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I'm really glad you made this video! I used Duolingo for a while, but didn't have much success with it. I'm still very eager to learn Japanese, but I don't know what resources are out there that are effective. I hope you decide to do videos about other apps in the future! :)
2:39 shogo remarking "ohhh you can get a daily reminder to make your goal! perfect!" and then moving the mouse very clearly to the block button took me OUT
I had a 180 day streak on Duolingo, but when I started studying Japanese in Japan, it became more stressful to keep it going. The biggest problem with Duolingo is that it doesn’t explain why things are the way they are, you just kinda have to figure it out on your own.
True, to some extent. It explains in the Tips where you use a phase. But most of the time, you gotta figure out yourself why the phases become like that.
This is my problem. I took Spanish classes so I understand conjugations and how different letter combinations sound. I tried French on duolingo and can't for the life of me understand sounds different letter combinations make. It's so frustrating.
For me the biggest problem with DuoLingo is that it gets really tedious after a while. It's the same kind of exercises over and over. The upside is the stories are really cute, and there are classes that are varying in quality, but at least you can start talking to real people. I've done a few of the beginner conversation classes, and they're okay! Another thing is that the progress quizzes are SO much harder than the material you're learning.
You are compressing learning a language in a few years so in many ways it like re-reading a abridged dictionary cannot be helped. It takes multiple iterations to learn a language especially a one that completely different from English apart from lone words.
Tips to learn Japanese more efficiently: - Do NOT attempt to learn more than one language at once. If in doubt, learn the one that you're most interested in. - Repeat every letter/word/sentence out loud to get a closer pronunciation (tip from Teuida). - Avoid trying to learn everything at one sitting to prevent yourself from forgetting words. - Try to memorize kana/kanji stroke order for more efficient writing. - If you feel unmotivated and/or tired, take a break and proceed your learning after a while and remember: you can do it! - Watch anime and practice singing in Japanese. They will help you to increase your vocabulary. - Try not to skip the difficult parts of learning. They may be essential. - Get yourself a partner conversation or use Teuida! - Use your Japanese knowledge in daily occasions (Example: whenever you're going upstairs, count every step in Japanese). - After finishing your studying session, write out everything you have learned so far, physically (pencil and paper) or virtually (note pad app on phone/computer) - Keep watching this video as many times as possible for days or weeks. It is not possible to learn everything in a few moments. Now, I wish you, the reader, a very happy learning, do not give up and give it your all! がんばってください! 💪✌️
This is different for different people. I’ve learned more than one language at once in the past, and in my experience it helped me learn each language better and increase my understanding.
@@feedmewithhate hard agree. Informal Japanese, fast speaking, inaccurate English subtitles, exaggerated voice acting and pronunciation, makes you look like even more of a weeaboo, etc. etc.
One time I was talking in Japanese to my friend who takes Japanese classes, and he was actually really confused with how casual the words that I learned were and said that it could be possibly insulting to a stranger. Thanks for the insight.
That seems to be an issue in other languages as well. I use Duo to review German and Czech. (Since I have been in the US so long and don't get to use those languages I am starting to forget.) And I noticed that they throw in a LOT of slang without marking it as such. Some of it would be downright rude. Certainly, nothing that should be used unless it is with someone you know very well. Or if you want to offend your coworker or boss.
@@paulglandorf4858from my experience it is the opposite. Nearly all phrases i saw were in Höfflichkeitsform and never explained why there is a „Sie“ and not a „du“. I am german tho so it’s a bit different, just saw it from friends and the german course i took out of curiosity
A lot of people miss this, but every single question on Duolingo has a comment section. You can access by pressing the discuss button after answering the question. In the comments a lot of native Japanese speakers break down the sentence, explain the grammar and the formality of words.
@@Roonil69 the comment section is limited because there is too many comments, but you can still read it and people will most likely answer the question you had
Glad to know that the Comme ts are still there. That was a big part of the old Duolingo app. You could also translate articles to practice your skills, but that seems like it's gone?
