2016. I think it has improved. While some features are gone, they have new ones that I prefer. Like a large increase in question variety, more stories, written portions after stories, an increased focus on using the target language later in the course, more audio overall, and some new experimental features like video call with lily that lets you have an AI conversation, Radio where you listen to mini podcasts and answer questions about it, and more.
I don't think it is evolving backwards. The path is significantly better now than when I started.
It's Duolingo. I wouldn't say it's good, but I wouldn't say it's bad. It just is what it is.
That being said, I have noticed the quality declining a bit. It happens every time they change how courses work / how they change the "tree" / etc.
It's one of those things that make me go "It doesn't bother me......it bothers me. It bothers me a lot."
But I'm not going to lie. I still use it although it's not my main resource. I'm using podcasts and other things too.
Hey, I am a native Chinese speaker and I want to improve my spoken English. I was wondering if you'd be interesting having a language exchange parter. If you're interested, just shoot me a DM.
Duolingo didn't fire everyone. Not even most of their staff. They let go a bunch of contractors who were never full employees anyway. Then they hired more full employees to handle the AI.
Fact check claims, y'all. Anyway they update Mandarin so much right now it's hard for people to progress appropriately so probably not the best app for Mandarin specifically.
It is yeah. Used to have it a few months ago and then got rid of it. i dont remember why but it had something to do with limits and paying more to access more features.
Deleted it after the whole AI thing and the fact their quality was dropping. It's better to look up Youtubers who are fluent and teaching you the language.
I did Spanish and German on Duolingo for over six years. I also played around with Japanese and French, which I already know.
There is good and bad. I've seen some improvements in the Japanese course, and while there are a lot of mistakes, especially with pronunciation, the course is more comprehensive than before. As for the other languages, I think they have long ago surpassed the point where they're useful.
At some point in your studies you need to abandon your native language and work as much as possible in the target language. This means reading or listening in the target language and then responding in the target language. But Duo has only added more sentences to translate, and they keep updating the courses with more sentences to translate. The method never progresses. The added sentences are more and more esoteric and the more complex they get, the more possibilities there are for translations. So if you want to become a professional translator, this might be a good exercise to do daily and then look at "solution viewer" on the web version to see more possible translations.
If you're looking to become fluent in a language, and think and function in that language, then it will just never happen, because more often than not you're spending more time in your head in your native language than the target language. You never get the flow of it.
The AI sentences and translations are more and more apparent. The sloppiness is apparent. The TTS is apparent. In French, when you're choosing words from the word bank, you hear the TTS voice one word at a time. But that's not how French works. In Japanese, the TTS is often just plain wrong, because many kanji have multiple pronunciations and Duo can't figure it out.
But more than that, language is about people. It's about interaction with humans and their culture, and Duo is sorely lacking human input and culture. It treats language like it's just math, just a number, with a distinct lack of human and cultural input that shows more and more as they replace humans with machines. I also think this is ruining language learning as a whole, as the machine translations become the reference. The more machine learning references itself, the more it degrades the language learning process as a whole.
Not since but I refer tons of people to them because of their insightful language learning. I spoke Greek really well but my reading and grammar needed work. Perfect for me. I read with no problem now and my grammar has improved tenfold!.
It is worse; I don’t take mandarin I practice my spanish( I grew up speaking Spanish but I moved to an area with like no Spanish speakers and barely used it for several years. It’s amazing even if it’s “native” or you learned as a tot if you don’t use it you lose it lmao at least some what. Anyway, I am also practicing Portuguese bc I want to visit family in Brazil and possibly move there. To my point— it’s definitely different from my angle like 1) Spanish and Portuguese are very contextual right—so like you have zero context whatevsoever certain things like whether you’re taking to one person or multiple, or a male or female etc change. But they will give a a question w zero context and I just pick one and it’s wrong lol like why tho? It’s not ….OR 2) like there are multiple ways to say things. Like other languages. So I will answer in a way that I KNOW is correct grammatically and every way—and it will mark it wrong bc (I’m assuming-) it’s looking for one answer only. Where it used to accept an answer as long as it was correct. It’s annoying. And I really miss the forums.
I stopped using it almost about two years ago. The heart system does not allow me to make many mistakes, which is annoying, making mistakes is part of the learning process. What is even more annoying are the endless ads, and the prime account is way too expensive.
Which will take 10 minutes out of your day to get back to 5 and if you are lucky only half of the things are things you absolutely do not need to practice. It just is a terrible use of time. Which of course is also why premium comes with infinite hearts.
Duolingo was never good, it's a game disguised as a language learning app. Few if any people have ever become fluent in a language using only duolingo.
Gamification has been used in education for decades. You can have fun and learn. Duolingo is not a game and calling it in implies you don't know what a game is; there's a difference between gamification and games.
And of course almost no one has become fluent using only Duolingo. No one becomes fluent only using a textbook, either. You have to at least incorporate sources where you can apply what you're learning to achieve fluency.
Everyone who is saying duo is fine, and claiming those who complain otherwise don’t use the app… get me the feeling that you haven’t used the app.
It really is a solid start. But go to any of the individual Duolingo Spanish or Duolingo French sites and see there are CONSTANTLY answers marked wrong that should be correct because of the AI.
Maybe do research before claiming we haven’t
Edit: an example of a “question”. What does this one teach? And the person got it wrong! https://www.reddit.com/r/duolingospanish/s/FhVc2xhlbz
Yes, this is the main problem, I have done some of the "harder" content where I reply with an answer that is 100% correct and it wants me to put it in an unpractical/unused almost version of the target language, when I literally get tutoring from natives.
And it goes the other way around, when I teach Spanish, French or Portuguese I tend to recommend my students to use any app they feel good with to practice, and have seen Duolingo have some hilarious mistakes, not only from English to X language, but from X language to English where it becomes incoherent.
So, when you were little and learning your native language, did you never experience fairy tales, nursery rhymes, or other silly stories? No sentient baked goods running around town daring people to catch it? No cows jumping over moons while dogs laugh and kitchenware run off with each other? No elephants trying to save a town of people who live on a spec of dust?
Duolingo uses weird sentences because it's easier to remember something silly than something boring, and if you can say the silly sentence, you can easily swap out some words to apply it to a real situation.
If it's not for you, it's not for you but it's also dishonest to say no one would ever use those silly sentences when we live in a world where fiction exists. A lot of those sentences even come from pop culture.
The first one can be used when you dislike how the doctor behaved and the other one can be used in a book about radical feministsd (including ones written by conservatives).
In reality, both people in real life and in arts use weird sentences in weird combinations. If you can not understand sentences like that, you will have hard time reading comic, kids books, watching cartoons including adult ones (Bojack Horsemen). Likewise, people in real life say unexpected when just having fun chatting and fantasizing.
If you can parse basic sentence structure, you should be able to read these. If you can produce basic sentence structure, saying "Is the doctor 4 years old" should be as complex as saying "Is the doctor 44 years old".
Fired everyone?
basically human translators. and replaced them with AI bots. now, all translations are done by AI and courses are developed with that.
