I got goosebumps watching this. It's 2019- 8 years after this talk- and I'm beyond addicted to Duolingo, learning one of the most remote languages in the world (Danish), and I'm one of many millions of people learning languages on Duolingo. This talk pre-empted the insane success Duolingo would have, alongside his other superb products. What an amazing man. There should be a book/film about his life.
"The story about a guy who chose to use human beings as slaves for profit while selling them the idea of world peace". Very similar to how Mark Zuckerberg operates btw.
People like him are the reason why I feel more proud every day of being Guatemalan. People just see bad thing about my country but the truth is that Guatemala is full of beautiful things and people. Keep the good work Luis!
Wow. I started on duolingo a week ago and it's ten times better than any paid language teacher I've had in the past... Language has always been my worst subject but I've picked Spanish up with ease.
I just happened to meet Luis in one of the podcasts I was listening to and to be honest, I hadn't heard anyone like this guy who in the Computer Science industry, looks at this kind of problems from such a perspective. Today, in 2020, Duolingo has become one of the most relevant app in the whole universe of the internet. Kudos Luis!
I didn't know Duolingo was made with this purpose! Its amazing. I have been using it for almost a year and it hasn't disappointed me at all. Great job guys!
mind officially is blown. This is just incredible. I love this approach. I really want to start using Duolingo soon now, but I have a long way to go in the language I am currently learning, Icelandic, which is not offered on Duolingo....
mi angel investigador no, aprendí inglés por medio de una mezcla entre primariamente clases tradicionales pero también lo mejoré al vivir un tiempo en EEUU
+Federico Olivares is better to stick to one language and get to a decent level, then move on to another language if you want, I always at idiots on duolingi forum with 10 languages on their learning goals lmao
Latin Lover my Japanese is mid level, as long as you are not learning 10 languages from scratch at the same time, 1 or 2 plus one you are already mid level at
Go to Wikipedia, enter a search term or phrase such as "Duolingo" and look at all of the language options on the left side of the screen (on Desktop version) or click the middle icon at the bottom of the screen in the Wikipedia app on your phone.
+Natália de Jesus Actually, this has changed my whole perspective on Captchas and reCaptchas. I have been using Duolingo for a couple of years but had no idea about this backstory. If you understand spoken Spanish, you should hear his presentation on the same subject. Awe inspiring.
THIS WEBSITE HAS CHANGED MY LIFE! I am too poor to afford classes or anything to learn.. But now im being recognized by job opportunities because I know another language.. THANK YOU DUOLINGO
This is incredible! I'm using Duolingo right now for Hebrew and Spanish, but I had no clue that the later stages of the site will do such great work as translating the Web! That's truly exciting!
I've been using Duolimho since April 2013 and I'm a witness to the amazing capabilities it bestowes upon the human brain. I chose to learn French and can now read and make coherent sentences! I never had a French class my life and once I become fluent in French I hope to learn Spanish, Japanese, and other languages!
I came very close to paying for one of the commercially available conventional language courses - It could have cost me close to £500.00. Then I chanced upon Duolingo. My motivation to learn a new language has been now been fuelled by the fact that I make a positive contribution to the collective learning for the whole planet every time I undertake a brief daily language lesson. Awesome!
Orgullo guatemalteco exportado al mundo! Este chavo es un genio. Al fin recibi mi invitacion para duolingo y he aprendido mucho aleman en tan solo 1 semana! Gracias Luis por tu aporte a la humanidad, seras recordado por todos los tiempos por trabajo. QUE NIVEL!
+Fabienne Kapteijns Lol, I think the sentences in the actual tree are still made-up sentences, as it were. The translation aspect is a separate part of the site, at least nowadays. ... Right?
I think Duolingo will be a great tool to educate people around the globe... education brings progress to nations, never take education for granted my friends.
This is the best and most addictive language learning program in the world. Thank you Luis. You are obviously one of the smartest people in the world. Best wishes for continued success.
I found the CAPTCHA part of this really interesting. While I was watching this I thought to myself "he should make a website designed for just CAPTCHAs." (that is if there isn't one already) What I mean by this is, a website that you can go to just to fill out CAPTCHAs, which would be for people who are interested in helping to digitize books, because I am now interested in helping with this, but I don't want to go signing up for a bunch of random websites just for the purpose of filling out CAPTCHAs. So if there was a website that had nothing but CAPTCHAs to fill out, that would be cool and helpful
I've been doing Duolingo for ages and have been finding it really effective, but had always wondered how it was viable for them to make it free. I would never have imagined the explaination would be as awesome as this. What a fantastic idea!
