Duolingo just PISSED OFF Welsh people. Here's why

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00:00 What happened?
01:51 My first reaction
02:56 How Duolingo courses are made
05:08 Why is this happening?
06:58 Hypocrisy
10:02 Welsh is not important
11:12 What next?
12:33 Alternatives
Links
Senedd Petition petitions.senedd.wales/petiti...
Duolingo Welsh review rhapsodyinlingo.com/en/duolin...
The Problem with Welsh Learning Resources rhapsodyinlingo.com/en/no-wel...
Doctor Cymraeg's books doctorcymraeg.wales/llyfrau-d...
Dysgu Cymraeg course books learnwelsh.cymru/learning/cur...
Dysgu Cymraeg digital resources learnwelsh.cymru/learning/dig...
Duolingo Hebrew doesn't teach pronunciation rhapsodyinlingo.com/en/duolin...
Glossika Mass Sentence Method glossika.com/
Find a course on Dysgu Cymraeg learnwelsh.cymru/learning/fin...
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[@rmcode]

It wasn't announced by Duolingo, I posted it on Facebook and it went mad everywhere. NO, NO, NO, you are totally wrong about so many things. It was camnpaigned for and written by volunteers from 2015-2021. We persuaded the National Centre to add these links to their coursebooks so the sake of their own learners. The National Centre took over paying the wages of the contributors when the volunteer programme ended. BUT they have done nothing to develop the course to add content for Canolradd etc. In fact the National Centre has removed their links in their coursebooks.....The reason the Duolingo course doesn't follow the new coursebooks because the National Centre blocked that happening.

[@RhapsodyinLingo]

Thank you for the insider info! The working relationships are more complex than users could know. I'll be sure to pin this!

[@RobJess]

This is why it is so frustrating that an organisation who's mission statement says "We created Duolingo so that everyone could have a chance. Free language education - no hidden fees, no premium content, just free", is also a for-profit business. And that much of this work was built up by volunteers and the community shows that really we shouldn't be tying things as important as language learning and preservation to for-profit institutions. We need an open-source community-focussed language learning app, that isn't looking to make profit.

[@RhapsodyinLingo]

Good point - I should've mentioned that they took so much content made by unpaid volunteers and turned it into a for-profit venture!

[@kaavyanagaraj]

As a welsh student in school they encourage us to use Duolingo aswell. I also learn german on Duolingo so i think it would be really cool if they added stories to smaller languages.

[@deryckchan]

One moral of the story is to beware of the risks of anchoring your national treasure to the offerings of a listed company. Incentives don't naturally align for long and a backup plan is necessary.

[@vatnidd]

well said

[@RhapsodyinLingo]

It's like getting fucked over by a contractor on your infrastructure development, except it's your intangible heritage that has historically been looked down on

[@Knappa22]

@deryckchan Nobody has anchored anything to anything. As a Welsh speaker living in west Wales I hadn’t even heard that you could do Welsh on Duolingo. We were here before the Romans, mate. I’m sure we can withstand a fad on an app discontinuing its meagre tuition provision!

[@yizhou5903]

I really love Duolingo's Welsh course. I'm also taking national center's Dysgu Cymraeg course. But I only had about 30 hours in the classroom. Most of the time I study on Duolingo, every day. It helps me to skip the mynediad (enter) course and directly reach the sylfaen(foundation) level. Actually I have already learned almost all the foundation level grammars on Duolingo too. It's really helpful.

[@RhapsodyinLingo]

I find it...adequate. doesn't have particular drawbacks, but not much to write home about (for example, I'd rather see the words taught used in more varied ways). It's quite dependent on the grammar notes, which I do enjoy, but now that they're gone (obviously not the fault of the creators), it's not doing a good job of teaching. At the end of the day, I basically only did Duolingo until I could understand some S4C.

[@yizhou5903]

@@RhapsodyinLingo Yes, the problem is it doesn't have grammar notes. I heard it used to have that, but now the notes disappeared. I have to google the grammar often (And then discovered there is a wonderful duolingo Welsh wiki webpage explaining all the grammars! ) It's far from perfect. But as a free app, it's really good. I also do extra things to learn. Dw i ddim yn deall S4C eto. Dw i'n gorfod gwilio S4C gyda isdeitlau Saesneg. Ond dw i'n mwynhau darllen. Mae cyfres Amdani yn ddefnyddiol i fi. I can't recommend the Amdani series more.

[@RhapsodyinLingo]

Paid â gwylio efo isdeitlau Saesneg! It defeats the whole purpose. If you can't understand it, watch something simpler, like the dysgu cymraeg KZbin videos. Gwylia dim ond efo isdeitlau Cymraeg.

[@rmcode]

This is great progress, da iawn! Something that is sad is that the National Centre could save such a lot of money if they asked anyone who wanted to go on their courses to do enough Duolingo to at least skip the first part of Mynediad if not the whole level as you did.

[@RhapsodyinLingo]

To be fair, most people learning Welsh are learning a language (seriously) for the first time, which makes it unique among most languages. These learners could use some human guidance on how to learn a language or how language works in general....as seen from the kinds of questions asked in Duolingo Welsh Facebook groups.

[@gandolfthorstefn1780]

Dualingo Welsh 75 units - 5 sections Approximately 10 steps a unit. Approximately 5 lessons a step. 75 × 10 = 750 750 × 5 = 3750 3750 ÷ 365= 10.27 One lesson a day will take you approximately 10 years to complete. And that's not including having to do more lessons to accumulate hearts❤. One step s day will bring you to around 2 years and you still only reach A2 level. Do one step( bubble) a day but only use Dualingo for a starter in your language learning.

