Duolingo

aindriu80

Hi,

Did anyone here try out Duolingo ? its a completely free Irish course. I started it a few days ago and its fun, learn-able and definitely something I will finish. I think there are more Irish 'learners' on Duolingo that there are Irish speakers on the whole of Ireland.

Manach

I am also using Duolingo. I'm unsure if it would act as a full language course for Irish, but as a means to relearn and revise what was drilled in during schooldays, as the OP says it is rather fun. As well it is available as an App, so can be mobile with it.
At level 6 currently.

Moocifer

Yeah I ve tried it out to refresh my Irish and I find it excellent. Also doing French and German on Duolingo

aindriu80

cool, thats good going. I am at level 5 and spent a fair bit of time at it since I started wednesday. The only thing is that there isn't anything after the tree and the tree isn't huge. I think you have to go back to each lesson after a while to keep lessons you have done bright orange/yellow.

stereomatic

I was informed of this by an older and also the youngest brother and I've started at basic with the the ambition to fly through it. The youngest brother says that his daughter is flying through it and must inform my sister and her children about this and also inform my younger brothers and eldest brother too
I also plan to revise other languages too

_Puma_

Loving this. Using it on Windows phone and I must say it one of the best apps around. Was at a high enough level of Irish at school and really enjoying learning all the basics again! Have no reason really to be back learning Irish again other than the Duolingo course being so much fun!

hullaballoo

There are innate problems with the app from what I can see. A friend of mine said she was brushing up on her Irish with it so I downloaded it to see what the lessons etc. are like.

It asked me to translate, "Caithimid an gúna" in one section (which is, "we wear the dress" and not a particularly useful phrase). A couple of questions later, it gave me 3 Irish sentences of which I had to choose the "correct" ones. Notwithstanding that all of them were perfectly fine translations, one of them was "caithimid an gúna", and it told me that was incorrect.

It also doesn't allow for dialectic usage. I haven't been using it for long enough to be sure that it's using the Caighdeán alone but it seems that way for now.

That all said, it's certainly a good way to reach a base-level standard of Irish from which people can develop and hone their Irish.

_Puma_

Ya i think that is what they are aiming for really. It started off as an duolingo Incubator programme and is now in Beta. Once they get the reports down to a certain level they can take the beta tag off. Good article here about it and how it came about and the problems the app itself presents.

There is a good community on the Irish discussion forums on the duolingo website. They are planning on expanding a lot in 2015 and are actively looking for contributors of a very high level of Irish too.

NiamhWitch

I am an "absolute beginner" at Irish, and have started using Duolingo to learn. I find it very helpful, but I also supplement with other resources (including a FB Duolingo study group specifically for the Irish course, along with forums like this and watching/listening to Irish television, etc).

naasrd

Dabbled in it for a while, absolutely love it since the new year and try to reach a target gach là! I'm seeing my vocabulary build up, nothing spectacular but enough to keep me coming back.

Aard

Duolingo strikes me as a tool for beginners to get hooked on and feel like they're making progress, but I imagine that after a while users will need to graduate to a better learning method.

AnLonDubh

I think Duolingo is quite a good course, aside from the pronunciation which is quite off, they should have gotten a native speaker.

naasrd

Aard wrote: »

Duolingo strikes me as a tool for beginners to get hooked on and feel like they're making progress, but I imagine that after a while users will need to graduate to a better learning method.

I'm not sure. It's a new way of learning, we don't yet know how the app will grow with technology. I'm finding it emensly helpful after a few months. My vocabulary has trebled. I've spent lots of money on classes, this is a whole new experience only in it's infancy.

Aard

If it's vocabulary building you're after, take a look at an SSR -- "spaced repetition system". The popular one is called Anki, but I have no idea if there are flashcards available for Irish. Of course building your own is always possible.

Wrt Duolingo, I just wonder whether it can tackle and explain compex structures such as the difference between "atá" and "a bhfuil" not to mention the genitive case.

naasrd

Aard wrote: »

If it's vocabulary building you're after, take a look at an SSR -- "spaced repetition system". The popular one is called Anki, but I have no idea if there are flashcards available for Irish. Of course building your own is always possible.

Wrt Duolingo, I just wonder whether it can tackle and explain compex structures such as the difference between "atá" and "a bhfuil" not to mention the genitive case.

I doubt it, I'm just finding it perfect for vocab building, tenses. The sort of stuff I half remember in a jumble from school, now I get to understand it fully. No doubt I'll outgrow over time, it but it's really lit a fire under me. I use it every day and find I pick up a new word, tense or phrase or two which then helps my confidence and it was that that always held me back; being afraid to get to wrong. With just me and an app it's a whole new ball game.

Aard

It's great to hear the enthusiasm in your post there. If the app achieves nothing but getting people interested in the language again then that's still a success. Hopefully it might grow and develop to offer some more complex grammar too.

aindriu80

Aard wrote: »

It's great to hear the enthusiasm in your post there. If the app achieves nothing but getting people interested in the language again then that's still a success. Hopefully it might grow and develop to offer some more complex grammar too.

there is duolingo 2.0 coming at some stage... a bigger tree with more grammer and words.

stereomatic

aindriu80 wrote: »

there is duolingo 2.0 coming at some stage... a bigger tree with more grammer and words.

That sounds great

A thing I've noticed on the German, Spanish and French courses are Aural, Typing and using the microphone whereas the Irish course is Aural and Typing alone