Forming bad habits is all too easy, in my world at least. So I’m very pleased that a relatively recent obsession is neither illegal, immoral nor fattening (as Alexander Woollcott once remarked) and in fact is virtuously helping me keep my mind agile and increase my language knowledge. Are you familiar with Duolingo? I’m apparently one of a worldwide community of almost 25 million people who use the app daily, and at least 500 million who are users overall.
Duolingo is a language learning app that encourages you to maintain a ‘streak’ of completing at least one short lesson or exercise every day. I am very proud of my 500+ day streak in Spanish, a language I’ve wanted to learn for a long time but have not been quite committed enough to spend money and time on traditional lessons.
Learning a new language is of course great for potential communication. In my case, when I visit friends in Mallorca, I would love to be able to speak a little Spanish with them and to make more sense of my surroundings by understanding the written and spoken language. But I’ve also found it fascinating to notice how Spanish relates to or differs from other languages I know – French, German and English. It has reminded me of enjoyably rich English words, such as ‘aficionado’ and ‘renegade’. It has also exercised my mind in making connections between words to help me remember them – like ‘elegir’ meaning ‘to choose’, which is similar to the English ‘elect’, and ‘esperar’ meaning ‘to wait’, which is like the French ‘esperer’ (to hope) and conveys a similar sense of anticipation.
Duolingo has done a great job of gamifying language learning, offering chances to progress through different leagues, earn points and gems and to track and celebrate friends’ achievements. I first heard of it via my teenage daughter, whose school encourages her and her peers to use it to consolidate their classroom learning. It’s free, or there’s a paid version that gives unlimited play and an ad-free experience. It uses automation and machine learning to practise, test and correct. You listen, speak and write to embed knowledge (in mainstream languages at least – less popular ones don’t have speech recognition.)
And now, an AI feature in Duolingo Max offers roleplay exercises in French and Spanish (presumably more languages will roll out soon), where you can input free text and the app corrects and improves it. I’m really impressed with the intelligence of the suggestions, even when I go quite far off piste with my responses!
With the help of Duolingo’s owl (el búho) mascot, I’m powering towards my 1000 day streak! Eventually I’d like to reward myself with a trip back to Mallorca. I don’t know whether my app-based Spanish will be of any use in the real world, but I’m eager to give it a try!