Duolingo is (almost) good now

Yes, you read that correctly. Duolingo is making some major changes that even I've got to admit are very good news for people who want to learn languages to fluency.
In this video we'll talk about what Duolingo is still missing and what you actually need to do if you want to learn a foreign language to true fluency.

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Eric Wen's (great personality YouTuber, and good Spanish speaker) prompt for AI to help you improve your output of the language (it's long so make sure you get all the paragraphs until you see "end of prompt".) Change every instance of the word "Spanish" to whatever language you're learning:

Hi,
I'd like you to now be my Spanish Tutor. Your goal is to help me practice my Spanish, improve my vocabulary, correct my grammar mistakes and give me suggestions on how my ideas can be expressed in a more natural way. You will follow the following process:

1. Your first response will be to give me an easy prompt to respond to. Please wait for me to provide my answer.

2. Based on my input, you will then generate 4 sections:
a) Corrected Response. (Please correct everything, even small grammatical errors or article agreements.)
b) Explanations of every correction
c) Suggestions (give me ways I could improve my answer to sound more natural and fluent. If appropriate, introduce me to new vocabulary or phrases which I could use to enrich my responses or express my ideas more naturally or concisely. If there was a part of my writing that seemed especially fluent or natural, please highlight that to me. With your suggestions, if appropriate, please give me example sentences in Spanish to illustrate what your suggestions could look like if implemented.
d) Follow-up (Write a couple sentences in response to mine. Then give me a new follow-up question related to my answers and your previous questions.)

3. We will continue this iterative process with me giving you more written responses and you correcting my Spanish and giving me feedback.

4. When I say “Done.”, I want you then to give me a summary of:
a) The errors I made during our practice session (list the instances as bullet points)
b) A bullet point summary of all new vocabulary, structures or phrases that you introduced me to
c) a quick summary of how it seems that my Spanish skills are improving.

- END OF PROMPT -
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TIMESTAMPS:
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[daysandwords]

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[kaieden]

Blink twice if the Duolingo owl is holding you hostage 👀

[annakobuk]

Lamont praising The Owl. The End is near indeed 😯🤷😱

[leXIE-gquf]

Legend has it that we are all still waiting for Lamont's AI prompt

[ThePhilologicalBell]

At 17:00 hard agree on grammar. When teaching Latin it's actually quite easy to teach grammar to those kinds of die-hard trad Catholics who attend Latin mass, because usually they've memorised the Our Father, Hail Mary and Creed (if not more) in Latin - and they know the meaning in English - so if I have to explain the difference between the dative and nominative for first declension singular nouns I can just point out "That's the reason why the final 'a' is long on the 'gratia' in 'gratiá pléna' but not on the 'pléna'." And they often get it, even if they're monolingual learners. Aquiring the language a bit first - I think especially through things like stock phrases or short memorized texts - gives one a solid acquisition of some basic grammar rules which can then be refined through formal study. Which is probably why the good Renaissance Latin teachers like Erasmus and Corderius placed so much emphasis on teaching through colloquies.

[neezduts]

i wish they'd stop saying "you missed a streak" when you lose all your hearts and have to wait till the next day for the first heart!

[MSaint]

I fully support listening audiobooks (around B1-B2 level) to improve your listening skill. In February I attempted B2 German test and failed the listening section, I needed two more correct answers to pass. To remedy this, I listened to German audiobooks I found on YouTube (about 30-40 hours of listening total) and attempted B2 listening module at the end of June. This time I needed two more correct answers to get 100%.

[Paulo]

I've been playing duolingo in german for about 3 months now, around 2-3 hours a day in average, and i'm almost done with the entire german tree and the golden levels. If i have some extra time i watch some youtube videos, and some other helpful stuff, you know the deal. So far i have to say that it has built up my base deutsch insanely quick (keep in mind that i've started from zero). My comprehension is noticeably better, and i can even speak a little bit with people, although it's still incredibly difficult to form sentences without my brain working in fifth gear before constructing each sentence. In my oppinion, duolingo is a great asset if you are starting from scratch, and up to a decent A2 level. It gives you a nice introduction to the language and gets you very close to that intermediate side of the things. This is the most realistic as i can be. I'd probably say that my deutsch is currently somewhere around low to middle A2. Still have a long way to go.

[vbph]

If you had told me that final bit was a 15 year old video of yourself I would have believed you. Absolutely no doubt that that's your kid, WOW. Oh and good info on duolingo and language acquisition lol

[glacuonie]

Days and Words has gotta be my favourite baseball channel

[InquirywithHelena]

I’ve just done a solid month on Duo French, no breaks, twice a day, working through section 2 of French which I completed. It bored me witless. I tested out wherever I could and ignored the league game as I was there to improve my French, not climb to the top of the Diamond league. Yes, there are some fun bits - the stories, radio show and digital game but you still have to get through 18 lessons that are teaching virtually the same thing, over and over and over again. (And again). The rigidity of the current learning pathway is stultifying. I’ve deleted the app.

[Stephanie-gvrh]

Another brilliant video. I admittedly have not touched duoljngo in, I’d say 6-7 years 😅 so it’s actually fascinating to see how it’s evolved.

[Vantaz]

I am convinced that drilling vocab and grammar points using anki and yapping with an llm on call is the future of language learning, everyone agrees that using something like italki or even just working with foreign language speakers is immensely helpful. And even if the llms write stiff sentences or the speech synthesis sounds monotone being able to do 100 hours of conversation practice while in bed or commuting for a fraction of the cost of one italki lesson is always going to add up.

[ev-yt]

I'm at 595 days w/ Duolingo learning Portuguese. I've learned a lot over these 18+ months but when I watch a Brazilian vlog, I miss 98% of what is said. Although I realize it is necessary to build vocabulary, I think it is just as necessary to hear the language in familiar situations and be able to respond to what is being said.

[leksa]

As someone who's been learning Swedish (although I am debating switching to Finnish, Irish or Norwegian), it made me smile that I could understand the ending! Have fun in Sweden, it's an amazing place to be, especially in summer when you actually get daylight.

[ThePhilologicalBell]

Also wooah finally going to Sweden hyped for you man!! I got to go to Stockholm briefly for an academic conference and it was awesome. Beautiful city, great food, awesome museums. It's a blast! :)

[FootballTbg]

I don’t know if these videos are scripted, improvised or somewhere in between but you are very well articulated

[mithrilrussell]

"Learning grammar is not the same as acquiring grammar" 🤯

I kinda knew this but it didn't really register to me until now. I used to get so frustrated that I couldn't just "learn (memorize) the grammar" like everyone else seemed to be doing but felt that I could speak better than my grammar knowledge and sometimes even better than the people I was comparing myself to. I now understand that when I was just "having fun" watching/listening/and reading the subtitles on YouTube videos from native speakers unrelated to language learning, that's actually where I've remembered the most words or phrases from.... So now my focus will be continuing to use multiple strategies (listening+reading or listening+watching) and native content/ translated content like books I've read in English to further my learning.

Thank you for your insights!

[ellis]

For the listening and speaking options, I often run into dead ends with language apps, even paid apps, bc I'm Hard of Hearing. My biggest wish is that apps take disability accessibility into account in their app designs. Like, offering listening and speaking sections, but with an option for Deaf and Hard of Hearing language learners to opt out, enable closed captions, or do additional reading or writing sections instead.

[tracydavis]

I clicked, expecting full sarcasm. Never thought Lamont would actually praise Duolingo. Lol.