Anyone know how to make the font on Duolingo bigger? I tried zooming in but it wouldn’t let me. I’m using Firefox

DOES THIS IMPLY THAT THE DUO TEAM IS TRANS??? @duothelingo

young royals duolingo, 14/?

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Perchance.

(ID: German Duolingo phrase that reads "Sie ist vielleicht meine Katze." which translates to "She is perhaps my cat" or "it is perhaps my cat")

how does duolingo suck?

I'm going to assume this is a genuine question in good faith!

In general, I do not think that DL is effective for achieving linguistic fluency. However, fluency is not everything and is not everyone's end goal! It can be a great introduction to many languages and get people fired up about starting to learn a new language—all which are good things. Before I address the recent problematic changes to the app that make it "suck", I want to be clear that even before it really wasn't that great. It had a good UI, constant expansion, and a very enthusiastic marketing team, but none of those are really important to actual language learning. Outside of popular European languages (Spanish/French/German) the quality is incredibly hit or miss. When I started learning Chinese I checked out DL and it was just not good! It's pretty common knowledge that DL is not good for learning non-latin based languages. Not to mention that the levels in those languages do not get you far. I was able to do speed runs of the Chinese course for fun early on in learning Chinese because it tops out at about HSK 3. (If you're unfamiliar with the HSK system, real Chinese "fluency" is HSK 6+ depending on if you're going by HSK 3.0 or not.)

The reason the post I made took off now is a combination of profit-driven decisions made by DL in the past year, culminating with laying off actual translators—a field I happen to be in!

The major decisions I'm referring to above are the following:

The "pausing" of the Welsh course and ending the partnership with the Welsh government. The National Centre for Learning Welsh did wish to continue the partnership, stating "Should Duolingo change its policy the centre would be happy to help with the work of developing the Welsh course,". Languages that offer business partnerships, like High Valyrian, don't get paused.

Removal of Forums and Sentence Discussions. Because DL never truly "teaches" you grammar, you are expected to pick it up from pattern association and repetition. This would work fine if languages weren't complex and notorious for having exceptions. These spaces were places for people to better understand the language, but that's not a profitable thing! It's more profitable to charge people to have an AI "explain" a sentence. Also people liked DL for the community aspects! Native speakers could answer your questions and you could joke about how wacky a sentence was.

Final nail in the coffin:

Pivot to AI and laying off translators. For the record, I don't think AI is innately evil. I think in moderation it can be helpful and if an app's upgraded tier is just AI chat then whatever. However, as a translator, I can tell you that it just doesn't work well. Having done post-editing of AI translations, it just sucks. It makes mistakes humans would never make and trying to unravel them is a pain. When I edit a human's translation, I can figure out what they were thinking and how they got it from the text. AI translations frequently just... skip parts that don't make sense to it. DL had already integrated AI into the app on a premium content basis, but now it's fully hit users that never asked for it. I've seen a lot of people talking about how their language is having mistakes now. People want to use DL to learn a language, and if the app is teaching them the language wrong that is a huge problem. It is unlikely that DL will be satisfied with this, but rather continue to replace as much of its workforce as possible with AI.

In short: Duolingo's first priority is bringing profits and shiny objects like AI to dangle in front of its shareholders. That is what makes Duolingo suck.

It is really astounding how many times a person can see the word "unprecedented" and somehow still not lose their goddamn mind.

duolingo is fun and all but they really don't teach you that much about the grammar side of languages and just expect you to memorize where words are supposed to go in sentences rather than explain why words go in certain places

hi mickey! <33 for the asks! 🐙 & 🧛🏻‍♀️

HAIII NAT:3333 I HOPE YOU'RE DOING WELL MY LOVE!!!! THANK U FOR DROPPING BYY!!!!!!!

🐙 how many languages do you speak?

only two fluently:(((( i know a little russian too but i really wanna start learning it again!!!!! it's such a cool language to know imo hehehehe!!

🧛🏻‍♀️ what’s your favorite horror character/ monster?

GHOSTFACE!!!!!! i think ghostface is always such a funny character. funny and sexy. and a little cunty (esp the one in the latest one. with the shotgun.... wheeeeeewww)

interview the mayor

hi kit! what is the funniest comment you've ever gotten on a fic? also, what language(s) do you wish you knew?

I think one of the funniest comments I ever got was from someone who must have read my tag obi-wan/anakin as obi-wan&anakin and got halfway through the third chapter before reviewing: “is this going to end up obi-wan/anakin? I hope you’ll reconsider I don’t like obi-wan/anakin and the story doesn’t have to go that way” but like. It was a retelling of beauty&the beast called monsieur & the monster so I just always think it’s sorta funny they were like wait is this gonna be obikin?? girl it’s a Disney movie

As for languages omg I want to know so many languages i love learning vocabulary in other languages. Right now my duolingo has Spanish, Portuguese, German, Hindi, Italian! But the ones I do the most lessons for are Spanish and Portuguese :)

"I don't think that ambassador is South American. I heard her speaking in German."

Oh dear. Tell me, ambassador, what was your family doing between the years 1933 and 1945?

I used duolingo for years and learned a lot very slowly but I think this new app I'm using now is using a different dialect and also they're using words for things that I learned different words for and I'm so confused!!!! 💀

I miss foreign language classes so much. Truly one of the great joys of my life that I haven't experienced in years

🎶✨when u get this u have to put 5 songs u actually listen to, publish. then, send this ask/tag 10 of your favourite followers (non-negotiable, positivity is cool) 🎶✨

Tagged by @kuwdora 👯‍♀️♥️

I’ll use my spotify top 5 on my “on repeat”!

1. When It’s Time - Altamullan Road. It’s been #1 since the album came out in 2020 because its hauntingly beautiful and about saying goodbye to a partner and asking if they will walk with you down the aisle when it’s your turn to pass as well. Well, its a bit more ambiguous than that but I’m melancholy and always amassing OTP songs sooo…

2. The Bell - Eye of Melian. This band is perfect if you’re a Tolkien nerd, someone who likes film scores, or a skyrim stan. All about time/life and how it moves on no matter what.

3. Pearl Diving - Auri. My favorite band. Whimsical escapism, gloriously benevolent vocals that make me want to dive into the sea and marry a selkie.

4. Hetken tässä kaikes on järkee - Elastinen ft Johanna Kurkela. This one is just fun. And its in finnish — which I’m trying to learn. Also Johanna is so pretty in the music video that i literally start sweating.

5. Hearts Of Old - Altamullan Road. They never got to tour due to the pandemic, but they did get to perform this about a year ago on SuomiLOVE and its hands down my favorite live performance of all time. So sweet and loving, their voices are absolutely heartstopping together and I’m literally getting a passport the minute they tour.

Tagging @ohvienna , @troiings , @333-fml-666, @janewayseven, @logjammer9000 , @ladydimitrescuspersonalashtray and @kalliesa because i dont remember anyone elses tumblr names and i refuse to back out of this to check!

help me im having duolingo fever (made an account for the spanish class i learn nothing in and am suddenly learning 3 different languages)

ON DUOLINGO?!?

"What's a sound idea?" Great question Sora, the truth is none of this was one.

Anyway

I still need to share all my dream eaters names (oh wait here's two)

15 fics in the byler tag are written in Italian.

The question is: can I learn more Italian by reading them than I learned in 4 years of school?