how good is the duolingo japanese course

Duolingo Japanese is not perfect. But it is a fun and effective way to learn some basic Japanese. If you really only have five minutes in a day to study, Duolingo is probably one of the most effective ways to spend your time. But if you have any longer than that, I would recommended using other learning materials instead of (or alongside) Duolingo.

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What are the best Duolingo courses?

What are the best and the worst courses on Duolingo? Duolingo is a great tool to learn/practice/play with languages. Unfortunately, all courses are not the same, and some are better than others. "Vietnamese for English speakers" is for me a very bad course. There is no lesson for the tones (which are really important in this language), often no ...

Can I learn Japanese with Duolingo?

There are various ways you can explore to learn the language, and one of them is using Duolingo. Foremost, you can definitely learn Japanese with Duolingo. The app is structured in a way that makes learning fun-filled, easy, and straightforward for everyone. However, you cannot have a good level of fluency when learning with Duolingo.

Is Duolingo reliable for learning Japanese?

Yes, it does. The Duolingo Japanese course teaches you to read hiragana, katakana, and about 90 essential kanji. You should know enough kanji to pass the JLPT N5 test if you complete the Duolingo Japanese course. The very first thing you will learn on the Duolingo course is hiragana.

Can you actually learn a language with Duolingo?

Duolingo is now one of the most popular language-learning apps and it has gained prominence through ... to “Don’t give up! Do you really want to end this session?” (in Spanish, of course). Using the analytics that are tied into Expurrimenter, the ...

Is Duolingo effective for Japanese?

Duolingo Japanese is not perfect. But it is a fun and effective way to learn some basic Japanese. If you really only have five minutes in a day to study, Duolingo is probably one of the most effective ways to spend your time.

Is Duolingo good for Japanese 2021?

Is DuoLingo a good app to learn Japanese? DuoLingo is a great mobile app to learn Japanese though, DuoLingo is really about vocabulary so you would probably need other resources to learn grammar. Is it possible to learn Japanese by only using mobile apps? Yes, this is totally possible.

What JLPT level is Duolingo?

JLPT N5The grammar used in Duolingo's Japanese exercises covers most of what is assessed in the JLPT N5 and N4 language exam. That's good coverage for basic conversations.

What are the disadvantages of Duolingo?

ConsIts speech recognition software has a long way to go.Keeping up with constantly decaying skills can feel discouraging.Some of the translations are iffy.If you're serious about learning a language, Duolingo does NOT stand on its own.The reward system is great and will keep you going.More items...

How does Duolingo work?

Duolingo starts by offering you a chance to either start from scratch or take a placement test. If you know literally nothing about Japanese, it’s best to start from scratch, at which point it will walk you slowly, painfully, and ineffectually through the kana ( the sorta “alphabet” of Japanese ).

Is Duolingo available on iPhone?

Duolingo is a platform that aims to gamify the language learning process. It’s available in your browser or as an app for iPhone, Android, and Windows phones. That said, I personally dislike the app, and I’ve never heard and particularly flattering things about it from anyone else.

How many levels are there in the skill?

Each skill has five levels, although you only need to complete the first level to unlock the next skill. Most skills also come with their own grammar section. These aren’t usually related to the theme, but they are useful and each grammar section tries to build on the last.

Is Duolingo a controversial language?

Duolingo is a bit of a controversial tool, especially when it comes to Japanese. Scorned by many, loved by others, this free, interactive language guide has spawned endless internet pages of debate. Well, today, I’ll be adding my thoughts into the mix. To do this, I’ll be experimenting with Duolingo in Japanese and comparing it with my own ...

How many acceptable answers are there in Japanese?

So, that means that for each and every word, there’s (or should be) a minimum of four acceptable answers. But the complications don’t stop there. Japanese has a grammar that’s impressively alien to the (from the English perspective) European framework. Pronouns are often optional.

Is Duolingo good for beginners?

Duolingo could be a waste of time, depending on your needs and skill level with Japanese. It is probably best for the beginner in Japanese when used alongside other resources. For experienced Japanese learners, it would be best as a way to brush up after a break from studying.

