Ernie, I only saw sentences like "my name is George".

In any case with the time I have available for language study I would far rather read and listen to things of interest in the language than translate articles from Wikipedia. I am not that interested in finding out about my language level, and more interested in learning about the history, politics and life of people through interesting content in the language I am learning. I also think that more and more exposure to the language, rather than translating, helps me to acquire the language faster. But to each his own. Writing is important, and I can see that for those with the time and patience to do it, translating articles there would be beneficial.

They have had a lot of publicity. The subject has come up on our Forums before. i have seen many references to it, newspaper articles etc. and the fact that there is a TED lecture on it confirms that they are well known and well publicized.

Aybee - Thanks for contributing to this tone of discussion :-)

I think it is important to recognise negative criticism and to be able to evauate it objectively rather than taking it personal.

I have found in my career that I am learning the most when I have received suggestions for improvement or negative criticism. Yes it hurts at the time, but this is the only way you can find out how one is being perceived.

If you close off to any criticisms I think one runs the risk of not developing and not adapting. In terms of languages, I definitely feel there is a tone that fits the language you are speaking. What is rude in one country, may be perfectly acceptable in another.

> I only saw sentences like "my name is George".

There are ones like that in the Basic course, but then you just go to translate from resources like Wikipedia (as you've mentioned) and The NYTimes.

P/S/
What shall we do to have Steve on TED?

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> I only saw sentences like "My name is George."

So I figured. Hardly an in-depth examination of the site from which to criticize it.

> I am not that interested in finding out about my language level, and more interested in learning about the history, politics and life of people through interesting content in the language I am learning.

Steve, I won't run this into the ground, but you are being illogical here. Do you really think that reading wikipedia and taking the time to be able to restate well in English what you have read does not assist in "learning about the history, politics and life of people through interesting content in a language"?

> more and more exposure to the language, rather than translating,

There is a difference between the two? Maybe "more and more exposure" is equivalent to "skimming quickly over" and "translating" to inquiring deeply into what a word, phrase or sentence means and being able to express this in English. Translating can provide that last 10% of understanding that skimming ignores.

Don't get me wrong: LingQ is a great site. It's the ONLY language site where I have a paid subscription. It provides much more than skimming, and of course it is possible to get at that precision, that 10% of meaning, via LingQ. See evgueny40's lesson, КАК РАБОТАТь С ТЕКСТОМ, for instance.

It seemed to me that people here might be interested in another, complementary approach. However, I was obviously foolish to broach the subject. So far this thread has only evoked a catfight, and half-baked, uninformed dismissals of what seems to be considered a competing site. Okay. Fine. This is disappointing, but so it goes. Let's not discuss it any further, if this is the best we can do.

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Ernie, your were in no way foolish in bringing up this site on our forum. That is precisely the kind of information that we want to see on this forum. This thread is not a cat fight. However, not everyone is going to find the same things interesting. Imy and I offered our reaction to the site, not to the fact that you brought it up. Unfortunately a lot of the discussion here has been about whether or not we should have phrased our lack of interest more politely, rather than in the substance of the question.

I did not get past "my name is George" because I was not motivated to do so. I did not so much criticize the site but rather said it was not for me. I have never enjoyed doing translations. Although I know that better language learners than me, like Luca, consistently do translations. I am sure others are very interested in the site.

As I said, I prefer reading and listening in the language.

Imy

"I've tried to only use LingQ to learn a language from the beginning. It simply doesn't work. Anyone who says that it does, it out of their mind - in my opinion. "

"More live and let live is needed in the language learning community."

I am a little confused. Do you believe in live and let live, or do you feel that people who disagree with you are out of their minds?

On the other hand I do agree, and have always had a small starter book (Teach Yourself or something) to help me, but in terms of time expended, I learned Czech from scratch at LingQ. However, if someone does say that they only used LingQ, you imply that they are either liars or out of their minds.

After translating 11 sentences (I know : this is not a lot !), I don't understand how I can learn new vocabulary or, for example, change my passive vocabulary into an active one.
In fact, I see Duolingo as a website where I could spend some time regularly in order to "play" with the languages and learn a few things, here and there, which is not bad in itself....

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My only point is that you said "anyone who thinks so is out of his mind". I don't mind you disagreeing, but that statement suggests an unwillingness to accept that others think differently. A little strong perhaps?

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In any case, for most people the greatest limiting factor in language learning is time. Each person will determine for themselves what they find the most enjoyable and the most useful based on their tastes and goals.

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JujuLeCaribou, Thanks for taking a look. (I think your moniker, JujuLeCaribou, is great, by the way.)

. . Okay, to gain a more informed opinion I have spent a week at the duolingo site working at French and Spanish. These I studied 30 and 50 years ago, respectively, so I'm not trying the site as a total beginner in these languages, which might be preferable. (If I were to start a language there ab initio, it would be German. But 3 languages at once would be too many for me.)

Basically my impressions of the site have not changed:

* the synthesized speech would not be good for a pure beginner, but it is adequate--actually, very useful--for review.

* the "lessons" provided are a good, graduated introduction to a language. They are very bare bones, but as much reinforcement as needed is given through online quizzes. And if the pace should be too slow, 3 chances are offered to "test out" of a lesson, so that a learner who truly does know the material can advance more quickly. Also one can drill materials learned earlier or quiz vocabulary at any time. This is all great for review. And one need not go through these lesson sequences to use the materials discussed in the next bullet.

