Hi, so when are you going to finish all the Learn Japanese Lessons? It says 50% done, I’ve been waiting for months. I’m learning European languages but not yet Japanese. I really want to learn Japanese from you, from 0 to fluency. I’ve never been to Japan, so I would like you to complete everything, so please work on teaching Japanese Lessons.
After watching your video, I would say you could still recommend duolingo for vocabulary purposes. With ANY language I learn, I try to use duolingo to learn new words, but I try not to get caught up with their syntax and grammar usage. so in the end, yeah, you can use it to learn new words, but I don't recommend it as a be all end all to learn the language to fluency. Also, the sentences you asked about in English, no, those sound unnatural in English too.
I'm taking a shot in the dark by asking here but, I subbed to your email list for lessons a while back, after I finished all the Japanese courses at my university, but at the time they were pretty much all for beginners so I unsubbed after a few weeks. I was wondering if you had intermediate to advanced lessons now ? Thanks :)
Yes, but it's wildly out of context. Didactics and psychology knew since the 60s that we humans must learn in context. You know where the vocabulary learning has its origin? Do you want to know? Monks were sent to the farthest places on earth to spread gods word. They arrived and had to learn the language obviously. But how would they teach the fellow brothers back home? After all, any one monk was no one-man-army. And so they have written down a vocabulary list in books and sent the books back home. Back home other monks learned the words before being sent out to the individual countries. The concept of school is a little older than the science of didactics. And so school kept the only thing they knew on how to learn languages. And it still persists to this day, because parents, teachers and politicians are adults. And because adults do not suffer from the schools antique insanity, nothing was ever changed. Nothing was ever changed, because it can't be changed by the students, because they don't know better. Learning vocabulary lists is the utter most inefficient way of learning languages. it's a relict.
@@Herr_Vorragender Well at least the learning will have to occur at some point, no? If we put you in an environment, you'll still need a reference to know that "apple" is "pomme". You cannot 'magically' know it.
@@oosmanbeekawoo of course it doesn't come from magic thin air. When you stand in a field of trees. It is summer and all colours are bright. The farmer stands next to you. He's holding a big red apple in his hands. And with a proud grin on his face he holds the apple in your direction and says "リンゴ". You take the apple. Not quite sure what to do or make of it. He picks another one from his trees. And he sais "俺もリンゴ食べたいよ”. With great pleasure he bites into it. Now, you understand what it is, what he wants you to do, you've got your body involved, you've got colour, smell, taste, social interaction, etc. etc. Meaning, you have a world of context. And from there on you will never forget what リンゴ" stands for. I hear you. You can't travel to japan and eat apples with random farmers in the hope to learn a language. Ain't nobody got thime for that. But building context is not binary all or nothing. Building context can be to create contextual sentences. This ia an apple. The apple is red. Apples are delicious. etc. Duolingo is wildly random at context. There is not a single sentence in relation to the next. Ok, I understand this may all be wildly theoretic. Maybe if you try it out by your self. What topic are you all pumped up for? Let's say art. When you learn a language based on what you love, then you create context from one sentence to the next. That's what "they" mean when they say immerse your self into it.
It still is an odd choice, given that it doesn't seem to be a word you'd use often. Better options would be words such as スキンシップ, ショーウィンドウ, クレジットカード, etc, etc. It almost feels as if the program chose a loan word using a RNG instead of having a real human choose the words taught in Duolingo.
@@Herr_Vorragender You know what.. I think the two of us are at extremes-one that only does Duolingo without applying it, while the other only guesses at what real-life people are saying. Doing both will help you better although Duolingo had binge options. As well as pausing for months if you like.
When I was a kid, I remember lots of kids saying "Easy peasy, Lemon Squeezy" (Easy as a Lemon squeeze ice pop!?) - makes 0 sense, sounds great. Japaneasy is perfect. I feel like duolingo is going to steal that phrase now!
As someone who started learning Japanese with Duolingo, something important to notice is that the reason why they're teaching you the name of those countries with Katakana isn't really for you to memorize them, but rather for you to slowly get familiarized with the Katakana characters and remember them by association.
@@shikisai22 Yes, they also do that too, but for example, for me it was easier to remember lots of characters with words such as ¨France¨ (Furansu) because it uses 3 characters which have very, very similar looking shapes, and so I was able to quickly recognize the ¨Fu¨, the ¨Ra¨ and ¨Su¨ just because I associated those characters with the easy to remember ¨France¨. Also, one experience i remember better was when learning hiragana. I got introduced to ¨Yoru, Yomu, Nomu¨ in that order. Those are common words and similar sounding as well, so it was easier to remember those characters as well. When it comes to association, Duolingo is pretty good.
Yes, exactly. It's not there so you know how specific cities and countries are spelled in Japanese but rather because it's an easy way to teach people katakana and also allow them to get a sense of how Japanese transliteration works based on words that sound similar and mean the same thing across many different languages. Plus, since afaik they only offer English to Japanese, it's likely that there are a lot of people doing this course who aren't native English speakers who enjoy knowing what their specific country and/or city is called in Japanese. I for one enjoyed seeing ドイツ and ベルリン there.