When will the 4.0 release date be?

According to Wikipedia, it was officially released on May 18, 2017. And since then, they’ve brought us through improvement after improvement. Starting in January 2019, they’ll begin A/B testing version 4.0. All this is to say that what I’m saying now may be slightly out of date by the time 4.0 rolls out.

Why is Duolingo so good?

To help students build stronger connections between related words and concepts, Duolingo organizes their lessons by topics, or themes, instead of by grammar or difficulty. This is a good thing!

How does Duolingo teach?

Duolingo attempts to teach via osmosis by exposing you to the language and encouraging you to translate a lot. Because of the reasons mentioned above, it falls quite a bit short of the ideal. Plus, you can’t easily dip into the themes that interest you, or that you could use right now.

Why did Duolingo Clubs get removed?

Duolingo Clubs, a social feature where you used to be able to chat with others, was removed to improve the safety of the app for children.

What is the best app to learn Japanese?

One of the most popular free apps for learning Japanese is Duolingo. The developers of the Japanese Duolingo course aim to have learners speaking Japanese right from the start, following a teaching method that is similar to how children learn.

Why are kanji lessons thematic?

As with kanji characters, new words are introduced with a card matching exercise, and then subsequently used in sentences. The repetition of one particular word becomes less the more you level up in the themed lessons.

Is kanji alive free?

Kanji alive is a free and open source web app, which means it works on all platforms and devices. If you like visual mnemonics and silliness, Dr Moku has developed a set of apps to learn katakana, hiragana and kanji. Dr Moku’s apps are available on iOS and Android.

Does Duolingo teach kanji?

Plus, Duolingo doesn’t show you how to write them. After those introductory hiragana lessons, words that are in hiragana, are always in hiragana.

What is the first thing you learn in Duolingo?

The very first thing you will learn on the Duolingo course is hiragana.

How many people use Duolingo?

Duolingo is the most downloaded language learning app in the world. Over 120 million people use it to study nearly 30 different languages. Last month, they finally released their long-awaited Japanese version! Apparently, Japanese was the most requested language ever on Duolingo. We couldn’t wait to test it out and try it for ourselves.

Is Duolingo free?

Duolingo is an app which is free to download and use. You can get it from the App Store or Google Play. By the way, you can study other Duolingo language courses online through their website. But the Japanese course is currently only available on the app.

Can Duolingo pronounce more than one word?

In Japanese, there is often more than one pronunciation for a word or character. Duolingo only seems to be able to cope with one pronunciation for each word or character.

Is Duolingo good for learning Japanese?

Our thoughts on learning Japanese with Duolingo. Duolingo Japanese is not perfect. But it is a fun and effective way to learn some basic Japanese. If you really only have five minutes in a day to study, Duolingo is probably one of the most effective ways to spend your time.

Can you learn Japanese by hand?

Another issue is that you will only learn to recognise Japanese characters. You won’t learn to write (either by hand, or by computer or phone). If you want to write Japanese by hand, it’s important to learn the correct stroke order when you learn a new character. Duolingo unfortunately doesn’t teach this.

Is Duolingo a language?

There are no typical ‘lessons’ like you would have in a traditional language learning course. There are no explanations of grammar or new concepts. In fact, there’s almost no English used. Instead, you learn Japanese through examples.

How many people use Duolingo?

Duolingo Japanese (Ultimate Review) November 11, 2019. With over 300 million users around the world and over 90 language courses across 22 languages, Duolingo is the largest and most popular language learning app in the world.

What is a lesson in Duolingo?

Lessons are grouped together by topic, or specific parts of grammar. These groups of lessons are called units and they make up the "language tree" (course) of Duolingo. Each lesson will walk you through a series of exercises which test and expand your abilities in your target language.

What is a pimsleur?

The Pimsleur Japanese course is an audio based approach to learning a foreign language. Each 30 minute audio lesson is built around a question-recall-response method that forces you to think in Japanese as if you were actually speaking to someone.

What is JapanesePod101?

The Japanesepod101 course features audio lessons in a podcast format. Lessons are great for grammar and vocabulary. Each lesson is designed around a Japanese conversation between native speakers, and the teachers do a great job of keeping things engaging, and explaining relevant points of grammar.

