Duolingo: “JKR is mean”

Well, goodness me, thank you for that. Perfect.

Lingodear (not free, but not too expensive) is better than Duolingo for Mandarin.

Cantonese is hard to get hold of anything good.

You do know, I presume, that Duolingo has a Cantonese course that you can only access via Mandarin. I raced through the whole course at speed to refresh my half-forgotten Cantonese when it became clear that Duolingo was going to change their 'tree' to the present crappy system.

Apart from that there are various things to help learn Cantonese that people have uploaded onto the community pages of Memrise. (Memrise has made those pages very hard to find, but they do still exist so far.)

Language Transfer is absolutely brilliant, they’re podcasts (5-10 mins each episode) which really teach you how a language works. Totally free although they appreciate donations! https://www.languagetransfer.org/

Ffs. Duolingo is my daily bit of fun with ds and I’m on a 1068 day streak. I don’t pay for it, just the free version but I’ve enjoyed learning different languages to a very, very basic level. Why do so many companies feel the need to stick their nose into political issues. Ffs.

I wouldn't say I've found lots of political content on Duolingo, but occasionally something pops up that's a bit jarring - something the developers thought was completely uncontroversial, and didn't realise not everyone shares their sensibilities.

The Gaelic course is pretty good, though there are others out there.

As always with commercial entities, Michael Jordan's statement that "Republicans buy sneakers too" is worth bearing in mind.

Hilariously, a TRA old acquaintance of mine just posted that he would be deleting Duolingo because they've apologised and removed this content. Very funny that they could lose customers from both sides because of this!

Amazing that he is complaining because he WANTS a language app to have controversial political statements for no reason (of course as long as they reflect HIS increasingly niche views).

I'm on a very long Duolingo streak (French, and nearly completed the course).

There have been a handful of times when I thought the content was ill-advised. One unit had stuff about gender and sentences along the lines of there are many genders, etc. I can't remember it all now but I remember finding it annoying. Every now and then there is definitely some "pointed" content.

Nothing as bad as the JKR thing, though.

Deleted my Duolingo too. Finished Ukrainian which was bad anyway but I won't put up with this anti JKR stuff . Gods am wondering if their Hebrew app says unpleasant things now...

Good on Gaby Koppel though.

Article in the Times:
https://www.thetimes.com/article/ead5c197-243b-4e42-b742-c6f17f209f85?shareToken=aaf7e0b6e2c000e657eed5446d5797a7

Left 1* review and deleted. Couldn't cope with the endless notifications anyway.

Just deleted the app. Despite my 1800+ streak I’d become weary of the preachy nagging and this is the final straw.

What other highly political opinions have you seen Duolingo characters express?

Anyway, it doesn't prompt dialogue because you cannot express your own opinion in return. You literally don't have the option to type, "No she isn't, you daft twat, get off Reddit and go touch some grass."

It is an opinion tho' 'meiner Meinung nach...' surely it is there to prompt an opposing response and create a presumably balanced dialogue. It has nothing to do with the opinions of the company Duolingo. I don't see what all the fuss is about.

Ah. Just rtft. UK Vs US and an apology.

Am using it for a couple of languages but interleaving with other sources for reading/ listening/writing. Have come across nothing controversial so far. Any recommendations for good Mandarin and Cantonese courses online?

Force teaming with LGB again.

Interns??

I'm glad someone has stepped up and reported the content and Duolingo has (eventually) responded by removing it and apologising. Hopefully that's the thin end of that particular wedge firmly knocked out. In my head, though, JKR is mildly amused and ready with a pithy, witty, and possibly, some might say, slightly mean retort.

(I'm not unsubscribing yet and quite enjoy the diverse content, although I agree with previous posters that Duolingo is at best an adjunct to other forms of language learning.)

They apologised and removed it.
It shouldn't have been there in the first place, but when a company clearly says sorry and removes the content, I think that should be acknowledged. Fair dues to them, they didn't get all defensive and waffle on about sensitivity and feelz...

I leaned French at school and Spanish at beginner college level in the US (I worked over there after uni) and I have found it invaluable for topping up my previous in person courses BUT (without boasting) I am the kind of person who sits waiting for the other members of the language class to catch up so I like being able to top up my vocabulary and revise my grammar at my pace.

I have no idea if it would work for me from scratch - I tried Czech when I was there for work so I could say Hello but it looked like you had to learn how to say "my cat is red" first so I deleted that!

>> Duolingo has to say sorry

More explicitly I think they need to apologise to JKR rather than for "any offence caused".

There are many things I don't agree on with JKR. However this kind of gratuitous, personal snide remark has no place in such a popular platform.

Duolingo has to say sorry after getting locked in a trans row and criticising 'mean' JK Rowling in German lesson | Daily Mail Online

Interesting. How do you use it to learn a language?

Yes, I agree with this.

The timing and the content of the tweet (which only refers to people in same sex relationships) makes it very unlikely that it's a reference to the UK Supreme Court.

If you are learning German there are much better totally free apps with no ads or mindless gamification.

DW Learn German has a choice of professionally-made courses.

VHS (the German adult-education organisation) has a series of apps for the different CEFR levels.

I use chatgpt, I've learned more in a month than a whole 1000 days streak on Duolingo.