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| One of the many benefits of learning another language: more sweets! (Also a preview of a Blog to come) |
***Scroll down for the tutorial!***
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| With each language comes its bias |
For some background, I have now finished four courses on Duolingo: Japanese, Spanish, French and Dutch. I already had background knowledge exceeding the first two and I took French 101 at university concurrently with starting the French course. Dutch was the only language I learned exclusively through Duolingo. The French course took me 11 months and Dutch about two years. Over that time I have also flirted with the Czech course before a weekend in Prague and am currently working on the Hindi, Swahili and Mandarin courses.
In this post I will also draw upon my experience learning languages in other settings such as work, travel, one-on-one exchange partners, university and high school to give the best advice I can about how to succeed in learning a language and how to use Duolingo to help that process. Though the courses I have taken cover many continents and language families, keep in mind my advice could be less accurate for languages I have not tried.
In the following guide, I will explain what Duolingo is and what exactly it has to offer. Then, I will teach you how to use Duolingo properly as it can be a bit unintuitive and has many hidden features. Finally, I will give my opinions and recommendations. Let's go!
Note: different features are available on different platforms and even among individuals, so beware. The website is the most similar for everyone and can be accessed through your phone's web browser.
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| The email campaigns can get quite... intense, lending itself to many memes |
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| Imagine the possibilities with this one |
What is Duolingo?
Duolingo is a free(ish) language learning platform that comprises a website and applications on all major platforms. I say -ish because you truly pay for Duolingo with either a paid premium subscriptions or through ads that run after each lesson in the costless version.
Duolingo offers 87 languages courses including 3 constructed languages, but if you're reading this as an English-speaker then you have about 34 real options. Some of those 34 are in Beta, meaning they may not have all the features of the completed courses, contain bugs and are much shorter. In order of popularity are:
Duolingo offers 87 languages courses including 3 constructed languages, but if you're reading this as an English-speaker then you have about 34 real options. Some of those 34 are in Beta, meaning they may not have all the features of the completed courses, contain bugs and are much shorter. In order of popularity are:
- Spanish
- French
- German
- Japanese
- Italian
- Korean
- Chinese (Mandarin)
- Russian
- Portuguese
- Turkish
- Dutch
- Swedish
- Greek
- Irish
- Hebrew
- Polish
- Norwegian (Bokmål)
- High Valyrian (from Game of Thrones)
- Vietnamese
- Danish
- Romanian
- Swahili
- Hindi
- Klingon (from Star Wars)
- Swahili
- Esperanto (constructed international auxiliary language)
- Hungarian
- Welsch
- Ukrainian
- Czech
- Hawaiian (Beta)
- Indonesian (Beta)
- Navajo (Beta)
- Arabic (not yet available, ETA May 2019)
And if you speak Spanish, you can also learn:
- Guaraní
- Catalan
See anything you like?
What you might not know about Duolingo is that it also has active forum, words, lab, story, and podcast sections. I will discuss more about these sections and how to use them in the next section.
How do you use Duolingo?
First, you create an account and choose your target language. If you have previous experience with the language, you can utilize the placement test and test-out features to reach an appropriate level. From there, we need to learn about bubbles and crowns wait what?
Questions
Within each lesson are a variety of questions which become more or less frequent depending on your crown level and, frustratingly, the platform you are using. Also, the most important thing to know is that YOU ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO KNOW THE YELLOW WORDS. Click or tap on them to learn. If you assume you are supposed to answer the questions as is, like I did at first, you will lose your mind.
Anyway, here are the different types of questions you will encounter ranked, in my opinion, from best to work in terms of developing skill are:
Word unscramble translations
Multiple choice
Unscrambling audio dictation
Translating into/from target language
Good.
Keep in mind, however, that translating and learning a language are two very different skills and one should focus more on understanding, especially as languages are farther linguistically from your native language.
Character-based questions
These also exist, and some are better than others, but I don't want to spend much time on them since most languages on Duolingo don't use them and only Chinese and Japanese will continue to use them after the beginning of the course.
Speaking
Yessss! Sometimes a bit off on recognition, but it will let you through if you keep trying. I believe this feature is only available on mobile or for limited languages, which is unfortunate. However, speaking is really a skill that should be developed with a partner. I will develop upon these opinions in the next section.
