OT: Anyone try duolingo to learn a new language?

[MattTuck]

Been thinking about trying to learn a new language for a while now, and just learned of this site, duolingo. Not sure if it is similar to rossetta stone, or better.

Anyone have any experience? good or bad?

[grognaak]

It‘s fantastic for German! Have used Rosetta Stone, lived in Austria, had college-level language courses, worked with native speakers, and have done a fair bit of self-teaching. I love Duolingo, but the best strategy is to use many methods. I read somewhere that Duolingo can be as effective as college coursework—I think that‘s true.

[mcallen]

In my personal and professional experience as language learner and teacher/researcher, I think it can work as part of a multipronged approach for motivated people. My take is that the tech is recent but the model of learning has been around for awhile. I suggest setting some realistic goals for (a) what you want to learn and (b) how much time you will devote to study. One known issue of computer assisted language learning is high attrition. Helps to also plug into actual language usage, such as real people, classes, or videos/news/movies.

[MattTuck]

Thanks, those are good points.

I had originally thought that my wife and I could take a local 8 week course (2 nights a week). But not sure that is going to work anymore, so looking at online options.

[Heisenberg]

I've used RS and DuoLingo in tandem with some modicum of success, though it's hard to beat modern structured classes.

And, of course, immersion.

I've often found that those apps can help prepare for immersion, but for me personally, there's nothing like being dropped into the deep end to learn a language.

[ceolwulf]

Duolingo is fantastic to get started with. You won't get fluent from it but I don't think that's the intention. There's no substitute for plenty of immersion, especially extensive reading.

[Frankwurst]

Our daughters minor in college was in Spanish. She uses Duolingo now to refresh and further her ability and highly recommended it to us. The Mrs. has been using it and seems to like it. Me? I'm still trying to learn how to speak English. I'll probably try playing with it in the near future just to learn a little Spanish. :beer:

[Louis]

Rassias !

http://rassias.dartmouth.edu/community/index.html

[AJosiahK]

used it a bunch before a long trip to the south of france, it was very useful! However, I felt if one did not get a head start then finding those most useful and common phrases to be hard to get to.