Language News

Jul22018 by Language MagNo Comments

Nouns are Harder Than Verbs

If you think nouns are harder than verbs in your language learning efforts, then you could well be right. Wordnet lists 117798 nouns versus 11529 verbs. So, not only do the number of possible nouns dwarf the number of possible verbs but research also suggests that even English speaks pause longer over nouns than verbs. The University of Zurich conducted research into the amount of time we pause when constructing sentences and using nouns and verbs. It turns out that we purposely use interjections such as "um"or "uh" or subconsciously slow down in order to give us time to make the choices needed in a sentence. That concept, in itself, is fascinating because it implies that even as a native speaker of a language, we don't form full sentences all at once and still put work into building th...

Jun162018 by Language MagNo Comments

Chrome Extension to Reinstate Skill Strength on Duolingo

Blog, Language News

If you just want the extension, keeping in mind that it's a little bit experimental, head on over to the Chrome Extension page here. You should also check out my other Chrome Extension to track what languages you're reading web pages in and set reading targets: here. For everybody who wants to read about what this extension does and how it came about, please keep on reading. Some time ago Duolingo switched to a new Crowns system. A considerable number of users found this change drastic. The key complaints being that it no longer gave you any guidance on what to learn through the SRS system and that you couldn't really re-gold your tree anymore. Recently I've been writing an extension to track the languages that people read web pages in, so they can see statistics and set reading t

Jun162018 by Language MagNo Comments

Language Analytics Chrome Extension Launched

Blog, Language News

In the last blog post I mentioned that I was working on a chrome extension. The extension tracks the amount of time that you are spending on web pages in each language. This is really great for language learners, particularly at the intermediate stage, as it gives you an overview of how much you're reading in your second language without you having to track it. Since then I did a bit more work, tidied it up, and added a feature that lets you add a target and gives you a notification when you reach the target. For example, I can say that I want to read 30 minutes of Dutch and 15 minutes of Spanish a day. When I get to 15 minutes of Spanish, a box alerts me that I've hit that target, and similarly for the 30 minutes of Dutch. For those who are super keen, here's the link to the chrome store ...

Jun132018 by Language MagNo Comments

Google Translate App Gets Smarter for Travellers

Breaking News, General, Language News

Travelling in a foreign country and your language skills aren't quite there yet and you just can't understand that sign or even person? Then you'll probably dig out your phone and try the Google Translate app. It's not perfect, but it's hard to deny that it's useful in getting the general idea of what's being said. But - oh no! Disaster strikes when you have no data. The app can still translate but its results are even worse when it can't connect to Google's servers. Until now, or so Google says. Rolling out to the iOS and Android apps are translate improvements that bring AI translation to your phone even without a data connection. "Today, we’re bringing NMT technology offline—on device. This means that the technology will run in the Google Translate apps directly on your Android or i

May242018 by Language MagNo Comments

Duolingo Stories

Language News, Reviews

Perhaps one of the best features of Duolingo is locked away in the Labs section of the site. Once you've finished the main Duolingo courses you're left in a bit of a void. You can understand a bit of the language, especially when you read. But your knowledge isn't complete enough that you could say reading was easy. In an ideal world you'd be able to find reading material that is suitable for adults (i.e. not dull as dishwater) and has an audio version that you can play to get the pronunciation set in your mind that isn't in a stupid children's character voice. For me, reading has always been the next logical step for improving and increasing vocabulary after a Duolingo course. This is where Duolingo stories comes in and its implementation is nothing short of genius. To disappoint a...

May232018 by Language MagNo Comments

Duolingo Crowns Update – Is it Simply About Money?

General, Language News

I recently started to think about Duolingo Crowns and the crown levels. I'm a fan of Duolingo and recently started learning Japanese and Spanish with it. But it wasn't long before I heard that Duolingo would be changing their system to the Duolingo crown system. They'd been beta testing it. I'd read complaints on the forums and I crossed my fingers that they'd hold off release until my challenge was done. No such luck. In this article I want to take a look at what the update is, what Duolingo say it is, and what it might mean. In particular, I want to delve deeper into the potential commercial aspects of Duolingo and this update. Duolingo and Making Money The original idea behind Duolingo would be that it would be a sort of crowd sourced translation bureau. In return for teaching you...