Duolingo just fixed its greatest weakness

And now for some Duolingo features you might not have yet!
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Vlog channel / evanedinger
Thank you so much for watching! Hope you enjoyed it!
Video chapters:
0:00 Hook
0:45 Intro
1:52 Video Calling AI in Duolingo
5:25 New Listening Exercises
6:55 Animated Podcast Lessons
7:57 Why you may not have these features
8:23 An annoying feature now removed
9:00 Editor's note! HUGE time-saving tip
9:50 Full on animated cartoon lessons
10:35 Hidden AB testing I've noticed
13:21 Personal note about language-learning
14:08 SPON
14:53 Outro in Spanish!
15:01 Outro in Strong Bad
15:09 ;))))
If you're new to my channel and videos, hi! I'm Evan Edinger, and I make weekly "comedy" videos every Sunday evening. As an American living in London I love noticing the funny differences between the cultures and one of my most popular video series is my British VS American one. I'm also known for making terrible puns so sorry in advance. Hope to see you around, and I'll see you next Sunday! :)
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[@JasonTurk85]

I still won't forgive them for getting rid of discussions.

[@EntropyOfChaos]

It's why I stopped using them for Japanese. Especially since their higher level stuff was horrible without discussions.

[@msjkramey]

Like a forum?

[@EntropyOfChaos]

@@msjkramey yes, every sentence basically had a built in forum where people could discuss them. Since all the sentences are basically computer generated, sometimes there would be issues. Here people could discuss them. It also allowed people to discuss the grammar points and sometimes strange nuances of particular sentences.

[@msjkramey]

@@EntropyOfChaos dang, that sounds so cool

[@EntropyOfChaos]

@@msjkramey yeah it really sucks they removed the feature. Some theories are they didn't like that people would bash Duolingo because of all the problems users would find. Duolingo claimed it was because it was too hard for them to moderate. Honestly I can't see why they couldn't have just made a moderator system like reddit and other forums.

[@SomeoneOnlyWeKnow.]

Lily sounds so pissed like a person being paid nothing to actually call people

[@autohmae]

I mean, maybe the voice actor actually was done with it. 🙂

[@andrewmorris9946]

It'd be funny if it wasn't ai after all.

[@Ph34rNoB33r]

Unless it's about some obscure music group, you probably don't get too much expression of joy out of her. Which I find very relatable. Now it would be interesting... If we steered the topic to music, could we get a different mood? Actually depends on how it is implemented. The new GPT-4o could do that (at least the presentation made it look like it can), but I assume they are using the usual chain approach speed recognition, ChatGPT, text to speech. Which is often good enough, far from great.

[@ethanshackleton]

It’s probably trained on call centre data or something, so it inherited the tone.

[@koenahn]

Lily is the grouch of the group. Imagine being on a call with Lin or Junior

[@Quazarthegreat]

The pain of learning a language that repeatedly gets the shaft while watching the popular languages get showered with gifts is unbelievable...

[@israellai]

Eh, that's how it always is. Let them have their fun. We do it the old-school way.

[@soojunglee425]

What language are you referring to?

[@Quazarthegreat]

@@soojunglee425 im suffering to greek right now, with english not even being my first language, but greek x my first language doesnt exist, so english it is

[@CD3MC]

Yep, Norwegian is brutal on Duo.

[@AmeenRidwan]

Arabic for me

[@Pandabear655]

8 year streak?! the bird has you in a chokehold

[@_ao101]

It's the same deal for us all buddy. Hit 365 Days or loose your family

[@AntonBagin]

It’s either Spanish or Vanish

[@kylezdancewicz7346]

@@AntonBaginFrench or the trench

[@AQrat32]

he just want his to keep his family save

[@xymaryai8283]

Japanese or say goodbye to your knees

[@CD3MC]

If ypure not learning english, German, French or Spanish, good luck getting any of these new features.

[@elon4417]

No AI video in my German feed even, so it might be even rarer than that :(

[@rhys3778]

@@elon4417 How far in are you? I don't have any on my Spanish - assume its a feature that shows up once you've reached a certain level of understanding

[@elon4417]

@@rhys3778 fair point. I'm at section 3 out of 5.

[@Thorinbur]

Japanese doesn't even have stories. Edit, I was corrected and in fact there are stories at later levels. I still dont think we will get the most flashy features anyway. I would not hold my breath. Duolingo's normal progression is just way too slow for me, and when I skip the lessons I feel like I am not really learning anything espetially that I dont even need to know all the words to pass it just by deducing what goes where. I was hoping for some updates to bring me back but no luck in Japanese.

[@sae2705]

Pretty much, and there is an over-saturation of powerful tools to help you learn German, French or Spanish, I get it , they're the most popular and I am willing to accept that for most tools, but Duolingo now is so big that I consider is a failing that those 3 languages get the love whilst they neglect the others.

[@TalesOfWar]

This kind of stuff is where "AI" is genuinely useful, not all that other crap they keep trying to jam it into just to make the shareholders happy by following a trend without any meaning behind it.

[@arioniscool]

Fr cause this is like the first time (in a long long time) that AI was actually useful

[@AramatiPaz]

Só, do you didn't liked the birdbrain managing the learning or you didn't knew it?