@@nicodamus6895 I agree, I started studying japanese in this past september at my school using the genki text and workbooks and 100% it was easier for me to start learning katakana by knowing words I see all the time アメリカ is the only reason i know those 4 characters tbh
@@senjusan6359 I started my basics with Human Japanese Lite(as recommended by a friend) I tried Duolingo with Korean last time and it did not go well 😅😅😅😅😅
@@DanaEitan my friend recommended to not pay for the extra, just finish the first 8 free chapters and then get a textbook which is what I did. I’m using Genki I at the moment
1:45 . I swear, I love this guy. His approach to language is so real. I hate how most language teachers teach with such an "equation" mindset. Yuta really knows what he's talking about. "It only makes sense to learn them in context".
I think the main problem with Duolingo's audio is that it's not people, it's text-to-speech software. It regularly gets things wrong like using an on'yomi reading where a kun'yomi reading should be used, or pitch accent as you pointed out. It's most likely to save on money, since it's a free app, but I think it's detrimental overall, and a big part of the reason why people commonly recommend against using Duolingo for learning a language
It's gotten worse since they added the new voices. The original voice seemed to be pretty accurate but the new ones are constantly wrong...but it's not consistent. Sometimes they say words right and other times wrong but at least when they're wrong they're consistently wrong.
I was raised in Welsh and tried their Welsh course out of curiosity a while back. It was... not wrong, but it sounded odd. It was like it was trying far too hard to be a formal and grammatically accurate translation, but it ended up sacrificing nuance and fluidity for the sake of that "accuracy".
I saw a video with a Welsh speaker trying it, he was complaining mostly lol about the grammatical mistakes and the incorrect word order, and bad spelling.
@@jayc1139 If you saw the same video as I did, he just spoke a dialect that Duolingo doesn't teach, so he would've found it better if he spoke the supported dialect. So I suppose what Samurai Pipotchi wrote is valid here.
Me too with Vietnamese! I kept failing as a native speaker because they added way too many words that normal people would not use in real life. There are also different words to use depending on your relationship with someone else like in Japanese, but Duolingo forces you to use the extremely formal word even when in the scenario you are talking to a child. In Vietnamese you never talk formally to a child unless they hold a high position lol. It also only has one accent/dialect when there are 3 in Vietnam which are all vastly different from each other. Not to mention the translation is extremely way off.
The thing with Warsaw, and some of the other unusual words in the first unit is to get words that use certain katakana. Learning the Katakana was the goal there, not necessarily the vocabulary.
That's no good excuse imo. There are a lot of more common and useful words in Japanese that employ katakana, esp. those originated from Portuguese, Dutch, German, and Italian, in addition to English.
And there are thousands of common words ti choose from that people will actually see and write out that use the katakana, which woukd be far more useful than random cities that have nothing to do with Japan, your home country, or anything you will be reading on a daily basis. It’s a bad excuse for a bad lesson plan.
Regarding why "Warsaw" is included, I think it is so every character in Katakana is encountered in the lessons. Kind of a 'The Quick Brown Fox Jumps Over The Lazy Dog' situation.
I'm Polish and I was almost 100% sure I got that "Warsaw" due to some geolocalization features in Duolingo which make the course more useful for learners from different parts of the world. Seing Yuta facing this word blew my mind. :D Greetings from Poland, Yuta!
I learned hiragana and katakana through Duolingo. It made it easy, and then i continued. But the further i got, the less i learned. I didn't know what or how to form a phrase. I hear a lot of people say to not use Duolingo as a main learning source, but as a quick training or just to refresh your mind. And i agree, maybe other languages are good, but for Japanese? Not really.
True, you only learn vocabularies the further you got. The best way to use this app is when you have no idea when to begin and want to learn the kana and basics. After you understand the basic, you can just quit and use another source.
Pimsleur and a couple Michel Thomas courses are the way to go. Language schooling sucks in the West when it comes to speaking and listening fluency. It was a shame that most high school teachers in the nineties did not employ techniques from the mid-twentieth century to teach conversational communication. After that, reading techniques would be easier since you'd be familiar with vocabulary, pronunciation, and grammar. Once speaking and reading are advanced, writing complex texts become an option.
same here, was helpful to get used to some basics, but poor explanation, wrong lesson structure, odd choice of sentences and some other missing parts pushed me away from this app. (and I'm a linguist myself)
The way Duolingo divides words can be so frustrating. There's a lot of weird examples, but the one that annoyed me the most was when they split the word この and put the first piece together with the は particle. So one button said はこ which I assumed they meant box, and the other button just said の which I assumed was the possessive particle. Why, Duolingo, why!?
@@calx9831I just learned that I can read kanji based of context even with words I haven’t even learned. The only kanji I know by heart from that sentence is the first one for watashi
@@angelodou they changed, and the voluntary contribution program has been stopped, instead you have to apply to be a contributor as a job (and get paid) now
So I'm using Duolingo for Japanese, and I am fully aware of its limitations and that it's not teaching me natural Japanese. BUT it's got me learning a little every day and it's got me into learning, while trying to learn by myself I was struggling to get into the zone and into a rhythm, as well as struggling to pick resources to learn from. And I also like the interactivity of it and the fact that I can jump on for like 5-10 mins and feel like I got a little bit of something out of it. I know it's definitely not the best resource to use, but I feel like it's at least giving me something that I can work with.