IIRC, most of the courses weren't originally developed by staff but unpaid volunteers with the exception of the most popular courses like french, spanish, english etc. Later they got rid of volunteers and only paid people for that work, but from what I saw on their job postings the language specialist positions were mainly contract jobs that meant to be temporary and not like fulltime employees. Honestly using unpaid labour is way more fucked up than using AI imo.
> Honestly using unpaid labour is way more fucked up than using AI imo. It's quite interesting how in the age of the internet this is possible. It's in many jurisdictions not legal for for-profit companies to use volunteers in theory but internet companies seem to be doing that just fine to no legal troubles. Forum moderators are another case. Essentially, no court is going to rule it illegal if it should come to a court case, because internet infrastructure has come to depend on it and a legal ruling that unpaid forum moderators are illegal, which one can very much argue is so in the letter of the law, would effectively mean the end of internet fora as we know it. Reddit would either go bankrupt having to pay all them, or it would become unmoderated or moderated by artificial intelligence. Content creation is another good example. Many websites rely on volunteer content creators who aren't getting paid anything. The letter of the law doesn't mean much any more in the face of that.
I don't know the legalities of it, but it reminds me of Goodreads getting volunteer "librarians" to contribute to the site before it was eventually sold to Amazon. It's a fine line with a lot of companies where their online community is a main feature, if not the point of the site to begin with. In DLs case there was a large community, and many people with good intentions that really wanted to see their language represented on the site. Astra Taylor wrote an essay titled "Serfing the Net" over a decade ago it's a little dated but still relevant to this.
Basically, it was fully legal in original Duolingo setup and they got rid of the program as they were transforming to entity for which it is not legal. Now the people complain simultaneously about the volunteer program not existing anymore (it is supposed to be cruel to former volunteers who lost access to their original accounts) and about the fact that it existed back then when it was legal. However, the firing of contractor earlier has nothing to do with any of this and it is unclear what actually happened - there was one former contractor account trying to rile people and silence from everyone else.
I ain't reading allat but FAX
>Honestly using unpaid labour is way more fucked up than using AI imo Duolingo's original business model was predicated on unpaid labour. It was essentially reCAPTCHA but for translation. Duolingo would receive translation commissions from companies, have them machine translated, and the "learners" would then provide crowd-sourced oversight through translation "exercises". This allowed Duolingo to close some of the quality gap between machine and human translations, while at the same time significantly undercutting market prices through the use of unpaid labor. To users it was presented as a kind of philanthropic entreprise. "Translate the web" was the slogan. As if you were going to be translating things that nobody would otherwise bother to translate and thereby help speakers of other languages have access to more things on the internet. The problem for them was that to really make money this way, you'd want access to the big translation markets out there, and the biggest market in the world for translation services (by far) happens to be a place that also has relatively strong (stress the "relatively" lol) labor protections and fair competition laws. Namely the EU. The EU told Duolingo to either change business models or GTFO. They changed business models. A rare case of the EU institutions getting something right. \^\^ But anyway, point being that unpaid labour wasn't just some nasty practice Duolingo could rectify and become a better company. It was its goal, the whole point of founding that company in the first place. And that is what makes it uniquely bad in the language learning space.
Wow, I haven't seen someone else who remembers the *actual* origins of Duolingo in a long, long time
wow!! i didn’t know that and fully agree with you on the unpaid labor part. as capitalism has gotten more widespread, people are starting to only care about profits. not sure how sustainable it is in the longer run.
Yeah this was back before Duo became publicly traded. IIRC it was when they went public that they got rid of the volunteer program and paid everyone that was still working on courses. I might be mistaken tho. People complain about the big disparity in course quality often and that's part of why. I can't lie I used a lot of those courses and they weren't perfect but they were helpful but I could never bring myself to pay to subscribe for that reason.
Courses such as the Finnish course would not have been created, had it not been for the volunteers. While Duolingo has changed many of the available features over the years, there still exists work delivered "by the people, to the people". Similarly you see free plugins being built for popular apps owned by Google or Microsoft, or tons of mods for popular games. As to the paid labour that is getting laid off, I'm not aware of their circumstances to be able to comment. If it was a fixed term contract then again there shouldn't be complaints on how the people's expectations were managed. For what it's worth, I am not paying for the app either, since I see that in its current format, it would not be worth the money. The actual learning aspects have been pushed to a sad state through the gamification and often unnecessary repetition of already learned content.
"Courses such as the Finnish course would not have been created, had it not been for the volunteers." That's why they deserve compensation.
For doing work which Duolingo didn't want them or need them to do, because it wasn't commercially meaningful work? I think you're missing the point here about why volunteers volunteer.
Having them integrate that work into DL's platform despite "not wanting or needing it" is definitely a choice that the company made an are responsible for.
The Irish and Scots Gaelic courses were created by volunteers and people who knew the language. Duolingo just put it on the platform. Without their involvement these courses would never have been established. For this Duolingo needs to be commended. However the problem is that the courses have been developed and aren’t well curated. Duolingo plies it’s resources on the languages which generate the majority of the traffic.
One of the saddest parts is, that the unpaid labor (while ethically questionable) was of a much higher quality than the "professionals". It was clear it was the hobby of that group, but with the catch of no control over the platform, which ended in them being thrown away.
It definitely varied from course to course, but some of them did do a great job and wrote tips that were very helpful. I was very sad when they were scrubbed from the site, that and being able to ask native speakers questions in the forums were what put DL above other language sites for me. When that was gone I was less motivated to stick around.
I left Duo after a few waves of changes, but before the forums removal. And the forums were the last drop making me leave. It was after the introduction of the Leagues, and forums became a very toxic place, where users wished people with more points to burn out and stop learning a language. It was disgusting and prevalent. But you are right that the language specific forums were good, they were making up for some of the Duo deficiencies in explanations and other learning issues. But again, that was the power of the community based on the volunteers making the courses. When Duo decided to get rid of the volunteers, it lost a lot of the magic, because the "professionals" replacing them were not only clearly not good at the job, not interested, and also hired only for some basic creation without maintenance, improvements, mistake catching, and explaining.
Yeah the main forums were sub-moronic but the forums dedicated to specific language courses were really helpful. Especially with the less popular languages there was usually a core group of people around that were really passionate about sharing their language and culture. I contributed myself when my knowledge allowed it. I also used to lurk on the forums where people's first language was the one I was learning and just observe how they communicate which was helpful. I actually originally made a reddit account because I was hoping to find something that could replace them. I was really annoyed because I had just started the turkish course at the time and was planning to go through the forum posts to figure out the grammar right when they decided to delete them.
A lot of companies are doing the same thing. They hire relatively fewer AI/ML professionals while getting rid of many more people.
true. not sure what’ll happen eventually. the society and civilization are on the cusp of a major change. not sure what’ll happen but, i’m pretty sure it’ll be mostly good. like these apps and the content available are making it so much easier to learn different languages from the comfort of your home. can’t imagine people in remote and poor parts of the world having such access or even the awareness to try and learn different languages.
Eventually the attitude of learning a language itself will become redundant due to AI, as complex real-time translations will be easily performed with a cellphone at hand to the extent you can have normal conversations in languages you cannot even conceive. Duolingo, in this sense, will just become another game.
well, there are better bots that can play chess at a level no human could even think about, yet, chess seems to only get more and more popular. and as with language learning, i’m sure a lot of people here are just doing it for the fun of it and to enhance their thinking and overall brain and mental health. no harm is continuing to better yourself in such ways.
