Comment by jamal-kumar | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jamal-kumar | Hacker News Reader

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I find it really useful for practice, but it's obviously not the best thing to be using solely if you think that's going to reach you to proficiency.

It's a fun way to kill like 15-20 minutes a day, it's probably the closest thing I waste my time on that's like a video game these days yet 100x more productive. I've got books for learning Russian and German to go through along with using Duolingo as a pretty good option for practicing basically everything else. It's fun to compare how I got Spanish down via immersion without really practicing too hard on anything outside of rosetta stone (Didn't teach me a damn thing, was a very bad tool back in the day)... Just reading a book from the 1950s (Madrigal's Magic Key to Spanish -- highly recommended) and sinking myself into that world for a while took so many years. I'm pretty sure I would have done better off with some better programs and proper study instead, but it definitely gave perspective to where tools like Duolingo have their place and where they're the most useful in pretty much giving you gameified drills and tests.

> It's a fun way to kill like 15-20 minutes a day, it's probably the closest thing I waste my time on that's like a video game these days yet 100x more productive.

I've tried to use Duolingo to learn a new language. I found it very effective for a few weeks (of daily exercise).

I remember though, that at some point the questions were repeated frequently, went off the intended theme, and overall, they were not intended to make users think or remember.

Getting off track was something that irritated me the most, as I couldn't focus on a subject.

Essentially, after the initial phase, it's completely useless as a learning tool. It's a shame because it could be effective and fun at the same, but I have the suspicion that mid/long-term learning effectiveness is not their target.

Yeah, that's kind of the point where I reached with German on it and I think I'd have to agree with you. The only problem with German is that practicing in-person outside of that country and the conversation usually veers into English much too easily as their English is often quite good.

I'm surprised how much I get now between translating words I don't know on leo.org and just reading what I know already on news articles which is how I'm keeping up casually on that. The journalism in that country is top notch and it is probably worth learning the language for this alone.

I feel the same way about Duolingo. I used to be able to speak a moderate amount of German and let it lapse. I picked up Duolingo because it substituted for some other casual activity I might do on my phone (crossword, read hackernews, etc.) And learning some conversational German feels like a better use of time. However it is pretty basic. I know there are hundreds or thousands of units and spending 10 minutes a day probably won't get me very far. Still if I keep it up and take a trip to German I'll at least know some of the basics. I practice with my long-suffering family who has to listen to me say Mein sohn is sehr klug! and other stuff like that all the time.

Pick up a book or two to round out your formal understanding of grammar, and make some German friends, maybe even just online if that's easiest to help you with your pronunciation.

First if you enjoy learning new languages and you find it useful thats great! Not trying to put you down in any way. However, you say:

> it's probably the closest thing I waste my time on that's like a video game these days yet 100x more productive

This makes it sound like video games are useless and learning a new language is super useful. In your situation this could totally be true but for some people (like me!) learning a new language isn't super useful! If your a video game dev playing games would be 100x more productive than learning a new language and if you travel around the world then learning a language would be 100x better than a video game! I feel like its almost impossible to know whats more "productive" in general.

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