News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on Duolingo CEO tries to walk back AI-first comments, fails. Parent comment

Re:Duolingo CEO tries to walk back AI-first comments, fails by whyowhy3484939 on Monday May 26, 2025 @03:42PM (#44100900)
That's bad news for the millions that had to do just that and learned fine in fact better. I'm not saying you should read the Upanishads in the original, I'm saying a proper intro textbook is fine and some teacher-figure ("human") to actually use your body and read theirs.

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

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Duolingo CEO tries to walk back AI-first comments, fails by pjc50 on Monday May 26, 2025 @04:45PM (#44101517)
Humans are (very) expensive and Duolingo is free if you can put up with the advertising.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Duolingo CEO tries to walk back AI-first comments, fails by watwut on Monday May 26, 2025 @05:08PM (#44101696)
As someone who had to learn languages from textbooks back when it was the only thing that existed, it was massively ineffective way of learning.

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).

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Duolingo CEO tries to walk back AI-first comments, fails by whyowhy3484939 on Tuesday May 27, 2025 @04:20PM (#44110361)
Notice I included interaction with people, but you're right. I think just using books is about equal to just using apps. Both won't get you there but books will get you further along the way.
[ Parent | on HN ]