Learn Another Language During Your Commute with Duolingo
I live in the Boston area, which means (as for many) I have a decent commute to work every day. I hate fighting traffic in the car, so I make this commute by train. I’ve written in the past about why I started carrying a Kindle rather than an iPad on this commute, so that I could read without being distracted by email, Facebook, and so forth.
I still keep the Kindle for my commutes home, but recently I’ve taken up a new activity on my commutes to work—the language-learning app Duolingo, which is installed on my phone. I start my lessons while on the platform waiting for my train, and continue them until I reach my daily goal (which is for me 50 points, or five lessons). I’ve found this a stimulating way to spend some of my travel time, allowing me to expand—admittedly slightly—my language skills during time that might otherwise be spent playing Words with Friends.
There are certainly problems with Duolingo that you can find written about by language experts on the web. The app’s automatically-generated exercises aren’t always directly applicable to daily life in another country—indeed, sometimes the sentences border on the absurd (I’m not sure I will need to emphatically declare “That is not my bird!” in German or Italian). And certainly if you need to learn a language for sustained academic work, an app like Duolingo probably won’t get you there. But if you are looking for casual exposure to another language, perhaps before a brief trip, Duolingo may serve very well. I’ve honestly been impressed with how detailed the lessons get. The translation model Duolingo employs can be quite frustrating—there’s not a lot of “telling how to”; instead you learn by doing, failing, and doing again. But I do find that model works, and if I persist through a lesson I do actually figure out both vocabulary and structure.
How about you? Have you found a great app for learning another language (or another useful skill)? Do you have any other go-to activities for creating rewarding commutes?Tell us about your favorites in the comments.
Learning the Duolingo – how one app speaks volumes for language learning
Around 70 million people have so far signed up to Duolingo – the app which applies the language of computers to help students learn a foreign language for free
Bill Gates, the billionaire philanthropist, can lay claim to a lifetime of achievements, but confessed earlier this year that a foreign language was missing from his CV.
During an online chat, the former Microsoft chairman and world’s richest man said he feels “pretty stupid” that learning a foreign language had eluded him.
In an attempt to tackle the problem, he rejected using some of his $79bn wealth to hire a private tutor. Instead he joined the 70 million people around the world who have logged on to Duolingo, the free online courses that aims to democratise the teaching of languages to anyone with a smartphone, tablet or laptop and an internet connection.
Launched in 2012, the app applies computer science to the teaching of English, French, Spanish and German – as well as other languages – by developing a “tree” of skills in which the user goes from one challenge to the next. The method has been curated by examining how thousands of users react to learning one skill, for example verbs, before another, such as adjectives, and finding the most beneficial.
Duolingo | Learn Spanish, French, German, Portuguese, Italian and English for free
Duolingo - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Published on Oct 28, 2013
Find out why Duolingo is the #1 way to learn Spanish, English, French, German, Italian, and Portuguese. http://www.duolingo.com
Duolingo teaches you to read, write, listen and speak. And it's extremely effective. In fact, an independent study found that 34 hours on Duolingo are equal to a whole university semester.
Duolingo is also completely free. No annoying ads, no misleading in-app purchases, no subscription fees.
Duolingo teaches you to read, write, listen and speak. And it's extremely effective. In fact, an independent study found that 34 hours on Duolingo are equal to a whole university semester.
Duolingo is also completely free. No annoying ads, no misleading in-app purchases, no subscription fees.
Duolingo: The Best Way to Learn a Language - YouTube
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