Since many translators are compulsive language learners–in addition to our working languages, it seems that we’re always trying to learn new ones–I thought I’d give a brief overview of my experience studying Italian with Duolingo, a free online language-learning site. If other readers have used Duolingo, I’d be interested in hearing your impressions!
The basics: Duolingo promotes itself as “the world’s most popular way to learn a language.” It’s free, and you can do the lessons on Duolingo’s website or via their app. They currently offer 23 languages (the ones you’d expect, plus surprises like Esperanto and Welsh) and their primary hook is that you study the language in very small increments–each lesson takes about five minutes to complete. Duolingo is also very gamified–whether you like that kind of thing or not. You earn badges and “lingots” (virtual jewels that can be redeemed for various bonuses on the site), and you can follow friends who also study on Duolingo. Like many other web-based learning platforms, Duolingo offers a paid version that is ad-free and allows you to download the lessons for offline use. The paid upgrades range from $5.99 to $9.99 a month, depending on how many months you pay for at once.
My purpose: I started Duolingo’s Italian course about six months ago, with the goal of being able to hold a basic conversation in Italian. I don’t aspire to translate from Italian. My family has done three bike trips in Italy, and one of my (many) big dreams is to someday do some sort of music program in Italy to further my studies on the lute (what can I say…it keeps me out of trouble). I’ve done the “Italian for Dummies” CDs, and of course the full-immersion experience when we’re there is helpful. But my goal is pretty basic: be able to have simple conversations in Italian. According to Duolingo, I’m now 40% fluent in Italian–more on this later.
The pluses: Duolingo has a lot to recommend it. It’s free, it’s fun, and it’s a pretty painless way to learn the basics of a new language. The lessons are very straightforward and well-designed, and I’ll admit that Duolingo’s gimmicks work on me (like a charm!). I really try to make good use of the little pockets of time in the day (waiting for a conference call, waiting for my daughter at guitar lessons, and so on), so as soon as Duolingo e-mails me, “Got 5 minutes? Do a lesson!” I’m on it. Duolingo offers lots of ways to reinforce what you’re learning: you can mouse over a word to hear it pronounced, or to display the equivalent in English.
The minuses: If you’re trying to learn a language for real (or somewhat for real), Duolingo also has a few downsides. First, the lessons seem to get less varied and creative as you progress up the ladder. Initially, the Italian course involved a wide variety of activities: translating from Italian to English and English to Italian in writing; sight-translating written English sentences into spoken Italian (with pronunciation analysis), matching pictures with the Italian nouns for them, and so on. But as I’ve made progress, the exercises are almost exclusively translating written Italian sentences into English. Which, if you translate French for a living and studied a little Spanish, isn’t that difficult, even if you would have no clue how to produce that sentence in Italian. It’s just not that hard to guess that the Italian verb “lavorare” means “to work,” even if you couldn’t use that verb in a sentence. So in that sense, Duolingo helps you develop passive comprehension skills more than active speaking skills.
Additionally, Duolingo’s “You are X percent fluent in…” assessment gives you a very inflated sense of your abilities, depending on how you look at it. As mentioned above, Duolingo classifies me as 40% fluent in Italian. If, by that, they mean that there’s a 40% chance that I understand an utterance in Italian, or that I’m 40% of the way to a very basic knowledge of Italian…OK. But I’m betting that many people who do Duolingo’s courses interpret that percentage as “I’m 40% of the way to speaking this language perfectly,” which is far from the case. Based on my experience, there is no way that someone who started from 0% fluent and reached 100% fluent exclusively by using Duolingo would be able to work as a translator from that language, for example.
Still, I like the fact that Duolingo really emphasizes consistent, daily practice, and that the lessons are of a length that you can absorb without feeling like your head is going to explode. I’d encourage other translators to use Duolingo to build conversational fluency; it’s free, and fun, and very engaging to use.
I have tried Duolingo, Babbel, Memrise and possibly others in my quest to add a new language. They all seemed great at first, although I naïvely thought they were something I could use exclusively to make serious progress. It quickly became clear that wasn’t the case. The only app I find actually comes close to a stand-alone solution for the serious learner is the offering from Rosetta Stone, which I definitely recommend from my experience so far (around two units, or 80-100 “lessons”, I think). It comes at a cost though, which I think is fair enough for what it offers.
I think Corrine hits the nail on the head; the free app is good for keeping you motivated to do (and enjoy!) little-but-often language learning, but not for gaining any professional proficiency. With Babbel in particular I was delighting in my progress (lots of vocab learnt quickly, high scores in the app) till I tried to talk to a native speaker and realised, after a few weeks of practice, I didn’t have the tools to string together the most basic of sentences.