Rote audio dictation in target language
The perfect lesson for the role Duolingo plays in language learning, especially because it gives you a translation at the end. This engages your knowledge of the language, spelling, and exposes you to the sounds and flow of the language, the key to success.
Pro tip: you can often manually disable the disaster that is the unscramble option by clicking the "show keyboard option." Unfortunately it seems this feature is not available on all platforms.
This so far has covered what you will see in the skills bubbles. You can also click the 'practice' button, represented by a dumbbell in the bottom right corner on mobile, to enter a pseudo-SRS (spaced repetition system) review of a skill randomly selected based upon your activity on the app. This is essential to long term learning unless you go back and review religiously. On the website, there is an even better feature:
Here you see two practice options. I left choice is almost identical to practicing with the bubbles. The right side is an amazing, gameshow-esque timed quiz where you start with 00:30 seconds and gain time with correct answers. The practice ends when you run out of time or answer 20 questions (right and wrong combined). This is by far the best feature as it mimics real life scenarios and help you to overcome what I call the tip-of-the-tongue problem that develops with too much solitary or reading-based practice.
Test-out and Tips
These are by far the most important features on Duolingo. At the moment, they are fully available on the website and partially rolled out on most languages. You can access them from clicking or tapping on the bubble and not immediately selecting the practice feature.
Tips
These are grammar explanations or further information that make up for the weaknesses of Duolingo's game-like instruction system. These range in quality from a few sentences clearing things up to extensive grammar tables and explanations that rival a textbook. These are essential to using Duolingo to learn a language.
Test-out
This allows you to skip a crown level with a simple test. Get four questions wrong and you get nothing! Unless you're using this to get to an appropriate level given your background knowledge, you have to be careful with this feature as Duolingo's weaknesses can allow you to develop a false sense of ability through these. This is different from the keys in between the bubbles which let you skip entire sections of the course with a similar testing layout.
Course management
You can add as many languages as you desire at any time both on web and mobile. Though many language learners have intense opinions about learning multiple languages at once, I know through personal experience it is at the very least possible both in theory and on Duolingo. You can also remove languages you no longer want to study or reset your progress on courses you either want to give a fresh start to for any reason. This can be accessed in the settings tab on the website and on some other platforms.
XP goals
This has to do with your 'daily streak' and is evaluated based upon how much practice you do. One lesson is almost always 10xp, for scale. I will discuss my opinions and recommendations on using this system to your advantage in the next section.
Emails/reminders
You can change the time they appear each day or turn them off via the settings tab on the website.
My recommendations
Duolingo is a fantastic resource, especially given the price. unfortunately, it is not going to single-handedly get you from zero to fluent. Further, even at the beginner stages of your Duolingo course it would be enormously beneficial to supplement your language learning with other resources or specific strategies that may not be intuitive. In this section, I will provide some of those strategies and resources and will touch upon differences depending on which language you are learning.
Don't use Duolingo how it wants you to use it, aim for better understanding than the questions demand
The mission statement of Duolingo is to make language learning fun and free, not effective. That doesn't mean it you can't add that in with a bit of modification to the default strategy. After all, no one can be taught a second language; one learns a second language. Here are some tips.
Never use the unscramble optionLike I said above, it focuses your attention on what you already know and will teach you to cheat instead of use your target language.
Close your eyes and listen to the sentences being spoken first, even if it's not an audio question
This will help your comprehension. If you can, try to answer the question without reading it. When you read, you are allowed to take more time and may recognize words based on similarity to your native language. Just listening is harder and will make you better. Plus, if you can't get it you always have the option of answering the questions normally afterwards.
The 'hovering technique'
Ok in all honesty I stole this photo from Duolingo's Instagram because my current strategy is a little different, but this is still very effective. This strategy both looks nice and helps you use spaced repetition in your learning, the most effective way of adding things like vocabulary and grammar to your long-term memory. I mentioned that the practice feature is a pseudo-SRS earlier, so let me explain that here. This is not a true SRS because it does not take into account feedback such as how easy or hard the questions were and tests you based upon your activity on the app, not your knowledge. Other apps, which I recommend below, are much better at this. The hover method makes up for the flawed SRS and also prevents you from steamrolling a bunch of new material while forgetting everything else.
