I’m already finding that I don’t need my translator quite so often. Learning in sentences (where TI makes you ‘think’) has definitely increased my confidence. The Grammar Collections are a real bonus, and of course, the daily support of Followers is so appreciated. Has anyone else found the same, I wonder?
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Floria, have you tried the Italian “stories” in Duo? Not bad! I’m still using that site, but I’m spending a lot more time here. The two sites complement each other very well! Tried the collections, but, not for me.
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Hi again Gizzard. No, haven’t tried Duo Stories as they don’t seem to have reached me yet unless I’m not allowed to have them of course;-) Non vedo l’ora. I tend to spend all my time here now, just keeping my Duo streak until 999, then I’ll probably move on as I’ve Duo’d for 1500 days and need a new adventure. We are so lucky to have all this at our fingertips. (I often wonder if Songve is here too, he was learning Vietnamese, a great chap!) I’d like to start a gentle reading club here, having helped to start the Italian Bookclub, but will wait a while, I don’t like to be pushy. Always a pleasure to see you here. Ciao, a dopo!
Ps. Added a Collection, hopefully it’s OK. (Ce ciò etc)
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Hmmm. Surprised you don’t have the Italian stories. I thought everyone got them. Songve? I thought it was a she. haha. A very intelligent person, I liked his/her posts a lot.
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Adrianxu. Oh good! I tried to include the c’è and ne etc that always catch me out. Glielo, gliene etc. Fascinating (sometimes infuriating) grammar 
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Hi gizzard. Will look again today for Stories. Yes Songve had a wealth of knowledge about Vietnam, its beautiful people and language. His posts were legendary if sometimes controversial. But never boring. A dopo…
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Ciao gizzard. I have now seen Stories on Duo via my reserve account. BIG news for the Italian course, cute and not too difficult Have a good day.
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I’ve noticed major improvements in reading and listening comprehenison, as well as my own pronunciation, from doing Clozemaster.
Interestingly, the benefits have been most pronounced in German, which is my “best” language. I had already long-since exhausted the possibility of getting anything out of Duolingo and had mostly exhausted Lingvist, i.e. I had completed both of their courses and got to where I wasn’t getting much out of practice on both sites, especially Duolingo which became near-worthless except for the earliest stages of learning a new language.
Clozemaster on the other hand seems to go deeper, just because it covers so much more vocabulary. And it’s vocabulary that I need to use in order to function in the language. I’ll learn new words and hear and see them over and over again, in media I watch, on social media in people’s casual writings in posts, and all sorts of places.
So yeah, I find Clozemaster offers compelling benefits. That’s why I use it!
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One of the things I hate most about Duolingo is the inconsistency from user to user. It makes it hard, and frustrating, and not very fruitful, when you try to discuss use of the app or site with others.
Not only do they have wild disparities between iOS, Android, and Web (often with a hierarchy that iOS gets features first and sometimes is the only platform to get them, whereas Web is lowest on the priority list which angers me because I’m primarily a web user), but there is also incessant A/B testing and gradual rollouts of new features, so you can have two users on the same platform using the same version of the app, but one will have a feature and one won’t. And on top of this the A/B testing covers so many different facets of the site, both users might get a feature but it might be more effective for one than the other because maybe it’s much harder for one user than for the other, or has some other hidden tweak that is not immediately apparent.
I have such intense hatred for the people who run Duolingo, I don’t think they have business doing anything. If I were in charge they would all be fired, especially the CEO because I hold the people at the top responsible.
Around 6 years ago Duolingo was an exceptional product, but the splitting of different platforms and low prioritization of the web app, combined with the treating of the userbase as unpaid (and often unaware) guinea pigs has offended me to the core of my soul. Not only have they effectively broken the app for me, but I felt like they toyed with me and repeatedly interfered in my ability to converse with others about the use of the site, in ways that I think are borderline unconscionable.
Doing A/B tests and gradual rollouts is fine, when done within limits. But Duolingo has taken it to such extremes that I think it constitutes outright deception and abuse of the userbase. And I also don’t trust that they have the users’ best interests in mind: they seem to be solely interested in maximizing engagement, which often comes at a cost of making their service less effective for language learning.