Exactly same with me. It's good to be aware of the limitations it has but if someone struggles with japanese, it's best to get every material we can get, at least for me it's like that.
I have the same approach. I spend about 30 min to an hour each day on my Japanese, and I do a little Duolingo, Memrise (I'm liking it a lot more over time) and I have the el cheapo sub to Japanesepod101. All those together, if nothing else, keeps everything fresh on my brain and I always come away knowing that at least I refreshed what I learned over the previous days or got some new phrases under my belt to try out on the couple of native speakers I do language exchange with.
i’m over here with a 630 day streak. i wanna drop duolingo because it’s definitely not great at teaching and i can barely even put together a sentence in Japanese, but that streak tho….
Duolingo is a nice, gamified, oddly obsessed with apples introduction to a language. Something to dip your toes in to see if you like the language. Yuta would fail me if I took his class.
I've been learning Japanese with duolingo with over a year, and ever since they brought new voices for each character there have been so many pronunciation issues that they refuse to adress. Some, through means of reporting wrong sentences and audios, are being fixed, but very slowly. And the thing about the english to japanese course, is that it tries giving you and English way of enterpreting japanese at first, with sentence structure and meaning, but slowly goes on to actually teaching how things are actually spoken in Japanese. It's pretty good, but it's also extremely slow from a learner's perspective. One thing that I will say that is REALLY BAD, it's deactivating all community discussions on the app. The foruns and discussions were a big deal in interpreting sentences and learning through theory with native speakers and other learners, which they decided to remove recently for no reasons. I love this app, but it's been on a downfall recently ever since it went public. It's hard to tell what they are pandering towards sometimes.
@@resident6215 No, my first language is portuguese, and I have known English for many years prior to first using duolingo. I can't tell how good it is for learning English, specially since there are so many languages to learn it from, but I imagine it's gonna be good, like most courses. Slow, but good.
I've been really confused at how to say you're hungry in Japanese. Your "long-ass explanation people skip" actually really helped clarify it, thank you! :)
“I love how this is a white guy who says ‘I eat sushi with a fork.’” Cracked me up. This video was hilarious. I’ve been learning Japanese on Duolingo for the past few months and I’ve found it to be a pretty good resource as a beginner. It’s helpful to get comfortable with new stuff on there first and then go online and find discussions, read in-depth articles, or watch youtube videos and try to learn the variations or different ways to say things besides just what duo teaches. It’s also pretty convenient because you can do a quick lesson at anytime just to jog your memory. So I think it’s good as a starting place for beginners as long as it’s not the only thing you’re using to learn.
Exactly, and the worst thing is that he was complaining in the ENTIRE video. With Duolingo it was very easy for me to learn as a beginner, then I took Japanese classes and nothing was complicated for me.
@@arschloch9991 It might be fine for a beginner, but many of the pronunciations (as he mentions multiple times in the vid) is completely off which might be bad for beginners who are serious and are trying to learn more. It's fine vocab wise, just not for speech.
@@calebwee328 I know he is right on some points but Duolingo is not exactly an app where you are going to learn all Japanese... of course you will need books, real classes and some other apps, but in itself, it is the best app to half-learn it.
I did not expect this video to be this funny xD Yuta, please take a look at some other Japanese learning apps. I think it would be very entertaining to watch.
as someone who has a native speaker as my jpn teacher this video really made me question what ive been learning all year, cause most of the "unnatural" jpn ended up being what ive learned & now im conflicted asl ☠️
There is not one "natural" way of speaking japanese, since what's appropriate depends heavily on the context. A textbook in my opinion takes a lot of shortcuts so you can handle yourself as a tourist in japan (at least that is what I think). So they teach you an overly respectful language in the hopes that you don't offend someone accidentally. In my humble opinion, vocabulary with kanji is the most tedious part in learning Japanese, so even if unnatural you are adding vocabulary, which is a good thing.
Damn you won't believe me but I've been waiting for Yuta to react to Duolingo for so long 😭😭😭😭😭 Ive been using Duolingo for 667 days and don't really like how it just forces you to memorize phrases instead of teaching Japanese. Need more videos like this! ❤️
Same. It doesn’t teach you the grammars of Japanese sentence structures and what each particles really mean. I’m taking Japanese at my Uni and using Doulingo as a way to practice outside of class
@@shikun750 Genki, Minna no Nihongo, Beginner to Advanced Grammar Dictionaries, Tae Kim's Guide to Learning Japanese, Jissho App as a regular dictionary, Anki flash cards for vocab and phrases, aswell as several youtube channels that specialise on useful phrases, Heisig's method for memorizing Kanji, italki for practicing with native speakers, Yuta's course to make your everyday speech more natural, Short Story Method/Immersive Methods in general to improve your reading ability and passive abilities and just ANY kind of native media, be it Anime, Manga or dramas... and so on There's tons of resources out there.
