Learning a Language for Free While Translating the Web. Does Duolingo Work?

Abstract

Duolingo, a free online language learning site, has as its mission to help users to learn a language while simultaneously using their learning exercises to translate the web. Language is learned through translation with, according to developers, Duolingo being as effective as any of the leading language learning software. For translating the web, machine translation is not good enough and relying only on professional translators, far too expensive. Duolingo, we are told, offers a third way, with translation as a by-product of its language learning. Translation which will be, if as promised, almost as cheap as if done by machines and almost as good as if by professionals. Launched in June 2012, Duolingo boasts already at the time of writing 300,000 active language learners ready for the task. This article independently assesses the extent to which Duolingo, at its current stage of development, meets those expectations.

Learners’ Perceptions of the Use of Mobile Technology in a Task-Based Language Teaching Experience

“…popular language learning apps currently available, in which learners supposedly gain fluency whilst translating real-world sentences, fails methodologically, in Garcia's (2013) view, by not drawing its vocabulary learning activities upon corpus linguistics research, completely disregarding issues such as word frequencies. Zilber (2013) suggests that even seemingly reputable publishers of language learning materials have failed to produce high quality apps since many of them simply digitize their textbook content, often with minimal adaptation, utterly disregarding the high levels of interactivity and web-connectivity that mobile devices allow, and commercialize them as mobile apps to be used in the language classroom.…”

Crowdfunding: principles, trends and issues

“…Regarding creative writing, the community that had signed up on the platform was for instance sought out in 2015 to propose a campaign idea urging Vietnamese mothers to adopt Maggi products in their kitchens, to share in the family happiness of a meal cooked at home with love and care. On a different note entirely, amateur linguists on the Duolingo platform help translate the web (Garcia, 2013 • Crowd voting: the crowd's views can also be requested; it can thus support an individual or organization in the choices they make. This is particularly useful for search algorithms and name-giving procedures.…”

Translation in Spanish language teaching: the fifth skill/La traducción en la enseñanza del español: la quinta destreza

“…Entre las plataformas de aprendizaje gamificado basadas en la traducción cabe destacar por su enorme popularidad Duolingo (García 2013;Munday 2016), a la que está dedicado el artículo-reseña de este volumen. Otra área en expansión es la que estudia las aplicaciones de la traducción audiovisual en la pedagogía de lenguas (Talaván 2013;Talaván y Rodríguez-Arancón 2014), tema que también se aborda en uno de los artícu-los de este monográfico.…”