Duolingo is a Free, Crowdsourced Language Learning App (Video)

This is an interview with Duolingo engineer Franklin Ditzler. He's not a smooth marketing guy getting all rah-rah about the company and what it does, just a coder who enjoys his job and seems to like where he works and what he's doing. Note that Duolingo is a free language teaching tool, and they seem determined to keep it free for language students by selling crowdsourced translation services to companies like CNN and BuzzFeed.

Duolingo founder and CEO Luis von Ahn is an associate professor in the Carnegie Mellon University Computer Science Department, and was one of the original developers behind reCAPTCHA. Google acquired ReCAPTCHA in 2009 for "an undisclosed sum," a bit of history that led TechCrunch to speculate back in 2011 that Google would buy Duolingo within six months -- which didn't happen. But don't despair. It's still possible that Google (or another big company) might absorb Duolingo. We'll just have to wait and see -- and possibly improve our foreign language skills while we wait. (Alternate Video Link)

Comments

Re:Wife

[CanHasDIY]

Playing with it now (phrasing, BOOM)...

First impressions: it's cutesy fun, and the site is obviously based on the same system that Codeacademy uses.

Two problems I've noticed thus far: 1, certain parts want you to use a microphone. I HATE websites that want to use my mic, and I'm pretty sure I'm far from alone in feeling that way.

The other, larger issue I have is that, when you answer incorrectly, the system doesn't necessarily specify why you were wrong, which tends to lead to frustration and ultimately, giving up, since not knowing why you were wrong makes it a lot harder to know how to be right.

Still, leaning towards the "this is pretty cool" end of the spectrum, and hopefully it gets better with time.

How I'm learning German

[ciaran_o_riordan]

FWIW, I'm also learning German. It's the fifth language I'm learning as an adult and it's definitely the toughest. I've never found any good software or edu-websites, I just use the old methods. I watch a lot of German telly:

* http://mediathek.daserste.de/s...
* http://www.zdf.de/Sendungen-vo...

Series are the easiest because you can get to know the characters and then they're kinda predictable so you can't get completely lost. The News is easy enough because there's lots of pictures and you'll know the context of most stories, but it doesn't teach you conversational German. Comedy can be the toughest. On Das Erste, there's a crime drama most Friday and Sunday nights called Tatort which is good because there's also a version for blind people ("hÃrfassung" - o-umlaut between h and r, if that doesn't display right), which has everything of the normal version plus one extra voice describing the visuals, so you hear a lot more words.

I also read German translations of books I've already read. And when I'm cooking I leave on WDR5 talk radio in the background, all to help develop a feel for how the language sounds when used correctly:

* http://www.listenlive.eu/germa...

And I do tandems with a native German:

* http://conversationexchange.co...

Oh, and of course I'm working my way through a book with grammar and exercises.

Yeh, German's a tough nut to crack alright. Unlike Spanish, you have to do a lot of grammar before you can really start building sentences (the declensions are what frustrate me most) but I think it's a language where your effort won't show at first, but then there's the breakthrough later.