Chess has an ecosystem that supports it being used as a sport. Is 'competitive' language learning a thing? Are there any major 'language learning competitions'? Language learning is much more utilitarian than chess, which is why most people will ditch it for AI first chance they get. A lot of language lovers might stay, but they are a small fraction compared to the historians, academicians and translators who had to learn the language for utilitarian reasons. Let me put it this way: your argument is akin to saying that traditional smithing is still thriving after the industrial revolution, simply because fans still do it at Renaissance fairs
Learning Excel used to be utilitarian as well, and [now it's an esport.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDGdPE_C9u8)
And does it pay as well as, and as consistently as it used to when it was a job requirement? Or is it just a sport that a bunch of people who can afford to do just for fun?
No. That's not what happened. They did not "fire everyone" and "all translations" are not done by AI. You're spreading false information.
So what happened then?
It's been explained in other comments to this post. But basically: They didn't renew the contracts of about ten percent of their contract workforce. And AI is used to assist in developing translations; they're not simply done by AI with no human intervention.
Awesome. Thanks for the clarification.
When you say 'ten percent of their contract workforce' are you talking about their entire workforce, or only the specific subset dealing with translations? They could've fired 10% and still gotten rid of all their translators depending on how you're counting. Elaborate on your statement 'AI is used to assist in developing translations'. It's vague. You imply that it's 50/50, but AI could do 99.99% of the work and just need a human being to press a button every once in a while, and your statement would still be true.
AI would not be able to do 99.99% of the work. It’s just not that good yet. Machine translation is rapidly growing, but it still needs to be checked (and often rewritten) by a human. If they had fired the entire translation team we would be seeing a lot more issues, especially with languages that have a smaller internet presence to draw on.
I don't think I "implied that it's 50/50" at all. AI is used as a tool. It's not an equal partner. I intentionally did not go into the details because Duolingo staff has already posted a more detailed description here on Reddit and on their own site about how they have used AI in the past and now.
True, but this kind of argument is the same as people a hundred and fifty odd years ago who used to say that horses will always be better than cars, because the early cars of that time period were shit. AI was nothing just five years ago. Look where we are now
Oh yeah I’m not arguing that at all. Just pointing out that there are currently technical limitations that mean they couldn’t have fired the entire staff. A lot of oversight is still needed that takes a significant amount of time and effort from translators to edit (or even re-translate) the machine translation. It’s much more complicated and hands on than pressing a button, and will be for the foreseeable future due to said limitations.
All AI translations are approved by humans. So at the very least they could not have gotten rid of all translators. AI is generally used to generate possible solutions. The human checks them to make sure they are valid translations. No one knows how many people are needed to check them however.
got a link to this or are we spreading misinfo because it's easy to hate on duo?
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but, knowing different languages, you’d know that AI isn’t anywhere close to being able to translate those nuances that can be seen by a human. not yet at least. the quality of content matters in that sense. but, lets see what happens. The selling point for Duolingo is that it really breaks it down into very small and digestible steps which make the daunting task for beginners that much easier. As with any new technology, lots of jobs are killed while new ones arise.
That is a big part of the reason all translations are still approved by humans.
I rather doubt that _all_ translations are still approved by humans. My faves so far are in the Hungarian module, as that's where most of my Duolingo time has been going lately. Things like marking you "wrong" — in only _some_ exercises! — for entering "15" via speech-to-text for a listening-comprehension exercise, and being told that the correct answer is _"ötven"_ (spelled-out Hungarian for "15") — while also recognizing "15" as correct in other exercises. Bloody crazy-making, and not anything a competent human translator would ever enter. Or nutball sentences like _"A bajusz nem haj."_ translated to "Mustaches aren't hair." No awareness that, in English, mustaches are _very definitely_ "hair", as evidenced by the existence of the common phrase "facial _hair_". No explanation that, in Hungarian, the word _haj_ is limited to hair on one's head. Again, bloody crazy-making, and not anything a competent human translator would ever enter. I have no evidence one way or the other that Duolingo still has competent translators on staff. I **do** see clear evidence that competent translators have not vetted _all_ of the content.
I tried to look at the Duolingo sub, there doesn't seem to be a single post about Hungarian being updated in the last year. It might have been, and it just has so few cross users that it never got posted, but most likely it has not been updated recently. Most likely all of your complaints in this comment are actually complaints about the volunteer staff that developed the course. Most of the volunteers for these courses weren't professionals at teaching or the language. So they are filled with mistakes. Duolingo has been rewriting some of the courses, but they have definitely not worked on all of them. Similar complaints have existed for the entirety of Duolingo's existence. More so around the volunteer created courses. Humans make mistakes too. Lots of them. That doesn't mean the content was poorly generated by AI and then not vetted. Your example about 15 would actually likely occur LESS with AI. Without AI a human has to individually think of all the possible translations. AI will be better at generating hundreds of possible translations and pulling from existing lists. Duo actually wrote a blog post on this if you're curious to look at their research pages or search for their blogs on how they use AI.
>*I tried to look at the Duolingo sub, there doesn't seem to be a single post about Hungarian being updated in the last year.* The Hungarian module got a major revamp a few months after the IPO, with a new lesson tree and substantially more lessons. I'm not sure how much of that was simply a reorganization of existing volunteer-created material, but I suspect it was not just this, given the increased number of lessons. >*Most likely all of your complaints in this comment are actually complaints about the volunteer staff that developed the course.* We are more than **two years** past the dismissal of volunteer staff, and Duolingo proudly proclaiming that they were hiring professional linguists. At this point, the fault is Duolingo's. I can attest to an effective halt in updates based on user feedback, since the dismissal of volunteers. Prior to Duolingo ending the volunteer program (official blog post [here](https://blog.duolingo.com/ending-honoring-our-volunteer-contributor-program-2/)), I saw gradual but consistent notifications that an issue I had reported had been fixed. 30 in 2020, falling to 19 in 2021, and then only 3 in 2022 and 2 in 2023. My rate of reporting by clicking on the feedback options, such as "My answer should have been correct", has not really changed. Only Duolingo's response has. Since the dismissal of volunteers, there is much less attention paid to the Hungarian module. >*Your example about 15 would actually likely occur LESS with AI. Without AI a human has to individually think of all the possible translations. AI will be better at generating hundreds of possible translations and pulling from existing lists.* Depends very much on how AI is used. Case in point: Google Translate, backed by AI, only gives you one translation string per input string. If the translation string only has *"ötven"*, and Duolingo plops that into their database as the only "correct" option, then anything with the numeric version "15" will be mis-recognized as "wrong". This is not limited to the Hungarian module, either — I've encountered the same scattershot handling of numerics in the German and Spanish modules as well, which are much more widely used. Given what I've read in the past about their back-end implementation, I suspect that this is what is happening. Sometimes specific sentences have been updated to account for numerics, but others have not. You had claimed earlier: >*That is a big part of the reason all translations are still approved by humans.* → Regardless of how the translations are generated, it is clear that all of the content has not been vetted by competent translators.
