A Linguist explains how to make duolingo actually work
Summary
TLDRIn this script, Dr. Taylor Jones explores the effectiveness of Duolingo for language learning, challenging the notion that it's just a casual tool. Despite its gamified and accessible nature, Jones, a linguist, argues that with intentional use, Duolingo can be a powerful language learning resource. The video offers 10 tips to enhance learning, such as using italki for real conversations, regularly practicing, and supplementing with grammar books. Jones emphasizes the importance of setting a study schedule, interacting with native speakers, and not relying solely on Duolingo for language mastery.
Takeaways
- 📱 Duolingo is a popular language learning app that offers gamified, bite-sized lessons for free.
- 🎓 Dr. Taylor Jones, a linguist with a PhD, suggests that while Duolingo can be part of a learning strategy, it's important to be intentional about how you use it for language acquisition.
- 📚 To enhance learning, supplement Duolingo with a grammar book to familiarize yourself with the language's structures without memorizing them.
- 🗣️ Engage in conversation with native speakers through platforms like italki to gain real-time interaction and deeper understanding.
- 💡 When translating, construct the whole sentence in your mind before selecting words, and say it out loud to practice fluency.
- 🔁 Use Duolingo regularly, ideally daily, to reinforce and build upon your learning.
- 📈 Do the math on the time commitment required for language proficiency; setting a schedule can help achieve goals faster.
- 📝 For less common languages, take messy notes to aid memory formation and spatial memory, which is beneficial for recall.
- 🌟 Move beyond the app to real content and interactions; use Duolingo as a stepping stone to actual language use in context.
- 🧠 Self-test your learning by generating sentences and concepts in your mind, which helps solidify your understanding.
- 🚀 Use free association and imaginative scenarios to make learning fun and to enhance retention of vocabulary and grammar.
Q & A
What is Duolingo and why is it popular?
-Duolingo is a massively popular language learning app that offers gamified, bite-sized lessons for free. It's popular because it's accessible, easy to use, and provides linguistic content tailored to each language it offers.
Can Duolingo really help you become fluent in a language?
-Duolingo claims you can reach B2 level in the Common European Framework. While it's possible to learn with any tool, the effectiveness depends on individual learning speed, ease, and personal fit.
What are some tips to maximize language learning with Duolingo?
-Tips include being intentional with your learning, understanding what each lesson teaches, supplementing with a grammar book, practicing with native speakers, and using italki for real-time interaction.
How does Dr. Taylor Jones recommend using Duolingo for effective language learning?
-Dr. Jones suggests using Duolingo more intentionally, setting aside dedicated time for focused learning, and combining it with other resources and real-life interactions for a comprehensive language learning experience.
What is the role of grammar books in language learning according to the script?
-Grammar books are recommended as a reference to familiarize yourself with all grammatical structures and exceptions of a language, rather than for memorization.
Why is it beneficial to talk with native speakers while learning a language?
-Talking with native speakers provides real-time interaction, deeper understanding, and patient, experienced guidance, which is more structured than random encounters on the street or in a cafe.
What does the speaker suggest when translating from English to your target language on Duolingo?
-The speaker suggests forming the whole sentence in your mind first, then selecting the words, and saying it out loud naturally before moving on.
How often should you use Duolingo for effective learning according to the video?
-For effective learning, Duolingo should be used regularly, daily or more often, to build and reinforce language skills.
What is the significance of completing Duolingo's course and how long might it take?
-Completing Duolingo's course is significant as it covers a comprehensive range of skills. The time it takes can vary greatly depending on the language and the learner's commitment, but it can be as short as six months with consistent daily practice.
How can you reinforce memory formation while learning a language with Duolingo?
-Reinforcing memory formation can be achieved through note-taking, using spaced repetition software like Anki, and engaging in real-life interactions and content in the target language.
What is the importance of setting a clear goal and schedule when using Duolingo?
-Setting a clear goal and schedule is important to understand the time commitment required to reach a certain language proficiency level and to effectively plan and track your progress.
What are some additional tips mentioned in the script for enhancing language learning beyond Duolingo?
-Additional tips include self-testing, free association chains, imagining scenarios in the language, and being aware of potential inaccuracies in AI-generated text and audio on Duolingo.
Outlines
📚 Maximizing Duolingo's Language Learning Potential
The paragraph discusses the widespread use of Duolingo as a language learning tool and questions its effectiveness for fluency. It emphasizes that while Duolingo offers gamified, free, and accessible language lessons, actual fluency may depend on individual learning speed and style. The speaker, Dr. Taylor Jones, suggests that while Duolingo can be used casually, a more intentional approach is necessary for serious language acquisition. Tips are promised to transform Duolingo from a casual to a serious learning tool.