I've been self-learning Japanese for around 2 months now, mostly because I plan on immigrating to study in Japan, while I recognize Duolingo is not a great app for coversational japanese, it was actually really helpful in teaching Hirigana and Katakana, as they use a flash-card system which makes it easier to memorize!
Another great site for it is Busuu. It has native speakers who are learning English that you can actually interact with. They’ll give you an exercise like “explain your morning” and then a native speaker can critique your grammar and may even record themselves saying it back. It’s super helpful. It also has a slightly different learning track than Duolingo that some find very helpful, and can change up your lessons based on your goals (reading manga, traveling to japan, watching anime, conversing with native speakers etc)
You can report errors in Duolingo too. So if something is really informal or your translation was right but, for example you used "cash" instead of "money" you can essentially protest and tell them, "No I was right!" Or "This is very informal!" It helps them improve.
They don't really take it in consideration, it was very common on duolingo comment section that people were writing the date when mentionning mistake and some of them are not corrected after two years...
But they ignore everything, their customer service is none existent. I raised an issue recently, response was -send screen shots. Did this, plus 3 more times and 3 weeks later still no response. So, i sent a complaint. Zero! Tumbleweed. It was a system error of which I couldn't progress course. Have now wiped my data and deleted them. Annoying cos I kinda liked it and i was learning quite well.... 🤷♀️
Duolingo actually helped me A LOT for starting off learning japanese, ever since the pandemic and classes being delayed, I had a lot of spare time on my hands so I decided to self-study japanese. A few months of Duolingo mixed with youtube tutorials, anime watching and music listening, I could understand A LITTLE bit of japanese but enough to understand simple conversations.. I still need to learn A LOT of other words and Kanji study using OTHER learning materials. As of now I can watch some Vtubers and sometimes listen to japanese radio through radiogarden, (radio is tough to listen to, they talk fast for me to follow, but that just means I ain't there yet).
Where are you at now after 10 months and do you have any advice hehe? I have been starting to learn Japanese and I know some of Hiragana already alongside some words in Japanese currently!
The problem with DuoLingo is that it almost never takes you out of your comfort zone, making real situations be an impossible challenge even for someone that's practiced many hours in DuoLingo. Real word usage and input, even if simulated, is by far the strongest method to learn languages.
Duolingo is meant to help you know vocabulary and keep you consistent in studying. After a few months when you understand a lot of vocabulary you can then start with other resources like books or even movies. If it wasn’t for duolingo I would never find the time to consistently study languages everyday. And I’m sure most locals would be very happy with you trying to learn their language and correct your mistakes/pronunciation.
Its definitely not a full time resource. However, it is very digestible for a beginner, especially someone who’s never studied a language before and have no idea how to start. It keeps you doing at least a bit of study everyday. I find it makes a nice warmup!
I learned 5 years of english in school. But the time afterwards, speaking to natives and other L2 speakers from entirely different countries helped me more with actually learning to speak the language than school ever did. Learning a language and "learning" a language wre two entirely different things.
@@notradamaza4035 Duolingo is a terrible, inefficient way of doing that. Just memorize a bunch of vocab using SRS flashcards, much more efficient way. Other thing is memorizing the conjugation rules, which are complicated. DL doesn't tell you anything, and the conjugation rules are too complex to learn from it, IMO.
My problem with duolingo is that my brain uses more efficient heuristics for determining the correct answers. So instead of thinking about what is correct, I just know what to choose because duolingo uses the same pattern/structure for everything. Eventually the repetition does start to take hold. But I have to make an effort to really study each exercise. Otherwise it just becomes a japanese language themed puzzle game to me
I had the same issue with learning Dutch on duolingo. I've always been a great test taker because I can pick up on patterns but that's never been reflective of how well I've absorbed the information.
I’m currently studying Japanese and using duolingo since I can’t rlly afford an actual teacher, plus it’s actually really useful. Thank you for this video, it helped :)
To be fair, the same is true with native speakers of many languages. For example, how many native English speakers do you know who have a flawless understanding of English grammar? I don't think even a single friend or family member I've known has. Most people make a variety of technical mistakes every day (using me instead of I, using who instead of whom, etc.), and that's how many languages tend to be used in common practice. This is doubly true when taking regional variations into account.