[@smorrow]

@@arioniscool No, ChatGPT was always useful for language-learning.

[@QwertyuiopThePie]

@@arioniscool AI's been useful for a long time, it's just not the stuff that usually gets marketed as "AI". Stuff like ChatGPT is just a heavily-marketed recent thing, it's a tiny fraction of what AI is.

[@arioniscool]

@@QwertyuiopThePie i asked chatgpt a simple math question and it just started guessing the answers, how is that useful? And when i need for it to write stories or things for school, it was just full of nonsense and fake words. It ain't useful. (Sorry if this doesn't make sense, im bad with words but even I can write more grammatically correct than chat gpt)

[@Pytchblend]

I think that Duo's big gap is that I cannot get a list of all the words I have learned so far.

[@evan]

Hmm, they did used to have a “words” tab on desktop. Do they not still? I bet it’s somewhere in their API you could possibly scrape?

[@Pytchblend]

@@evan If so, I would love to learn how to do that!

[@MarisaClardy]

I have a list of words! It's under the exercises tab. Is it not there for you? Could it be because of my language? Says 859 words, with the most recent learned words at the top.

[@theneekofficial8829]

I think it might be blocked behind Super or whatever the subscription is called

[@ramblingmillennial1560]

Yeah they have it behind a pay wall now. YOu need to get Super and it's in the practice section.

[@tbrooke3016]

The reason I'm guessing for the Voice calls being limited to one time per occurrence in the tree is because of the price. Computing machine learning takes a lot of performance and that server time is expensive (especially if you want it as dang responsive as it is)

[@evan]

You know what, that’s absolutely gotta be it! Good point

[@louisegogel7973]

I wish the tree format to be returned as at least an option instead of this single dumb path they have.

[@An_Attempt]

Give AI a few years, it will be getting a lot more energy efficient soon.

[@kohakuaiko]

​@@louisegogel7973, I agree. Tree was much better for my ADHD. I could switch back and forth between several equivalent lessons when a certain topic wasn't clicking.

[@LauraMorland]

@@louisegogel7973 Yeah, I miss that a lot. I do spend a lot of time on the practice sessions, though.

[@Ziggletooth]

I do Japanese I didn't realise I was missing out on so many features available in other languages.

[@krank23]

Same! But you know, at least we finally got Kanji =)

[@ZiggyGamma]

@@krank23 FUCK THEY GOT KANJI NOW

[@KitchenPenguin]

I've been doing Japanese since 2019 and it's much better than when I started; I don't think I would have stuck with it if I didn't already know hiragana and katakana. My SO is doing Spanish and I am so jealous that they have speaking exercises and a podcast.

[@TheJayWay101]

​@@ZiggyGamma yeah but i notice they omit a lot of Kanji learnt, they don't appear on the list like "困" which is recently learnt but it doesn't appear on the list

[@mormacil]

The big languages like Spanish have significantly more features. I tried German for a bit and mostly dropped my other languages because they're just so bare bones.

[@jeremywinston1]

the first 15 seconds made me think i put the video in 2x speed, lmao

[@tobyhouston9939]

Eh, it wont that fast

[@heathersrstewart]

Did you try 2x speed to see what you’re missing?

[@evan]

it really wasn't that fast mate

[@TalesOfWar]

It's pretty tame for Evan lol.

[@klank9409]

terrifying

[@someguy9175]

can't wait for none of these to make their way to the japanese course!

[@samsam21amb]

hey, at least japanese has stories, other languages dont have stories...

[@user-co4vh1wk5v]

@@samsam21amb i don't see stories on my pc or phone...

[@jgr_lilli_]

Same with Swedish 😅

[@Eamil]

@@samsam21amb We get stories, but not until near the end of section 3.

[@lajoyalobos2009]

Definitely got that introverted "ugh, why are they calling me" vibe I expected from Lily! Hahah 😂

[@LauraMorland]

Yeah, I've only ever heard her speak in Italian, and it was cool to hear her "I don't wanna participate" attitude in Spanish. (Don't forget, though, that she has other talents, including being the best student in Oscar's art class.)

[@judithjones9612]

Lily is depressed😢

[@forgingstrength6119]

Duolingo made me quit it, because it loved to tell me "I was falling behind and someone took my place" CONSTANTLY when I was on Christmas break visiting family. Just leave me alone. I don't need to compete, I don't want that pressure.

[@stillhuntre55]

YES. I like the daily reminders to do my lesson - I would totally forget otherwise, but I'm NOT competitive and find prompts like that DEmotivating

[@stillhuntre55]

OK, after this response I decided to do some digging on the app. I have the free mobile app. At the bottom of the screen I chose the person's face icon, then in the upper corner, the gear. I was able to scroll down and there's on/off switches for animations, sound effects, different kinds of notifications... I THINK I turned of the leaderboard while leaving on lesson reminders. We'll see!

[@Axcyantol]

@@stillhuntre55Did it work?

[@stillhuntre55]

@@Axcyantol So far, yes! I toggled OFF Friends Quest, Friends Streaks, Weekly Progress, New Follower, Friend Activity, Leaderboards, and News & Promotions. I left ON Sound Effects, Motivational Messages, all the Accessibility stuff, all the Notification stuff, Streak Freeze and Streak Saver. So far, I am still getting reminders to do my lessons - which is good, and I'm getting the in-game encouragement which I like. I'm no longer getting told about rankings or leaderboards, or that so and so just beat me in whatever. Yay!