🗓️ Consistent Practice and Real Interaction for Language Mastery
This paragraph focuses on the importance of regular practice with Duolingo and supplementing it with real-life interactions. It suggests daily usage of Duolingo and setting aside dedicated time for language learning. The speaker also recommends using platforms like italki for real-time interaction with native speakers, which enhances understanding and memory retention. The paragraph includes a promo code for italki and discusses the benefits of consistent learning over sporadic sessions.
🚀 Accelerating Language Acquisition with Strategic Methods
The final paragraph offers advanced strategies to supercharge language learning with Duolingo. It advises users to be intentional about their learning, take notes, and use memory reinforcement tools like Anki. The speaker encourages moving beyond Duolingo to real content and interactions, suggesting ways to practice the language in real-life scenarios. The paragraph concludes with a caution about the limitations of AI-generated content in Duolingo and the importance of real-world corrections and interactions for language learning.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Duolingo
💡B2 level
💡Gamified
💡Linguistics
💡Grammar book
💡iTalki
💡Spaced repetition
💡Meta-linguistic cognition
💡AI-generated content
💡Language immersion
Highlights
Duolingo is a massively popular language learning app that offers gamified, bite-sized lessons for free.
It claims to help users reach B2 level fluency in the Common European Framework.
The app's effectiveness varies; some find it works well, while others do not.
Duolingo's content is translation-based and lacks imagery and immersion.
Tips are provided to enhance language learning with Duolingo beyond casual use.
Understanding what each lesson aims to teach is crucial for effective learning.
Supplementing Duolingo with a grammar book can provide a comprehensive reference.
Engaging with native speakers through platforms like italki can deepen language understanding.
When translating, construct the whole sentence in your mind before selecting words.
Regular and consistent use of Duolingo is key to language retention.
Committing to a daily study routine can significantly speed up language acquisition.
Duolingo's courses can be completed faster than the app's default pace by dedicating more time daily.
For less common languages, taking notes and analyzing content is recommended.
Spaced repetition software like Anki can reinforce memory formation beyond Duolingo.
Transitioning from Duolingo to real content and interactions is essential for practical language use.
Self-testing and free association can help internalize and recall language concepts.
Imagining scenarios where you use the language can enhance memory and motivation.
Duolingo's use of AI for text and audio generation can sometimes lead to inaccuracies.
Transcripts
if you've thought about learning a
language at all in the past decade
you've probably thought about or even
tried Duolingo it's massively popular
and it's easy to see why it's free it's
gamified it comes in bite-sized chunks
and the linguistic content is different
for every language they offer unlike say
Rosetta Stone but can you actually get
fluent with it they claim you can get to
B2 in the common European framework
that's separate and they have compelling
looking graphs and grammar breakdowns to
convince us that you can as a language
learner with a PhD in linguistics I
think the truth is that you can learn
with anything but it's a question of
speed ease and whether it works for you
literally everyone I know uses Duolingo
including myself and all my linguist
colleagues but a lot of people also tell
me that it just didn't work for them
along with classroom study self-study
Michelle Thomas CDs Rosetta Stone and
literally everything else so today I'm
going to explain how to take Duolingo
from the app that you use when you're on
the toilet and Reddit is down to a real
way to get up to speed in a language
spoilers you're going to have to pull
your pants up wash your hands and be a
little bit more intentional about how
you learn let's do this I'm Dr Taylor
Jones and the Green Owl isn't making me
say these things
ah this is language sounds
[Music]
the truth is all sorts of different
approaches to language learning will
work Duolingo has the benefit of being
free in your pocket all the time and
somewhat aggressive and encouraging you
to learn or passive aggressive depending
on who you get and they have a lot of
languages they also have plenty of
shortcomings like being entirely
translation based and not having any
imagery immersion and imagery really
kick-start memory instead of letting
perfect be the enemy of good though I
want to give you 10 tips to supercharge
your language learning with what you're
probably already using you don't have to
do all of these or really any of them
but they all work and if you use them
all you'll see that you actually get a
lot more out of Duo then go than XP
which are it turns out not redeemable
for cash and do not correspond to
linguistic ability without further Ado
one think about what they're trying to
teach in each lesson you'd be surprised
how many people practice a lesson or a
skill in Duolingo and then couldn't tell
you afterwards what it's trying to teach
when I'm done with a skill I can tell
you exactly what grammatical concept
they were really trying to teach for
instance date of experience or
constructions and double date of marking
in the Spanish course that's your leg
supplement with a grammar not to
memorize but to familiarize a grammar
being a book with a name like an
essential grammar of X in a few hundred
Pages you'll have all and I mean all of
