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I've been using DuoLingo for the past year to learn Italian. It's a fun, interactive way to learn the language, although it lacks a lot of grammar and conjugation rules. To help supplement, I just ordered some books from Amazon on grammar and conjugation. I hope that between these new books and DuoLingo my Italian will improve. Also, on DuoLingo, I find that in the exercises where I use the microphone to mimic the sentence or phrase, I can absolutely murder the pronunciation and DL says I did fine, and there are times when I absolutely nail it, and DL has me continually repeat it.
But for a free app, I think it's a great little aid.
Good point. As you're going along, DL kinds of leaves it up to you to figure out grammar and conjugations, though there are notes that you can click on and even notes at the end of each section (at least for French) that do help in explaining the principles of the language. I guess since I was going through the French course as a review after taking it for three years in high school, there were a lot of things that I already knew so it didn't matter so much and I didn't realize that there were other gaps that may exist for completely new language learners. FWIW I finished the French course before they started putting up the notes separately, so that's one big improvement that wasn't there when I started.
Oh, and in regards to the speaking/microphone aspect, I turned that off after the first day or two of use because I found it to be terrible and hindering to my progress. The technology doesn't seem to be refined enough to work like they want it to.
DL also has message boards where people can discuss the language and where native speakers sometimes chime in with insights about what certain words or phrases actually mean or how the language is actually used.
I've been using DuoLingo for the past year to learn Italian. It's a fun, interactive way to learn the language, although it lacks a lot of grammar and conjugation rules. To help supplement, I just ordered some books from Amazon on grammar and conjugation. I hope that between these new books and DuoLingo my Italian will improve. Also, on DuoLingo, I find that in the exercises where I use the microphone to mimic the sentence or phrase, I can absolutely murder the pronunciation and DL says I did fine, and there are times when I absolutely nail it, and DL has me continually repeat it.
But for a free app, I think it's a great little aid.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Clevelander17
Good point. As you're going along, DL kinds of leaves it up to you to figure out grammar and conjugations, though there are notes that you can click on and even notes at the end of each section (at least for French) that do help in explaining the principles of the language. I guess since I was going through the French course as a review after taking it for three years in high school, there were a lot of things that I already knew so it didn't matter so much and I didn't realize that there were other gaps that may exist for completely new language learners. FWIW I finished the French course before they started putting up the notes separately, so that's one big improvement that wasn't there when I started.
Oh, and in regards to the speaking/microphone aspect, I turned that off after the first day or two of use because I found it to be terrible and hindering to my progress. The technology doesn't seem to be refined enough to work like they want it to.
DL also has message boards where people can discuss the language and where native speakers sometimes chime in with insights about what certain words or phrases actually mean or how the language is actually used.
With Livemocha, you speak into a microphone, but a native speaker will assess it and give you feedback. In return, you do it for people trying to learn English.
Livemocha has the same issues with grammar, syntax, and such. I like to learn the actual rules. And one thing that almost no language prep does, is teach you the exact translation. For example, please in French is s'il vous (te) plait. That actually translates to if you please. Knowing these rhythms is very important, imo.
It drives me crazy when I am watching a French movie with English subtitles and recognizing that they are not translating the movie, but rather, just giving you the gist.
I'm weird that way, though.
Somewhere along the way, Livemocha and Rosetta Stone joined forces. Now, I am constantly getting discount offers for Rosetta Stone via Livemocha.
With Livemocha, you speak into a microphone, but a native speaker will assess it and give you feedback. In return, you do it for people trying to learn English.
Livemocha has the same issues with grammar, syntax, and such. I like to learn the actual rules. And one thing that almost no language prep does, is teach you the exact translation. For example, please in French is s'il vous (te) plait. That actually translates to if you please. Knowing these rhythms is very important, imo.
It drives me crazy when I am watching a French movie with English subtitles and recognizing that they are not translating the movie, but rather, just giving you the gist.
I'm weird that way, though.
Somewhere along the way, Livemocha and Rosetta Stone joined forces. Now, I am constantly getting discount offers for Rosetta Stone via Livemocha.
Yeah I like to know literal translations because I think it's helpful to know exactly how a phrase is derived, especially the common ones that are just thrown at you (i.e. "voilà " is from vois and là meaning "see there" but colloquially means a number of related things). I'm like that about English words and phrases, too. I teach social studies, not English or language arts, but I always try to take some time to explain Greek/Latin roots and even idioms to my students when we come across them.
I agree with several people on the web who believe Rosetta is not a good tool. Rosetta is just too inefficient. There are much much better resources to learn a language for the same price or cheaper. I went ahead and tried Rosetta out, I was provided a free copy, thinking that it could be helpful as an additional resource, but I found that the detractors are correct. It's methodology is too slow, ineffecient, and not to mention, it doesn't focus on teaching kernel lexicon. A similar issue I have with memrise. There are several reviews from various polygots online that expand on this issue. It's simply not worth the time and money. Especially with Russian. Anyone learning Russian, I would highly recommend the Russian Accelerator (you can find the alphabet lessons online for free and the first 30 lessons on Udemy for free) or Pimsleur. Much more efficient resources.
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