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Any thoughts on the Duolingo course?

by Aleksachjo, September 28, 2015

Messages: 12

Language: English

Aleksachjo (User's profile) September 28, 2015, 9:38:30 PM

I'm on level 7 of the Duolingo Esperanto for English Speakers course. That's a whole lot of lessons, though I'm not sure how many. I've just now gotten to the future and past tenses. We have not even begun working on the compound tenses (such as mi estis eniranta la domon kiam la telefono sonoris)> (which lernu seems to give short shrift to as well.)

Also there has been no actual presentation of any of the affixes other than mal-, which is introduced as a new vocabulary word.

These I found incredibly useful learning Esperanto.

I also have a few quibbles about flagging responses wrong, that I don't think are.

For example: I am color blind Duo will not accept Mi estas daltonulo.

Cocio_16 (User's profile) September 28, 2015, 11:19:51 PM

I think duolingo sucks with grammar, and it can get very annoying with so called "wrong answers" or typoes. Owever, it is the best thing I found to memorize vocabulary.

jdawdy (User's profile) September 28, 2015, 11:25:24 PM

It's still in beta, and the course creators are working hard on the flagging- with only 9 of them and 142,000 users, I'm sure it's a lot to wade through.

Overall I think it's a great course. Yes, the grammar is not extensive, but does it really have to be? The course notes should be sufficient, and there are tons of Esperanto grammar references out there.

nornen (User's profile) September 28, 2015, 11:28:25 PM

Maybe duolingo rejects dalton' because it's not an official Esperanto word. At least I couldn't find it neither in the Universala Vortaro nor in any Aldono. But I might be wrong.

I think kolor'blind' is easier to understand for a person in whose language colour-blindness isn't called something that includes the name Dalton. Kolor'blind' is self defining: blind in relation to colours. The hypothetical word dalton' isn't.

Daisy454 (User's profile) September 29, 2015, 12:56:21 AM

Daltonulo is a word according to lernu.net (the dictionary in the right-hand column), but "Mi estas daltonulo" means "I am a color-blind person," not "I am color blind." DuoLingo doesn't always accept loose translations, so it might have worked if you had used the adjective form.

I think DuoLingo is fantastic, and it's free! For me, the fact that it covers different things and in a different way from other programs is a plus. I mean, if it covered the same things in the same way as, say, Ana Pana, Kurso, Gerda, Mazi, Pasporto, or any other program there would be no reason for it to exist. I wouldn't recommend that anyone rely on just one program to learn any language.

I've sent tons of "My answer should be accepted" reports to DuoLingo, and I've seen lots of improvement and expansion since it came out in the spring.

That said, I'd already been studying Esperanto for several months when DuoLingo became available. So I have no idea if it would be the best "starter" program or not.

robbkvasnak (User's profile) September 29, 2015, 1:43:19 AM

What is the form of "dalton-" in English? I looked it up in several English-language dictionaries and could not find it. I had never heard or read that root before.

robbkvasnak (User's profile) September 29, 2015, 1:43:27 AM

I found "daltonismo" in the PIV. ridulo.gif
This led me to look for "daltonism" in English, which is defined as not being able to distinguish between red and green. In another dictionary, it mentions that daltonism is "a type of colour-blindness" (color-blindness) though not, I suspect, color-blindness in general.

Tempodivalse (User's profile) September 29, 2015, 2:13:23 AM

Compare to Russian дальтоник/дальтонизм, (dal'tonik/dal'tonizm), which is a generic term for colourblindness. I'm sure it's the case in most other Slavic languages as well. dalton/ might be legitimate as an international root under Rule 15. On the other hand, it seems that most people are already using kolor/blind/a.

Note that Duolingo is still in beta, meaning that a lot of sentences do not (yet) have a variety of good translations. This is unfortunately one defect of Duolingo - without enough room for acceptable alternate translations, it encourages rote memorisation. But it can be overcome by using Duolingo in conjunction with another method, or by careful theoretical study of the grammar.

00100100 (User's profile) September 29, 2015, 3:17:09 AM

Aleksachjo:
Also there has been no actual presentation of any of the affixes other than mal-, which is introduced as a new vocabulary word.
At the point you're at in the course, you should have seen -ej, mal-, ge-, -ist, -aĵ, -et, ge-, -in, and -ul. (Plus -ĉj and -nj.)

Ahead of you, there are three skills labeled Affixes 1, Affixes 2, and Affixes 3. So, you will get to see many more affixes.

nornen (User's profile) September 29, 2015, 3:23:58 AM

Daisy454:I've sent tons of "My answer should be accepted" reports to DuoLingo, and I've seen lots of improvement and expansion since it came out in the spring.
+1. That's the spirit. The more and the better feedback the duolingo people receive from users like you, the better the courses will become.

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