Learning to speak Italian with Duolingo!

A review of the “most downloaded education app in the world”

I love languages. I love learning languages, hearing people speak in languages, and realizing the links between languages. Unfortunately, I am only fluent in one language, and as you’ve probably gathered, that language is English. I would love to learn, but up until recently, learning languages has either been tedious and slow (public school) or expensive (Rosetta Stone).

Now, however, there are websites that help you learn a language which are free, for the most part. One of these websites is Duolingo.com.

My journey with Duolingo

When you first arrive at Duolingo, the first thing they ask you is what language you want to learn. The only hard part about the process is deciding on just one.

I myself, an avid lover of Italian art and culture and of course, language, couldn’t resist picking Italian.

You can immediately start by picking either the beginner option, or the testing option (which is a test which determines your level in your chosen language. Although I’ve learned some Italian from being in the country, and from Babbel.com (another language learning website), I picked beginner.

And thus, we jumped into the first lesson!

VOCABULARY

At first, deceptively easy. Hmm… I wonder if the translation of the word man is accompanied by the only picture of a man?

Needless to say, I got this one right. Cool thing #1: pictures accompanying the words aids visual learners (like me) by linking an image with the word directly under it, helping you to remember it later.

Cool thing #2: when you clicked on an option, a voice said the word to you out loud! Helpful for auditory learners (also me)

After a few more examples like this, we move onto some trickier stuff: translating the words you just learned into English.

When I got to this step, I started panicking. I actually said aloud “Wait! I’m not ready for this! Bring back the pictures!”, but I was wrong. I was just psyching myself out. It made me realize learning a language isn’t as difficult or daunting as I thought, and doesn’t take as long as public schools make you think it does.

When a wrong answer is entered, Duo, the owl, helps you by telling you exactly what you got wrong, and how you can fix it next time. In this case, Duo lets us know that if you’re really stuck, you can hover over the word in this test and it will tell you the exact answer.

Cool Thing #3: Helpful ways of learning from mistakes via a green owl

There was also another audio devices that allows you to hear what the words you are learning sound like when clicked on.

NOUNS
As I continued with the beginner course, a lot more of the duolingo features became apparent to me. When we started getting into using nouns, I could click on the word and it would give me a short lesson:

Cool Thing #4: Grammar lessons during practical use and activities, which helps you to remember the teachings better

Another feature I notices was the “Discussion” button that would pop up after I answered a question. I decided to explore it.

I turned out to be a forum/chat that was specific to each and every individual question, with people asking for clarification, and more experienced users helping to answer.

The user pictured above, who answered the question, is using the site to learn German, Irish, French, Italian, Greek, English and Welsh. The “1154” beside the fire symbol represents that he has a 1154 day streak — meaning he has visited the site daily for over three years to practice and learn languages.

Cool Thing #5: getting help from and talking to real people about a question you just answered

VERBS
The next activity jumped right into teaching me the verb “essere” in one of it’s conjugated forms. No preamble.

I know that “sono” is conjugated from the verb “essere” because I discovered the Conjuagate feature, which opened up this nifty little tab that threw me back to my conjugating days in core French in school.

I then sat with this pop-up verb chart making up a song about the conjugated verbs in an effort to memorize them.

Cool Thing #6: Conjugation charts!!!

Uncool Thing #1: If I didn’t see/click on the Conjugate button, I never would have known where “sono” came from and would have been ignorantly using it.

Uncool Thing #2: the only reason I knew what any of the pronouns under the “Person” column was because of my experience with French conjugation charts. I felt like I was missing out on some learning

DO YOU KNOW YOUR STUFF?
The next set of activities exercised your knowledge of both the vocabulary and verb and noun use that was previously taught with increasing difficulty (as can be tracked with the blue completion bar at the top).

Cool Thing #7: Instant application, review, and understanding of concepts that have just been taught, instilling them in your mind

FINITO!
When I completed all of the activities of the first lesson, I got a progress update…

…and an invitation to make a profile in order to save my work.

Whoop, there it is. The part I was dreading, it was going to make me pay to continue.

Cool Thing #8: IT DIDN’T MAKE ME PAY TO CONTINUE

After making a profile (Cool Thing #9: Signing up with Google or Facebook), I had my own home base for learning languages.

MY DUOLINGO

I now had my own base for Italian skills, a daily goal setter, a streak, and an opportunity to add languages by clicking on my icon and selecting “add another course.”

The “Italian Skills” box is so long that it is impossible to capture in a screenshot. It lays out a very extensive list called a “Learning Tree” of all the lessons I will be able to go through, unlocking them as I go, and when the tests will take place.

Cool Thing #9: Frequent tests after a number of lessons to challenge your skills

After exploring the tabs along the top of the site, I found more amazing things, such as “Words”. This feature showed me how many words I have learned, what part of the speech they are used in, the last time I practiced using them, and how strong I am in terms of their use.

I was able to see that I had just learned ten Italian words and how to apply them in practical use.

Cool Thing #10: Keeping track of your knowledge

Then I saw the Review Flashcards button and promptly fell in love.
Cool Thing #11: Flashcards available for the words I have learned to keep me practicing!

I continued taking tests, getting to the point where my microphone came into play and I got to practice saying different words and phrases.

As you go, you also earn “lingots,” which are like currency. You can use these to “purchase” bonus courses for any given language in the Store among other things.

Overall, I loved using Duolingo, and you can bet that I’ll be back here everyday to keep my streak going and to continue to learn Italian… but also Greek, and maybe some Spanish…

Room For Improvement

As you can probably tell from the uneven amount of Cool Things compared to Uncool Things, I have yet to find much to complain about while using Duolingo.

The only thing that concerned me while taking the Duolingo lessons was that there were many features, but they were not pointed out to me. I started noticing them later into the tests, and then I felt as if I’d missed out on learning. Of course, I could retake the test later, and the use of these features would become natural with more practice. But perhaps a how-to guide at the beginning would be nice? And an emphasis on the fact that the website is TOTALLY AND COMPLETELY FREE, so that you’re not watching your back waiting for some fee to pop up on you. So, therefore, I think the main problem is navigating the site on your own.

Why use Duolingo?

The following are the major benefits of Duolingo:

• Independent learning — you have to voluntarily click on things to learn about them, you have to want to learn
• Frequent testing
• fast-moving : forces you to dive right in and just try. If you get it wrong, you get told exactly why and you learn for the next time. It doesn’t baby you.
• Easily accessible collaboration from other students more and less experienced than you
• Opportunity for YOU to contribute — like a class discussion where everybody gets to speak and helps each other out
• Accommodates auditory and visual learners
• Fun and rewarding
• FREE

I think Duolingo itself can be used by individuals, families, and in classrooms.

But more than that, I think the style of a Duolingo education could be applied to learning almost any other field of knowledge. The style of testing, the multiple approaches to teaching, the personalization, and the step-by-step process could easily be used to teach History, Math, Science, etc. The Goal Setter, flash cards, and streaks would definitely be helpful tools for students attempting to learn a new concept in any subject.

Other education sites can take a page out of Duolingo’s book.

Try out Duolingo for yourself! https://www.duolingo.com/