[@Axcyantol]

@@stillhuntre55 Good to hear!

[@BecauseICantEdit]

I still find the worst part of duolingo is that there are so many instances of American English that make it harder to get answers right due to having to go through an extra layer of language, so I feel like I'm being cheated out of what I actually do understand.

[@joltingonwards2017]

Yeah I always get confused by "pants" For me that refers to underwear, for some (mostly Americans) it refers to trousers

[@BecauseICantEdit]

@@joltingonwards2017 That's one which is weird for me. It's one of those amerancisms I'm more familiar with and the French word is more similar, but I forgot that the French word is singular because of pants being plural (yes I know trousers is plural as well, but that information is less pertinent as it's a native term).

[@naomiparsons462]

For me it's football, soccer and American football which confuses me. Having to translate from French to American to English is so confusing.

[@kickatat]

Learn a Slavic language because I feel the opposite is true for example in the Czech tree. I think the translations are awkward and funny and not at all how an American English speaker would say them😂 maybe because English taught to Czech speakers is often British English and so maybe the creators used British English basis for their lessons when I started Czech it was made by volunteers and i am sure saw some updates since i stopped for weird translations that i would never say.

[@Cole_Is_A_Mole]

@@naomiparsons462I really hate the fact it always talks about a soccer game, why is there no British English?!

[@Maxime_K-G]

I wish they put back interactivity in the courses. It's more fun if you can spontaneously choose what subjects to learn next in the tree model than in a prechosen order.

[@jcr3500]

Yes, my streak ended when they changed that.

[@marine463]

Exactly. It became so boring I stopped.

[@NelielSugiura]

Not only is it highly discouraging to find out the language(s) you are learning (or trying to, anyhow) are basically added in as afterthoughts and incomplete, but that if you want to actually have a complete learning experience you need to open the app on PC for the tips section because it is not included on mobile. I had gotten to the point in over three languages where I could not progress and the discussions remarked that if we were confused or stuck, the lesson tips had everything we needed (or external sites, in the case of Irish)... but we had to log in from the PC to see it. Until they fix that, I see no reason to go back. I got a plethora of other things to learn.

[@river559]

That's most of Duolingo unfortunately. Languages, features, even some settings are exclusive to the pc/web version. Very sad when most people, and their huge push is to be used on mobile and on the go.

[@sebastianwlodarczyk]

Do you mean an actual PC app? Because opening Duolingo in the browser doesn't really seems to show more information than the phone app (either that or I just don't know what to look for). I didn't even know there was a dedicated app for PC (probably because I never use MS Store:D)

[@claudiameier666]

it looks completly different on pc and its annoying because i need grammar info and cant find anything

[@blindknitter]

The Irish lessons are very poor on duo. (I'm fluent and my Dad's first language is Irish, so believe me when I say the pronunciation is awful.)

[@TheComedyGeek]

The only feature I am looking for is *explanations*. Don't just tell me I got it wrong. Tell me how to get it right. Explain to me how the language works. Don't just throw me off the deep end. This "natural language learning" BS is just plain not going to work for me. If I don't understand what's going on and/or what I Am doing, I'm gonna take my ball and go home. I pick up things like ideas, concepts, rules, information, and systems almost instantaneously. What I don't do is just sort of intuit how something works via constant clueless failure. Someone explain things PLEASE.

[@SharynS.]

You have to upgrade to Duo Max for that. It’s totally worth it for that very thing. I have gotten so much more out of Duo since I’ve upgraded. (Not affiliated with Duo; I was just blown away by how much I liked the explanations parts of Max)

[@veronica_._._._]

Correcto

[@smorsss]

I don’t know if this is for all courses but that is a feature that comes with Duolingo max

[@Mister0Eel]

Same here, the discussions feature was great for this, the amount of times I went i there and some random person gave a beautiful explanation of how something works, it was great. I understand why they took it away, but man, I miss it

[@connorclabaugh9962]

I have a suggestion for this. Find a beginner level textbook for the language you're learning - PDFs online are often free and easy to find. It'll take you maybe a month to do all the exercises in that book, and that'll help you understand the rules of the language because that's how the textbook is set up.

[@heathervivaviennetta]

The almighty owl-gorithm!

[@msjkramey]

What I love about the option to listen is that it still lets you repeat it or reveal it if you get stuck

[@fireblade696]

This is exactly what ai should be used for! It shouldn’t be used for replacing things, but doing things that is hard for people to do this easily.

[@ashipper8223]

I've been studying Korean on Duolingo for over 2 years. I won't hold my breath for us to get these features. We just got Stories not too long ago. I would really love to study with AI.

[@israellai]

You guys have stories?? I'm happy just to have listening

[@soojunglee425]

I supplement my Korean study with Quizlet which I put words I struggle with, and Quizlet AI has Q-chat: a text conversation in the target language utilizing the vocabulary words I've put in.

[@redred7289]

​@@israellaiyou have listening? Such luxury! 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿

[@Coccinelf]

Oh I was sure my new target language also wouldn't have Stories. Is it locked into Super?