Use timed practice
If you want to say you can "speak" a language, you will probably have to speak, right? This feature is the best preparation for that, even more so than the speaking practice. Why? Because the speaking practice makes you read a script. The timed practice makes you think on your feet, sink or swim, and moves all that language knowledge from the dusty recesses of the back of your mind straight to the front, where you can use it easily.
Look up grammar independently
If you read the tips (or if they don't exist) and still don't get it, it won't get better. Search the name of the skill and language and something should come up!
Consistency over intensity
The most important thing about learning a language is that you practice every day. That is why my XP goal is always 10 per day, even though I do almost 300 each day on average now. Having a low goal means you have no excuse for making time to practice every day. In reality, you will often want to do more after your goal, meaning there is no benefit to a high XP goal other than a higher chance you will lose your streak and motivation.
Clubs, friends and forums
Clubs and forums will help you with questions and hold you somewhat accountable, especially if you are competitive and find a group of like-minded language learners. Further, if you add your friends, they will all be able to see how much you have practiced each week and month.
Outside resources
These are crucial to your longterm success in a language both during and especially after you finish your Duolingo course. In some cases, depending on your target language, you might be better off or forced to use a different app, which I will recommend here.
Translation
No matter what language you are learning, you need an offline dictionary app, period. Don't settle for a laggy online app or a phrasebook as your primary 'help me I don't understand' solution. This is especially important if you live somewhere or are visiting where your target language is spoken. Google Translate online is good for if you do not need perfection or for longer phrases and even sentences. You can also download a language for offline use and some languages allow picture translations (though this won't help you learn). There are some amazing browser extensions that let you read foreign text quite easily through automatic word or sentence translations. I have specific apps for certain languages in the apps list below.
The news
If you are learning a non-European language as a native English speaker, I don't want to get your hoped up. Just go to the next section. For all of you still around, this can be a great way to get timely, native exposure to a language. A beginner or intermediate learner will get much more out of the news than TV shows for reasons I will touch upon below. The potential problems include advanced or specific vocabulary and cultural references, neither of which you will see in places designed to teach.
Specific applications and browser extensions
Checklist for any language:
- Anki
- Best SRS in the game
- Many study decks already in existence
- Offline dictionary
- Rememberry
- Chrome extension
- Automatic translations
- Option to save vocabulary into an SRS deck
Alternatives to Duolingo
- Beelingua
- Allows you to hear and read text karaoke style
- Free
- If you're intermediate, you can learn two language at once this way (I do Spanish and Japanese)
- Lingodeer
- Paid alternative to Duolingo.
- Limited language selection
- Much better for Asian languages (I use this for Mandarin and for reviewing Japanese).
- The activities and features are much better, but alas there is a paywall.
- Mango languages
- Has far more languages (around 70 compared to Duolingo's 37), including some very rare courses to learn as a second language like Bengali and Igbo.
- This is also a paid app, and a pretty expensive on at that, but may be free for you if you are a member of some libraries
- Ling
- More languages that Duolingo doesn't have, such as Thai, but not offline and has a paywall after a few lessons
Language-specific
Japanese
- Rikaikun chrome extension
- Automatically provides reading and translation for Kanji
- Takoboto
- Offline dictionary #1
- Has a powerful Kanji compound search feature
- Japanese
- Bad name, good app
- Offline dictionary #2
- Has a weak SRS
- Better for conjugations and short phrases
- Ability to access limited decks
- Kanji Study
- Invaluable. By far most powerful language resource
- Kanji broken down by JLPT level, grade and more
- Built-in dictionary
- Allows you to practice writing characters
- JLPT
- Pretty self-explanatory if you know what this test is
- Lingodeer
- See above
- Pleco
- Offline dictionary
- HSK #
- Characters, tone practice etc. by HSK level (I have HSK 2)
- Lingodeer supplementary material by HSK level
Final thoughts
Learning a language is one of if not the single most beneficial hobby you can start this new year if you have not already. Being bilingual has extraordinary benefits in terms of cognitive function, disease prevention, memory, employment opportunities, and most of all culture. Though I hope this posts helps, ultimately learning a language is something that's completely up to you. If you need someone to annoy you and keep you on the right path, let me know and I will definitely do so!
Good luck!
¡Buena suerte!
頑張って下さい！
Veel succes!
Bonne chance!
祝好运！
Bahati njema!
सौभाग्य!
(Google-sensei helped me with those last three)