@@harbingerdawn I had a friend who was asking me why a Spanish speaking student was failing Spanish class... and I reminded him that a lot of native English speakers are also failing English class. The world of learning is cold blooded
@@harbingerdawn i don't even know alphabetical order of my native language. nor i can speak it properly. because i didnt study it like a language learner would. on the other hand i have no problems in sonkei go/kenjou go because i studied japanese
That doesn’t mean anything dude. It’s like saying someone from Liverpool can’t understand someone from London. Everyone known standard Japanese in Japan.
@@christopherluke9658 There are differences in dialect between areas of Japan. It's like how in the US, different parts use different words for the same thing
@@christopherluke9658 Tbh my relatives are from birmingham and when they come over I can barely understand what they're saying, despite us all speakig english. The dialect can be very different from different regions, even in england. That and although similar, Tokyo and Kansai dialect is still somewhat different.
@@christopherluke9658 there are always differences within any language. you go to italy you will have not only different accents but almost different dialects from city to city. venetians for example have a much more academic italian and romans have a more sped up and casual italian (in my opinion at least). if you put a brazilian and a portuguese side by side, not only their accents will be completely different in many cases so will words and grammar, even though the base is the same. a brazilian who has never been exposed to portuguese from portugal will have a hard time understanding (not my opinion, i have heard this from many brazilians)
Currently I have a bit over 700 day streak on duologue practicing Spanish and japanese. Duolingo starts off really slow and you think there is no progress but because I’ve been so consistent I understand a lot more than I gave myself credit for.
I think Duolingo is fine. It helps you start off insanely easy with game-like experiences, and helps you keep consistency. I’ve personally used it before and the hiragana/katakana Flashcards are extremely useful. I will say that I got off the platform because of how slow it was. I studied with more serious tools like Anki and Genki and was able to skip through most of the Duolingo courses with a simple test.
Hi Shogo! I am licensed teacher in my country and I am impressed with your new goal of becoming a certified Japanese language instructor! Teaching has its ups and downs but I know that you'll love every minute of it! More power to youuuuu!
As someone that is currently using DuoLingo, I found Shogo's "Mistakes" to be perfectly indicative of the experience. Typos or Unintended entry (do not the feed the animals), Narrow or Inflexible translations, or strict vs colloquial translations. Sometimes it is very easy to understand a sentence and be completely unsure as to how Duo will accept an answer. In the Skip Ahead test, Shogo had 3 Hearts, which is not the case for most lessons. While Mobile does have a hearts system that replenishes over time, PC does not have such a hindrance and you can make many mistakes.
I think it's fair enough to reject extra words being inserted. The translation is in fact, incorrect. It might be a bit frustrating, but what do you expect from a computer program? Apparently many Duolingo sentences already have thousands or even tens of thousands of acceptable answers, but you can't expect it to catch every possible sentence with a similar meaning.
Yes the translation engine is clearly too inflexible - it should be able to spot that 'do not' and 'don't' are equivalent. Do not is simply applying more emphasis and is slightly more formal - it is also different between spoken and written English. Writing conversational English you are really supposed to use the spoken form..
I wish they'd remove from the mobile version the questions that require manually typing in answers. Unless you have a tablet, it's not exactly pleasant to type in full sentences using the virtual keyboard.
I've been using Duolingo for about 4 months now, and I know it isn't perfect, but it was definitely great for learning hiragana and katakana through lots of practice drills, and it achieves the base level of being able to understand some of the vocabulary. I just visited Japan (Tokyo, Osaka, and Kyoto) for the first time this past October with my family, and while I couldn't really form many meaningful sentences to communicate, my ability to read signs in hiragana and katakana, and the ability to pick out certain key words when a Japanese person talks to me were instrumental in surviving the trip. I did sense that a few people were offended or frustrated at us not being able to communicate efficiently, but we did what we could with my base level of understanding on things (my parents didn't learn any Japanese prior to the trip). In the end, I don't imagine I'll be able to be a conversationalist from this app, but I hope that I would at least begin to understand the language in some small part, and I'll probably take some formal classes later on to reinforce my speaking ability.