@@エルフェンリート-l3i I'm actually amazed to see so many options are available!! I guess there can never be end to learning something. Thanks I'll try out a few of these ^^
@@shikun750 If I may point out a few flaws, because there is no perfect learning material and better be aware before starting : Minna no Nihongo's exercises can be easily done without understanding the grammer you are supposed to learn and conversations have not aged so well (80's feeling + often unnatural) ; Beginner to Advanced Grammar Dictionaries, books focused on grammar tend to cruely lack of new words to learn ; Jisho App as a regular dictionary, dictionnaries aren't good to use before B1 level unless there are precise sentences with each word (like wordreference for English) ; Anki flash cards for vocab and phrases, if you have a full-fledged course as a base to create your flashcards ; Heisig's method for memorizing Kanji, dubious because explanations usually aren't true (not etymological) ; italki for practicing with native speakers, too specific to be used as sole method ; Anime / Manga / dramas, full of unnused (difficult) words, tortuous grammatical forms and (esp. anime & mangas) people being too rude to be good examples.
I've been using Duolingo for about 8 months or so now, and while it's far from perfect, it does have its uses. Primarily, it's free and easy to use, making it a really simple way to jump in with no pressure - there's not big subscription fee, you don't need any prior knowledge, and you don't need to have any other materials than just your phone or computer. But I think it really shines in one place that I think everyone overlooks: the discussions. I spend more time in the discussion page for each question than I do on the actual question. If anything seems even slightly unusual or confusing, there are often plenty of people breaking the sentence down and explaining why it is or isn't natural (and sometimes providing links to other really useful resources I wouldn't have discovered if not for Duolingo discussion). A lot of the time there are even native Japanese speakers discussing the inaccuracies. Even so, you won't ever become fluent with just Duolingo, which is why I now use other, more well-respected resources. I still think Duolingo is a good resource if you're careful and utilize the discussions though!
One of the discussion pages got me onto several other pages that explained to me what was going on, especially with the particles, gave me a huge boost in understanding. Everyone is searching for the silver bullet, and a lot of channels and websites pretend to have it, they won't find it anywhere.
The Japanese lessons are massively improved over even a year ago. Two years ago especially. It used to be nonsensical. Now they’re using more real life stuff. I’ve noticed a huge difference coming back to it, and having to make a new account and redo … a lot. The lessons I’ve redone are much better than the ones I originally did. And they added stories! Your criticisms of the course reminds me of high school. We had a girl from Germany, first language German, in our school. In the annual language contests, she would always come SECOND to someone who crammed textbook German. Her German was fluent and real, with the imperfect grammar and actual word use of daily life. A lot of people that speak English don’t know all the rules and make a lot of mistakes that are part of our daily language that would fail us on tests. So yes, the course is textbook Japanese with all its errors and lack of function.
A native speaker coming second to a textbook crammer... now I've heard everything. I feel like I shouldn't be surprised, but I am. (Maybe textbooks are the source of underdog plot armor?)
@@RadiantSharaShayminthat's not really surprising actually. As a native speaker you don't know all the grammar rules and stuff and often think in bigger contexts.
I thought the pitch accents were wrong for a few words, and I'm glad to have that verified by you. I almost quit duolingo Japanese because of it. I think it's fun though, so I do a little from time to time to test my knowledge.
@@baibac6065 Even in a very formal situation, I think using the word "plate" sounds very unnatural. Most people would just say, "Just one, thank you." Even in the most polite situation, repeating the word "plate" in the response sounds incredibly awkward.
How did Yuta get so good at English that he can correct Duolingo on the subject of how to express things naturally in English? I can't even imagine being so good at Japanese that I can be confident enough to publicly criticise the language used on a Japanese-language website. Yuta is indeed jouzu.
I think Duolingo is best for new vocabulary and daily practice. Daily exposure is extremely beneficial for learning and while listening to music is good for this, Duolingo forces you to be active in that exposure so I would argue it is better for that.
To me it's all good. I haven't been abroad since the 90's and I have no plans of changing that, but I've been working on this course for a few months and I find that the process of being able to understand even a bit of something that looks extremely foreign to me such as the Japanese writing system is very uplifting in itself. I already finished the Chinese course some time ago, which helps a lot with identifying the Kanji. I'm not even an anime fan so I had absolutely zero exposure to any Japanese before this course.
Duolingo is good in getting you introduced to the language and as you build up more vocabulary it starts seeming less daunting. That confidence itself is a big help and then you can slowly transition into more natural ways of speaking or add slangs as you familiarise yourself through conversations or tv shows and other media. This is for languages that have their own alphabets and seem scary.
I have been studying Japanese for over a year and just started using Duolingo a few months ago. I think it can be good to learn new words or refresh your basics but if you don't know how Japanese "should" work before you start it's probably not good for you. Take everything with a grain off salt is the best way imo
Not exactly, w in Warszawa is pronounced as v and the Japanese thought it's pronounced as English w and they adapted it. But it's still understandable for Polish people and that's really nice of them
@@shion3948 Yes but when transcribing words from Slavic languages in katakana ワ is used instead of ヴァ or バ. The same happens with German actually. ワルツ - Waltz etc.