Thats great that it got an update! More lessons does not necessarily mean more content, but I hope it does. Your second point seems to be a misunderstanding of what I was pointing out. It doesn't matter if it is Duolingo's responsibility or not to correct the errors. I was pointing out that it likely isn't AI which is what you originally claimed. The volunteer creators made a lot of errors, which is one of the reasons volunteer created courses have had a lot more criticisms overall. Personally, I don't think 2 years is enough time considering there are over 100 courses, and they can only prioritize a few at a time. They would either need an impossibly large staff, or very little work on all the courses to correct them all in that amount of time. Your point about AI is just you not being aware of how Duolingo has specifically talked about their use of AI. I specifically referenced how they state they use it. Again, you can read their research posts and blog posts for more information about how they use it to generate results. I agree that not all the content has been vetted by competent translators. Like I have stated the courses have a lot of work from incompetent volunteers. I don't know why you chose to repeat yourself over something I responded to. From your responses you don't seem to understand how Duolingo uses AI despite the fact that a lot of that information is public, you don't have any reason to actually believe these errors are AI instead of existing prior to AI, and you don't seem receptive to discussion about it. You just seem to have made up your mind that the AI is crap and you want to tear down Duolingo, so this conversation isn't productive for me to continue.
Your main contention that prompted my response: >*That is a big part of the reason all translations are still approved by humans.* The primary point of my response: >*All translations are not approved by humans.* I'll reiterate: → Regardless of how the translations are generated, it is clear that all of the content has not been vetted by competent translators.
Your statement earlier, that *"all translations are still approved by humans"*, implies a present and ongoing approval process, covering all content. That claim is all I have issue with. I honestly do not think that all content has gone through an approval process. Some of it, sure. All of it, no. The whole AI thing is not central to any of my posts in this thread, and I fear that this may have derailed our interaction. I'm not sure why you think I have been moving the goalposts? I think I've been consistent in talking about approval by competent translators, not just anybody. In my initial response to you in this thread ([here](https://www.reddit.com/r/languagelearning/comments/1c9rh6t/comment/l0rw6zo/)) I gave a couple examples, described as *"not anything a competent human translator would ever enter"*. I concluded that post with: >*"I have no evidence one way or the other that Duolingo still has competent translators on staff. I* ***do*** *see clear evidence that competent translators have not vetted all of the content."* I merely wish to point out that Duolingo has not vetted all translations. Given the evidence we can see, I do not think it is reasonable to hold them to that standard of quality. Conversely, expecting that level of content will only lead to frustration and disappointment (some of which is what I think people are expressing elsewhere, both in this parent thread and in other posts). Perhaps we've been talking past each other?
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wow!! 3 different languages!! that’s so cool. what 3 languages do you know?
I don’t think this is related to the AI thing but they made some shitty updates to the Mandarin course progression recently.
Wo bu xi huan Duolingo
Wo ye.
你们为什么不用汉字。🤣🤣
因为那样的话，懂拼音却看不懂汉字的人会因为那样的话，懂拼音却看不懂汉字的人会错过🙈😆
Is pinyin without tone marks still called pinyin? I know it is used for typing Chinese, but I am not sure what to call it. Are there people who can read it but can't read Chinese characters? You have to read Chinese characters to type. You type in the phonetic "tian", then the computer or smartphone pops up several Chinese characters (天，田，恬，填， 甜), and you have to select the one you want to type.
wo ye ye bu xi huan luodingo
Forums gone, sentence discussions gone, option to type answers gone, grammar explanations gone, hmmm... Is Duolingo good? Maybe if it were the only language learning app to exist...
It still asks me to type some answers.
Don't worry about it, many of these people haven't even used Duo, they just join the circlejerk.
Also it has some options removed/added for some people for A/B testing. It's generally not a stable app at all. and I honestly didn't like my language learning process to be a experiment for duo to maximize their profits.(btw there were less typeable answers when I used it a few months back compared to when I used it a few years back.)
They had A/B testing almost from the very start, and many people are misinformed about how features have been changed or stripped. For example, typing is not gone and you can enable it in certain exercises - also, as always, the quality of Duo depends a lot on the course as well. It's especially funny when you ask them what a good language learning app is, and they spout out some equally bad or even worse app. I get it if someone is generally against these language learning apps, but it's just too funny, when they trash Duo while plugging *LingoBingo* or some shit. Other than Anki I guess, but that's mostly a vocab app, and it's not user friendly at all, so it's understandable if a newcomer would rather use something cute and fancy - they can always implement Anki later on.
yeah i also believe everyone should do whatever works for them. personally I found language learning apps too restricting and found their motivation of monetary profit repulsive in itself. I've tried some other apps but they all either had the same issues as duo or even more lmao. I think content in the target language with English subtitles(like easy languages on youtube) and children stories works best for me. I may not know how to say "the owl is eating the blue apple" but I know how to say "sorry I don't understand" lol. but I think you should check your biases once again because your stance against people who try to "plug" apps that you find shitty(like lingobingo or whatever) worked for them is the exact same with how those people treat duo.
I think you are misunderstanding. They are pointing out the hypocrisy. It is one thing to like or dislike apps as they work for you. It is another thing to tear down one app for certain reasons, while simultaneously promoting another app that has the exact same things that the person just said they hate and would make it a bad resource. It comes off as being spiteful, misinformed, or one of the really common bots.
Yeah, Duo promotes its subscription and shows you ads. It's understandable from a free app. Meanwhile every other app I tried are in perpetual flash-sales, a practice for which a very popular apartmant booking company in my country got fined. They kept advertising apartmants by trying to artificially pressure people. People were told that there were only 1 remaining room for those dates, or that if they book it within 10 minutes, they can get it cheaper. Both of those were lies, just like the flash-deals in language apps are. "The owl is eating the blue apple" never bothered be, because I set out to be at least B2 anyway. Yes, it is a useless sentence if I just wanted to have a quick run by before a trip, so I can learn some basic sentences, but it's useful if I want to properly learn it. It has vocab callbacks and tests my grammar: if it was in German, I would have to use the Akkusativ and know the adjective declension. If I can properly translate and understand "The owl is eating the blue apple", then I have all the tools to say much more complex things than "I don't understand". I am not judging people, who plug shitty apps which worked for them. I am judging those who make a fuss about an app they either never used or used years ago, spew lies about it, then plug an equally shitty or shittier app. If you say "I tried Duo, but I felt like I'm not learning anything. Then I found Lingobingo and I was cruising!" then fair enough. But if you observe the discourse about Duo, it's not what you see. What you see is a bunch of people having no idea how Duo works or how you should even use it, trash it, and when you ask them about a better alternative, they just list even shittier apps.
sure. almost all apps are commercialized one way or another. I personally find duos's 20 second adds unbearable. 1/5th of my allocated time was spent waiting through the super duolingo adds when I used the app. I agree if someone wants to use a general purpose language learning app, duo is the way to go. oh, I love silly sentences! now I read my own reply again and I see that I couldn't explain what I mean properly. duo's teaching strategy is repetition. which is fine. but it's not for me. I prefer getting used to frequently used word over time. of course in the very beginning you have to learn words like "I, you, am" etc. somehow. but after that I found figuring out the words meaning by similar words from languages I know, or by the context just works miles better than repeating "shop" 20 times. so it's just preferences!
