Title. I wanted to learn japanese so i started few weeks ago with duolinguo to learn kana at first. Now i know them, i wanted to learn more and i came across this sub specifying that it’s not recommended. Why?
you may want to search “duolingo” as this was recently discussed in detail.
Basically if you use it as a supplement to some other type of learning it’s fine. If it’s the main course, it’s not detailed or comprehensive as a textbook.
I think it’s a good place to start, but if your interested in a deep dive into the language probably best to work with other resources as well.
It was very unhelpful for myself. I tried to learn using it, and it just threw words at me without even teaching kana
The big problem I see in Duolingo is that (for what I know) it advertises itself as a self-sufficient tool to learn a new language. But it is good to learn some vocabulary. I’ll probably never forget いしゃ, おちゃ, にく, ねこ.
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I don’t know about grammar, tho
Many reasons.
If you look up JLPT (japanese language proficiency test) or language levels (beginner/intermediate/advanced), you’ll get an idea of how much you need to learn to be intermediate or advanced in japanese and what language level you’ll need to be at to for example read novels or talk to people or watch shows. So N5 is beginner level, N4 is upper beginner, N3 is upper beginner/lower intermediate, then N2, and N1 is advanced.
To do tourist things in a language like ride a plane or buy something or order food you want to learn beginner material at least. To do more things in the language like read manga and chat about hobbies with people you want to be at least intermediate at the language. To read novels for adults or work in a language you will probably want get to an advanced language level. Duolingo covers beginner material (N5 and N4). So if you eventually plan to do activities that require intermediate level material to be studied, you’ll need to find other study resources after Duolingo (or similar apps like Lingodeer). This doesn’t mean duolingo is inherently useless. But I personally would suggest not to spend too long on it, since it only covers beginner material, plan to get through the whole app in the time you want it to take you to study beginner material. In a classroom setting beginner material might be covered in 2-4 semesters (1-2 years), and classrooms will have writing and speaking which duolingo doesn’t have. So if you use duolingo for 3 years it may be severely wasting your time.
The biggest reason I don’t like duolingo is that its paced really slow (if you download anki right now and some pre-made japanese deck like Tango N5 or Core 2k deck and study 1 hour a day, you’ll learn more words in a year by *far* than you would from duolingo. If you use a textbook an hour a day and go through 1 chapter a week you’ll probably cover more than duolingo in a month.) And it’s not only paced slow, the app implies if you study 1 lesson per day or a few minutes a day you’ll become fluent. With a language you’ll probably want to study at least 30 minutes a day, with japanese at least 1 hour a day usually, if you want to see noticeable progress every Several months. So if you take duolingo at 1 lesson a day it could take years to get through material you could have studied in 6 months if you’d just done duolingo 1 hour a day. If you do use duolingo, using it more than 30 minutes a day might help. But the way duolingo markets itself as 15 minutes a day to learn a language, you’re going to be a beginner in japanese for years.
I’ve also heard duolingo has some errors in the japanese course. And its not laid out in as nice a way as it could be for japanese. But I think all apps have some issues like this to some degree so if you like duolingo these aren’t big problems. The big problem to me is how the material *only* beginner material and a learner needs to study it a decent amount of time per day like 30 min-1 hour+ if they want to progress at a decent pace. This is also true of Lingodeer. The beginner apps are Fine if you plan to get through them in a timely manner. If you think they’ll take you all the way to advanced material and fluency, you’re going to be let down.
There are some apps that Do cover intermediate material like bunpo covers grammar through all the levels, and anki obviously has a lot of japanese decks people have made that cover intermediate+ material. If you’re not sure how much material an app covers, search online how much material the app covers. Duolingo and Lingodeer list about 3000 words for japanese plus N5 and N4 (beginner) grammar. Glossika lists like 7000 words and 5000 sentences so it may have a bit more intermediate material, anki decks you’ll want to go by the information for the deck (if it’s 6000 words it covers intermediate or if it says N5 then it’s beginner). If an app doesn’t share information about how much material it covers? Then I’d assume it’s beginner only to be safe.
