Not long ago I was living proof that you could live in Mexico for 5 years, be fluent in reading/writing Spanish, yet be unable to understand native speakers.
I could understand deliberately slow Spanish like "Español con Juan" (https://www.youtube.com/@espanolconjuan) but immersion did nothing for me because I just don't have the personality to make it matter. I would have done better using Italki or whatever from anywhere in the world.
Even my Mexican friends and Mexican girlfriends spoke English because, well, that's how I met them. Speaking in Spanish would last about 1 minute until we transitioned back to English because it was more effective.
Finally, I don't get the problem with Duolingo not teaching you how to speak. I learned how to read and write with Duolingo which is useful on its own. Now you can read articles and books in Spanish and at least partake in the culture. Duolingo just doesn't compete with, say, Zoom conversations because the latter is 1000x the effort.
Yet on HN people talk about Duolingo as if people would be spending their Duolingo time chatting to Spanish speakers if Duolingo didn't exist. Nah, they'd be doom scrolling.
>Not long ago I was living proof that you could live in Mexico for 5 years, be fluent in reading/writing Spanish, yet be unable to understand native speakers.
Same here. I've spent years in school learning Spanish, a semester in Spain, a decade of passive learning with audio books and reading novels, and dozens of trips to Latin America.
I can read an adult novel in Spanish fine. I can speak well enough to accomplish any basic task. I can understand the news and very slow Spanish e.g. the link above.
But no matter how much I practice, my brain will not process regularly spoken Spanish well enough to understand it with more than 25% accuracy.
I used to think I needed more immersion. Maybe, but not likely as I don't think it's possible as an adult to teach my brain the "rhythm" of Spanish language.
I also lived in Germany for a year. And with no prior German lang. experience, I was able to understand spoken German after that year better than I can Spanish after 20 years of learning. The German language seems to flow in my brain the same as English, but Spanish is just on a different frequency.
Speaking in Spanish would last about 1 minute until we transitioned back to English because it was more effective.
"You need better friends, man".
Actually, what you need (for immersion to work) is friends who will meet you halfway. That is, who won't mind slowing down a bit and coaching you occasionally so that you can at least stretch 1 minute into 5 or 10.
That - and one simply needs to try harder to make it through at least normal everyday interactions (at a cafe, while shopping, etc). You definitely do not learn anything significant from a purely passive approach to immersion. You need to take literally everyday as a learning opportunity - and prep accordingly.
Nah, they'd be doom scrolling.
Agreed, that seems to be the market DL was designed to serve.
And hence, is about as useful as one would expect.
I got good enough to read Harry Potter from Duolingo, so Duolingo seems pretty helpful to those who stick with it. I've watched plenty of friends over my time in Mexico do nothing but Duolingo until they were good enough to be entertained by Youtube videos.
Just like any other prong of a language learning strategy, only a fraction of people are going to stick with it. Else language learning would be easy. I doubt people who couldn't stick to Duolingo would have stuck to the boring advice HNers have like reading grammar books and watching in-depth Youtube videos that require much more attention.
> "You need better friends, man".
Well, it depends on the friendship. Some if not most people want to be your friend and communicate with you, not be your error-correcting language teacher. You have to be pretty good at the language to be fun to talk to.
Until you're good enough to not be a burden, I think it's far better to pay for immersion than expect it from friends.
I doubt people who couldn't stick to Duolingo would have stuck to the boring advice HNers have like reading grammar books and watching in-depth Youtube videos that require much more attention.
It seems that people just like ... different things. Some people actually look forward to curling up with a hot, meaty grammar book, for hours on end. And find that both apps and videos (unless done very, very well) just drain their batteries.
> Yet on HN people talk about Duolingo as if people would be spending their Duolingo time chatting to Spanish speakers if Duolingo didn't exist. Nah, they'd be doom scrolling.
This observation might be good for Duolingo's stock price, but it doesn't fit reality. Duolingo is not the only way to learn languages online, nor is it known for being effective.
For example, to me Memrise was far superior to Duolingo to expand vocabulary, and pretty much any YouTube series on learning language X is far better than Duolingo. Even browsing newspapers in language X paired with Google Translate is a far more productive experience than grinding on Duolingo.
The only selling point of Duolingo is that it sells you a false sense of progress and provides you a positive feedback loop that keeps you optimizing on local optima that are awfully unproductive.
Just sounds like opinion slated as something more. Duolingo was superior to Memrise for me. Memrise moved too slowly with no options to jump ahead back when I used it. At best, it's the same app.
> pretty much any YouTube series on learning language X is far better than Duolingo. Even browsing newspapers in language X paired with Google Translate is a far more productive experience than grinding on Duolingo.
How do apps like Memrise/Duolingo compete with things that require far more effort like reading articles? How many people using Duolingo while they poop were ever going to open up BBC Mundo and look up every 3 words with Google Translate?
I don't see how that makes sense. It's like saying Duolingo is worse than enrolling in a 6-week immersion program. Okay.
Not that convo, sure. But speaking English to some of my friends in Mexico (or my mother on Skype) doesn't mean I wasn't otherwise immersed, either. The point is the challenge of immersion and how immersion tends to be codeword for a very specific type of person + experience.
I could understand deliberately slow Spanish like "Español con Juan" (https://www.youtube.com/@espanolconjuan) but immersion did nothing for me because I just don't have the personality to make it matter. I would have done better using Italki or whatever from anywhere in the world.
Even my Mexican friends and Mexican girlfriends spoke English because, well, that's how I met them. Speaking in Spanish would last about 1 minute until we transitioned back to English because it was more effective.
Finally, I don't get the problem with Duolingo not teaching you how to speak. I learned how to read and write with Duolingo which is useful on its own. Now you can read articles and books in Spanish and at least partake in the culture. Duolingo just doesn't compete with, say, Zoom conversations because the latter is 1000x the effort.
Yet on HN people talk about Duolingo as if people would be spending their Duolingo time chatting to Spanish speakers if Duolingo didn't exist. Nah, they'd be doom scrolling.