[@fridyaliii]

we have stories now?? i think i have to wait for it to update

[@SpinelSun]

I'm still mad about the forums, but those updates sound awesome and so necessary. Can't wait to enjoy them in the Finnish course in 7 years lol

[@knop5519]

Thats what i thought too. They will never add that to the finnish course i fear :/

[@SpinelSun]

@@knop5519 You are too right, I was way too generous saying 7 years lol Like, we don't even have stories. We don't even have content updates! I'm so tired of the daily refresh 😭

[@k1rboo-roblox]

Hei hei! I’m doing the Finnish course right now and am halfway through the entire course. Around 20 days ago I received a message that my course had been „updated”! Perhaps I am part of an AB test - Finnish updates may be coming!

[@thedentonway]

Do I use Duolingo? No. Am I watching this? With enthusiasm! Love the overall delivery on everything you do, Evan. I learn so much every time!

[@LucasSchimmel]

It's only for Spanish. I run Portuguese and German just for fun (I'm a native speaker of those languages), and they aren't in. Neither in Italian. So, it's probably only in Spanish, Duolingo main language.

[@sebastianwlodarczyk]

So far I've only seen Podcasts, and only in Intermediate English- some other courses get updates from time to time, so they'll probably get those features at some point. But there are also courses that have maybe a dozen people working on them, which sort of explains why there's not that much going on with them feature-wise:)

[@LauraMorland]

I can confirm that neither video calling nor the animated skits are available in Italian. (And I'm on a 880 day streak, so I'm not a beginner learner.)

[@ololo518]

I never saw them in German and I have 1200-sth day streak

[@josephturner7569]

I gave up on them when they said I was wrong when I was right. Salut. Means hello and goodbye not just goodbye. But mostly hello. I should know. I live in France.

[@LoreCatan]

That's interesting! I'm Romanian, for us Salut only means hello, I find it strange to think of that word as anything but a greeting.

[@Chiales]

I once tried the German course (Mind you, I'm native German) and of course, it's not perfect. In German it's very normal to write "Ich hab" instead of "ich habe" (I have) which is basically one letter difference, so not a big deal, right? Yeah, no. Duolingo says it's wrong immediately, despite it not even being slang. Duolingo is sometimes so weird, man.

[@ololo518]

​@@ChialesI once tried polish path (and I'm native) and oh boy. One of main thing in our language is that you can skip subject. I can say "ja robię" (I'm doing) but most of the time I say "robię" because it already contains informations who is doing that. And so many sentences had this stiff "on pływa", "ja pływam", "ty pływasz" instead of just one word.

[@Chiales]

@@ololo518 And Duolingo didn't accept that or counted it as a mistake? Or is it actually good with Polish?

[@ololo518]

@@Chiales Oh, I don't remember. I think it accepted both versions (full and shortened) but promoted longer. Both are legit ways of talking in polish, but one immediately gives away your not native.

[@blue_jm]

I did Duolingo for three years for mostly Italian, French and German. I stopped when they started the forced path system as I really loved the earlier ability to choose from a few available exercises on the level you're at. The forced path is way too repetitious for my taste and especially in smaller languages gets very tedious after a while doing the same phrases over and over again and doesn't really help with expanding the vocabulary.

[@hysterikole1]

wow, i just clicked on this randomly and learned something life changing (disabling the motivational messages). Thanks.

[@evan]

I aim to give at least one big useful tip each duo vid :)

[@Tokahfang]

Fair warning to you that for both my wife and I, Duo just clicks them back on after a random while. :/

[@ololo518]

​@@TokahfangI never get them besides once in every recap lesson (this one on the end of unit). Weird.

[@InvestWithFFI]

Very clutch!

[@roadrunnercrazy]

I quit Duolingo over a year ago because of a combination of frustration with the changes to the app and dealing with the death of my mom and it's aftermath. It left me sad to have quit my language learning. These updates sound exciting. I might just have to give it a try again. Thank you for making the video about it.

[@marjamerryflower]

I am sorry for your loss. Losing your mom is hard. Sending you a big hug ❤. See you at Duo's!

[@ODevaneador]

I quit it because I felt I wasn't progressing anymore, I think watching yt is much better than just using duolingo, it gets to the point where you don't have much left to learn.

[@Bunnybananabunny]

Im so excited for this!😁 I fell off Duolingo about a year ago after breaking my 1 year streak in Japanese. I got so upset I rage quit😅

[@cailablock7432]

Ya gotta have those streak freezes. You've done it! You can do it again!

[@MegaChriz]

The first time I quit Duolingo was too about losing a long streak. The second time I stopped with Duolingo was because I started to shift my bed times because I either forgot to do a lesson earlier on the evening or I had something else going on. So I found myself repeating a lesson just to maintain the streak and I didn't feel I was making any progress. So as soon as I would pick up Duolingo again I think I should try to ignore these streaks.

[@ODevaneador]

I used duolingo for a few weeks for english, but I soon quit it and went to watch yt instead

[@flowerine06]

I quit for a while after moving to a new country and breaking my streak due to timezones 😭

[@m31Robert]

I quit Duolingo Arabic because all I get now is daily exercises with always the same sentences, it's unbearable. And still no speaking exercises...

