Duolingo Japanese Learning Review!

As learning a new language challenge is not limited to Koreans, I had a sudden impulse to write a Duolingo Application review in English to share my experience.

 

I have been learning Japanese since I visited Osaka, Japan about 1.5 months ago. Since I hadn't known a single Japanese character before I started, Hiragana and Katakana were the first contents for it.

 

Here, let me briefly share the application experience 'Duolingo' that helps you lower the fear of Japanese (and, even the alphabet). Duolingo is an application CMU researchers developed. You can also get a feel of many languages (e.g., English, Spanish, Korean, and any language) as well as Japanese.

 

Hiragana, Katakana

 

You can start with Japanese alphabets called Hiragana and Katakana. Someone interested in Japanese may know what Hiragana and Katakana mean. (Simply put, Hiragana represents native Japanese words, while Katakana represents foreign words.) Further, this app provides Dakuon (탁음), Combo (요음), and Long vowel (장음) if you scroll down the screen.

 

Duolingo imposes considerable repetitions of the contents you have studied. This ensures your memories never fade away.

 

These captures show examples of Hiragana and Katakana learning contents: Choosing correct characters from sounds, matching the alphabet sound to the correct English pronunciation, and writing alphabets. 

 

Kanji is opened when you reach certain phases, which I will explain below.

 

Japanese Words and Sentences Learning.

 

Duolingo's Main page!! Learning Japanese words and sentences is in here. In unit 1 which should be the easiest step, some elementary words are introduced (water- みず, rice - ごはん, green tea -  おちゃ, please - ください ). The higher the level, the more complicated the sentences and kanji become.

 

 

 

 

 

Duolingo Review, Pros and Cons!

In my opinion, I love it! I run this app whenever I have a break during work hours. There is a lot of content combining endless repetitions and levels. I aim to clear all levels provided in this app even though this goal means JLPT N5 ~ N4 approximately. (How difficult would JLPT N2 be? I cannot imagine now) 

 

Here are Duolingo's pros and cons in my opinion although you can easily find them on other blogs.

 

Pros

• Free. This is not ignorable. I think this is why the number of downloads is more than 100M. You can enjoy all the content without any cost. Instead, you have to watch some ads.
• Endless repetition. Duolingo does not make you stop learning new words after they appear. You will face them at least 30 times before long.
• Supports Various Languages. Although I'm currently learning Japanese only, Duolingo provides many other languages. Should you have an interest, study them simultaneously!
• Competition System. The competition league is held weekly. The dashboard shows your rank depends on how much you have learned this week. When you are in a certain rank, you will be promoted to a higher league (e.g., bronze - silver - gold - sapphire - ...). This system somewhat motivates you.

Cons

• Only English is supported for learning Japanese. All descriptions and pronunciations are composed in English. I think this is not a disadvantage to anyone reading this post.
• Then.. Learn Japanese in English? This is also not an issue for you. Nevertheless, the following is a summary from the native Korean speaker's perspective.
  • English and Japanese(Korean) have different sentence structures. In English, verbs are placed right after the nouns, but in Japanese(Korean), verbs are placed at the end of the sentences.
  • This makes the learner (Korean who learns Japanese) translate twice and unfortunately complicates direct translation from Japanese to Korean.
• Life system. Duolingo has a life system. There are 5 lives at first. A life is recovered every 5 hours. Whenever you submit incorrect answers, you will lose 1 life. You cannot learn more if you run out of life. Once you are a super Duolingo subscriber, lives are unlimited.
  • You may miss articles 'a' and 'the'. (maybe this is not an issue for native English speakers.) Don't miss articles! It is so hurtful to see a life being lost because of an article.
  • However, it doesn't seem to be cons at all. Submitting an answer becomes desperate to save the life. Further, it affects the learning pace. (Completing all the contents in a short time may not be good.)