I've been using DuoLingo for years and I have loved it. Now that I realize that DuoLingo is super-productive-capitalism, I love it even more. Well done!
Yeah, I guess you are right. This doesn´t solve all our problems, but it may be a good way to help those who have access to internet. Al the end there´s no way this is a bad thing. Thanks for your point of view and saludos desde Guatemala.
duolingo is an extremely great learning tool! i started learning french a month ago and now i am level 10 and i had made enormous improvement for my french!
It seems like Duolingo's idea changed slightly, because the sentence translations and the language learning are two separate parts of the site. I know that because Duo uses sentences that make no sense like "Der grüne Bär ist unsichtbar"
No, you've got it mixed up a bit. There used to be a translation feature which would allow users to very quickly translate specific articles, however the actual learning part of the tree is what he is talking about here which translates individual sentences
You can criticize whatever you want, ainen Apfel, slave labor...... Than you really miss the essence of the story! This is innovative, i think everyone who criticize is jealous that he or she didn't come up with the same idea! This is inspiring, even if it seems to be that duolingo is a fail in a few years, its about thinking different!
I love duolingo. It helped me get a jump start on learning Dutch and then I was able to go from there and find other sources but it's fun and motivating to go the their website daily to learn a little bit more.
@starkiller1 He does not say that charging people for something is unfair. What he meant by "unfair" is that at the moment, rich people have easier access to education (i.e. learning a language). In fact, in his project, people are also charged, but you pay with your time (and work), not with money.
Been on Duolingo for about three months. Amazing system that offers about a half dozen languages, all free. At the rate I'm going should take about a year to complete, which is equivalent to third year university French (my subject). Lessons consist of short spoken or written phrases of increasing complexity which should be translated. Each phrase has a comments section where users post questions usually about grammar and receive answers from other students. Totally free of cost or advertising.
I see some translators ranting about his idea. I am not a native English speaker myself but write specialized articles on a daily basis. My point is, do not be skeptical to change the way things are.
I love Duolingo. I have been learning French in school for about seven months now; and in the two weeks I have used Duolingo I have learned more French than I have in all seven months of school.
You did a wonderful job explaining yourself in english. :) And I totally understand your point. Those people I saw in Brazil who go out each day to farm or do other hard manual work to support their families are heroes to me. Someone needs to do the farming, but my hope would be that they could also learn new skills and have good access to schooling for their kids! But this is a great start, right? Poorer people who can afford some internet access but not language classes can learn! :)
ergergzbhzefer In the spanish TEDx about duolingo he finished by saying: "It is my dream to see millions of poor children working for me for free. Oops, that didn't sound right, did it?" lol
if the humans involuntary helps with recaptcha, imagine if google would make website where people can register and just complete captchas all day long. 5-10 cents per captcha, and im 100% sure that there will be 3x times more digital books done, and google wont feel any whole in his pocket.
I've been using this to learn Spanish and it is amazing! In curious how they will integrate mandarin, will they have you translate in pinyin or learn the Chinese letters?
@wesrawr In addition, there simply is not enough released information about the project yet to fully know its capability's and limitations. I would enjoy using something actually relatable when learning another language.
This guy is a genius! The best language learning app on the market, for free, and still making profit in such an elegant way! Awesome!
Take a look around now. See how everything has changed?
@@WXYWork what do you mean? changed in a good or in a bad way?
He's brilliant. Recaptchas and Duolingo are two outstanding ideas!
Yes, he is.
excellent, I am learning english with Duolingo and now I can understand a lot of videos, like this one
Awesome, keep at it man !
your english is amazing, and im a native speaker
Dana McCullough Oh little baby don't you cry everything's gonna be alright.
whats your native language??
Dana McCullough eNgLiSh Is A lAnGuAgE aNd ShOuLd Be CaPiTaLiZeD. sOrRy. I aM aN eNgLiSh TeAcHeR aNd It MaTtErS.
I got goosebumps watching this. It's 2019- 8 years after this talk- and I'm beyond addicted to Duolingo, learning one of the most remote languages in the world (Danish), and I'm one of many millions of people learning languages on Duolingo. This talk pre-empted the insane success Duolingo would have, alongside his other superb products. What an amazing man. There should be a book/film about his life.
"The story about a guy who chose to use human beings as slaves for profit while selling them the idea of world peace". Very similar to how Mark Zuckerberg operates btw.
Im hooked, its a life style.
I practice my english on Duolingo and now I am watching the video of one its co founders.
I always wondered how the makers of duolingo can afford to make thier language learining programs free, and now I know. Awesome!