[@silviasanchez648]

I fell off Duolingo some time ago but your video made me reconsider. I'll give it a go and start over! 😃

[@felixlps1]

As long as they still have health points and thus a limited number of mistakes allowed discouraging you from learning new lessons I wouldn't even consider using it again.

[@NaomiB_]

Same, the owl has gotten me again

[@lildeezn]

i stopped using it after they removed the tree

[@Coccinelf]

Thanks Evan I now have removed annoying sound effects and motivational animations!

[@evan]

Glad I could help!

[@NantokaNejako]

I've been using duolingo since 2021 and the buttons to turn off the animations have always been there, in my app. I wonder why they are available to some users only now. But thank goodness they are finally there 😅 because they're really life-saving!

[@bchap5429]

The owl giveth and the owl taketh away.

[@franekgrot6843]

I’ve literally just came back to duolingo after a month of break and now this vid pops up lol

[@Ravn7]

Me too

[@Prod.jaymelodies]

Cause the Owl is watching you 🤣

[@realitypoet]

I’m in B1 level of French (section 6, unit 30.) and I do have the Duolingo score (83) but I don’t have the video calls or extra animations. I like the score - I find it more motivating than the XP or the sections… it’s cool to be able to quickly see how far along I am without having to do the math (which I used to do manually periodically to essentially make my own score.)

[@evan]

Ah cool! Yeah as much as I’d love to have a score, I’d rather have the video call feature

[@kieraniles688]

I am using Duolingo for French too, but do not have the score feature. I am in the last section for A1, so maybe they don't give a score until later? I would really like to see the video call feature in French.

[@tim1724]

I'm at B2 in French (section 7, unit 32) and I don't have score or video calls. I think I may have the animations, but I've had all of the animations turned off for a long time so I'm not sure. So I think both the score and the video calls are still in A/B testing. I do seem to get a lot of the extra point stuff (regular lessons are frequently 35 points each for me) so I guess I'm in that testing group.

[@catherinelevison3310]

I’m on 23 score, unit 3 section 7, and 206 day streak of French. You’re way further than I am. I don’t have the video call either.

[@lillianschild17]

I'm at B1 level too, but in section 5, unit 1. Although I have a breakdown of the things I'm able to do with the language according to my CEFR level, I have no score. However, I've had a new feature for the last couple of weeks. Every now and then I get a question to answer at length, usually one that asks for my opinion on something or other. It's not a video call, but it seems that its goal is also to have you use the language in a less controlled fashion. I think's another step in the right direction.

[@MrRicearonie]

I’ve noticed the XP boost too. I’ve never understood why the practice lessons (like speaking or listening) would give you more XP than completing the lessons on your course, and since I’m XP driven I had found myself doing the practices rather than the lessons. It’s nice having progress rewarded better than it has been

[@stillhuntre55]

I actually don't know what XP is. I see it a lot in the app, but never understood what it is.

[@bennydreamly]

I won’t forgive them for deleting the wildfire achievement.

[@rice_frying_shrimp]

I only just started learning Japanese through the app and to say it's limited is an understatement. I have since decided to only use their gamified methods to teach myself the Kana alphabets and leave it at that and try to get my actual language skills from elsewhere, even the basics. Not only are the features nowhere near the same but holy cow when even I as a beginner know that some of what they are teaching is varying between overly complicated and formal to completely unnecessary or flat out wrong, that just ain't a good sign. I'd rather not accidentally reinforce bad habits like that. Here's to hoping they eventually do some kind of update to the Japanese course but I am not particularly confident that they will.

[@majakorbacz3121]

Rip in learning greek (one of the most overlooked courses on duolingo) ...we still didn't get stories

[@aleks-33]

1. I was/am skeptical of the news that Duolingo was letting go of some staff and were gonna lean in on "AI" but seeing these use cases..... im way more optimistic now. Just hope theyre still using real people to provide translations and lessons. 2. I love ur Spanish, Evan. You have a delightful accent in the outro and its way more neutral than when u play up the gringo accent to jokingly say your Spanish isnt that good. Thats insane you have like, comedic chops in a language u havent even mastered. ❤ love ur channel, man.

[@mzmscoyote]

I still haven’t forgiven them for getting rid of the old path. I am now more motivated to do the exercises under the barbell rather than lessons.

[@Miller1107]

Hit day 200 of Dutch lessons two weeks ago, and I only used 1 freeze during May! Still loving learning a new language :) As always I appreciate your diverse video content - nice to get variety. EDIT: "Because the sun was rimming me" *Duo completion sound plays* - I laughed out loud.

[@wingedyera]

Gefeliciteerd. Waarom heb je gekozen om Nederlands te leren? Woon je in Nederland?

[@Miller1107]

@@wingedyera Dank je wel! Ik woon in de UK, maar ik heb Nederlandse vrienden 😄

[@ryanunderwood1798]

Geweldig! Ik woon ook in VK, en mijn beste vriendin is een Nederlander!

[@wingedyera]

@@Miller1107 als Nederlander ben ik altijd verbaasd als iemand Nederlands wil leren. Maar ergens ben ik er ook wel trots op.