However, I’ve come to the conclusion that these apps can still be a useful SUPPLEMENT to a more robust strategy and set of tools, if you’re aiming to add or improve a working language. In addition to any of the usual books, paid courses or tutors, exposure through travel or internet radio/television, language learning podcasts and practice online or face to face with native speakers, these can help you keep dipping in regularly, use ‘dead’ time productively, and increase your vocabulary. With the caveat that some of them might not have so much to offer someone already at an intermediate or more advanced stage.
I’d actually just downloaded all three again (and a fourth, Mondly) with the aim of giving them another chance under these revised expectations. Will see how they fare!
That is a great summary, thank you!!
Hi Corinne,
First of all, I just want to thank you for writing this blog, which I appreciate reading regularly.
I bet you didn’t know about these behind the scenes maneuvers, uncovered in this TED X Talk on DuoLingo!! It was posted online in 2011 – https://youtu.be/cQl6jUjFjp4 A lot of food for thought…
“Translate the entire Internet for free”…interesting! From what I understand, Duolingo is no longer in the translation business, but who knows…
Hi Corinne,
I actually started Italian on Duolingo about six months ago, too. It’s definitely a lot of fun (and not super challenging since I too have a background in Spanish).
I’m a new-ish translator (RU>EN), and I’ve found Duolingo to be a fun, stress-free way to spend my breaks between the hours I spend establishing my business–which can get stressful! It’s been fun to explore a new language. But I agree that the variety in content isn’t that great once you’ve completed all the lessons. I’ve started supplementing my Duolingo time with fun, conversation-based YouTube videos–still no substitute for “proper” language learning, but definitely another tool closer to the “fun” end of the spectrum.
My favorite channels so far are:
Learn Italian with Lucrezia – https://www.youtube.com/user/lucreziaoddone
One World Italiano – https://www.youtube.com/user/Oneworlditaliano
Just thought I’d pass that along. Happy Monday! 🙂
Nina
Thank you Nina! Oh my gosh, I love Italian with Lucrezia too. Very “real life” and fun. Thanks for your comment.
Ciao Corinne! 🙂 First of all, thank you for the great blog that I always read with pleasure. I’m happy to see that you are learning Italian and it seems that it’s growing in popularity from the comments above. That’s great! I’ve also been using Duolingo for the past couple of months for two languages, for different aims. One is French, a language I know well and I translate from. The other is Japanese, a language I know nothing about but I find very intriguing and charming. I agree with you for Japanese: I doubt I will ever get fluent just by using Duolingo but it’s a funny and light way to approach a language that then can get you curious in exploring it further. I must say that it’s proving much more useful for brushing up my French – I’m Italian as you guessed I think 😉 and I live in the UK – both in a passive and active form, and to remind myself of rules that could be easily forgotten if you don’t have the chance to practise the language every day. What I also like is Duolingo’s idea of motivating you to do even a little bit of exercise. I found that I tend to do 10 mins instead of 5 or go and look for that word/rule that came into my mind, etc. So I would say that Duolingo is useful from my experience!
Great, thank you so much!
Thanks for such an insightful article. What route for learning a language would you suggest for someone with a moderate language background who wants to get into the translation industry?
Thanks, Rana! That’s a very interesting question, thanks for bringing it up. My first point would be, “moderate language background” means a lot of different things. Do you mean a couple of adult ed classes, or do you mean a BA in that language 20 years ago, and then your skills got rusty? Those are pretty different. One thing to keep in mind, and I’m saying this to be realistic, not to be negative (I’ll get to a parallel in my own life in a minute!). The level of language proficiency that the general public (i.e. private language schools, Duolingo, whatever) considers “advanced” is, in most cases, nowhere near the level of language proficiency that you need to work in the language professions. I’d venture a guess that there are many people who went through the US educational system but studied their language only in school, and whose language skills are nowhere near high enough to work in the language professions, even after something like 10 years of study; even after earning a BA as a foreign language major.
