I think it is you who needs to learn that in the UK we also use English and it is spelt learnt. Gilipolla

I have heard of Chicken Little, is it an animated film or something? Anyway no, it is from the intro of Power Stone on the Dreamcast.

Easy or not that doesnt excuse Duolingos lack of explanation of any rules or concepts present within the language you choose to learn.

I am admittedly salty about my own experience with it which definitely skews me towards the negative view of it, I just dont like to see people jumping on that app and thinking that that alone will see them through learning a language.

I do see your points of using it as a supplement to learning through other methods but also due to the fact that it taught me a few different things that were flat out wrong I just think that there are better supplementary learning resources.

Also personally I really struggle with languages and wasting so much time on that app really destroyed my motivation for learning the language in general and as such my initial momentum has gone and I haven’t really progressed at all recently. Engagement is important like you say and I dont think the streaks are a bad idea but the way they implement them is insidious in that it is all tailored to keep you in app and hopefully paying them IMO.

My initial message was more in disgust of the app as a whole, I wouldn’t go as far as to say I expressed hate otherwise I’d have used much stronger language but again everyone’s opinion on that line will be different. I just dont think it is good at all and if I can dissuade people from using it then I will. Maybe I should have put the alternatives I mentioned in the first comment to balance out the message but it is too late now :D

I kind of see what you mean but for me I really liked it as I am not very good at languages at all, maths and science makes more sense to my brain.

I appreciated that they went through and made links with the English language based on the common root that they shared be it Latin or whatever. For me this helped me a lot to understand what was going on in the background of the language and how I could relate it to what I already know.

Everyone learns differently and so will find different methods effecrive. Duolingo was a lot better when it first came about but now it is all about getting people trapped in a loop of feeling like they are learning something when they aren’t so they can maintain subscribers.

Except for the fact that it is designed to keep you coming back and hopefully paying them for the privaledge whilst making people believe they are learning something useful.

It is in fact counter productive to actually learning a language properly. I used it for a year and a half trying to learn Spanish and in that time I never really learnt anything of worth. On top of that my native Spanish speaking girlfriend told me on numerous occasions that the things it was “teaching” me were flat out incorrect.

I learnt more useful language skills in a month on Busuu than I did in a year and a half using Duolingo. So yes there is a lot of hate because it wasted a lot of my time for absolutely zero benefit and in some cases taught me the wrong things so I had to go back and “unlearn” all the bullshit it constantly pushed to me.

It isn’t a tool to bridge a gap, it is a word game designed to get you addicted to “streaks” and then hopefully remove money from your wallet under the guise of teaching you something.

People that seriously want to learn a language should be dissuaded from using this trash app as it is only counter productive to the learning process, they should instead check out Busuu or listen to Language Transfer which is free and vastly superior!

No one is learning any language using shitty Duolingo all they are learning is how to parrot useless phrases and vocab with no explanation on how to form sentences or actually use the language properly for themselves.

Interesting. Just a couple of years ago AI generated audiobooks were unlistenable for me due to the dead voice delivery but the example here actually sounds like it would be alright to listen to.

Definitely want to give this a try for some books that have never had an audio book recording. Thanks for posting!

Oooo thanks for the heads up. Did you see the last Australian series of this? It was absolutely fucking horrendous and made the second season here look amazing in comparison.

The music is fucking dog shit though xD

I pay to continually rip music from them, best of both worlds.

I have a large list on bandcamp that I follow to try and stay up with as many releases as I can, also following relevant genre “tags” on there to get recommendations from artists I may not know about. The genre tags can be hit and miss though due to artists often being unable to tag their work properly.

I’ll also listen to shows on SoundCloud and will search out tracks and new artists I hear on there. I’ll also occasionally check the Juno charts if I have run out of new music to listen to and in the last year started building up a follow list on Spotify to check new releases there that I may have missed from all the other avenues.