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Comment by trueno | Hacker News Reader

i think anyone who's done even a modicum of research knows that holding a conversation isnt going to come from an app or a library and actually being out there having convos with either a tutor or just all out immersion is required. then reading literature, consuming media in the other language yes your point is made duolingo isnt going to do these things for you. those initial stages of learning another language even the enshittified duolingo can help get a basic framework going. is it the best resource no absolutely not but it certainly can let people get their feet wet and even doing that is an "actual success" especially if it's something they otherwise wouldn't do.

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Getting feet wet is not a success though because it doesn't achieve anything. It is the beginning of maybe succeeding at something. The following sentence would be silly: "I used an app to learn programming, by writing hello world, and had actual success with it."

Except that getting feet wet here means "making you capable to progress by reading literature and watch movies".

That is more then just writing hello word. That is equivalent of "taught me basic programming, so I was able to write my first javascript game and continue learning by doing own projects". That definitely has large value for someone at 0.

> Getting feet wet is not a success though

It literally is maybe not by your metric but someone elses metric that can absolutely be a success. Sometimes getting up in the morning is a success for people I've been there I know what that's like. I'm kind of amused at the gatekeeping of what a 'success' is here. Guy said he has literally learned things that have stuck with him sounds like something he marks as a success to me, not like he was taking the course for college credit and had to demonstrate fluency lol

edit: yea the guy is now consuming media in a foreign language and has had small convos based on what he learned on duolingo. idk man smells like success

Why are you arguing against what you just said and against the comment I made before OP responded?

"anyone who's done even a modicum of research knows that holding a conversation... reading literature, consuming media...duolingo isnt going to do these things for you."

Your edit makes it sound like not only did I argue that what he did is not success, but that thinking so was dumb, while we both thought the same thing five minutes ago. In fact I argued that beginning a task does not constitute success in that task.

If OP is not exaggerating his success that is highly impressive and hard to believe, so good for him. That had nothing to do with anything else I said though.

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