[@50bop]

This is why I (and others) also use other apps like Glossika, Memrise, SaySomething, online courses, and S4C shows, especially if you're a learner in the US like me and not around any native speakers. The Duolingo course is good for some basic grammar and especially vocabulary, but the voices are *terrible* and it's very hard to hear the more complex phonology, like ll and rh. I love Learn Welsh Podcast and Gales con Marian; the hardest issue for most 2nd language learners is *listening.*

[@SionTJobbins]

Diolch Israel - gwerthfawrogi dy gefnogaeth a diddordeb yn y Gymraeg. This is a really important message. If/when you're in Aberystwyth, give me a call - very happy to meet up for a 'paned' and siarad Cymraeg.

[@RhapsodyinLingo]

Mewn gwirionedd dw i'n cynllunio/gobeithio ymweld â ffrind newydd yn Aberystwyth yn fuan 😀

[@astrOtuba]

Damn, I wish there would be a competitor to DuoLingom, 100% driven by its community and language institutes. Still fun, but with grammar notes, Lithuanian course (probably useless for me, but that's OK) and _maybe_ even with sign languages, through I'm not sure how to make sign language courses work on mobiles even in a long perspective. Also I wish Duo would not count the lack of English articles as an error in other language courses. It pisses me off that more than a half of my errors are forgetting “a” while learning Polish as a Russian speaker, or Finnish. I think I'm using the articles well enough for a non-native speaker while writing a text in English, but then learning a language I'm thinking in its grammar, at least I'm trying to. But the green barbeque kicks me because of a useless indefinite article.

[@RhapsodyinLingo]

I actually use a Duolingo-esque app for BSL that is surprisingly good. It's a short course, but it has potential. rhapsodyinlingo.com/en/bright-bsl-review/

[@astrOtuba]

@@RhapsodyinLingo I've opened your website after the lecture about Welsh and Sinitic languages. I've found this article accidentally and wanted to write here how cool it is😄 I'm thinking about learning Lithuanian Sign Language and unfortunately (but not surprising) SignLab don't have a LSL course

[@astrOtuba]

@@RhapsodyinLingo then I've wrote “I'm not sure how to make sign language courses work on mobiles” I had in mind that my dream sign language learning platform must have some sign recognition engine (they exist, at least for finger alphabet) and you can't sign with both hands and hold your phone at the same time. I've seen people signing with one hand while talking via video call in public transport, but, as far as I understand, this way you're dropping details and some one-handed signs can be distinguish only by the context. So, I thought that it could work better on PC with web camera or in AR devices in the future.

[@RhapsodyinLingo]

Sign language recognition is a big topic in natural language processing that's often treated too lightly, because a lot of sign language is not in the signs. So no matter how good the tech gets, learning with people is still the best (and probably only) way to learn it properly.

[@astrOtuba]

@@RhapsodyinLingo btw, did you hear about ASLwrite? I'm not a sign language expert, but it looks to me like a writing system that can be used basically anywhere after it will be fully developed and added to Unicode. There's SignWriting, but it sucks just because you need a 2D boxes to write. And ASLwrite is linear

[@dog-ez2nu]

It kind of sucked to be honest. I used it for a while, it wasn't a very good resource.

[@thatguyfromthere1168]

Got a duolingo ad before watching 😂

[@oddoni]

You should see duolingo's approach to Lithuanian.

[@RhapsodyinLingo]

or the lack thereof?

[@oddoni]

@@RhapsodyinLingo Exactly :D I remember the first time I learnt about Duolingo like 7-8 years ago. I wanted to contribute to developing Lithuanian on there. And even then the threads about people wanting to contribute were like 2-3 years old with vague promises of support soon™ or just blatant stonewalling from Duolingo. Meanwhile fake languages like Esperanto, High Valyrian and f^#!ing Klington are on there.

[@RhapsodyinLingo]

Same experience with Cantonese. To be fair, Lithuanian would've been too hard to teach for Duolingo's intended method - learning by guessing. (Same for many languages that did get developed, but they made up for it with grammar notes. That's why they suck now) Esperanto was definitely an enthusiast thing, since I know the creators and also experienced first-hand how (ahem) passionate Esperantists are. It COULD be the same for High Valyrian and Klingon, but...I would bet money was taken into consideration.

[@flibbertygibbette]

I felt the same about Bengali. One of the most spoken languages in the world, tons of people wanting to contribute to it, but nothing. And their Irish course is really useless. I stopped using Duolingo and cancelled my subscription a while ago because it was clear they no longer had a passion for culture and language learning but really were just interested in squeezing as much profit from the app as possible, while ditching features that actually made sense for learners. Fair enough, they're a business. But I'm well and truly done with them.

[@RhapsodyinLingo]

I used to defend Duolingo in comment sections when people ask why a certain course doesn't exist. I'd say "it's because they need volunteers". Later I realised that's not what's holding them back

[@MooseCracker]

The "Welsh" course seems to be terrible. They mix the dialects in ways that native/ fluent speakers report wouldn't be used plus the grammar is apparently rubbish; but now I'm wondering if that's the fault of the National Centre's attempt to make a centralised/ uniform standard Welsh.

[@ohadish]

ata israel? shalom meisrael