I started learning Japanese on Duolingo and switched to Spanish. Honestly, if Japanese had as much care and attention paid to it as Spanish does with the app, I would have stayed with it. There are Hiragana and Katakana flashcards that ask you to draw the figures, but I'd like the same for the Kanji in the lessons as well.
Thing is though, unless you are planning on actually LIVING in Japan, or you need it for some kind of exam, you don't really need to know how to write the kanji by hand. I mean, nowadays we rarely even have to write things anymore in general. Everything is done via keyboard.
This is the first Duolingo reaction video I've seen that isn't also trying to sell its own language learning product, and 99% of those act like it's not great for learning.
i agree with you so much i swear i see everyone bash all the tools i use except for reading ofc (except for one person who said it'll lead to hoarding 😂 yes he offered his program afterwards) and then offer me their expensive product
I’m currently an Australian learning Japanese from absolutely nothing except for the word arigato (thank you) and a limited understanding of numbers. This video really helped me! Thanks shogo!
I've been on DuoLingo specifically for Japanese for two years now -- I adore it. I know it's not perfect because language through an app just can't be, but it follows alongside some of the textbooks I have and threw Kanji at me really early on, which I super appreciated. I think it's important to note that no one should ever use one single source for learning. Even Duolingo suggests using other sources to supplement, but it keeps me coming back every single day and even teaches me newer references that a textbook wouldn't.
This is my experience. I would never got this far without Duolingo. I’ve also cycled through , manga, watch lots of Slice of Life anime, and RUclips videos, and ordered paper dictionaries from Japan. It’s slow going, and even although I repeat early levels a lot to improve reading speed and comfort, I still make mistakes even with kana after 2 and a half years. The recent dramatic update of the Duolingo phone app, which I was initially shocked by, is making kana finally stick better. I also very much like the emphasis on words rather than isolated kanji, and have got used to-and developed a feeling for-the variant onyomi and kunyomi that it throws at you-in general onyomi is often given for kanji in isolation, but sometimes bleeds over into compounds where it wouldn’t normally be heard. It’s a pretty huge course, and I expect to take another couple of years at it to get to a reasonably comfortable level, even with spending an average of 1.5 hours a day on Duolingo, not counting the other resources I use. But I really couldn’t see any other system maintaining my interest and enthusiasm, with my personal learning style.
i cheat the kanji by listening, and can only prevent myself from doing that by muting my phone. but if i'm pressed for time and need to preserve my streak, i'll just unmute the phone and listen to everything instead of trying to read.
I’ve always said that language is a forest, and each book, person, program or other lesson is a path in that forest. You cannot learn the entire forest from one path 🙏💕
Recently started learning Japanese on Duolingo. Very important: you can turn off the romanization appearing above every word in the course settings. I doubt you would ever be able to learn the language through hiragana with it otherwise. I'm glad they have that option, it's really difficult to focus on the Japanese characters/immerse yourself otherwise. But most people won't see it, so I wish they had it disabled by default.
Finally a RUclipsr that promotes Duolingo! Almost everyone says it's bad, but for me I used it for German a while ago, and when I started learning Japanese it made me hooked, and the system to learn Kana helped me memorize every character. I use Duolingo as a supplement to some textbooks and workbooks that I have. No access to a teacher, but I surround myself in Japanese to learn, and Duolingo was a motivator for me.
Right? I don’t understand people always hating everything. I just started with Japanese and the kana learning system (even if sometimes repetitive) is still nice, and I see it just as a way to memorize it even better. Why do people always have to complain about everything…
Duolingo is certainly not perfect but its goals are making language learning accessible and fun and I'd say it succeeds quite a bit. Its more engaging than a textbook, with stories, quests, and characters. And the encouragement and emphasis on forming a study habit are small things that will push a lot of people forward when they first start
I feel like using Duolingo for casually learning and using an actual Japanese school textbook to refine it is best. That way learning the basic stuff won't be so tedious and boring, and going through the textbook you know most things so it's easier to get through. The possibility to practise more in Duolingo also helps.