[@qwertydeluxe]

As always, RIP to the discussion section. The proficiency "score" you mention seems to be an improved version of another feature they did away with in the past which was super helpful and which I've been missing. I think a final thing that separates what content you receive in Duolingo is which app you have- as an Android user, I seem to get new features after my iPhone user friends.

[@MilwaukeeWoman]

Thank you for the encouragement. When I get discouraged, because Japanese sometimes seems impossible, I just remind myself that I'm doing it for fun and it is fun. It's my favorite hobby.

[@carolineskipper6976]

Am currently ready to throw the whole computer through the window as Duo has decided that I am incapable of speaking a particular, very simple, phrase correctly. This has been going on for several days now. It accepts every other phrase I say - even when I know I am mumbling or fluffing part of it- but this particular one - NOPE! You shall not pass!

[@louisegogel7973]

Did you report it and screen shot it to send in feedback? Also, to finish your lesson, are you able to click, can’t speak now?

[@carolineskipper6976]

@@louisegogel7973 I have reported it thanks. Didn't screen shot, just ticked the relevant box. I am able to continue the lesson- but end up running out of hearts, and nothing is completed properly as I have missed that one item. Will keep trying, and hoping it gets sorted (Also, if it doean't work I won't waste time/ hearts trying to to shout at it). Thanks for suggestions.

[@louisegogel7973]

@@carolineskipper6976 I think screen shots to feedback might be more effective. I always write on my screen shot, pointing out and explaining what I am telling them. You can ask for a response by clicking on the far right icon in the email, if you want it. I have sometimes gotten a response… ‘Thank you for your feedback. We have made the suggested changes.’

[@PurelyCoincidental]

I mostly study French on it, and I've had similar experiences. Sometimes it just will NOT take whatever pronunciation I give, and I've otherwise been complimented on how good my accent is. I don't know if this works in every language, but if the system has recognized that I spoke at least half the phrase, I can press the "click to speak" button again, and it often accepts what I gave and moves forward.

[@carolineskipper6976]

@@PurelyCoincidental This particular phrase won't accept any attempts at all - and there's only so many ways you can say ' un apres- midi'. I've moved on, but it's deprived me of any build up of scores.

[@neilwaldock6272]

I hope we can get some of these features in Gaelic. Just basic speaking exercises would be nice.

[@jigglyboob3000]

yess im learning gaidhlig and it gets nothing😭 only good thing is they dont use ai for the audio

[@adonvonilesere5642]

AI really helps me get over the embarrassment of trying to talk in a language I don't know. This is a great new feature

[@kf7sb2]

If you watch in 0.75 speed it looks like he's talking normally

[@tfrtrouble]

Really? I find Duolingo's most annoying weakness (aside from poor coverage of some languages) is the totally inadequate approach to noun gender. It expects you to know noun gender; if you get the accompanying article or adjective ending wrong in a sentence, it marks the whole sentence as wrong. However, it does nothing to help you learn noun gender. When new nouns are introduced AND in all the little vocab recap exercises where you match words AND in the hints when you click on words in the English sentence, the nouns are given without articles so you have no idea what their genders are. How hard can it be to present house as "une/la maison" and not just "maison".

[@victoriab8186]

Yes!!! I can keep up with basic conversations, but if I want to talk to someone, my noun genders are just as bad s they were when I stopped learning in school classes years ago - my overall facility with the language has drastically improved over the past year of Duolingo, but noun gender? Not at all

[@Trainfan1055Janathan]

Lilly's my favorite. I love goth characters.

[@evan]

She’s better than junior!

[@esiebring7436]

Mine too. I actually bought the Lily-doll. She's sitting next to my angry-bird and COVID-dollies.

[@TerraMarie34]

My issue still with duolingo is that I pay for a subscription, but with the recent update they added explanations and I have to pay more the get the explanation. It feels like I need to have a subscription for my subscription lol. And I feel like what I pay vs what they remove every update isn’t worth it, but I wanted to invest in duolingo for the sake of no ads and hopefully improvement. Needing to spend more money feels like a slap in the face.

[@whovian1018]

I have to say, with you last comment about language learning it makes me a lot happier with learning Arabic through the app. I played through Assassin’s Creed Mirage recently and I was so happy when I understood some of the background conversations. I don’t need to know the full language, but it’s nice being able to even just understand bits and pieces, even if I’m not fluent. Thanks for the info with the new updates, and I really hope they get added to Arabic (mostly bc my friends doing Dutch and German have stories and I don’t yet)

[@dannymarie]

I really love your energy in this video! You seem genuinely excited and the video feels nicely structured :)

[@simplyepic3258]

This is awesome. Now if only they could bring literally any of these features to the Swedish course.

[@DNRTannen]

Strong Bad Edinger was just what I needed today.

[@middlemuse]

Bless you ten thousand fold for the Strong Bad reference at the end.

[@evan]

Turns out my "stereotypicalish Mexican accent in Spanish" is just a bad Strong Bad impression haha

[@user-jh9qn3qu9u]

Evan: (in New Yorker accent) Hey, I’m learning here!

