Duolingo is very much on the Enshittification path, seems like they fired a number of translators and have the rest just proofreading AI.
For the interested, here’s the place where you can request your personal data and delete your account
duolingo is a textbook example of a nice small startup, with great ideas that is then completely overtaken my MBAs who run it into the ground as soon as there is enough of a client base to Sell. you fucking fucks all suck.
I wasn’t quite sure what to think about this, so I’ve asked my local LLM. Seems it is fine.
It generally doesn’t have a high opinion of translators (note that the emojis here are inserted as path markers to help with prompt debugging - but everyting else is from the LLM):
Much will be lost. Language is human. Idioms and more will be missed. There is no doubt that the Duolingo product will not be as accurate.
Sayonara, Duolingo.
As a writer on the internet with no power to stop these companies from scraping my work, you now want to teach me using someone else’s stolen words and teach someone English using mine. Go fuck yourself.
The circle of life continues, and literacy goes down. AI cannot proofread, it merely says “these letters usually go with these”. AI screws up, people get taught shit language, they use it, it gets used as training data, rinse and repeat.
The Extinction level meteor can’t come soon enough.
Time to pack it in and give some other microorganism a shot at the evolutionary big-leagues. Maybe they’ll do better.
Assuming we take the Halo lore as a matter of fact and are not projecting human faults to the Covenant: I guess not really.
As soon as monarchs or religious leaders emerge it’s game over.
And I’d guess there will always be someone more rich than the other one and be in charge of something more resulting in something like a capitalist system.
Well language is a fluid thing. If more and more people get taught shit language, the language will change to match. We have far worse problems on this planet :)
I do think these AI companies grabbing what they can without giving anything back is a problem though. In my view content creators are a bit hypocritical too though. When Google scraped the internet verbatim (viewable in google cache) they didn’t mind because it gave them discoverability. Now they suddenly do care because they don’t benefit directly. Really, the stance should have been made earlier. But I do agree it should be stopped. Or content creators compensated.
Honestly, when it comes to duolingo, you’re probably best off sticking to Spanish or stuff like that.
I tried out a course in my native language, and it really wasn’t great beyond the basics. Loads of mistakes.
And if you’re going to be paying for that, you might as well buy (or pirate) a proper Spanish course.
Spanish or French and only if you speak English. Everything else might as well not exist.
That’s a bit over the top, in my opinion. I’ve tried plenty of courses, and Duolingo is pretty good to get a hang of the basics of a language.
I’d say, in my experience, the hardest part of learning a language is getting started, and I feel Duolingo is perfect just for that. To get deeper knowledge and become more comfortable, one should probably switch once they start feeling more comfortable with the alphabet (if there is a specific one), and with the basic vocabulary and grammar.
EDIT: Forgot to add but another advantage of Duolingo, is that it’s also great to get a taste and basic feel for different languages; and that can be especially useful for someone who is looking to learn a new language but can’t quite decide on one.
Been using a multifaceted approach to cramming Italian in my little brain:
- Anki flashcards (this is my main thing)
- conversational pod casts
- movies, shows and music
- lastly, Duolingo
Any suggestions on what I could be using instead of Duolingo?