As a user of Duolingo, and a person who has also studied Japanese language prior to using the app, I think that my suggestion would be to have an understanding of the way Japanese language works otherwise you might encounter some struggles. There are many sentences which do sound unnatural and funny, but if you recognize that they do, then that is beneficial.
yeaaah, i studied japanese before using duolingo. mainly the basics tho, hiragana and katakana, omw to kanji, but it was definitely easier to learn japanese before using the app. like, for example it’s easier to read the words because u already know hiragana. and even know some grammar stuff like っ and etc. i recommend a lot of people learn the basics and then go to duolingo. cuz duolingo doesn’t explain everything
I was fortunate enough to learn it from native Japanese teachers. And it was really weird to see some phrase usage in these apps even as a non-native speaker. I'm sure native Japanese will be even more confused. Same for Korean.
Wait, do you actually think I didn't know that? I thought It's quite obvious to everyone so I didn't brother pointing that out. We are used to voices like that (Siri, Google Assistant) so I don't think I need to tell people they are robots.
@@thetafritz9868 I think most of the content is user submitted. It started with some basic info for a few languages and grew from there. I think people who have just enjoyed learned something like to spread it around. So, by the time it goes from a textbook to a learner to duolingo all of the pragmatics are pragmatics lost. But that's just the opinion I formed from using it
I tried it out just now and did everything before it asked for money in about 5 minutes, the videos and pronounciation is really good for learning casual japanese!
I struggled learning any Japanese for a LONG time. Then, I used DuoLingo, and I learned hiragana very quickly. Since then, though, I've focused on stuff with natural speakers. But, like you said, to learn hiragana (and some basic vocabulary), I think it's GREAT!
I appreciate duolingo's attempt, but I can relate to this video. I am Greek-born, Greek-raised, living and educated in Greek, and so is my sister. She tried Greek on duolingo for fun, and we have both come to the conclusion that if anyone tries to learn greek on duolingo they will learn the language wrong from the very start :,) I think that learning a language is not about knowing all the words by heart, it's about understanding the core spirit of the language, its common sense, and its way of thinking. I suppose its the same for every language.
Very similar to my experience with Spanish, which is one of the easiest languages to learn for English speakers. Duolingo just has some things that are plain wrong. But I suppose for basic vocab it’s not too bad
I've been using Duolingo for one and a half years now and though it's pretty helpful, it can't be your only education resource. That's why I still study other resources, like books and RU-vid videos. That being said, what I do appreciate about apps like Duolingo and even textbooks, something that I think Yuta-san doesn't mention in favor of his lessons, is that this learning method is meant to teach you the fundamentals of a language. Obviously there are levels to being a fluent speaker, starting from the very basics up until the most nuanced rules and when to break certain rules. For me, it's important to learn how to say something "properly" first (meaning how a textbook would teach it), and then learn how a native would say it in an everyday setting, and then find out why it's different from the textbook lesson. Language learners need to remember that spoken language is constantly changing and evolving based on years of practice, so it's not really ideal to start learning through that without having a solid foundation and grasp of the language first. It's basically like playing a video game and starting at the middle of the game, without going through the basic tutorial first. I'm not hating on Yuta-san, by the way. I'm actually subscribed to his lessons via email and it's very helpful too. But again, it can't be your sole education source either.
I'm glad you made this video. I was raised bilingually (English and Japanese, with English slightly better), but I would occasionally poke around the Japanese lessons and notice the pronunciations are sometimes incorrect (such as the pitches), and that some of the sentences sounded quite unnatural. Duolingo isn't a terrible tool to use in order to learn a new language, but it shouldn't be the only one you rely on.
I've been using Duolingo all this time and now I've begun to realize its flaws. I think I really need to re-evaluate my resources 😂 Thank you again for an awesome and very helpful video!
I'm teaching myself Spanish and using Duolingo as a supplementary resource. My fiancé is Mexican and can speak fluent Spanish as well as English and he frequently comments that the Spanish I speak sounds way too proper and while it's technically correct, not many people who grew up speaking Spanish would actually speak like that. What I can say is summed up perfectly at 15:12 when you say "It's a very bad idea to learn a language like this by translating everything into English." Duolingo has its merits for sure as I would have never learned certain words and grammatical structures without taking a class, but it's far from the best way to actually learn. Being around native speakers of any language is definitely the most helpful.
I like duo lingo it’s free and a good vocabulary building app. It is great for not feeling overwhelmed. It builds your knowledge slowly with plenty of repetition. I can work on natural speech and pronunciation after I have some basic understanding of words. Other expensive courses have left me feeling overwhelmed with zero retention of probably perfectly worded and pitched Japanese.
The way I always see "Textbook" Japanese is similar to how I see English in a school setting. The English I use in school (Papers, presentations) is pretty different from what I use in everyday conversation. For instance when I had to write a paper in college (It was an accounting research paper), I had to identify the the Rule/ Condition as a subject of a sentence every time. There's a very particular way of writing for school, because you are writing for some that may just pick up the paper and read it, so you need to be overly wordy, not use slang, not use contractions, and make sure the subject of your sentence is very clear. Where as in conversation you and the other(s) in that conversation have context so you don't need to be so specific with your words.
I think the only real thing that is being misinterpreted is the idea that some of these sentences in Duolingo are meant to be used word for word. I've always seen it as more of a trial just to hear multiple words strung together, and then Duolingo being like "okay, now do you have the ability to pull apart which words you are hearing, and can you type them back out?"