[@crossfitjohnathan9032]

I was so excited when I saw this video was posted I’ve been waiting for you to post a Duolingo video!🤣🤣

[@allyahinblack]

it's not in my tree yet.... but rly looking forward to trying it out

[@TheFlyingGerbil]

Learning Welsh on duolingo, i don’t get any of the fun stuff except the constant fear they’re going to dump it entirely rather than the ‘No new updates’ they have now.

[@eimere]

Vamos Evan! Vas muy bien! 💃 Empecé a seguirte con tus videos de america vs uk y al principio me abrumó la velocidad con la que hablas pero me propuse seguirte (a parte de que obviamente me gusta tu contenido) y mejorar mi nivel de "listening". Hoy te entiendo casi todo🎉 Si consigues que tus vocales suenen secas o cortadas( sólo tenemos 1 fonema por vocal) tu pronunciación dará un salto increíble. Ánimo!😊 (ahora estoy con duolingo🇧🇷 y esas actualizaciones no llegan nunca😢)

[@DaftRebel]

I'd dig a documentary style video about duolingo coming from you bro LOL cheers from Tierra del Fuego, Argentina!!!

[@RawbeardX]

my experience with Duolingo is that it teaches you how to solve Duolingo tasks. that was very... whelming.

[@slicksalmon6948]

Fascinating. I very much support any upgrades related to audio. I also love motivational messages.

[@beeno2707]

i hope these updates come to the less used languages! i’m currently doing korean & chinese and i’m curious to see them myself

[@glencoconut]

I don't care about duolingo until evan edinger posts a video about it

[@dogsteeves1]

I personally wish I could remove tracking day and streaks it ruin it for me and stresses me out to make deadline expecially with hearts

[@yolanda6392]

same!!

[@stillhuntre55]

Try going to the bottom of the screen (mobile app) and click on the person's face. It takes you to your profile. Click the gear in the upper corner. You should be able to scroll through and turn off the kinds of notifications you don't want.

[@j.rinker4609]

I do like the variety of topics on your channel.

[@sweetteacurls]

I'm so glad you came across my feed. This was a really fun, comfortable watch. New sub! 👍🏼😌

[@moisesdasilvalimas5401]

Recently, I've noticed some of the language courses are vanishing. My paraguayan friend tried to access Guarani course in Spanish Duolingo and it does not appear anymore (since I "started" Guarani a long time ago, the course still appears to me). I'm brazilian and I know that Esperanto also got removed from Portuguese Duolingo. Can you comment about that? I don't see anyone sharing this, it looks like many people don't know it. I wish they don't remove other minoritarian languages as they seem to have done with Guarani.

[@Andreecals]

I noticed this too. I also have access to the guarani course because I started it long ago (coincidentally I'm also Brazilian), and it's been gone for other people for a while. I think it's an obvious problem, shared with many other of the smaller courses: there just aren't as many speakers of the language with a formation in languages that duolingo can hire. Courses like norwegian and irish are almost vestigial (norwegian was much better until they updated to the path format, now the grammar tips just got removed for no reason), but they are at least still available. But guarani is a big shame for how nice an initiative it is, but how hard it must be to implement.

[@dilanelysium5118]

these titles are starting to get a bit repetitive, "duolingo broke this feature, duolingo fixed its mistake!" Duolingo: the king of self sabotage XD

[@louisegogel7973]

Right… duolingo the self sabotage master!

[@mrfrederic703]

Imagine them changing it to GPT-4o with it's 0.5 second delay

[@yoshisarchives]

te ha salido genial la outro, grande sigue así

[@user-if8pi3mj8f]

Great!

[@Bryanah]

Does anyone know if the video call feature is going to be available for users without a Duolingo Max subscription, or if the subscription will be required?

[@Platino48]

Excelente video, disfruté escuchar el outro en español. ¡Bien hecho! 😂

[@felipejorqueracastro556]

Gracias! It's the first time I watch one of your videos and it was very interesting to know about the recent updates of Duolingo. I loved your way of communicating, as an English learner it was a nice challenge follow your speed, I feel that I've reached a new level of listening; besides, I laughed a lot! Thanks for that. Saludos desde Chile!

[@fatimaabbad3474]

I don’t think we’re using the same duolingo 😅😅

[@JennaGetsCreative]

What timing for another DuoLingo video! I love trying out different languages, and for years my streak has been maintained learning and practicing French (my country's second language) and Norwegian Bokmal (my ancestral language) but I'll dabble in others every once in a while. In January my sister was choosing between Ukranian and Polish, her boyfriend's first and second languages (she wants to do both eventually) and I told her I'd learn with her as motivation and I started learning Ukranian. Well, she hasn't kept up with it, so last week I decided to swap again and I finally (dunno why it took me this long) started German. Oh. My. God. Why is the tree for German so much better? I tested into a starting place in French so maybe that one's good too, but compared to Bokmal and Ukranian, hot damn this German tree has me learning faster. And I know I've crossed some linguistic similarities by now, but seriously this tree has been a breeze to start. I'm blown away. I'm also disappointed that they aren't all equal.

[@mormacil]

German, English, French and especially Spanish are the money makers, everything else plays second or even third fiddle. Which is a total shame.

