Thanks to that, I’ve read 30 books in the last year, and have rekindled my passion for cinema. I’ve also brushed up on about half of college-level math. I cannot describe how much more clear-headed, inspired, eloquent, fulfilled, and appreciative of the arts and sciences I feel.

I also read the Atlantic piece you’re quoting. I understand literacy rates dropping in the general population but kids at Princeton not being to read a book? Any book? What the fuck.

I generally trust the Atlantic (I’ve been a subscriber) but that sounds so sensationalistic I can barely believe it. I think I might be in denial.

Heck, Latin even has a Latin-only method: LLPSI. "Roma in Italia est", you'll figure it out quickly enough.

The typical outcome was a person who spent a lot of effort and still was unable to do anything useful with the language after years (reading real book, watching movie, chatting).

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=dual+language+book

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=comic+book

"If you want to learn Mandarin, don't use Duolingo, just move to China!"

odd take, do you have the same negative sentiment for the entire field of language instruction? introductory German class at a local college? 7th grade French ? things like that?

The same thing that has worked for me as a method for learning languages has always been the same. Get books, particularly short stories or children's stories aimed at A2/B1 level, and read them. Practice grammar. Get a pen and paper and learn vocab by repeatedly writing it down. Boring but effective. And of course practice listening and talking, which means either having native friends, doing a course, using audio materials from somewhere, etc. Courses with actual humans make learning go faster (in the case of Romansh, it would have been impossible without the course).

I don't find duolingo to be effective at all, as others mention beyond the A1/A2 level. I'd be a bit more skeptical and say even A2 you need to expand your horizons.

It's just that most Europeans' native language is not English or some other language spoken by hundreds of millions or billions of people. So they have to learn at least one foreign language to function in the modern world. And many European countries require children to learn two of them. Some require passing language exams as part of the high school graduation.

I studied English and French in school. My native tongue is spoken by about 15 million people in the world, the official language of my native country (which I also speak fluently) is spoken by about 20. One gets a lot of motivation from knowing that, by learning English, one will be able to speak to billions.

I think, based on my own experience, it is harder to to from English to another language for a variety of factors. Many native speakers will jump on the opportunity to practice with you, understandably. Everyone has different motivations and some will ask why are you even bothering if you speak English. Since there's almost always an English source for what you want, you have to avoid laziness as much as you can. Lastly a great majority of entertainment is in English - things like french rap are basically a crime against humanity.

That doesn't mean that every European you meet is automatically multilingual or automatically has English in one of their languages. Go to rural France and you will find plenty of monolingual french people. Italy is also somewhere English is not as widely spoken as you might think given the tourism (in fact outside major tourist areas, good luck). Go to the mountains in Switzerland and you might find people who speak a couple of national languages but no English.

You can however go "the other way" and for major languages there is an abundance of materials. I agree 100% with the sibling comment that there is something about the act of writing things out that helps with memorisation. I've done this with a few languages and I don't think flashcard apps are enough. Can they help? I guess a little. Are they going to make you fluent? Not a chance. Absolutely nothing beats taking a course and being dedicated to it, in my experience.

More generally I think what I am saying is that there is no magic shortcut, except being born to parents speaking multiple languages at you.

I looked up the definition as:

> authoritarian rule, often involving the fusion of state and corporate tech power, where technology is seen as the driving force of the regime and used to consolidate control, suppress dissent, and erode public trust.

I’m trying to connect the dots between the above and Duolingo.

I searched about Peter Thiel’s views on AI seem fairly generic and cautionary. Maybe he’s lying?

It's not like it's a local school helping out students.