* the translation of real-Web materials, such as from wikipedia, which is the purpose of the site, can be extremely interesting. The material is mainly written input however; sound is provided only sentence by sentence, and it is synthesized TTS. One cannot (so far as I have seen) listen to an article straight through. Some of the translation, indeed, is deadly dull--for instance when translating, bullet by bullet, the names of the works of an author or composer. Feedback about translation is of variable quality--from very informed to idiotic. But anyone who likes reading wikipedia articles will probably enjoy this translation.

People who do not mind learning or supplementing learning through the grammar-translation method will get a lot from duolingo. Those who don't like that method will hate the site, as it is basically an automated set of grammar-translation textbooks w/ a virtually infinite series of exercises, as well as a graded reader w/ feedback. It aims at developing translation rather than listening skills.

Probably its main defect is the TTS audio. In this regard it ranks above a plain textbook but LingQ has it beat by a mile. Where it shines is the translation setup, and its almost limitless drills, which are great at catching spelling mistakes, etc.

Personally, I'd like to give German a try at duolingo when I have the time (i.e., after I "finish" either Spanish or French there). It would be a better test of the site than is the review I am doing now. But I would start elsewhere to learn proper pronunciation, and I'd return here to LingQ for concentrated, pleasurable listening.

I had heard of duolingo before, but I didn't bother trying it out because they didn't offer languages I don't know, and because you had to sign up before you even knew what it was. I'm trying it right now to see what it's all about. Thanks for the heads up, Ernie.

You're welcome, Elric. I'd be interested in your opinion--positive or negative.

after months of waiting, I finally got my invitation to Duolingo. I got bored after 25 minutes and have never returned.

This does not mean that duolingo sucks, it just means that its not my style of language learning. I'm sure, and certainly hope, that others find great success with it.

@Ernie

Well, my initial reaction is positive, but they don't offer any languages I don't know, so I can't really offer a trully unbiased opinion. I need to take the test to move to a level closer to what I currently am to see if it actually works for me. The synthesized speech didn't bother me.

They say that the way to move forward quickly is to click on one of the lock symbols (= keyhole), which will open a test of all the material up to that point. (To "test out" of one's current level, merely, clicking on the "Test out of this skill" button on the upper right of a lesson page will open up a quiz, as I said in an earlier post.) If these locks must be taken in order, or if one can start w/, say, the second one, I do not know, as such a big examination is more than I'm ready to try at this point. Also, I see no "final" lock, meaning, I guess, that there is extensive material one cannot "test out" of in this way.

. . . Or it may mean that there is no examination prepared yet for that sequence. These locks/keyholes are displayed only in the Spanish sequence; they do not appear in the French sequence, which is in beta test. I do not know about the German sequence.

One of the "incentives" provided on the site is advancing to higher levels--one earns a gold "medal" emblazoned w/ the level number, for each stage. Surprisingly this incentive works even for me, a bit, although I'm not at all a fan of "avatars" or other such intangibles. If I have, say, 18 points to earn to advance to the next level, I'll continue working for a quiz or two, if I have the time, rather than terminate a session.

Acc. to one of the people who's been on the site for awhile, after level 17 or 18 the sequence of lessons is exhausted, and to reach the highest level (25?) one can only translate more and more articles. I have my doubts that only translating articles will be able to keep me returning to the site very often, after I reach that point. The articles are of extremely variable interest, and translating the ends of some articles, which are often mere lists, can be quite tedious. (For what that's worth.)

I see two locks for the German sequence. Either one can be accessed. As with Spanish, there's not final lock, so you can't access the final bits without going through the whole last sequence.

You have three shots to pass each lock, making three mistakes at most while taking each test. I'll try to pass the first lock to see how advanced it gets.

For what it is worth, I discovered duolingo about a month ago, and have been using it almost every day since then. I just discovered lingq about a week ago. I think its a nice site with alot of potential, and I think it is a really great supplement to lingq. I would not choose it over this site though, even though I was using it first. Because the methodology behind lingq is pure genius. I was actually using a similar method to read books in Spanish before, but looking up every word in the dictionary, and you do have any idea how MIND NUMBINGLY BORING that is? lol. Anyway, once I found lingq i was elated to say the least, because it made what I was doing SO much easier. So to sum it up, I like them both, but lingq more :)

As un update, I'm finding the amount of reviewing and repetition a tad too much. In addition, sometimes I leave the site before completely mastering a specific section, and when I come back, I have to start that particular part form scratch, which is very annoying.

> finding the amount of reviewing and repetition a tad too much . . . when I come back, I have to start that particular part . . .

Don't forget that you can "test out" of any skill if it's too elementary for you, rather than go all the way through its lessons.

The sentences are often pretty dorky, which can be annoying. So far I've found this most useful as sort of mental calisthenics--do a few sets, and you're done with them for the day.

. . . The last couple of days it seems to me that the same sentences are repeated more often and there is less variety in a lesson. I've been hoping that this is just a quirk of the lessons I am currently doing, rather than a change in method. I think it is better to have more variety in a lesson.

[edited to add last paragraph (for those who may wonder why an update was signaled)]

After using Duolingo several times (with German as my target language), I can say that I find this website useful in order to :
1. improve my attentiveness to the language, and therefore my ability to produce correct sentences ;
2. learn some more vocabulary.

Overall, I think this website is a good complement to Lingq !

@Ernie: Thank you for suggesting DuoLingo.

I have used it almost daily for a month or so for Spanish. It provides a helpful and effective way to review and activate core vocabulary and to practice simple writing patterns with little stress.