Duolingo

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Duolingo

Postby MeatPuppet » Sat Nov 22, 2014 2:16 am

So I've been learning some German and Danish recently. Where? Duolingo, a website where you can learn languages for free!

Here's a nifty study on its effectiveness to teach Spanish to English speakers.
The study estimated that a person with no knowledge of Spanish would need between 26
and 49 hours (or 34 hours on average) to cover the material for the first college semester
of Spanish. This result is based on the language test's cut off point for the second college
semester and the 95% Confidence Interval of the effectiveness measure.


If you speak English, there are several courses you can take, such as French, Brazilian Portuguese, Dutch, and Irish. They also offer courses for people who speak other languages.

Personally, I feel I've learned more German and Danish in a couple of months with Duolingo than I have from 6 years of French in elementary to high school. It's fun, too. Were it not for Duolingo, I probably would be stuck with English and three Canadian French words because I've never really found enough motivation to keep learning a language until now. It helps that you somtimes get to translate gems like "jeg ved din hest drikker vin" (I know your horse drinks wine). You gain experience from completing lessons and level up accordingly. And you can compete with friends, seeing their progress on the leaderboard.

Interested? Let's be Duobuddies and shove each other off the leaderboard! I go by the username Tumthe3.

Our Duolingo members
* TCS names are in parentheses if not the same.

  • Tumthe3 (MeatPuppet)
  • flammableLemon (A Combustible Lemon)
  • Waffleburger (LaChaise)
  • MonsieurSpairrot (Sparrow)
  • Nostraa
  • typical_michael
  • Roflface
  • SNickeeOne (NickMoppet)
  • DrAmbiguous
  • CeilingPhan (CleverDick)
  • DinoVader
  • CmdrVimes
  • 52xmax
  • FaceTheCitizen
  • JackRoad
  • harpingcarp
  • Bertman1 (Bertman)
  • dandywarlock (sunglasses)
  • 18

Last edited by MeatPuppet on Tue Oct 06, 2015 7:44 pm, edited 5 times in total.
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Re: Duolingo

Postby Jack Road » Sat Nov 22, 2014 11:52 am

There are about seven of us now, it is quite fun.
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Re: Duolingo

Postby MeatPuppet » Sun Nov 23, 2014 3:23 am

Ja, genau! Es macht viele Spaß. I've got my serious fun helmet on and am racing through the courses like never before because of you guys. Also, feel free to post your usernames here if you'd like to share. ^_^

Chaise Waffleburger. Don't think I'll let you get away with being on top of the leaderboard with your Frenchiness so easily. I'm gonna catch up even if it means doing Duolingo all day!

... okay, maybe I really should do my homework now.
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Re: Duolingo

Postby Dr. Ambiguous » Sun Nov 23, 2014 6:05 am

So, I signed up on a basically a whim the other day when people on IRC told me too, and decided to go with German since I've always liked the sound of it. So I guess we'll see how this goes, if I learn, and maybe most of all, if I stick with it. Always thought it'd be cool to learn another language. Regardless, I intend to make fun of everyone for speaking anything other than English, such are my ways.

Anyway, I'm DrAmbiguous on there if anyone wants to add me. If you're under a different name there than here, let me know or I might ignore it not realizing who it is.
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Re: Duolingo

Postby Typical Michael » Sun Nov 23, 2014 7:53 am

I signed up to brush up on my German. I am typical_michael, which I know comes as a bit of a surprise.
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Re: Duolingo

Postby Roflface » Sun Nov 23, 2014 12:40 pm

I've also joined to try learning German again. As usual, I'm on as Roflface.
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Re: Duolingo

Postby A Combustible Lemon » Mon Nov 24, 2014 1:22 pm

I re-started it when I saw Hans talking about it on IRC. I'm flammablelemon and I was learning Spanish before and am doing Spanish and German right now. Hello.
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Re: Duolingo

Postby 52xMax » Tue Dec 23, 2014 1:51 pm

I joined because people were talking about on IRC a while ago, and had no idea there were quite a few forum members doing it. At first I thought it looked like fun but was not very convinced as to its potential as a tool, especially because it seems to rely on social network gimmicks. So I picked a language that I'd figure wouldn't be much of a problem for a native Spanish speaker, and since I already know a little French I went with Italian. So far it's been almost a month and I am surprised at how much of the language I actually understand now, and the lessons are really fun, so filling up your quota for the day is something I look forward to, rather than an obligation.

So I would encourage anyone who's thinking about it to try it, whether you're seriously thinking about learning a new language or just for fun. It's a shame that at the moment the site seems to be focused on European languages, because I'd really like to retake those Japanese lessons, but given that it's a free service I'm not really complaining.

Also, if anyone is interested in the bonus materials or something else that requires lingots, don't hesitate to hit me up, I have quite a surplus of them after a 29 day streak.
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Re: Duolingo

Postby Bert » Thu Dec 25, 2014 7:27 pm

Just joined as Bertman1. Looking forward to working on my Spanish and maybe French.
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Re: Duolingo

Postby sunglasses » Fri Dec 26, 2014 5:10 pm

I've also joined. Yay!
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Re: Duolingo

Postby Cpt._Funkotron » Thu Mar 15, 2018 11:56 pm

I've joined as well, under the name Funkotron. Trying to learn spanish.
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Re: Duolingo

Postby DoglovingJim » Fri Mar 16, 2018 12:43 am

Jim used duolingo a lot once upon a time.
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Re: Duolingo

Postby LaoWai » Fri Mar 16, 2018 8:23 am

So, no matter what I do, the site sets itself to Chinese when I access it. So, I guess I get to practice my Chinese while I'm learning Japanese. I imagine my times are going to suffer due to this.
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Re: Duolingo

Postby LaoWai » Fri Mar 30, 2018 1:37 pm

I've managed to get the site into English and keep up using it for a while, and I have to say I'm impressed.I don't know whether the one odd thing I've noticed is intentional or not, but if it is, it's pretty clever. I'll be working my way through the hiragana skills, and it will suddenly ask me to write something in English--something it's never shown me before. On the one hand, horribly frustrating, but on the other hand, that's what learning in an immersion situation is like. (You feel as though you're really getting on in the language until--Bam--people start using words and phrases you can't figure out at all.)

Also, the level-up system is great in that it rewards you for repeating skills.
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