I'm a Duo Lingo User and I've been subscribed to your Channel since way before, But I'm studying Spanish since I'm a Filipino Spanish Citizen 🇵🇭 I hope Duolingo would Support your Channel. Also the Heart ❤️ Replenish everyday and other ways to gain more heart ❤️
Hi Shogo! I’m 99% sure you don’t remember but a couple months ago I posted a comment I was doing in an exchange year in Japan. I’m happy to say that I’m in Japan right now! I am situated in Yokkaichi-Kameyama (Mie-Ken) and I told my entire host family about you! I’ll be staying here for the next 9 months and I’m really enjoying myself. Hopefully I’ll be able to come visit the Dojo sometime!
Actually I've been using Duolingo for 4 years to learn Japanese daily. But, this app gives you a repetition of exercises and it's very basic. And as you say it is an easy to go app to keep in touch with the language but not really useful for JLPT proficiency tests levels. I also use NHK world and NHK easy Japanese news to read which is useful to strengthen the difficult version while reading different news in Japanese.
Shogo made me feel very motivated when I first saw him on RUclips, he didn't only motivate me to study Japanese but also motivate me to study normal school subjects such as math since I really wanna be a teacher in Japan. Shogo is the best example for motivation in my opinion.
I have 703 day streak on Duolingo, and while it’s helpful for learning vocabulary, I find that it’s only really useful for when you’re just starting out learning Japanese. I was able to master hiragana and katakana really fast because of it, but after that it doesn’t feel like I’m learning much 😅
Back in university I spent one year abroad in Japan and got a JLPT N3. Recently I’ve been using Duo just to keep Japanese in my head and learn a few new words. I can tell some things are not super accurate, but the playfulness really helps keep me practicing regularly! Altogether very positive for me!
I finished the Japanese course and am now studying spanish. I'm on a 1137 day streak. It's not perfect but it got me somewhat conversational and I continue to review the lessons!
Amazing!! I'm on 360 days right now, only doing a lesson or two per day, I'm working through it slowly. The new one line track made it a bit annoing tho.
I think it’s nice to give you a taste and help you decide how much you really want to learn a language. And if it’s a rare language, like Scottish Gaelic, it may be your only place to start. But it’s never going to be anything like having a real class or a teacher.
I had one teacher that was way worse than Duolingo :( he only babbled stories about his life between Finland and Japan and taught us some words relating to his stories here and there + told us to work through the book at home on our own. So after 3 hours of class (once a week) I knew what a word like きれい meant but mostly I had learned details about him and had 30-50 pages of homework to complete (which we rarely - if ever - went through the next time). I ended up quitting after one course and sadly he was the only teacher available. So Duolingo has managed to teach me a lot more more in 10 days. Though of course actual classes are superior 99% of the time
I have gone through soooo many “on the go” apps and duolingo is something that definitely helps with my studies to GO ALONG with my Genki Books. I also enjoy the competitive aspect of the “leagues” and that’s basically a global leaderboard and you compete throughout the week for earning XP. You are seeing real people’s profile photo and username with a score right next to there name. I love competition and it’s a great motivator. ESPECIALLY when I first started.
As a Duolingo user, it was great to see your reactions! I've taken a few Japanese courses in college, and I'm SO glad I started there. Duolingo can't explain the "why and when" aspects of a language, and- like you said- is really mainly helpful as a supplement to what you already learned
I would never suggest ONLY Duolingo for learning Japanese. I enjoy using it, but I also use wanikani for kanji/vocab and satori reader for grammar/vocab. What I also like about Duolingo is that it's free, meaning a lot more people can mess around with different languages.
It is confusing because most of us are not from countries where English is the official language, but we have to translate from Japanese to English and from English to our language that we speak at home
There's an option to change your language options from English to your native one. The downside is that the choice of languages you can learn in your own language becomes very small. I chose Japanese as my first language to learn French, so it can be done.