Avid user of Duolingo and I am more motivated to know that my learning can contribute to such a great cause!
People like him are the reason why I feel more proud every day of being Guatemalan. People just see bad thing about my country but the truth is that Guatemala is full of beautiful things and people. Keep the good work Luis!
I see positive energy
No wonder Duolingo's logo was an owl. Severin Hacker, the presenter's graduate student whom he spoke of, was wearing (guess what) an OWL mask!
Or maybe because owls represent wisdom.
I am going to go with my version, LOL. Seems more logical.
P90Jungle yes! your version seems more accurate
Oda Skjørestad Haha :)
if I ever get an owl, I'm calling it duo! God bless you, duo!
Ash Mckinlay He's a pretty shade of green.
Duolingo is awesome, everybody should use it.
Wow. I started on duolingo a week ago and it's ten times better than any paid language teacher I've had in the past... Language has always been my worst subject but I've picked Spanish up with ease.
I am learning Spanish on Duolingo right now, and it is the coolest app ever. Thank you for pushing humanity to learn about their own history.
And here we are 12 years later and Duolingo had a Super Bowl ad paired with the notifications that it sends, really a marketing and futuristic genius
I just happened to meet Luis in one of the podcasts I was listening to and to be honest, I hadn't heard anyone like this guy who in the Computer Science industry, looks at this kind of problems from such a perspective. Today, in 2020, Duolingo has become one of the most relevant app in the whole universe of the internet. Kudos Luis!
I am German and learn Polish at the moment. Duolingo is the most natural way I could think of. I learned more in 47 days than I did the last 2 years.
I didn't know Duolingo was made with this purpose! Its amazing. I have been using it for almost a year and it hasn't disappointed me at all. Great job guys!
OMG i just realized how this app works! excellent! thanks for making this free... this is so great!
mind officially is blown. This is just incredible. I love this approach. I really want to start using Duolingo soon now, but I have a long way to go in the language I am currently learning, Icelandic, which is not offered on Duolingo....
Doulingo went from optimistic future for internet to that-place-were-the-creepy-green-owl-lives-and-blackmails-you-into-learning-Klingon.
i speak spanish and english fluently to a native level, im learning japanese, and i started german on duolinguo today!
+Federico Olivares Aprendiste ingles en duolingo?
mi angel investigador no, aprendí inglés por medio de una mezcla entre primariamente clases tradicionales pero también lo mejoré al vivir un tiempo en EEUU
+Federico Olivares is better to stick to one language and get to a decent level, then move on to another language if you want, I always at idiots on duolingi forum with 10 languages on their learning goals lmao
Latin Lover my Japanese is mid level, as long as you are not learning 10 languages from scratch at the same time, 1 or 2 plus one you are already mid level at
Did you learn Japanese at duolingo? I don't think that would work too well as it's very rule based.
He's so funny, and brilliant. :o
He will be a very important inventor later on in history
Came here after listening «How I Built This» w/ Guy Raz, loved it!
faith in humanity restored
Go to Wikipedia, enter a search term or phrase such as "Duolingo" and look at all of the language options on the left side of the screen (on Desktop version) or click the middle icon at the bottom of the screen in the Wikipedia app on your phone.
I hate CAPTCHAS, but I have to admit that the idea is very good.
""""Vv""bvv""."""""""""""v"vvqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqq qqqqqqq qqqqqqqq qqqqqqq qqqqqqqqqqqqq qqqqqqqqq qqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqw
+Natália de Jesus Actually, this has changed my whole perspective on Captchas and reCaptchas. I have been using Duolingo for a couple of years but had no idea about this backstory. If you understand spoken Spanish, you should hear his presentation on the same subject. Awe inspiring.
Paul Laureano Thanks! ;)
+Natália de Jesus You're quite welcome. I hope you were able to check it out. I was impressed.
Paul Laureano ;D
Wow. The whole idea is amazing.
this explained EVERYTHING
I do not say that very often BUT this is such an intelligent guy.
Thank YOU so much for your effort,i enjoy duolingo so much and its even addictive.
THIS WEBSITE HAS CHANGED MY LIFE! I am too poor to afford classes or anything to learn.. But now im being recognized by job opportunities because I know another language.. THANK YOU DUOLINGO
This is incredible! I'm using Duolingo right now for Hebrew and Spanish, but I had no clue that the later stages of the site will do such great work as translating the Web! That's truly exciting!
Duolingo hsa been a really good experience for me. They've made French and Spanish CEFR certified, so that really puts value to Duolingo.