Ooh this is interesting! I have very little time to learn Japanese, so I'm relying on your free lessons and Duolingo ones. It's not the best, but it kinda helps for now.
Just get an SRS like Anki and memorize the base 2,000 Kanji. I did that and I can do new lessons on Duolingo I've never seen before just by matching the Kanji and the English word bubbles, lol. DL is terrible for learning anything but the most basic grammar (like 'wa' and 'ga' particles)
@@ok_listen an SRS is a Spaced Repetition system. Essentially it’s a program that is set up like flash cards, and the more often you get a card right the longer it will be until it’s brought into a lesson again, and the more often you get a question wrong the more often you will see the word. It exercises both the long term and short term memory!
1:40 I don't think the goal of the first lessons is so much to teach vocabulary, it's mostly to teach the kana itself and how to use it. ワルシャワ might not be a practical word to know for the sake of using it when speaking, but it is practical for teaching the character ワ as well as シャ
Yeah but there are SO many words you could use in lieu of that. ペット，タキシード，ポピュラー，レッスン，シェア，グループ，ホームルーム，ハッピーバースデー，ドライクリーニング，マザー These are some of the words I have as notes (I have a file for words without kanji and broke it up into English loan words, other loan words and native Japanese. It's mostly to bolster my vocab with placeholder words until I learn better ones.)
@@TheGreatBackUpVIDEOS You are missing the point. Where that example appears in the course is pretty much about 4 lessons into the course in the first lesson teaching katakana. The names of countries are a) accessible/familiar to most people b) a typical example of where katakana would appear and c) thematically similar (this is important so that learners can have some feeling of being able to predict what is being used and not presented with just a load of random unconnected words they have no possible way of deciphering)...and the lesson uses other countries names in a similar vein for that very reason and finally d) many sound similar enough in Japanese and English that people can start to get a grasp of how the words/kana sound. There's more going on then just some random selection of any old word that happen to use that katakana...and duolingo does that a lot...but people don't know/understand the nuances of what it is doing in the things that is teaching. It is NOT teaching vocabulary at that point, although that is a yet further side effect to the aforementioned things that are going on in those lessons.
@@vallejomach6721 You made a whole wall to say "It's trying to be consistent with the characters" when 1.I was saying you could pick actually useful words of the same effect. I just chose words at random, but I also chose only English words which would be familiar to learners. If someone with more patience than me actually took the time, they could compose a list of words that achieve the same effect but are actually USEFUL to someone. ALSO, being able to predict what the course is giving you is not the benefit you think it is, half the time I don't know the words, I know what the course wants. If I see half of these things out in the wild then chances are I'm not going to remember it, but I can do just fine in Duo cus it's set up in a way where if you can't tell what you DON'T say, you've not paid ANY attention at all!
Duolingo: "why do you want to learn Japanese?" *clicks 'culture'* Duolingo: "what's the word for a city that is literally on the other side of the planet?"
I love japanese culture, I love that this knowledge is made available through the internet and good people like you Yuta! But honestly I don't know if I'm such a bad listener, but I struggle to notice the difference between some words you pronounced like 10:45 the sushi Maybe, can you make a video expanding on this? Is it looked upon if the speaker makes this sort of mistake? Thank you so much for the effort you put into making these videos! Much love!
I'm using duolingo and the simple truth is I wouldn't be learning at all otherwise cause it doesn't fit into my life right now. Once I have a basis I can learn on my own. It's what I did with English after learning the basics in school.
I've been "learning" from Duolingo for the past year. I'm Brazilian, and there wasn't a full course of Portuguese / Japanese at the time, so I had to "learn" from the English / Japanese course. At first, it felt more like a game where I actually put thought on what meaning would some Japanese sentences have in English and vice-versa. Now, I'm not even paying attention to the Japanese part (those "cheerful characters" just made things worse), and Duolingo just became a "form phrases in English" puzzle. 15:12 sums it up perfectly.
Install japanese IME for your computer and click 'Use Keyboard' when an exercise with a word list appears, so you do exercises by typing japanese instead.
@@jackmcslay Yeah, I tried that once, but as Yuta pointed out, unless you translate exactly the way the app wants you to, you start losing hearts, and can't practice anymore for that day, unless you pay up.
Hey, I'm a Brazilian who's also been trying Duolingo for the past year! Besides Duolingo, I've been using WaniKani to learn kanji/vocab and a podcast for grammar. My main issue with Duolingo is how some lessons are just some easy vocab stuff while others are batshit crazy difficult grammar they barely explain. Currently I'm stuck in Unit 3-Possibilities. Pretty much every sentence in this lesson is a different grammar point and I end up dreading my study sessions because of the constant trial and error. It's kinda overwhelming, but I'm managing it bit by bit. By the way, the Web version doesn't have the hearts system, so there's no limit to the amount of errors you can make. I never use the app unless I'm not home.