I am studying Polish in DuoLingo and a friend is studying Swedish. I delight in earning Polish, and she is very half-happy. It depends on who creates the language lessons. The Polish is often hilarious! My favorite sentence is "Excuse me, I am an apple" which blew "the elephant is drinking milk" right off the scale. I did start with Transparent Language which is free from my library system. Having a dual view helps so much!! And I know native speakers of Polish. A great benefit.
I am Polish and I checked Polish lessons on duolingo. I can say that some sentences do not make sense or are hilarious, also there are often unnecessary words / phrases in the sentences
I’d recommend for anyone using Duolingo on mobile, after you’ve learned hiragana and katakana, try switching from the word bank to typing it out, there should be a little keyboard icon one certain question. It’s really helped me memorize the lessons more effectively and helps me improve my reading speed since you’re getting more comfortable with each letter not just the words, plus it helps even when they start using kanji because you’re practicing remembering what that kanji sounds like in that situation. Duolingo definitely has issues and needs to be supplemented by other material, ie books, classes, speaking to native speakers etc. buuut getting in the habit of studying every day, practicing, and connecting with other people on the app really can help you stay motivated and focused at least at first Edit: my biggest issue is that the way it gameifies learning is counter productive, you should get more XP the harder the questions are, otherwise maintaining your position in a league is less about learning and more farming xp with quick and easy high reward challenges.
For me, the fact that you don’t really learn if a word is slang or keigo is one of the reasons I switched to French. I felt so awkward and thought I should just go back to the Genki textbooks
@@Niklaus2112 yeah, my partner is French and he said that it’s mostly accurate. Sometimes a little bit old-fashioned or cringe but rarely a politeness issue
@@andthatsshannii As a French person myself, it's quite hard to teach French, as it's becoming more and more of a generational gap between Québec, scholar and older people, and the actual French that's spoken today, with more arabic words being borrowed, verlan slang etc. Also we have a lot of words that are only used in some regions, the most famous one being "chocolatine", in Occitany and southern Aquitaine.
@@stratonikisporcia8630 I've heard that that's becoming an issue for a lot of languages. You would almost need a friend to write to/speak to to clarify what age group you'd be talking to with some of the sentences Duolingo throws at you.
I was just flipping through videos about languages and IF I were to study Japanese YOURS are the videos I would use....and others of course but yours first. I am a big fan of DUO. But of course a serious learner should use various means to truly learn any language. Thanks and BTW, your attitude is wonderful. So refreshing.
I like Duolingo, but my fear when speaking other languages is accidentally offending people or starting in Japanese panicking then accidentally mixing in German and Spanish. The other problem is remembering what I learned. However, I learned more and retained more with Duolingo than books, and Pimslur. Great video though. Thank you so much 💖
It think that Duolingo just was not made for languages were the connotation weight so much like Japanese. It's a great tool, just don't works perfectly for every case.
If you do not remember what you have learned, you did not learn it. There is a difference between discovering something, getting to know something and learning it. Do not get manipulated
I’m so sorry but I chuckled a bit when I imagined someone speaking Japanese then all of the sudden speaking German and Spanish 😂 I hope I didn’t upset you or anyone but that’s just my idiotic humor
Hey, thanks for the contextual video for my duolingo studies! Not sure if you've tried it or had anyone else mention it... I've interacted with or looked up long time players (not sure my sources) and they've recommended that once you get far enough into a language (or if, say, you're a native speaker of the other language!) it's worthwhile to start a second course inside the app that is the flip of what you're otherwise studying. So if you're studying Japanese from the context of English, start a course on English via Japanese. That way you can see both sides of what the languages focus on for structuring and whatnot. Hope I've offered something beyond two cents, thanks again for the Japanese! It's going to be a long time before I can try learning that language again, but it's been a long term dream for so long it's only a matter of time - so get your license and I might be able to buy your lessons ^_^
The problem is that the Japanise course is only in English, so if I want to learn it in Spanish I can't. I have the luck of being studying English so I can take the Japanese course but other people can't.