I've been using Duolimho since April 2013 and I'm a witness to the amazing capabilities it bestowes upon the human brain. I chose to learn French and can now read and make coherent sentences! I never had a French class my life and once I become fluent in French I hope to learn Spanish, Japanese, and other languages!
What a beautiful mind
I came very close to paying for one of the commercially available conventional language courses - It could have cost me close to £500.00. Then I chanced upon Duolingo. My motivation to learn a new language has been now been fuelled by the fact that I make a positive contribution to the collective learning for the whole planet every time I undertake a brief daily language lesson. Awesome!
I am on a 185 day streak learning Spanish on Duolingo; IT WORKS!
And look at the etraordinary growth of this application since last 12 years. I, myself have been using duo for over 2 years now.
Orgullo guatemalteco exportado al mundo! Este chavo es un genio. Al fin recibi mi invitacion para duolingo y he aprendido mucho aleman en tan solo 1 semana! Gracias Luis por tu aporte a la humanidad, seras recordado por todos los tiempos por trabajo. QUE NIVEL!
I am learning German in duolingo, thank you very much Luis!
Crazy that this talk only has about 360 mio views. One of the all time best Ted talks!
so when I translate la araña come pan (the spider eats bread) it some where makes sense
+Fabienne Kapteijns Duolingo, helping spiders eat bread since 2011..
+Fabienne Kapteijns Lol, I think the sentences in the actual tree are still made-up sentences, as it were. The translation aspect is a separate part of the site, at least nowadays. ... Right?
German: Die Spinne isst Brot
@@violinistajay
To help more spiders to eat bread; here's the Dutch translation:
"De spin eet brood."
@@Ssure2 העכביש אוכל לחם!
THIS EXPLAINS WHY I KEEP SUCCEEDING ON THE WORDS I CAN'T READ!
All those: "there is no way...huh...I guess I was right" thoughts are debunked!
I think Duolingo will be a great tool to educate people around the globe... education brings progress to nations, never take education for granted my friends.
This man deserves a nobel prize...An Idea that can change the world
This genuinely makes me happy!
The Duolingo Spanish podcast brought me here! Bravo! What an incredible use of human efforts! ❤
I've been using Duolingo for a really long time but I knew none of these things until today. Thank you Luis von Ahn!
damn i had no idea that i was translating the web by learning german, this honestly makes me want to do duolingo more! Danke und guten tag!
Give this man a nobel prize....knowledge is a gift!
Duolingo helped me learning English, now I can watch this video in English on my own.
It's five years later, and I am using Duolingo in conjunction with a Spanish course. It's the first time I've had any success learning a language.
SAME HERE !
That is amazingly inspirational and mind blowing
¿Por que no hay más personas así en este mundo?
Soy usuario activo de Duolingo y apenas me vengo enterando de esto, es realmente increíble
Duolingo is a great tool for practicing my language skills
Wow! Easy to see why von Ahn is a MacArthur Genius Grant awardee. His works are world changers.
This is the best and most addictive language learning program in the world. Thank you Luis. You are obviously one of the smartest people in the world. Best wishes for continued success.
I found the CAPTCHA part of this really interesting. While I was watching this I thought to myself "he should make a website designed for just CAPTCHAs." (that is if there isn't one already) What I mean by this is, a website that you can go to just to fill out CAPTCHAs, which would be for people who are interested in helping to digitize books, because I am now interested in helping with this, but I don't want to go signing up for a bunch of random websites just for the purpose of filling out CAPTCHAs. So if there was a website that had nothing but CAPTCHAs to fill out, that would be cool and helpful
Try googling ReCaptcha
Kinda sad to watch at this point, now we know that the concept failed. At least it still gave us Duolingo.
I've been doing Duolingo for ages and have been finding it really effective, but had always wondered how it was viable for them to make it free. I would never have imagined the explaination would be as awesome as this. What a fantastic idea!
Duolingo is the only thing more awesome than Luis voh Ahn himself! This is a GREAT TED talk, one that made me feel smarter the whole way through.
I've been using DuoLingo for years and I have loved it.
Now that I realize that DuoLingo is super-productive-capitalism, I love it even more. Well done!
from a Guatemalan.. to the world :) proud!
You learn something new everyday. Great stuff.
I have been using Duolingo for a while and I really like it as an extra resource to help learn a language.
Yeah, I guess you are right. This doesn´t solve all our problems, but it may be a good way to help those who have access to internet. Al the end there´s no way this is a bad thing.
Thanks for your point of view and saludos desde Guatemala.
duolingo is an extremely great learning tool!
i started learning french a month ago and now i am level 10 and i had made enormous improvement for my french!