@@vitormartins800 I've decided to use it at first because I thought it would be an "easy way" to learn Japanese, and perhaps get to see if I was actually good at English, since I was using it as a basis. And in fact, I feel like I've learned a lot more new expressions in English rather than Japanese, given the sudden spike in difficulty you mentioned and the app wanting me to be quite literal most of the time. I've been using it lazily though; I've never written anything down, as it recommends, and barely practiced anything outside of the "mini games". I used to feel proud of myself for learning hiragana and katakana in a week or so using only an old Japanese classes video and Microsoft Paint. The video is from those sets of lessons that probably was the first thing any Brazilian kid wanting to learn Japanese in the mid 2000s would come across on the internet (it's available on RU-vid now). Now, I can't for the life of me actually learn anything by myself... Laziness sure plays a big part on it, but heck, the app ain't helping much XD. I've used the web version at first, but I felt like it was even more obnoxious sometimes, so I kept using only the app. I'm currently on "Unit 6 - History", but only because I've been playing the "form phrases in English" part right most of the time and leaving every lesson at level 1...
Once you know Kanji you can pretty much solve the problem just by matching the Kanji and the word bubbles, however once you get to level 4-5 you have to type the answer. Still, since I started using it the site has basically become completely unusable with Obnoxious voices and now animated characters WHILE you're trying to solve the problem, which is pretty distracting when you're trying to read Kanji.
I just check the APP and there is something that bothers me: when you choose to learn English and Portuguese they show you the American and Brasilian flag respectively, which matches the dialect they teach you. However, they clearly show the Spanish flag but they teach you Mexican Spanish... yeah, that kinda bothers me
i love the section is labeled "long-ass explanation people skip" xD i didn't skip it and really enjoyed the level of depth you went into to explain the nuance! Thank you, Yuta!
1:56 Duolingo _does_ technically do that, tho. In this case, it's trying to make you understand the basic difference between "kudasai" and "onegai". In this case, it's trying to show that you can use "onegai" on it's own as a sentence, similar to when please is used on it's own in English. Meanwhile, in lessons prior to Checkpoint 1, it shows the use of "kudasai" as being similar to the use of the word "please" when attached to a single word. At first, it does so with a comma in both languages ("Ringo, kudasai" = "An apple, please"), likely to show direct correlation with the English sentence. In a later lesson tho, it shows you the use of the particle "wo" by instead showing you "Ringo wo kudasai."
Yea, this is an interesting video and all. But because he's mainly skipping a lot of the content, he doesn't realize that a lot of what's going on is contextual learning. It goes from basic word learning, into phrases and than refining grammar. A lot of his "fixes" are actually accepted when you type them in hiragana/kanji rather than if you use the machines prefabricated choices. It works on a gradual curve to not overwhelm you. The comment section in Duolingo is also great, lots of people trying to help and give context if you don't understand something.
I think a lot of the criticism of Duolingo is missing the context of why Duolingo is doing it that way. For instance, at 11:30 or so, the "one plate, please" is probably meant to help both reenforce "one" and "please, while introducing a new word of "plate" all at the same time in a 3-10 minute lesson. Natural language comes from use in natural settings, not so much in learning. When a non-native speaker learns a new language, it's generally important that they do not learn it the "right" way. The "right" way took a native speaker more than a decade to learn as their primary language. Trying to achieve that in a secondary language is reaching for too much perfection, in my opinion.
I think Duolingo is pretty good for someone like me: I learnt to speak Japanese during an exchange year (homestay, went to a local high school), so my level is kinda all over the place. I didn't really learn grammar in the traditional sense, just by listening and speaking myself. So Duolingo teaching me pretty strict grammar is something I want. I often already know how to say the same thing in a more casual way and don't know how the grammar works despite being able to somewhat use it. I also have huge gaps in my vocabulary, so Duolingo is good for teaching me new words. Especially when paired with Anki. Same with kanji. It's also just generally helpful in refreshing my memory and making me consistently use Japanese. I don't think Duo is necessarily good for a beginner. Certainly not as their only source, but I think it can still work well alongside other learning resources.
I think Duolingo tries to give the different characters “personalities” and that includes their accent and manner of speaking. The girl with hijab is very enthusiastic. The bear is sort of … gruff? And there’s a little boy and I find he says things in weird way. I’m doing the Mandarin course but I’ve done some of Japanese as well. I think they try to introduce different regional accents with the different characters (at least in Chinese version) but it’s not surprising that sometimes they just pronounce things wrong. I get a lot more vocabulary out of duo than anything else and it’s helping me learn the characters.
I feel like Warsaw is only in there so early because its testing/showing how the sounds would be written in katakana. They aren't too common those sounds and might as well use a city name over a random noun that would most likely have a Japanese equivalent word for it
Since the late March-early April 2020 Coronavirus Lockdown, I've been learing extra Japanese on Duolingo and I've been getting better and better at it. My Mum is learning French on it.
As a Duolingo user with a 550+ day streak, I definitely appreciated your criticisms. There are many times it uses the wrong kanji pronunciation and it makes it extremely hard to learn correctly. Hearing a native Japanese speaker point out so many unnatural translations is certainly enough to make me consider dropping the app (I paid for Plus), but I’m not sure I can afford a private tutor. 😢
I will say, you did skip ahead and the phone has a lot more info for the context in the separate tip areas. Also they add the kanji later, they use the country names and city names to just help you learn the letters for Katakana as well. And the best thing to do is go into the comments sections, the native speakers are SO helpful
The only reason I watch these videos is to see which way he's going to use to plug his Japanese lessons. Tremendous. Also, it might be just me, but I can't really put into words how insane the whole idea of "pitch accent" sounds to me, coming from a language that does not care about it at all.