the grammatical structures of a language
and the exceptions at your fingertips
don't memorize it just use it as a
reference I like to skim a grammar of
whatever I'm learning periodically two
talk with people in your target language
I use italki for this as you might have
seen in this video iTalk is a platform
that connects Learners with native
speakers of their target language with
over 150 languages represented they have
their own video conferencing platform
through their website a mobile app that
allows you to easily schedule lessons
and a ton of teachers and tutors to
choose from the reason to use a platform
like italki is that the teachers expect
to teach you rather than being
interrupted on the street or in a cafe
and their patient experienced and tend
to have pretty good lesson plans
although I often take notes on what I'm
seeing in Duolingo and then just ask my
teachers about that so I get real-time
interaction with real people a deeper
understanding of what's being taught and
when I see the same materials in
Duolingo it's in an exercise in locking
that all into long-term memory if you're
curious what a real lesson looks like
this is from a recent lesson with Barack
where we got to talking about bone
breaks and lower body injuries
gamma
a lot okay
yeah okay sure so I just don't remember
it
um which is
is described
what it is
walking so
yeah they wouldn't translate straight to
English but in English the translation
will be stress fracture if you want to
try italki I have a promo code in the
description below for five dollars off
with your first ten dollars I misspoke
here let's get an extra five dollars
free with your first purchase you can
try it out lessons start from five
dollars the promo code
is what is the promo code
promo code's gonna appear on the screen
and it's only available for the first I
don't know how many people
three when you're prompted to translate
from English to your target language
come up with the whole sentence first
then select the words that is don't pick
words from the word bank one at a time
to answer and don't type the words out
one at a time get the whole sentence in
mind and then go bonus say it out loud
first bonus bonus don't move on before
saying it naturally or at least not
haltingly
a for uh
uh show
before Shield team four use it regularly
daily or more often so you build on and
reinforce what you see I know this
sounds really obvious but you'd be
surprised how many people do half a
skill take a week off do the other half
and then complain that they didn't learn
anything as with anything else you have
to actually sometimes commit time back
when I worked retail for Rosetta Stone
the whole selling point was that it was
as little as 20 minutes a day that was
before smartphones and now people bulk
at a two-minute lesson set aside 10 15
20 even 30 minutes and just focus on
language learning you can spare 30
minutes I have a newborn at home and I
can spare 30 minutes practically this
means for most languages treat a skill
that is an entire circley dude as one
thing and aim for at least one but
preferably more than one a day here's
the secret about Duolingo
they're a company that wants to make
money they're balancing actually
teaching you something with wanting you
to feel like you've learned something
but continue using the product forever
either you pay for plus and you stay
subscribed forever or you don't and you
see ads forever but you can actually
finish their course
any of their courses
that said do the math on it French has
like 180 units with approximately 10
skills per unit and four to five lessons
per skill if you're doing a skill a day
that's 180 times 10 equals 1800 days or
roughly 4.9 years I won't fault you if
you actually speak French it'll be too
level in that amount of time I took High
School French visited family in France
throughout high school and my University
years and then worked at Rosetta Stone
for a year before taking the B2 exam and
acing it but it's pretty well
established that you can get there a
whole heck of a lot faster than five
years I can do a french lesson in
Duolingo and two minutes flat a skill
then in 10 minutes a unit a day would be
about an hour and a half a day doable if
I'm really committed and just watch less
TV and at that rate one could finish
their very long French course in 180
days or about six months
this is going to be different for other
languages Hebrew has way fewer skills
but way more packed into each of them
but one thing that I learned from coding
and from running a business is to take
time at the beginning to figure out
exactly what the scale of a project is
you want to use Duolingo to get to B2
totally doable how much time will that
actually take though how can you fit
that into your plans to speak at a B2
level in six months or in one year or in
two years do the math make a schedule
and get it done five for Less common
languages take notes and analyze what
you're seeing don't make them perfect I
intentionally keep a very messy notebook
for Hebrew with different writing styles
and layouts and transliterations and
formatting that's just all over the
place because if I'm not careful I start
fixating on getting perfect handwriting
my notebooks are not going to be poured
over after my death like Leonardo da
Vinci's yours probably aren't either the
act of writing helps you to memorize
more so than typing and externalizing
means you can go back and revisit
without doing it on Duolingo schedule it
also helps with spatial memory formation
based on looking at where it is on the
page six consider doing more to memorize
than just trusting Duo alone
or not for French and Spanish I don't do
this at all for Hebrew I use the Hebrew
Anki deck and add notes to myself and