El Gobierno y el Pueblo de Maguana, les felicitan, les desean éxitos y les dan la más cordial bienvenida!!!!
It seems like Duolingo's idea changed slightly, because the sentence translations and the language learning are two separate parts of the site. I know that because Duo uses sentences that make no sense like "Der grüne Bär ist unsichtbar"
No, you've got it mixed up a bit. There used to be a translation feature which would allow users to very quickly translate specific articles, however the actual learning part of the tree is what he is talking about here which translates individual sentences
Felicidades sr Luis von Ahn, un Orgullo para Latino America, siga creciendo y dandonos productos con tanta utlidad para la Humanidad...
You can criticize whatever you want, ainen Apfel, slave labor...... Than you really miss the essence of the story! This is innovative, i think everyone who criticize is jealous that he or she didn't come up with the same idea! This is inspiring, even if it seems to be that duolingo is a fail in a few years, its about thinking different!
I have my missgiving whether or not Duolingo currently is what that guy explaind at that time. It seems very different now
The whole world should work this way.
I love duolingo. It helped me get a jump start on learning Dutch and then I was able to go from there and find other sources but it's fun and motivating to go the their website daily to learn a little bit more.
Honestly, it is very useful for me I can learn a lot from it. I like it very much.
@starkiller1 He does not say that charging people for something is unfair. What he meant by "unfair" is that at the moment, rich people have easier access to education (i.e. learning a language). In fact, in his project, people are also charged, but you pay with your time (and work), not with money.
He makes me realize there is such Brilliant person in this world👍
Genius, enough said...
He's so funny and brilliant. What a powerful goal. :)
Luis is one of the greatest influences of technology creators in the 21st. century. Go Guatemala!
He's got tiny precious hands
This is the most interesting video I've seen in a while. Really amazing.
Been on Duolingo for about three months. Amazing system that offers about a half dozen languages, all free. At the rate I'm going should take about a year to complete, which is equivalent to third year university French (my subject). Lessons consist of short spoken or written phrases of increasing complexity which should be translated. Each phrase has a comments section where users post questions usually about grammar and receive answers from other students. Totally free of cost or advertising.
one of the coolest websites I've ever seen.
I see some translators ranting about his idea. I am not a native English speaker myself but write specialized articles on a daily basis. My point is, do not be skeptical to change the way things are.
I love Duolingo. I have been learning French in school for about seven months now; and in the two weeks I have used Duolingo I have learned more French than I have in all seven months of school.
You did a wonderful job explaining yourself in english. :) And I totally understand your point. Those people I saw in Brazil who go out each day to farm or do other hard manual work to support their families are heroes to me. Someone needs to do the farming, but my hope would be that they could also learn new skills and have good access to schooling for their kids!
But this is a great start, right? Poorer people who can afford some internet access but not language classes can learn! :)
After months of waiting, I've finally been invited to use DuoLingo and it's great so far.
This guy may look like the nicest and coolest guy on earth, but I'm sure he eats kittens when no one is around.
ergergzbhzefer In the spanish TEDx about duolingo he finished by saying: "It is my dream to see millions of poor children working for me for free. Oops, that didn't sound right, did it?" lol
Marcílio Mosco Haha I knew this guy was evil !
@@MrBeiragua Thank you for confirming my suspicions about him.
I finally got into Duolingo too, and it's absolutely amazing. I can't wait for them to add more languages, like French and Hebrew
proud of you fellow Guatemalan
if the humans involuntary helps with recaptcha, imagine if google would make website where people can register and just complete captchas all day long. 5-10 cents per captcha, and im 100% sure that there will be 3x times more digital books done, and google wont feel any whole in his pocket.
Exactly!
What a Great Chapin !!!! #Guatemala
I think you might be the most brilliant person I have ever known!! Wow.. this is so impressive!
Hoy es 23 de octubre del año 2018 y de verdad es la mejor app para aprender varios idiomas yo estoy aprendiendo ingles Gracias
Love Duolingo. Doing the Spanish version for the second time. Would like to see an update on this funny and fascinating video.
Severin Hacker is the best name ever. It sounds like something from a Matrix/Harry Potter crossover.
I have been using duolingo for 6 years, tysmmmmm
This is so awesomely genius!
I've been using this to learn Spanish and it is amazing! In curious how they will integrate mandarin, will they have you translate in pinyin or learn the Chinese letters?
@wesrawr In addition, there simply is not enough released information about the project yet to fully know its capability's and limitations. I would enjoy using something actually relatable when learning another language.
Respect, all information and education should be free.