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Comment by bdjsiqoocwk | Hacker News Reader

> I use my phone on a morning for Duolingo

Duolingo is extremely passive. you're not learning a language, you're learning how to answer correctly on an app.

It's a lot more time efficient to do exercises from a grammar. But... It doesn't feel as good. Which is exactly the point.

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I think that there are a lot of issues with the way Duolingo motives people through unhealthy incentives, but research does show that it works. Though it will need to be used in conjunction with other methods of learning to be truly helpful. But then, why would you learn a language if you’re not going to actively use it?

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/379288394_The_Effec...

No, research doesn't show that it works.

That research you link has been conducted by Xiangying Jiang and Bozena Pajak (first and last authors). If you want to contact them about how totally objective and unbiased they are, here are their emails:

xiangying@duolingo.com bozena@duolingo.com

Don't forget the second author, ryanpeters@duolingo.com!

There's a subreddit for this, it's r/MurderedByWords

Touché!

> Though it will need to be used in conjunction with other methods of learning to be truly helpful.

This reminded me of that story by Feynman where he meets a painter that claims we can make orange paint with just red and white.

That's too dismissive in my view. Duolingo isn't as good as in-person lessons, but it's still way better than nothing. I'd also argue that grammar exercises are cripplingly boring for most people, so if the choice is not learning or grammar exercises they'd choose not learning, which is worse. I'd also argue that you're only talking strictly about learning language in the most efficient way, but missing out on the fact that if you can make it fun, the enjoyment in itself is a valid reason for doing something.

> Duolingo isn't as good as in-person lessons, but it's still way better than nothing

I disagree. Duolingo makes you feel that you are being productive and you are learning (when you actually don't).

That is worse than nothing, because when you do nothing you know you are being indulgent, will feel bad about it, and react.

Duolingo is like a candy wrapped in package that says "this is a healthy vegetable".

Learning fast is fun to me.

Edit: yes, I am dismissive because I've tried it and seen that its obviously a scam, in the sense that it's sold as a fun way of learning but it's actually just a fun way of not learning.

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