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A comment on Duolingo Cuts 10% of Contractors as It Uses More AI to Create App Content. Parent comment

Re:Duolingo Cuts 10% of Contractors as It Uses More AI to Cr... by NikolaNovak on Monday January 08, 2024 @11:06PM (#38922172)
But at that point a person has to take some responsibility. I don't think one can spend a hundred hours learning on Duolingo and not get beyond Hola.

Can a person find a way to waste hundred hours on Duolingo? Sure. I got perilously close :). But after a tenth of that I could generate sentences for friendly emails and at beginning meetings etc when I actually tried to learn.

Has the "100 hrs and not gotten beyond hola" been your personal experience or somebody you know? Trying to understand if I'm arguing with a strawman / straw scenario, or actual occurrence. If latter I'd be genuinely extremely curious to hear a lot more! What were the 100hrs spent on?

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Re:Duolingo Cuts 10% of Contractors as It Uses More AI to Cr... by borroka on Tuesday January 09, 2024 @01:43PM (#38930121)
It was a hyperbole.

But among the people (about 20) who have told me they have used Duolingo to (try to) learn my native language, I have yet to find one who can say more than a few disconnected words. And among the people I have seen who are fluent in my native language or the other languages I speak, I have yet to find anyone who said they used Duolingo to learn that language. Am I extrapolating too much? I think the sample size was pretty good.

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