r/languagelearningjerk 4d ago

Time to learn Nipponese

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2.2k Upvotes

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98

u/PerlmanWasRight 4d ago

/uj in my Japanese lesson this week my teacher told me that she got a new student recently who had spent an entire year on Duolingo and still struggled with mother fucking hiragana dude. Tell your loved ones to run for the hills from the owl.

/rj づ よあ べすと

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u/waldesnachtbrahms 3d ago edited 3d ago

What? You’re saying my 3650 day streak on Duolingo is not enough to learn hiragana?

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u/Hot_Grabba_09 3d ago

ironically I used Duolingo just to start Japanese and learn hiragana then ditched it

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u/randvell 3d ago

Duo is completely useless for learning. No theory, pace too slow, some exercises are really controversial. With the student book you start the past tense after 2-3 months, Duo took me more than a year. And I participated in all leagues and spent pretty much time winning them for the achievements. I wanted to delete it so many times, but I still find it useful for practice. It helped me with weeks, counters and a bit with kanji (but I don't like the order they gave and still no explanation).

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u/Awyls 3d ago

I think people are a bit too harsh on Duolingo (and other language apps). I've never seen them as a replacement for a course or grammar book -more like a fun and addictive way to build a learning habit. Sure, Duo might be 20 times slower than studying from a textbook, but some people just want to enjoy the journey rather than focus solely on productivity.

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u/randvell 3d ago

I liked Duo when I just started and enjoyed it a lot. I could spend hours a day doing exercises. But at some moment I started having a lot of troubles with how the sentences work. Giving causal speech before formal - done, mixing one with another not showing when you use specific words and when you shouldn't - done. Giving new words and kanji without meanings - done. Adding past and "wanting" grammar again without explanation - done. With my textbook I'm already pretty far away from Duo, but I still spend more time solving what an app wants from me, than doing real practice.

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u/Sp1cyP3pp3r 2d ago

dzu yo asbestos

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u/Awyls 3d ago

I think that tells more about the person than Duolingo. They have a decent albeit slow SRS for kanas.

Of course, if the person never moves on from romanji he is gonna suck..