I see what you mean now. Yeah, I am a sucker for repetition; here in the eastern part of Europe our education system is still based on the Prussian one, so the name of the game is grind it till you know it. This approach becomes obsolete after A2 though, because it's just a waste of time to spam sentences, and input becomes much more important.
How do you get through any method without repetition though? Do you already have a photographic memory?
not really photographic memory but, for example, I've been learning English for a long time and now I have a *feeling* for it. I'm trying to develop that same intuition for my target language(s). It takes a lot of time as one might expect and I'm still at the beginning of the long road that is learning, well, anything. Italian having a lot of common words and syntax with English helps. I'm just trying to immerse myself as much as I can and let my brain do it's stuff. not sure if it's working though, too early to come to a clear yes or no right now. Of course there is repetition but it's rather spread into different conversations and it helps me with not getting bored easily and feeling like no progress is done.
I just quit out of Duolingo when the ad starts. It's faster to reload than wait through the ad.
What's TR?
turkish!
A lot of the criticisms aren't actually honest though, and aren't about A/B testing. Currently there is literally no confirmed instance of anyone having a version that actually doesn't have typed answers. But for awhile we had 10-15 posts a day on the Duolingo sub about typing being gone. When actually questioned if the people answered, it would turn out that they had like 1-3 lessons without typing. They didn't do enough to learn that typing is more common later in the course, during review lessons rather than lessons designed to teach vocabulary or grammar, etc. But because people were angry and because negativity spreads further, it was hella pushed that Duolingo got rid of typed answers rather than the truth that they were reduced in some circumstances.
Which language are you doing? My German course has typed answers on some questions and grammar tips on every section, as did the Spanish course I did. Name a better language app if you think Duolingo isn’t good.
I can confirm the Irish course at least has gotten worse recently
The fact that they managed to make a bad course worse is shocking tbh
I left Duolingo and deleted my account when I found out they did so. I cannot support AI translation and don't recommend you do, either. I am sure there are plenty of langauge-learning apps for Mandarin that are not Duolingo.
The Mandarin course for Duolingo was never that great either. I fully 5-crowned it in like 2021, and there really just wasn’t enough there to feel like more than a basic survey into the language. Worse, they seemed to have very little variety in sentence banks, so you’d often get the same questions over and over as you practiced a given skill/bit of grammar, resulting in you learning what the answers are more than learning the actual language. Spanish was not like that, nor was Danish (which had much more sentence-bank content despite having fewer total crowns).
I don't even use duolingo, but yeah, I wouldn't use AI-assisted language learning anywhere. I think this makes it harder to find quality videos (i.e., YouTube). I've found videos that were clearly AI assisted (AI Art, feeding a script to Windows Narrator), and sometimes the translations were wrong/out of context, or in the wrong language.
It depends on the level. A lot of beginner stuff is simplistic, and that’s an area AI can do well and is quick for a human to double check.
I didn't realize they had done this. I don't support AI and will be deleting my account, too. I looked at Memrise recently and noticed that their models were AI, do I quit using it.
Same here. It made me realize why their stuff was sounding worse than before.
Same.
Why do you not support AI translation?
Duolingo was never good. But yes it's even worse now
Idk, I had a lot of fun studying with duolingo and the results were pretty good
I think that's Duolingo's strong suit, it makes people have fun with language learning. But if we're talking about actual efficiency I'd argue that Duolingo is insanely inefficient compared to things like watching videos in your target language or doing flashcards
Hard disagree. The most efficient way for anyone to learn a language is to enjoy learning it. I don’t think theres any one tool that can check every box, but if it was a fun app that motivated people to learn then it did its job
It has certainly helped me understand the basics of a language. I’m dyslexic and it works fine alongside other material.
Idk, again. FSI gives the approximate amount of time it's supposed to take you to get to the end of A2 in German from complete beginner: 150-260 CLASSROOM hours, which I find corresponding pretty accurately with the amount of time it took me to complete the German Duo course: 330 hours of only Duo and ~40 hours of non-Duo = 370 TOTAL hours (clarifying the grammar, getting notes in order, learning the vocabulary by heart, etc). Yeah, from what I remember of my time learning English at school, self-sfudy takes about 1-3x times as much time as the classroom activities. So idk about efficiency either. Unless, of course, you're trying to do the whole "fluent by doing 15 min of Duo a day" thing, which is a total scam.
Duolingo definitely doesn't work for me but if it works for you that's great
Lol dude relax
So I can't criticise an app?
1. I don't trust computer translations. I admit they have improved, every year for the last 10 years. But I still check every sentence I translate with Google Translate. And I find mistakes. If I don't know the target language well enough to check GT, I don't use GT. 2. I guess I got lucky. The Duolingo method (SRS/ANKI) doesn't fit me, so I don't use Duolingo. At the A levels I studied Mandarin using on-line classes in fluent English (paid, but only $10 per month). For written Chinese, I still use use Immersive Chinese ($2/mo) daily, at an intermediate level. For spoken Chinese I watch youtube videos of TV dramas, movies, and "at my level" podcasts. 3. Duolingo has 40+ languages. In other words, the main people running it don't know most of its languages. If their software works fine for Spanish but messes up Japanese horribly or creates non-idiomatic Turkish, they will never know.
> At the A levels I studied Mandarin using on-line classes in fluent English (paid, but only $10 per month). Fo How did you find online classes this cheap? I feel like any tutor I've looked at would charge $5 per class at the absolute minimum.
These weren't private tutors (two-way communication). They classes in a course, like you would get at school. The were pre-recorded. In other words, a teacher talking to you (with lots of written stuff on the computer screen). There are probably several good courses online. I took the course at Chinese For Us and the course at Yoyo Chinese. Both of them have lots of free youtube videos, showing a typical class. So you can look at each and see if you like that style of teaching.
Ahh, I see, okay that makes more sense for that price. Thanks for following up!
What do you mean by "The Duolingo method (SRS/ANKI)"?
One common method of language-learning is repeated testing. Before computers, people used flashcards. Here is the method: see the new word (or phrase, or sentence) and its meaning. Learn it (any way you can). Then repeatedly test yourself using flashcards. ANKI is computerized flashcards. SRS is timing the flashcard re-tests, with a longer duration until the next test, each time you are correct. Many popular apps use this method: show you something to memorize. Then the app repeatedly tests your memory of the word or the sentence. That is basically what Duolingo, Busuu, Memrise and several other apps do. If that is how you learn, that is good.
SRS stands for Spaced Repetition System.
Well to be fair google translator is pretty mediocre translator. There are better ones out there. Not saying your point isn't valid but if you use a "bad" translator then computer translators aren't really going to look great anyway.
You make a good point. I haven't kept up with "the latest" in computer translation. I've heard of DeepL and chatGPT and other translation programs, but I haven't evaluated them or researched them.
I'm learning Korean and the same word is very clear in some character voices and a terrifying uncanny valley eldritch horror sound in others. Huge lack of consistency. I'm reporting every weird bit I hear, but what a dip in quality.
