Learning to speak a new language as an adult (experiences, struggles, tips, stories)

No idea, I only use the phone app when I’m on the treadmill.

Is there a way to get more audio prompts? Typing while on a treadmill sounds difficult

Yeah the hearts are to make you buy premium

The sixth crown is a shorter lesson that’s supposed to be all hard tasks. It’s a recent update so I think it just isn’t there for PC.

I recommend the 5-4-3-2-1 pattern myself

I mean the lessons, though the 6th crown is also a difference between the two. For lessons, for the same topic, the app says 4/6 lessons complete while the web says 4/5 lessons complete (the topic I clicked on in my screenshots).

I’ve continued digging and have found even more differences:

  • the app gives a 15 minute 2x XP boost as a reward when you complete a crown through lessons but the web doesn’t
  • the web uses “lingots” as currency while the app uses gems
  • the web has 2 lessons for each “Story”: a written and a listening one, while the app only has 1 lesson for each story (seems to be combined written and listening)

And I’m sure there are more. Very strange how different the two are, you’d think they’d have consistency (especially for things like lingots vs gems)

Yeah my bad misspoke. Edited before I saw your post haha

Random question. It seems like a lot of folks use DuoLingo for learning a new language. What do you think of their product overall? I haven’t had a chance to use it yet and am only asking since I saw I have the opportunity to buy into their upcoming IPO, so just a bit curious since I’m ignorant.

It’s pretty great for casual language learning, I wouldn’t recommend for anyone serious about it. I’ve given them zero money so far.

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It’s good to use in conjunction with other sources. You won’t learn much beyond fundamentals without extra support.

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I use Busuu which provides McGraw-Hill certificates (A1, A2, B1, B2) for completing sections and passing the tests.

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Duolingo will get you to intermediate reading and writing level but you will still be shit at speaking and listening, so it should be like 50% of your focus at first and gradually slide down to 0 once you hit high intermediate.

I’ve completed the French, Spanish, and Portuguese trees and very slowly working on Russian now.

I really like it, but acknowledge that it’s limited. At the end of the day, you should choose materials you have more fun with to keep motivation level high.

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DL podcasts are pretty great if you haven’t tried them.

Yea I prefer to think of it as a game with nonzero benefit rather than a speedy path to fluency. From an investor’s perspective it seems fine but idk how much room there is for further monetization. They’ve gamified it really well but they already have a paid version that costs a decent amount and free users get swamped with ads. They’ll need to find some other way of monetizing it, like further monetizing the data or expanding into other products or something. Obv I haven’t read their filings so maybe they’ve covered this.

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Biggest pet peeve with Duo is the in-game currency, which seems completely worthless.

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True, can’t even gamble with it

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Idk those 7-day wagers are pretty degenerate
/s

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Turns out playing in browser is way better. Fewer lessons per crown, no hearts, and, best of all, no ads. Those of you using the app should definitely check it out. Only drawback seems to be worse speaking recognition, somehow, so I’m regularly missing 2 or 3 per lesson.

PSA: I just found that my city library gives me free access to Rosetta Stone on-line. (Also NYT, Consumer reports, etc.)

Might be worth checking out your local system. Libraries are awesome!

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Any Dutch speakers here? Dutch seems close enough to English to be intriguing and confusing. That means playing with duolingo and listening to pimsleur, but knowing it may be all wrong.

I loved my visit to the Netherlands and want to move there if I can qualify.

once you can crush reading, close captions really help to associate spoken language.

caveat: i did this as a teen with english. not with spanish

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Would never have guessed you’re not a native English speaker.