Duolingo: Learning Foreign Languages RPG

Delzhand

I got accepted into the Duolingo private beta yesterday, and since my wife might be applying for things in Europe, I figured it might be a good time to give German a shot. It's pretty rad so far. I've never used Rosetta Stone or anything, so I don't know how comparable this is. But hey, it's free, and it uses that "gamification" approach (which I'm not normally a fan of). But unlike things like Fitocracy, it's not just self-reporting. It's basically like an RPG - you gain XP by completing practice, which will usually be enough to get you to the "learned" point for a given skill, but to master it you have to translate real-world examples like Wikipedia excerpts. So far I've been given a blog entry about a bookstore and the German Wikijunior article on Latvia.

Here's my progress screen:



It was started by the Luis von Ahn, the guy who figured out that you could use captchas to digitize books by tossing unknowns in with knowns and making people type in both. Computers are getting pretty decent at automatic translation, but there's so much variance in how language is used that I can definitely see the utility it comparing computer translations with human ones.

unintentional

that sounds very cool!

mensch-o-matic

Ahhh this looks cool but if its a private beta how can we use it : (

Do you know when it will open up? Or are you giving out codes right now?

TrippyJing

This does sound very interesting. What other languages does it offer?

Uriel

Oh man I wanna learn German.

I just signed up, hope I get in.

Delzhand

I signed up for the beta several months ago and followed Duolingo on twitter. They sent out 10,000 invites yesterday, but I don't know what the future schedule is. Right now it offers German and Spanish to English speakers, and I think English for Spanish speakers. I think English to Chinese, French and Italian are in the works. You can sign up for the beta at Duolingo.com.

I just came across the first line I couldn't translate. It was something about the Russians wanting to Russianize Latvia's cities to oppress the upper class Germans or something. It wasn't even the highest level translations I've been given either.

fightinfilipino

oh man i could use this to brush up on my spanish.

Radius

This looks super cool, hope to try it out sometime.

neville

sounds neat. i signed up

KillAudio

I was invited yesterday as well, it's very enjoyable so far.

Here is a video where Luis von Ahn explains the idea behind it.

http://youtu.be/cQl6jUjFjp4

Very Cool!

Delzhand

What language are you doing?

Shorty

looks cool, I need to learn German for school anyway so I'd love to use this

JoeUser

Shorty wrote: »

looks cool, I need to learn German for school anyway so I'd love to use this

You know who else spoke German?

Houk

this sounds super neat. does it do anything in terms of spoken pronunciation or is it focused just on writing? does it have supplementary info, like resources that explain punctuation or other linguistic things that language has that English doesn't?

Huntera

I signed up for this.

Hope that I can eventually get in on the English to Chinese one, but as is I'll try German.

Delzhand

I haven't plugged in my microphone, but it did prompt me to during setup. I know you can turn it back on later. And there's a section below the lessons that has commentary type stuff suggested by users, like "In German, all nouns are capitalized".

Houk

Delzhand wrote: »

I haven't plugged in my microphone, but it did prompt me to during setup. I know you can turn it back on later. And there's a section below the lessons that has commentary type stuff suggested by users, like "In German, all nouns are capitalized".

that's really cool!

i watched that one video and he was like 'with 1 million users, we could translate all of wikipedia into spanish in 80 hours' and i nearly shit myself because holy shit

Delzhand

I just realized you can follow other people and see their progress. If anyone wants to follow me, my username is the same. I'm currently Lv 4, I've unlocked phrases and food. Ich lerne!

DJ Eebs

might have to sign up for this to brush up on french whenever they add it

or spanish, since that'd actually be useful

nah, french

Larlar

H5 Delz, I got accepted a few days ago!

I'm learning Spanish, though, because...uh...I guess I don't want to learn German.

DJ Eebs

speaking in german is akin to making angry vomit noises

crwth

JoeUser wrote: »

Shorty wrote: »

looks cool, I need to learn German for school anyway so I'd love to use this

You know who else spoke German?

MY MOM!

Delzhand

I'm now following a Larlar, hopefully that's you.

Edit: Huh, the spanish tree is different. I mean, I assume it would be for functional differences, but the Sports and Politics sections are at the very end of German, but not quite so in Spanish

ChicoBlue

Crwth, I want you to learn as many languages as you can.

I want you to be able to lick all sorts of wacky alphabets into my sweet little clitty.

Larlar

It is indeed. The great thing about being part of a limited beta is no one takes your username.

Now...



Race you to the end. First person to become ruler of the language's respective country wins.

KalTorak

Looks very cool. My fiancee speaks French, and I've been meaning to learn - all I can manage now is what I can guess from the Latin I studied. Hope they get the French up and running soon.

Delzhand

You're making your owl cry, [redacted]!

Also, I'm not sure I'd want to rule Germany. I mean, I'd be tempted to bring back those fashionable outfits of the 40s, but... you know...

mensch-o-matic

i remember this thing i heard (on radioab) that showed two babies, one french and one german

and they recorded their voices and found that the german baby cried in a deeper tone than the french baby because the language is a little deeper and it would endear them to their german parents more

i dont remember if it was an innate trait or if they had to be raised with the language, though, but it was really cool

Delzhand

I think the languages need class names. I'm gonna go with Germangineer and Spaniarrior.

mensch-o-matic

frenchomancer

PiptheFair

if you want to become the leader of germany, you have to battle merkel

you don't want to do that

Delzhand

Chineseer
Italadin

Larlar

mensch-o-matic wrote: »

frenchomancer

but pronounced french-o-man-say

mensch-o-matic

fron-swa-say-o-man-say-can-you-see-by-the-dawns-early-light

Larlar

Delzhand wrote: »

You're making your owl cry, [redacted]!

Also, I'm not sure I'd want to rule Germany. I mean, I'd be tempted to bring back those fashionable outfits of the 40s, but... you know...

I'm finishing up my Masters in these next two weeks. It's hard to find time for digital owls right now.

LuvTheMonkey

No no

Italimancer

Because of Mass Effect

I'll see myself out now

Aphostile

This is actually a very nifty idea.

Signed up!

Lost Salient

This is a nifty idea! I'd totally use it to make myself feel better about my Korean skills, if, you know, it offered Korean.

LuvTheMonkey

I signed up for Italian - at least, to have a chance when it becomes available.

Delzhand

Verdammt, Larlar! Are you just blowing through the lessons?

Edit: Yeah, that's right. I gained 8 points before bed just to pass you by.

Larlar

Heh. I'm just procrastinating from actual work I have to do. This is a fantastic outlet.