What is rocket Japanese?

Rocket Japanese is a comprehensive course. It covers all four aspects of learning Japanese as a foreign language: reading, writing, speaking, and listening. This course is more for learners who are serious about learning Japanese. Casual learners might be interested in other courses.

Is Duolingo free?

The app is very upfront about its premium pricing features. Duolingo is monetized through a freemium model. This means the app is free to use if users are willing to view ads. If a user loses all of their lives by giving incorrect answers they have the option of paying in order to receive new ones.

Is Duolingo a writing system?

It weaves together two writing systems and is a serious challange for any new learner. Duolingo starts users off by teaching some of the writing system.

What is graded reader?

With graded readers, you will learn new vocab and see grammar as they are used in the stories over and over again. The goal of graded readers is for you to be able to use them as a springboard to dive into native material easier instead of belly-flopping into native material as your first experience of reading.

What is a Tadoku?

In a simple explanation, Tadoku is where you read content (In this case the free graded reader pdfs) around your level for fun, and don't stress out about using a dictionary for every single word. Extensive reading instead of Intensive reading.

Is kanji more dynamic than grammar?

All in all its a nice experience, I use it daily. It's tough at times but manageable. It's also more dynamic than apps like memrise, where the sentences almost never vary and make it harder to intuitively extract grammar rules from them.

LANGUAGE EXCHANGE: Getting "上手ed" Alot

What is the best way to react to the good old fashioned "ーーさんの日本語はお上手ですね！I get this almost every time with Japanese language partners even if their English is objectively better than my Japanese. What is the best way to react to this phenomenon? Do I deny it? Do I complement them?

Working on pitch accent improved other areas of my Japanese

For the past couple of months, I've been spending about half an hour each day reviewing pitch accent stuff. Raw pronunciation improvements aside, I think it's actually improved other parts of my Japanese.

META: Can we automatically remove threads complaining about "日本語上手"?

We have a top thread every other week about yet another gaijin who doesn't know what to do when receiving a simple but meaningless compliment.

I passed N3 but my Japanese skills are still below conversational. Where online can I use and learn more Japanese outside of textbooks?

Japanese is my third language, after English. I am having a hard time find time and place to use Japanese. I pass N3 with average score, in which I think my exam skill played a bigger role than Japanese. For me, Japanese is tedious.

What are some examples of Duolingo exercises?

Two key examples? 1) translation exercises, and 2) matching / fill in the blank exercises.

Is Duolingo good for Japanese?

Duolingo lets you leverage the power of “reverse learning”. If you are a beginning Japanese learn er, the standard “Japanese for English Speakers” course is a good place to start. But once you have a decent amount of 日本語 under your belt, I highly recommend checking out Duolingo’s English for Japanese Speakers course.

Does Duolingo have a translation?

Sadly, apps like Duolingo serve to normalize and reinforce this behavior. Incidentally, translation is very much within Duolingo’s D NA since the original version of the app was created to both teach learners and gather crowdsourced translations of sentences on the internet.

How to improve listening skills?

This helps prioritize development of your listening skills and shows you what you understand in real time with your ears versus what you can parse out word by word with your eyes.

Why do we use our vocal cords?

You use your vocal cords to create sound waves. Therefore, the latter skill is what needs to be practiced. Instead of relying on translation and contrived exercises, it’s far more effective to learn a language directly (i.e. by actually speaking it with other humans).

Does Duolingo have input?

While Duolingo does provide some input (listening and reading exercises) and an itty-bitty bit of output (typing and pronunciation exercises), this is a far cry from authentic input (e.g. reading manga or watching anime) or true output (e.g. speaking with a native Japanese speaker). These two factors―authentic input and true output―are ...

Who invented Duolingo?

Duolingo was founded by Luis von Ahn, a Carnegie Mellon professor, MacArthur Fellow, serial entrepreneur, TED speaker, and the inventor of CAPTCHAs, those annoying “challenge-response tests” many sites and apps use to prove we’re human and not a computer bot.