sometimes helpful images or mnemonics
but again I don't need that for romance
languages your mileage may vary but if
you're not remembering things you have
to reinforce the memory formation and
space repetition software is a great way
to do that and it's a passive way to do
it seven get it over with and continue
on to real content and real people this
is a combination of points four and two
get it done and move on real people you
can start with italki link in
description
but I also mean that you can use that as
a bridge to IRL interactions scary right
learning French watch French movies go
to French restaurants and just eavesdrop
if you're shy
extreme the news on YouTube on France
mancat buy a plane ticket and go to
France don't wait until you've completed
every lesson and you feel like you've
perfectly mastered the language that day
will never come get comfortable being a
little uncomfortable but improvising I
like to use Gabriel winer's list of 625
words and try to figure out how I could
express any complicated concept with
just those words it's an exercise it's
like playing taboo by Hasbro make that
your game uh
I'll tell you eight self-test after
walking away you can do this in your
head out loud or with a pen and paper
not necessarily exact sentences but
think about vocabulary and grammatical
Concepts this is in part why I always
know what they were trying to teach the
best way to do this is to generate your
own sentences using what you learned
that aren't the sentences that you saw
already even if it's just swapping out a
word for example
let's say you learned
so you say
or conversely
have fun making connections and swapping
out words in constructions I do this all
the time washing dishes I'm just
babbling to myself nine
free association chains this will appeal
to a certain kind of person and maybe
not so much to everyone else I like to
start somewhere and just
free associate example one I go by
related meanings if I start with a word
like conocer I might then think about
what's like it
you can even get to antonyms like dudar
example two associate by Form conocer
has an interesting first-person singular
form konosco so from there Fresco
Etc bonus do it with two types it can
just be nonsense because you're just
playing word games for instance verbs
and animals
and so on it's a game have fun with it
the forms are going to depend on the
language so I might do like PL verbs in
the past and foodstuffs in Hebrew so
that's because
number ten it's kind of a bonus imagine
scenarios using the language they don't
have to be realistic and in fact there's
some evidence that the more outrageous
and the less realistic they are the
better you retain the language that
you're populating your Daydreams with
I'm not super motivated to learn Spanish
as you may have heard when I just spoke
a little bit but unless I'm thinking
about specific situations with people I
like for instance a trip to a city with
a friend from there or imagining being
the most interesting international Man
of Mystery in Buenos Aires who dances
Tango and spends the afternoons drinking
cortados and making contact with foreign
agents everything becomes that random
example
that's a sentence from Duolingo that's
no longer a tediously simple sentence I
have to get through and Duolingo in
order to move on predicated on an
outdated mode of media consumption
popular across language learning
platforms for some reason instead it
becomes a code phrase by which I'm
making contact with my Handler
who might be a double agent for all I
know these tips are just general best
practices but combined with Duolingo I'm
confident that you can actually learn
your target language without spending
much or any money although I do
recommend investing a little bit in
lessons with italki again down below
will get you to C2 absolutely not the
funny thing is people who ask this don't
seem to have a grasp of what the test
actually entails you learn all of the
grammar of French and a vocabulary that
will serve you in all of your day-to-day
interactions and you're at wait for it
B2 C2 is entirely about whether you can
analyze texts extract arguments
basically do all of the meta-linguistic
cognition necessary to not just be
someone who speaks say French
as in my example but who can work
effectively in intellectually demanding
jobs or give an interview on live TV but
you can't get there without the
foundation in the language so these are
all tips that I use and should probably
use even more than I do every single one
is time tested and effective have you
used any of these with your study or
your favorites let me know in the
comments so I'd actually finish this
video when I came across something in
Duolingo that I think I should really
point out they've been using a lot more
AI to generate their text and to
generate their audio and this comes with
its own dangers so in this sentence in
French
foreign
the Amazon is actually obligatory in
that context so instead of it should be
a native speaker would never make this
mistake but because it's automatic text
to speech you get a little weirdness
sometimes so it's just something to be
aware of if you read a grammar you're
gonna get Corrections you're going to
understand what the problems are and
when you talk to real people you're
going to get those corrections as well
it doesn't make it unusable but it does
make it a little tricky to use as your
only way of learning special thanks to
all of my patrons if you want to become
one there's a link in the description
and if you like this video check out
this one where I criticize fake
polyglots and as always I have
merchandise available as well
until next time happy learning
and look out for the owl
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