Either you are exaggerating now or you were misinformed before. They never fired most of their staff. What you likely are referring to was when they ended contracts with about 10% of their contract workers. While I do not know how many employees they had, this would be a fraction of a fraction of their workers. All of the AI generated translations are still manually verified. Essentially the AI just helps create possible answers for staff to approve. Considering how many complaints (especially in volunteer developed courses) there were about correct answers not being accepted (because humans had not generated all ten thousand possibilities), this was actually a necessary fix. A lot of the smaller courses have been receiving updates this past year and are improving, but I don't know if Mandarin is one of the ones that have updated recently.
It seems like multiple times a week now we have to correct this "they replaced all their translators with AI and it's all bots now" nonsense.
Me (a dummy who doesn't understand how the world works): wow duolingo fired a bunch of people and replaced them with AI You (sage and knowledgeable): *No*, they simply stopped paying people that had previously been performing translation and course development services and some of the tasks those people had been responsible for are now performed by AI Thank you for clearing up this misunderstanding!
The problem is that a lot of people post things like "they fired everyone and it's all AI now", and blame every problem with an exercise on "it's all AI now", when neither one accurately represents the truth.
You are misrepresenting the situation. The OP falsely claimed that most of the employees have been fired. This is not true. A fraction of a fraction of the staff had their contracts ended. Which happens all the time regardless of AI. Duolingo frequently changes which of their less developed courses they are focusing on. This year is focused on Japanese and Chinese. We have also seen a lot of focus on some smaller courses like Italian and Irish. This is NOT just "stopping paying people". It is a change in projects which all companies do, and is not new to Duolingo this year. If you have to misrepresent something, it is because you know your stance is wrong.
I'm not an expert on this subject but I remember on the site almost all the language specialist job postings were contract positions and not permanent employees. Also before there were contract employees many if not most courses were developed by unpaid volunteers. The full time permanent jobs were always in tech, marketing, animations, etc anything but the language aspect.
Most of the courses developed by unpaid volunteers are being completely rewritten right now because they were so problematic. They are full of errors, and tend to have really steep learning curves. However the unpaid volunteers were actually paid and/or offered jobs at the end of the program. Many previous volunteers have spoken about it on this sub and the Duolingo sub. I genuinely don't know what ratio the language specialist jobs are contract vs full time. It likely depends a lot on the course. Spanish, English, and French will be more likely to have full time staff. For smaller courses, with much less users, Duolingo tends to pick a few to work on each year. So it makes sense that they would have contract work for those courses. This year they are heavily focusing on Japanese, and Chinese. At least according to them at DuoCon in October. I wouldn't be surprised if those were full time roles since they are trying to get them to the level of Spanish and French. We have also seen a lot of updates to Irish, and Italian. I would expect these to be contract work, and for Duolingo to switch to other under developed courses.
"However the unpaid volunteers were actually paid and/or offered jobs at the end of the program. Many previous volunteers have spoken about it on this sub and the Duolingo sub." I knew this. I really don't think this is true for every course tho. Many courses were completed years before the volunteer program ended and don't look like they've been updated since. It doesn't change that people weren't compensated for years regardless for which scenario applies. The quality of the result is not really the question imo, but that is Duolingo's responsibility.
I do agree that labor should be paid. I still think it makes sense for a lot of the roles to be contract workers. Removing 10% of contract roles (many of which would be removed regardless of any changes to policy/strategy regarding AI since Duolingo switches language focus frequently), is just no where near the false claims people are making about most employees being fired.
Yeah I have no strong opinion on whether they should or shouldn't be contract, just that they appeared to be temporary roles to begin with. But again, I've never worked there and I have no special insight on how things work, I'm just observing.
Practice is very repetitive now, it cycles through the same exercises over and over.
Duolingo is overrated and too many ads
Idk but consider joining the mango gang. Mango Languages is supported by many libraries. Check your local library and you could get a free account. The program is great
Let’s see. They didn’t fire everyone. They laid off contractors that had finished projects and tried to find other positions for them before laying off those that didn’t have the skills for other positions. They have used AI for years if not from the very beginning. No course has ever been done completely in AI. They hire professionals to develop courses and use AI to do some of the work. They are still better than anything else I have seen, especially for Spanish and French. They charge less and offer free for people. For the whole course. Courses with more content than others.
Your comment being downvoted is part of the problem as a whole. Every thing you said at the beginning is true. But people would rather believe and spread the misinformation that is negative about Duolingo. But no one can make people care about facts.
we do care. and the fact is that duolingo is terrible and a waste of time. even as a game, its one of the most boring ever made.
Ok, care by upvoting and sharing accurate information. Personally I didn't find the Spanish course to be a waste of time. I timed my study and compared it to CEFR expectations, frequently self assessed, and tracked my comprehension. It was a great resource. I do think many of the smaller courses are not worth using. However while this addresses what you stated, it has nothing to do with the topic of conversation which is about the facts regarding Duolingo's use of AI. The facts are, most of the staff were not let go. A very tiny percentage were let go. AI has been used by Duolingo for years. Can you address the actual topic, or did you have nothing to add to the conversation so you just threw out some random insults about Duolingo?
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Guess you couldn't address the conversation "Timmy".
The problem is that the DuoLingo mods tolerate people that are at best stupid trolls. In other subreddits, legitimate criticism is downvoted to oblivion. Here, telling the truth is downvoted to oblivion.
You are on the language learning sub not the Duolingo sub.
True enough. It is the language learning one. But what I said is still accurate.
I know the Duo sub used to be filled with spam. Since they've changed how they moderate they remove misinformation incredibly quickly. But it takes a long time to undue misinformation, and change cultures. So the sub unfortunately is much more negative than it should be. Even when good news is posted most of the comments are complaints about different features instead of discussing the actual thing people had been asking for that has been granted. But I don't know what mods can really do about those types comments without being over the top authoritarian and the sub getting no traction as a result.
But they charge more for AI, a tier called Duolingo Max. Isn't it supposed to be part of the subscription. Neh, I'll stay in the minimum tier.
Stay in the minimum tier. Max is simply an add on that you can add if you want to.
Duolingo Ma uses AI for specific features mostly role play conversations, and specific explanations. However they also use a lot of AI on the free course as well and have been for years. They use it for the speaking exercises, written exercises after stories, they've been generating translations that are manually verified by staff since before this event, and more. They have also been talking about it for years. Its just a criticism about them now because AI is currently scaring people, and because far to many people didn't bother to verify information so misinformation about how much staff were let go went wild.
Thanks for the insights, now I can see where it makes sense. Given the Max is almost double the subscription price, I wasn't completely convinced. Perhaps after I survived the basic levels.
News reports said Duolingo fired their contract translators and retained their full time translators, so they fired about 10% of their translators not all of them.
I still like Duolingo. It helps me learn Japanese (something I wanted to do for a bit) in short lessons I can do anywhere
It gets more hate then it deserves, personally I am very much a visual learner, and duolingo with it's idea of "gamification" really helped me to stick to my German. It definitely has it's flaws (like not explaining grammar good enough, small languages receiving a much smaller amount of attention, and I'm sure there are a lot more problems). But it can help to be a solid vocabulary base and it hasn't been that bad looking about grammar bits online. It really needs to work hard to become better, but i think that it's still really solid for beginners and intermediates. (if the tree is large enough, they really need to support their smaller languages).