5 comments
you may want to search “duolingo” as this was recently discussed in detail.
Basically if you use it as a supplement to some other type of learning it’s fine. If it’s the main course, it’s not detailed or comprehensive as a textbook.
I think it’s a good place to start, but if your interested in a deep dive into the language probably best to work with other resources as well.
It was very unhelpful for myself. I tried to learn using it, and it just threw words at me without even teaching kana
The big problem I see in Duolingo is that (for what I know) it advertises itself as a self-sufficient tool to learn a new language. But it is good to learn some vocabulary. I’ll probably never forget いしゃ, おちゃ, にく, ねこ.
​
I don’t know about grammar, tho
Many reasons.
If you look up JLPT (japanese language proficiency test) or language levels (beginner/intermediate/advanced), you’ll get an idea of how much you need to learn to be intermediate or advanced in japanese and what language level you’ll need to be at to for example read novels or talk to people or watch shows. So N5 is beginner level, N4 is upper beginner, N3 is upper beginner/lower intermediate, then N2, and N1 is advanced.
To do tourist things in a language like ride a plane or buy something or order food you want to learn beginner material at least. To do more things in the language like read manga and chat about hobbies with people you want to be at least intermediate at the language. To read novels for adults or work in a language you will probably want get to an advanced language level. Duolingo covers beginner material (N5 and N4). So if you eventually plan to do activities that require intermediate level material to be studied, you’ll need to find other study resources after Duolingo (or similar apps like Lingodeer). This doesn’t mean duolingo is inherently useless. But I personally would suggest not to spend too long on it, since it only covers beginner material, plan to get through the whole app in the time you want it to take you to study beginner material. In a classroom setting beginner material might be covered in 2-4 semesters (1-2 years), and classrooms will have writing and speaking which duolingo doesn’t have. So if you use duolingo for 3 years it may be severely wasting your time.
The biggest reason I don’t like duolingo is that its paced really slow (if you download anki right now and some pre-made japanese deck like Tango N5 or Core 2k deck and study 1 hour a day, you’ll learn more words in a year by *far* than you would from duolingo. If you use a textbook an hour a day and go through 1 chapter a week you’ll probably cover more than duolingo in a month.) And it’s not only paced slow, the app implies if you study 1 lesson per day or a few minutes a day you’ll become fluent. With a language you’ll probably want to study at least 30 minutes a day, with japanese at least 1 hour a day usually, if you want to see noticeable progress every Several months. So if you take duolingo at 1 lesson a day it could take years to get through material you could have studied in 6 months if you’d just done duolingo 1 hour a day. If you do use duolingo, using it more than 30 minutes a day might help. But the way duolingo markets itself as 15 minutes a day to learn a language, you’re going to be a beginner in japanese for years.
I’ve also heard duolingo has some errors in the japanese course. And its not laid out in as nice a way as it could be for japanese. But I think all apps have some issues like this to some degree so if you like duolingo these aren’t big problems. The big problem to me is how the material *only* beginner material and a learner needs to study it a decent amount of time per day like 30 min-1 hour+ if they want to progress at a decent pace. This is also true of Lingodeer. The beginner apps are Fine if you plan to get through them in a timely manner. If you think they’ll take you all the way to advanced material and fluency, you’re going to be let down.
There are some apps that Do cover intermediate material like bunpo covers grammar through all the levels, and anki obviously has a lot of japanese decks people have made that cover intermediate+ material. If you’re not sure how much material an app covers, search online how much material the app covers. Duolingo and Lingodeer list about 3000 words for japanese plus N5 and N4 (beginner) grammar. Glossika lists like 7000 words and 5000 sentences so it may have a bit more intermediate material, anki decks you’ll want to go by the information for the deck (if it’s 6000 words it covers intermediate or if it says N5 then it’s beginner). If an app doesn’t share information about how much material it covers? Then I’d assume it’s beginner only to be safe.