Additionally, as an adult, you’ve lost some ground. Your brain isn’t as plastic as a child or young adult’s is. You have other stuff like a job and a family going on. However, it’s still possible. Here’s how I think about it: I started studying music (lute) as an adult, and I’m moderately proficient. But on a spectrum where 0 is total beginner and 10 is a really high-level professional, realistically I’m like a 2. Maybe even a 1.5. I’m like that person studying a language only on Duolingo; I’m part of the way to being not totally ignorant, not part of the way to being totally proficient. So sometimes I think, what would it take for me to be a professional musician, if I wanted to (I don’t, but let’s just say…). I’d have to make that my sole focus in life. Practice four hours a day. Take a year off working and go to music school, or take two-hour lessons three times a week. And the same is true of adult language learners: it’s not impossible to get to a level where you could work in the language professions, but you have to dedicate yourself to that with a laser focus. Move to Mexico and don’t speak English for a year. Hire a German tutor and work with that person for an hour a day for a year. Those kinds of things. Other readers may have other ideas for you too!
Thanks so much Ms. McKay. I’m 36 and had Spanish classes from middle school to some college. I have done some duolingo and am discerning which route to take to become proficient enough for the language professions while also discerning getting into the industry
Personally, I think you’d have been far better off just getting the Michel Thomas courses and completing them as fast as you could — I went through the whole thing in two weeks when I was preparing to visit a friend.
I had done two years of high school Italian over a dozen years previously, and I was most of the way through a distance degree in Spanish and French at the time.
By the time I got to Italy I could understand most conversations around me, based on the grammar I learned on MT and my ability to recognise cognate vocab from French and Spanish. My production was a bit halting to start with, but after a few days in the country you couldn’t shut me up!
I also think you’ve written your review a little too early… from the 40% figure and your description, I think you’ve hit the point where I’ve lost interest in Duolingo in a couple of languages. It seems to just become a chore and a drag — a seemingly random collection of words with little or no recycling of previous language.
One thing I’ve noticed from Luis van Ahn discussing the site is that development policies seem to be driven more by web design/marketing metrics rather than by pedagogical goals — i.e. they track what makes the site “sticky” rather than what helps users learn.
Very interesting, thanks a lot Niall!
I believe if Duolingo adds Klingon, I will sign up.
They already have Klingon.
I enjoyed somewhat reviving my long-lost Italian on Duolingo, am almost done with Ukrainian, and I’ve started but temporarily paused with a couple other languages. It’s fun, but as mentioned, there are some drawbacks.
One drawback is that if you take the site’s advice and “strengthen” various skills when it tells you to, you’ll be stuck in a labor of Sisyphus, because, according to the site, your “skills” from previous lessons are eroding faster than you can progress in the upcoming lessons.
Duolingo has gotten rid of one of its most useful features, which was called “Immersion”. In that part of the site, you got to help translate real articles on all different topics, at all different levels of difficulty, either from Wikipedia or from one of Duolingo’s sponsors, and people rated and corrected each other’s translations. This was the crowdsourcing aspect mention in the video someone posted above. When Duolingo started, I found it really useful in gaining experience in actual use of the language. However, as Duolingo got more popular, there got to be the problem of non-native English speakers learning a language through English, and this caused havoc in the immersion section. When I was doing Italian, there were suddenly a lot of Guatemalans learning Italian through English, and they were constantly “correcting” my English translations to what sounded better to them, but this meant they added a lot of grammar and vocabulary mistakes. One was obviously an engineer, so when I would use the usual English word for something, he’d change it to a term used more commonly in engineering. So if I wrote about the “cause” of an ancient migration or the “cause” of something else, he would change every instance to “root cause”. In other cases, the Guatemalans were actually helpful in pointing out nuances I’d missed in the Italian, but ultimately the frustration of getting my good English “corrected” into bad English made me stop working in the Immersion section.
Now this Immersion section of the site is gone and replaced by one called “Labs”, but from what I can tell, all the labs are for Spanish.
Duolingo also has a weakness present in all computer-based language learning methods, which is that it is more difficult to learn to spell and write from it than it is from a textbook. Scientists have discovered that the brain retains writing and spelling skills much faster and more solidly if the learner engages in the psycho-motor activity of physically writing by hand. Merely reading on the screen and keyboarding does not get the same results. This just means that Duolingo needs to be supplemented with other materials, as people have been mentioning.
But Duolingo is fun, and I recommend it to people.
If you already speak French, I find it helpful to study Italian (or another Romance language) using a book or recording designed for French people learning that language. There is already so much that you can understand passively that the learner is likely to overlook the differences between French and Italian and end up making mistakes that you wouldn’t make if you didn’t already know French. I’m thinking of things like “sono in biblioteca” (I think that is right). I mean, biblioteca is a no brainer if you already speak French, but the phrase is pretty different from “à la bibliothèque”.
Thanks, Tom!