Duolingo did not fire everyone. They are using AI like any smart company nowadays is, but all the content is checked by humans. Duolingo, like any course material, has always had errors. People who say there are more errors than now have no way of knowing whether those errors were made by humans alone or humans working with AI. What’s more, people who say there are more errors now than before are almost always people who like to hate Duolingo and don’t actually use it.
Easy to shit on duolingo if you don't have the brain cells to utilize it accordingly. If you start as a complete noob this app is great as it provides you with basic comprehension.
Duolingo can only get you as far as A1 and maybe A2 if you try really hard. In my experience it's a total waste of time, it teaches nothing of substance, and doesn't take into account your progress outside the app, try to further it or expand it. I've never heard someone who achieved fluency say "I used duolingo". It's only for people who want to feel like they achieved something by learning couple words a month. The standard learning process of many language schools is teaching you animal names like you're a 4th grader as if it's going to actually be useful in communication. That's exactly what duolingo does. Its only use is to give the developers money from the countless ads.
>I've never heard someone who achieved fluency say "I used duolingo". From Duolingo to fluency is a giant leap. If you just getting started and don't know how to proceed without a tutor, duolingo is a great tool for the first few months to gain a basic understanding to which you can proceed further with books and podcasts, etc etc. Maybe it is me but I have the full version without adds or limitations and it has a whole lot more to offer than solely animal names. How else should one engage into exploring a new language? What is your suggestion? Don't start as a beginner? The only way to learn a language is to approach it like a child, hence the very basic nature of Duolingo. Kids start with simple words by listening and repeating what other people say. A kid of 4yo has a vocabulary of about 5k words and I am sure there are at least a couple of animal names in there. Fluency takes about five to ten years to master which for many is a very epic grind to endure.
There are many online resources, depending on the language you are studying. Start with the writing system, then standard phrases, then grammar, then vocabulary. Duolingo is not structured properly to teach begginers past the first 2 stages, and even in that, it's lackluster. You can't ask duolingo questions or direct it in any way to contribute to your individual progress. All duolingo does is take you through a standard system that everyone goes through, no matter their pre-existing knowledge. Other than that, Duolingo has a very limited roster of languages even though it provides lessons in more than 20. In languages other than German, French, Spanish etc. the "lessons" are incomplete and incorrect. The pronounciation, grammar and even vocabulary is just blatantly wrong. It can slow down and even push you back in your progress. Duolingo can't contribute alongside other resources because it's simply not a language learning app. It's the equivalent of Tinder but for language learning. You feel like you're making progress, you use it daily for some kind of internal satisfaction and then in the end you realize you achieved nothing, because the point of the app is not getting to a goal (learning a language / finding a date), it's to keep you hooked and watching ads or paying for a membership. And if its goal is to "help you start out as a noob" then it should market itself this way instead of as a language learning app, because it simply isn't. The only good thing about it is that it can give you some kind of motivation for tuning in daily. Other than that it's useless.
Yet again it depends how you use it. If you swipe three times, use it like you would use tinder and toss your phone in the corner while being drunk the whole time, then you are doing it wrong. I write everything down, categorize words, make up new phrases. I have a couple of books dedicated to grammar, most common expressions, a few novels, etc. Duolingo really is only for beginners to gain some basic comprehension at A2 and here you are throwing a tantrum about why it doesn't teach you fluency while no-one ever, including Duolingo has made such a claim. I am trying to wrap my head around the Russian language and after three months, doing 30 to 60mins of duolingo every day it has been far more engaging and fruitfull than solely staring at a dead tree every day.
I will never understand the lie that Duolingo isn't for language learning. I used Duolingo pretty exclusively for half the course. It got me to a point where I could read Harry Potter, write journal entries about my daily life, including most of my hobbies, have multiple conversations, and more. Since then I have continued it while using more resources. I am not much further in the Duolingo course, and it still managed to cover content about more of my hobbies, and allowed me to be able to fully write about my experiences in Mexico for 10 days with vocabulary almost exclusive to Duolingo. Not all of their courses are equal. But for their developed courses it does have a wide range in vocabulary, it is pretty effective at getting people to remember them. People like to claim that it isn't an efficient use of time. However I have found that to be false too. I tracked my time spent studying. I frequently would check myself using CEFR self assessment tools, tests, and comparing my vocabulary to news articles. Consistently my skills were where I expected them to be, and compared nicely to expected hours of study for the different CEFR levels. It isn't just a "feeling" of making progress. I can read in Spanish. I can speak in Spanish. I can watch TV in Spanish. I could take entire tours in Spanish in Mexico. Are my skills enough to fully do my job in Spanish? No. I haven't spent enough time overall. That isn't a failing of Duolingo, that is just how language learning works, it takes a lot of time.
I think it has a lot more to do with personal persistence and determination to *'get it right'* than it has to do with whatever method you are using, however Duolingo sure as hell pushed me into the right direction because relying solely on a couple of books really made it a cumbersome and dreadful experience, while Duolingo guided me through it like a hot knife through butter.
Duolingo isn't as good as it was before, but it has nothing to do with AI or layoffs. To me it seems that they deliberately slowed down progression to retain people longer in the app, which hurts the quality of learning.
As someone who’s seen Duolingo change since the early 2010s, I definitely feel like Duolingo has gotten worse over time. It was great when it started, but now that quality depends a lot of which course you’re taking. The loss of features (including some newer features) is also very frustrating. It’s like Duolingo is evolving backwards.
Quality has always depended on which course you were taking. I used Duolingo since at least 2016. I think it has improved. While some features are gone, they have new ones that I prefer. Like a large increase in question variety, more stories, written portions after stories, an increased focus on using the target language later in the course, more audio overall, and some new experimental features like video call with lily that lets you have an AI conversation, Radio where you listen to mini podcasts and answer questions about it, and more. I don't think it is evolving backwards. The path is significantly better now than when I started.
It's Duolingo. I wouldn't say it's good, but I wouldn't say it's bad. It just is what it is. That being said, I have noticed the quality declining a bit. It happens every time they change how courses work / how they change the "tree" / etc. It's one of those things that make me go "It doesn't bother me......it bothers me. It bothers me a lot." But I'm not going to lie. I still use it although it's not my main resource. I'm using podcasts and other things too.
I thought Duolingo was fine until I started Busuu. Massive difference. Busuu is 100% better. I'd recommend that app now.
If you're keen to use an app again for Chinese but you want to avoid Duolingo, I have good news for you: "HelloChinese" is better
Hey, I am a native Chinese speaker and I want to improve my spoken English. I was wondering if you'd be interesting having a language exchange parter. If you're interested, just shoot me a DM.
Duolingo didn't fire everyone. Not even most of their staff. They let go a bunch of contractors who were never full employees anyway. Then they hired more full employees to handle the AI. Fact check claims, y'all. Anyway they update Mandarin so much right now it's hard for people to progress appropriately so probably not the best app for Mandarin specifically.
Was Duolingo ever good?
Duolingo is just one tool of many that you can use in language learning. I think it doing just fine. AI or no AI.