13:37 I think that's a Duolingo thing. Many of the sentences there are unnatural, and some of them are even random and it's difficult to know if it's done just for the sake of it. There are even compilations online with strange phrases in Duolingo in different languages.
The silly sentences are actually on purpose, they want people not to just remember sentences in the language they're learning but to remember vocabulary and grammar. Which is why you can't just use a sentence like "My dog sells hats", but knowing this, you can talk about your parents selling something, or other things. Also, silly sentences sometimes just make for a good quick laugh.
This is a common practice in language courses. The idea is that because the sentences make no sense, they are easier to remember and help as an anchor to basic (or sometimes even advanced) grammar structure
I spent a lot of time on Duolingo. Some years ago I used Duolingo to brush up the Italian I learned decades ago, and for that purpose it actually worked well. So I did a stunt for Japanese Duoling for a *long* time, through various upgrades of the Japanese tree (mostly for the better). However, I've never been a fan of the translation method for learning languages, and translation is the whole idea behind Duolingo (it's in the name itself..), and even though I got reasonably far in the tree I jumped ship some months ago. So now I'm learning by other means, and I'm learning much faster now than I could ever do with Duolingo, despite using the latter every day. I won't say it's useless, but you *have* to combine Duolingo with serious amounts of other material and methods. AddEdit: New pronunciation problems and other issues popped up after the last audio engine change in Duolingo.
@@MrZeroFaith I have used Human Japanese (app on Android and elsewhere, PC too I think), a paid (but not expensive) variant, but the first few chapters are free in the "lite" version. I found it excellent for learning the basic grammar and giving you something to build from. I have used Remembering the Kanji for learning the first few hundred Kanji, and from then on you start seeing kanji you know in words and can start making use of them. At one point I got a private teacher (native Japanese with training in linguistics), that was *very* good but unfortunately the teacher couldn't continue teaching due to external reasons. The thing is - as you learn more, it gets easier to learn even more. I'm in chat groups with friends, most of them are Japanese and I try to struggle my way through the written (but short) text, it helps with everything. Sometimes I paste into google translate, not really to see the translation, and definitely not to see the romaji - it's mostly wrong in addition to being, er, romaji. But clicking the loudspeaker gives a nice pronunciation (*without* the errors in the romaji), which also helps to learn to read the kanji. These days I also try immersion in following some particular youtubers (e.g. miku sensei and others). However, I don't actually *know* how best to study - I never studied English, I just.. picked it up. So I have to learn how to study, as well..
In English, "one plate, please!" would usually be used for ordering food that is specifically served in "plates" (usually mixed items served together, with the menu specifically calling the item "_____ plate"). It seems Duolingo here directly translated the English phrase, then used that Japanese phrase as the quiz question.
I've been learning Japanese for more than two years with Official Japanese Textbooks from Embassy, and I also know these textbooks try to go further on grammar, reading, kanji and speaking (in case you're learning with someone). However, as every single language in this world, you can't just learn with those books, you have to look with native speakers, it's the best way. Of course, it'll be hard for you (mostly for japanese because CONTEXT means a lot to them and uses do too). But, without these helps, we wouldn't be able to introduce into these kind of languages either.
i think duolingo is pretty good to learn hiragana, katakana and maybe a bit of kanji in a general way. it’s definitely not recommended for a day-to-day conversation with people.
I started Duolingo after learning Japanese for over a year in an academic setting. I found it helpful as it forced me to apply what I learned and think more about Japanese. But I would not recommend it to anyone who is just beginning or planning on getting their information from it. It is more or less a quick quiz in your pocket that often is wrong itself. For me, it solidified knowledge that I had already learned, but I don't think I have learned a single thing from Duolingo independently. It is fine, but no replacement for the real deal like Yuta's stuff.
I'm a complete beginner and I find it good. Even I can see that some of the sentences don't make a lot of sense but I think this is more to do with early lessons working with a limited vocabulary.
duolingo taught me hiragana and katakana through repetition I love it, and i remember a few kanji thanks to the app but i don't practice the grammar using the app
At 1:40 Duolingo isn't trying to teach you place names, it's trying to teach you katakana and give you the understanding that it is used for foreign words and can be worked out by listening to the pronunciation. It gives place names that are the same in English as Japanese for this reason. It's also worth pointing out that all the voices are computer generated. The voices for English are also kinda bad.
0:29 What you didn't show is when Duolingo asks if you're already familiar with the language. When you say you are, you do a placement test and that unlocks the tree for your level. Even if you didn't pick this option, you can still unlock the level by clicking the little castle with a number on it.
I think the reason there might be odd/uncommon word choices is because (a) the whole point of the exercise is to simply get the user used to and practicing reading katakana. The actual meaning of the word doesn’t really matter. And (b) they probably just have a word bank of “katakana” words that gets chosen at random or maybe using basic rules like “must have x number of kana”. And foreign countries and capitals are an easy source to pull and put together.
