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Duolingo to add more languages!!!


Trellum

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I'm so excited, their Swedish language course is 99% complete!  They are also going to add other languages: Turkish, Hungarian, Polish, Russian and Romanian.  How I wish they added Hebrew to the list, it would be a dream come true, but I'm actually very happy to see Russian in that list :)  I'll surely go learn it there!

Are you happy about the news? Is the language you want to learn in the list? What language would you like to be added to the list?

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The main list (currently active courses) is here, and the incubator (courses under construction) is here.

Just to note, as it says on the status page, Duolingo's "% complete" amount is always a bit optimistic, so unfortunately we won't be seeing the immediate release that the page is saying. Still, it's getting closer and closer!

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  • 2 weeks later...

Just an update - the developers of the Swedish course have announced that the  course will be released into beta on Monday.

This Monday!

I have a big exam on Tuesday, but I know what I'll be doing afterwards!

The announcement: http://incubator.duolingo.com/courses/sv/en/status

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Duolingo is adding Swedish to one of their language courses? :-D Thank you for sharing this! I'm really excited to hear that they're almost complete with creating the course. I have just started learning Swedish, and this is such great timing. Now I have something to look forward to! Duolingo really is expanding its borders, and it's serving them pretty well.

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I hope they add Arabic if they do not already have it. However, am I the only one that wonders if Duolingo is better suited for language learners that already have a little background in the language they wish to become fluent in? Or do you all think that if I had no experience with Portuguese, for example, that Duolingo would be suitable for my proficiency level? I'm sure there is an article on this somewhere, I will just have to search for it. But what are your thoughts?

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I hope they add Arabic if they do not already have it. However, am I the only one that wonders if Duolingo is better suited for language learners that already have a little background in the language they wish to become fluent in? Or do you all think that if I had no experience with Portuguese, for example, that Duolingo would be suitable for my proficiency level? I'm sure there is an article on this somewhere, I will just have to search for it. But what are your thoughts?

I know there were plans to add Chinese that never seemed to eventuate. The system is nearly all text-based, so it's not incredibly surprising to me that they have trouble working Chinese in without a major overhaul of the system. Arabic of course is difficult for the same reason.

Otherwise I agree - Chinese, Arabic, Hindi, Russian and Japanese are all languages which are not currently supported by Duolingo (and I don't see them being supported any time soon), despite having more speakers than most of the ones that are already supported. Duolingo's goal was to teach people to translate the web, and Chinese, Arabic and Russian all have huge online communities.

As for required level, I did okay at German starting from scratch, and stopped more for lack of time/motivation than anything else. If you want to be fluent in a language (as in, be able to speak it), try to find other resources to back up what Duolingo teaches you. Maybe Anki or Memrise to help with vocab and find a decent grammar textbook. Look into podcasts and audio lessons too.

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Swedish is out!!! It was released on Monday, and it's great :) I'm so happy. Norwegian would be a great add too, as it's the most useful Scandinavian language in some ways--Norwegian is more mutually intelligible with Icelandic, Danish, and Swedish than any of the others, from what I've heard.

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I know there were plans to add Chinese that never seemed to eventuate. The system is nearly all text-based, so it's not incredibly surprising to me that they have trouble working Chinese in without a major overhaul of the system. Arabic of course is difficult for the same reason.

Otherwise I agree - Chinese, Arabic, Hindi, Russian and Japanese are all languages which are not currently supported by Duolingo (and I don't see them being supported any time soon), despite having more speakers than most of the ones that are already supported. Duolingo's goal was to teach people to translate the web, and Chinese, Arabic and Russian all have huge online communities.

As for required level, I did okay at German starting from scratch, and stopped more for lack of time/motivation than anything else. If you want to be fluent in a language (as in, be able to speak it), try to find other resources to back up what Duolingo teaches you. Maybe Anki or Memrise to help with vocab and find a decent grammar textbook. Look into podcasts and audio lessons too.

Thanks! I always figured that Duolingo was not a "stand alone" application for language learning. I'm still on the quest for such a product that may or may not exist at the moment.

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  • 4 months later...

Great job Trellum! You have made a ton of progress on your languages on Duolingo! I am at like 10% on French here.  :laugh: If only I had a little more time! I am using the mobile app though and it is fun to do on the train.

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Swedish is out!!! It was released on Monday, and it's great :) I'm so happy. Norwegian would be a great add too, as it's the most useful Scandinavian language in some ways--Norwegian is more mutually intelligible with Icelandic, Danish, and Swedish than any of the others, from what I've heard.

I'd like to learn Norwegian :) It is so easy, but that is not my only reason... I want to visit it and eventually stay there :)  I want to live and die in Norway :P  So I'm looking forward to when they add Norwegian, I think it'd be a great addition.  A great extra tool for those looking to really learn that language.

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I am really glad that Swedish is added. I just said in another post that I will wait for them to release and now I find its out. I am off to go right now and start learning.

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I would have wanted Nihongo/Japanese included, but instead of waiting around I prefer to learn Nihongo through traditional means, as Duolingo doesn't have any plans to add Nihongo anytime soon.  There are other ways by which I could learn Nihongo.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I wish they add Nihonggo soon! I thought they have it already and I tried switching courses, then I discovered it was Nihonggo to English instead of English to Nihonggo. I almost never made it back to the original settings because all the characters were changed to Kanji! haha

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I'm super glad! They're an awesome app, and I've been heavily recommending them to friends and family. Let's hope the quality level isn't lowered for all the new languages though.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I can´t imagine they would ever offer Russian or Chinese using ´english´ spelling.  I learned to speak a good deal of Russian just by writing out the words phonetically in english.  Of course that would probably be more trouble than it is worth for most people.

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  • 4 weeks later...

Where did you find that list Trellum? I would like to find out  whether they are going to include Chinese or not. :grin:

Same here. I'm interested in learning Chinese Mandarin with as much help/apps as possible. Will you guys please explain first the best way to integrate Doulingo with other apps/trainings such as Pimsleur, attending virtual courses, studying Mandarin translation books? Thank you!

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  • 1 month later...

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