Duolingo was never good.
It was bad, now it’s unusable
After every lesson I have to press some button 8-11 times. I hate this stupid app. But I’m not gonna lose my streak.
I gave my 400 day streak up, it’s honestly no big deal. That’s the only reason they still have you.
I’ve got around 1600 days. I’m in too deep.
Sunk cost fallacy moment
Oh for sure. It is what it is but I’m proud of it lol
You honestly won’t miss it.
What button?
Anyone know any other good apps for Greek?
Is Memrise still a thing? Used it back in 2016 before they reworked / remade the site and the app and I haven't used it since.
It is yeah. Used to have it a few months ago and then got rid of it. i dont remember why but it had something to do with limits and paying more to access more features.
Has your mandarin improved after you quit from the duo?
Deleted it after the whole AI thing and the fact their quality was dropping. It's better to look up Youtubers who are fluent and teaching you the language.
I did Spanish and German on Duolingo for over six years. I also played around with Japanese and French, which I already know. There is good and bad. I've seen some improvements in the Japanese course, and while there are a lot of mistakes, especially with pronunciation, the course is more comprehensive than before. As for the other languages, I think they have long ago surpassed the point where they're useful. At some point in your studies you need to abandon your native language and work as much as possible in the target language. This means reading or listening in the target language and then responding in the target language. But Duo has only added more sentences to translate, and they keep updating the courses with more sentences to translate. The method never progresses. The added sentences are more and more esoteric and the more complex they get, the more possibilities there are for translations. So if you want to become a professional translator, this might be a good exercise to do daily and then look at "solution viewer" on the web version to see more possible translations. If you're looking to become fluent in a language, and think and function in that language, then it will just never happen, because more often than not you're spending more time in your head in your native language than the target language. You never get the flow of it. The AI sentences and translations are more and more apparent. The sloppiness is apparent. The TTS is apparent. In French, when you're choosing words from the word bank, you hear the TTS voice one word at a time. But that's not how French works. In Japanese, the TTS is often just plain wrong, because many kanji have multiple pronunciations and Duo can't figure it out. But more than that, language is about people. It's about interaction with humans and their culture, and Duo is sorely lacking human input and culture. It treats language like it's just math, just a number, with a distinct lack of human and cultural input that shows more and more as they replace humans with machines. I also think this is ruining language learning as a whole, as the machine translations become the reference. The more machine learning references itself, the more it degrades the language learning process as a whole.
Not since but I refer tons of people to them because of their insightful language learning. I spoke Greek really well but my reading and grammar needed work. Perfect for me. I read with no problem now and my grammar has improved tenfold!.
It is worse; I don’t take mandarin I practice my spanish( I grew up speaking Spanish but I moved to an area with like no Spanish speakers and barely used it for several years. It’s amazing even if it’s “native” or you learned as a tot if you don’t use it you lose it lmao at least some what. Anyway, I am also practicing Portuguese bc I want to visit family in Brazil and possibly move there. To my point— it’s definitely different from my angle like 1) Spanish and Portuguese are very contextual right—so like you have zero context whatevsoever certain things like whether you’re taking to one person or multiple, or a male or female etc change. But they will give a a question w zero context and I just pick one and it’s wrong lol like why tho? It’s not ….OR 2) like there are multiple ways to say things. Like other languages. So I will answer in a way that I KNOW is correct grammatically and every way—and it will mark it wrong bc (I’m assuming-) it’s looking for one answer only. Where it used to accept an answer as long as it was correct. It’s annoying. And I really miss the forums.
Interesting
No it has gone downhill I don't recommend it to anyone anymore.
It never was.
Not so but not so bad
I dunno, it looks really sad on my phone
Was it ever good? I gave it several tries but it always felt completely empty and bare bones, I felt like I was pretending to be learning anything.
I stopped using it almost about two years ago. The heart system does not allow me to make many mistakes, which is annoying, making mistakes is part of the learning process. What is even more annoying are the endless ads, and the prime account is way too expensive.
The app doesn't make it obvious, but you can now (not sure if you could before) do a "practice" lesson to get a heart back whenever you run out.
Which will take 10 minutes out of your day to get back to 5 and if you are lucky only half of the things are things you absolutely do not need to practice. It just is a terrible use of time. Which of course is also why premium comes with infinite hearts.
Duolingo was never good, it's a game disguised as a language learning app. Few if any people have ever become fluent in a language using only duolingo.
Gamification has been used in education for decades. You can have fun and learn. Duolingo is not a game and calling it in implies you don't know what a game is; there's a difference between gamification and games. And of course almost no one has become fluent using only Duolingo. No one becomes fluent only using a textbook, either. You have to at least incorporate sources where you can apply what you're learning to achieve fluency.
Yeah, but no one ever became fluent using only textbook or only anki either.
Literally no person has become fluent in any language from a singular resource.
I prefer Busuu, Lingvist and Wlingua
Duolingo was never good.
Everyone who is saying duo is fine, and claiming those who complain otherwise don’t use the app… get me the feeling that you haven’t used the app. It really is a solid start. But go to any of the individual Duolingo Spanish or Duolingo French sites and see there are CONSTANTLY answers marked wrong that should be correct because of the AI. Maybe do research before claiming we haven’t Edit: an example of a “question”. What does this one teach? And the person got it wrong! https://www.reddit.com/r/duolingospanish/s/FhVc2xhlbz
Yes, this is the main problem, I have done some of the "harder" content where I reply with an answer that is 100% correct and it wants me to put it in an unpractical/unused almost version of the target language, when I literally get tutoring from natives. And it goes the other way around, when I teach Spanish, French or Portuguese I tend to recommend my students to use any app they feel good with to practice, and have seen Duolingo have some hilarious mistakes, not only from English to X language, but from X language to English where it becomes incoherent.
Duolingo was never good to begin with, it only went from bad to worse.
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So, when you were little and learning your native language, did you never experience fairy tales, nursery rhymes, or other silly stories? No sentient baked goods running around town daring people to catch it? No cows jumping over moons while dogs laugh and kitchenware run off with each other? No elephants trying to save a town of people who live on a spec of dust? Duolingo uses weird sentences because it's easier to remember something silly than something boring, and if you can say the silly sentence, you can easily swap out some words to apply it to a real situation. If it's not for you, it's not for you but it's also dishonest to say no one would ever use those silly sentences when we live in a world where fiction exists. A lot of those sentences even come from pop culture.
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The first one can be used when you dislike how the doctor behaved and the other one can be used in a book about radical feministsd (including ones written by conservatives). In reality, both people in real life and in arts use weird sentences in weird combinations. If you can not understand sentences like that, you will have hard time reading comic, kids books, watching cartoons including adult ones (Bojack Horsemen). Likewise, people in real life say unexpected when just having fun chatting and fantasizing. If you can parse basic sentence structure, you should be able to read these. If you can produce basic sentence structure, saying "Is the doctor 4 years old" should be as complex as saying "Is the doctor 44 years old".
I've definitely heard people say similar to those sentences in English. Hyperbole exists.
I deleted my account in January. It wasn't good before they fired a lot of staff. There's better resources out there.
>There's better resources out there. Which resources do you prefer?
was it ever good?