And on top of this, they want to sell a subscription? Please, it’s like they’re spitting in my face. Like, hello I’m gonna treat you like an all-out piece of garbage, but I’m still gonna ask to take your money too.
I am now not just an alienated user, I am actively hostile towards them.
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Cazort. Hmm, my Duo profile says it all. But amidst their love of shadow-banning I must be gracious
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I think Clozemaster is in a WHOLE other realm than Duo. I do like Duo for what it does, it’s free, and somewhat addicting.
The cons far outweigh the uses in my eyes. I was learning absolutely pointless sentences I’d never use, regardless of grammar concepts.
It took me literally 14 years of not knowing what I was doing to actually find out what works and doesn’t for me. My favorite programs are Clozemaster, Assimil, Linguaphone, and Glossika. All have their pros and cons, but if I had to pick two, it’d be Glossika (native audio) and Clozemaster. Clozemaster is the biggest ‘bang for the buck’ platform I’ve ever seen, which is why I didn’t hesitate in buying the lifetime subscription.
I’m to the point in Clozemaster that I don’t even know some of the words in English (my native language).
I think people get confused in thinking an app will bring usable fluency (or any fluency) in a language. Most apps over-promise and under deliver, like a business scheme.
Clozemaster was a slap in the face for how much I didn’t know, which is necessary. Honestly I can’t describe grammatical concepts in English, nor do I care. Clozemaster provides mass exposure to thousands of sentences (most are very usable). Eventually you get a ‘feel’ for the language, which Duo didn’t provide for me.
I’m really excited to see how Clozemaster progresses, and I don’t doubt for a second it was money well spent on my future/hobbies.
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An interesting read. I was stunned at how much ClozeM offered and if I had known about a lifetime sub, I would have willingly paid. It’s also pretty non-pc which I rather like and turn a blind eye to the occasional juicy word Interestingly I’m here because I was found guilty of referring to someone as “she” instead of non-gender “they”. I narrowly avoided prison for life evidently Bravo ClozeM!
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I agree. I think any learner needs exposed to all forms of the language, regardless.
My English is colorful to say the least, I have a horrendous mouth. However, it’s how we communicate.
No one wants to sound like a 12th century scroll either. If you don’t like the sentence, delete it, or change it with another; but at least you can recognize a word vs. never having seen it if that makes sense? I’d rather be exposed to it to understand it.
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Lingq has a set of 60 mini-stories in many languages. The stories are presented twice, for example once in 1st, then in 3rd person; present, then past tense. I found these very useful to get to the intermediate stage.
I have been using Clozemaster for French since April last year, and I’m progressing slowly through the 2000 most common words. I just broke up with the owl recently, and now my only language learning tools for French are Clozemaster and occasional (easy) podcasts. I also started to read The Little Prince through Duoreading (has nothing to do with Duolingo) already some time ago. First it seemed like impossibly hard. I returned to it today, and I’m super happy of the progress I’ve made. Sure, I still need to check a lot of words, as my vocabulary is still quite narrow, but reading is so much more comfortable than it was just a while ago, and Clozemaster is the biggest reason for that. Cloze-reading selections are still a bit too difficult, even the easiest ones, but I’m getting there.
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Keep going! I try not to look up too many words. There are great resources for French, youtube channels françaisauthentique and others, and lingq- I follow the advice there, namely Listen listen listen .
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Français Authentique looks great, I need to add that to my list.
@hooetvee I also like The French Instinct, and Inner French.
You know, it’s so difficult sometimes to know if what we’re doing is helping us to progress. I’ve been using Clozemaster this past few weeks in conjunctions with stories on Lingq, making my own cloze collections from these stories (I also have the audio for the the stories, which I think is critical).
Well, i had a bulgarian lesson today, usually we end up speaking a lot not in bulgarian (in french because my teacher doesn’t speak english), but today was mostly in bulgarian. There is no doubt in my mind, the credit goes to time spent actively engaging with these stories on the two platforms. So it’s really nice when sometimes we notice the
payoff.
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