[@sebastianwlodarczyk]

I think Ukrainian course hangs on the contributions from like 10 people (I managed to pull up the list of people working on it at some point, and annoyingly, can't remember how)- and yeah, compared to German is really rather barren. I can imagine how having no clues about things like declension can be really confusing- took me way too long to realise that "Ви" is used both as a plural and formal way to address someone:D Irish and Latin courses are similarly low on hints:(

[@JennaGetsCreative]

@@sebastianwlodarczyk What's been driving me nuts in the Ukranian course is the lack of explanation on when to translate soft sign to ' and when to ignore it when being asked to transcribe into Latin characters. There must be a rule but I don't know what it is!

[@sebastianwlodarczyk]

@@JennaGetsCreative Totally agree- I've given up on the "learn the letters" part of the course before starting the part about that sign, partly because of lack of explanations like these. My first language is Polish, so most times I can guess how to pronounce a word based on the similarities, but writing it down in Latin alphabet felt more like a guessing game than a learning experience. As far as I know, ' shows up after a vowel you pronounce with a mostly closed mouth and a consonant, and it means adding a short "i" sound between them, but how or when to write it down with Latin characters is a bit beyond my skillset:) Makes me think that a note about the International Phonetic Alphabet, or a whole IPA course would be helpful

[@randomhungarianperson]

I practise English on Duolingo. I don't have video calls and cartoons. But I have those podcasts, and when I complete a story (which you were talking about between 05:25-06:55), I have an extra excercise at the end: I can write a short text about a theme. Sometimes it's: "what was this story about?", but sometimes they ask my opinion or they ask me to tell a story about something that happened in my life. (This part is skippable, but you can get extra points.) I really like these new excercises, they make the app more interesting, more diverse. But they have bugs. - The podcast sometimes just doesn't start. It is loading and loading, but never starts. - In a Duolingo podcast, the characters were talking about a hobby, but the questions were about a totally different hobby. It was like the developers wanted to create a story, then they changed their minds, but they forgot to change the questions according to the new story. - Writing excercises are corrected by AI, but this AI really loves to put "but" in every complex sentence. Even if it needs "and" or nothing. It's always "but" for Duolingo.

[@ramblingmillennial1560]

That video call feature looks awesome. And I don't know spanish but I was digging the outro lol.

[@QALibrary]

Wonder if Evan taking any photos of the sky tonight seeing 6 planets are lined up

[@evan]

I am going to sleep! Northern lights never happened for me so

[@beauthestdane]

I have yet to see any of the video lessons. I am on B1 in French now.

[@beauthestdane]

I also have not seen the score on mine, but perhaps I am in the B group for that.

[@tim1724]

I'm at B2 in French (section 7, unit 32) and have seen neither video calls nor score yet.

[@robinbregman7540]

I really enjoy watching your videos and LOVE Duolingo. I’ve been using it since 2007, when we moved to Brazil for a 5 year stay. As a teacher, I see and appreciate the efforts they put into continually improving pedagogy. The updates seem great. Thanks for sharing!

[@sailorcat]

That's interesting. But I think Duolingo's weak point is: not really ecplaining grammar and the weird, random structure/order of what you learn. (I used to use it for Japanese.)

[@mariamodan3769]

You got me very excited about the call update then realized it's not available for the Japanese course :(

[@oki.tokiwilks]

Noooo!!! I was wondering why it wasn't on my list 😢😢

[@river559]

You'll be waiting a looong time. Japanese was added around the time I first left Duolingo after years of wanting it, and the last time I used the app about a year or so ago, it was still missing half the features German had at the time

[@mormacil]

It's worse, it's only in Spanish.

[@fantasticube]

I am an avid hater of AI but I'm really excited about the new video calls feature. This is a rare example of ML being put into good use, in my opinion.

[@OShaughnessyC]

Very interesting. Thank you!

[@DanaCleopatraHerzog]

damn evan, you're talking so fast today

[@dannymarie]

Honestly duo should sponsor you, this video has convinced me to redownload it 🤷

[@Carbon_Crow]

My main issue is that languages like English and Spanish get all these new features, meanwhile countless other languages don’t even have speaking or stories, updates from ages ago. (I say this as someone learning Spanish and Hebrew on Duolingo)

[@OiJoshoeke]

One of the updates that happened recently is in Japanese. Now we can finally learn each kanji character, and wven how to write them !!!

[@codylox41]

Starts by saying that there's chapters, but there's no chapters lol

[@codylox41]

My viens were looking for information

[@evan]

FRICK IM SORRY IM ADDING THEM NOW

[@evan]

Chapters have now been added :) Thanks for being the first to shame me :D

[@claire2088]

urghhh does it have to be Lily? I swear she's the most miserable person imaginable

[@NekonataVirino]

Could be worse - could be Oscar.

[@norosettanne]

I wasn't expecting strong bad at the end of this video, I was laughing so much!

[@Graeaeae]

I wish I could keep those streaks going on the app, great streak, inspiring

[@TheBlueArcher]

wow, that strongbad impression was insanely spot on.

¡Felicitaciones por tu constancia!

[@Ziiav747]

the sun was rimming me! My thought: The sun was having a kiss of death 💀

[@Cole_Is_A_Mole]

I think I might have been AB testing for this! I feel like I've seen these features ever since I started!

[@whitneylevis]

My partner and I are in different A/B Test groups so it is fun getting to discuss upcoming features