I started doing this around lesson 35 in the Japanese course and it has helped me a lot. Also watching Japanese streamers learning English either from Duolingo or other sources has been very helpful for me. Other than that I almost exclusively watch Japanese streamers and listen to Japanese music for immersion.
I study Japanese at a university and your whole vibe makes me really excited to do my best. It's really difficult, but it still feels like I get to do my hobby full-time. You are so encouraging, I can't wait for you to be an instructor and help and inspire more people!
I'm learning Japanese in University at the moment and I'm on week 1! I grinned when he said "Amerika-jin desu" because I learnt about introductions and nationalities in my first Seminar :)) I'm gonna watch more of your video's so I can practice :)
One of the first things I learned was rock paper scissors in Japanese and it was very helpful because when I traveled there a lot of the kids wanted to play it with me. It was a great way to build rapport and connect with the kids. So I think it’s important to learn about how to play it in Japanese.😊
I think duolingo is such a nice tool to introduce a new language to someone. It's not a big deal to learn the whole thing, and it gets a bit tedious further, but sumetimes it's really enjoyable to go back to this app and answer their exercises just to remember some of the basics! ^^
This was so interesting. I've been studying Japanese on duolingo for a couple years now, and I took beginning Japanese in high school and college, so I feel like I have the basics down pretty solid. But I've been wondering if I should try another program to become more fluent, because I still don't feel like I could have a whole conversation with another person yet. I'll be curious to see what other methods you review!
To be fair, I was taught English since 2nd grade, grew up with English music, movies, TV and games and I still didn't learn to speak it conversationally, until I got internet access in my late teens and were able to communicate with actual, native English-speakers. I think very few people can learn how to converse in another language, without commucinating with native speakers in some way. That's why I got stuck on Italian, once I reached the most difficult part on Duolingo... They completely botched it, so I'm stuck at this point, without knowing any Italians I can ask for elaboration or practice with in general :/
As you said, duolingo has some definite limitations. But I still find it really valuable as something that makes it easy to get started and easy to do a couple exercises every day. And, it’s easy to build on, whether by writing out each exercise by hand to practice my handwriting, or reading manga and listening to conversation podcasts to help fill in the gaps that duo’s very vocab-focused exercises inevitably create. But of course, there’s no substitute for an actual teacher, or conversation with native speakers.
6:40 the English days of the week are named after norse gods Tyr, Wodin (old English spelling of odin) Thor, and Freya. Saturday is after Saturn and Sunday Monday are the sun and moon.
@@tvojejidlo8143 Positive. White rice as a staple... nutritionally void, empty carbohydrates. Copious consumption of sugar, sake, and soy in every meal. Approximately 13.5% of the Japanese population now has either type 2 diabetes or impaired glucose tolerance. Type 2 diabetes, in case you didn't know, is directly linked to diet. High carbohydrate diets, specifically sugar, grains, and soy are very destructive to human health. And lets not forget the crazy amount of chemicals and pesticides the japanese put in/on all their food. You might be confusing the fact that japanese people are generally skinny with an indication of health.... that comes down to portion sizes. But even if you only eat tiny amount of poisonous crap, its eventually going to catch up with your health on the inside.
It's great as a companion tool to learn a language, but I think you def need to be following up with some textbook studying to understand context, appropriateness, etc. They methods they use definitely help the info stick way faster than anything else I've used, so I use it to lay a foundation and then build on the knowledge after it's committed to memory. Currently doing Spanish, Japanese, and French. Not confusing or any more difficult than 1 language at a time, tbh!
@@mdklzz To me, I feel like digital would be really useful. Idk much about Japanese, I'm still VERY basic (I literally don't know all of the hiragana yet, I've been focusing more on Russian and Spanish), but most of my usage of Japanese, as well as my other target languages, will be digital. I'm not gonna hand-write much stuff in Japanese, I don't even hand-write a lot in English, which is my native language.
I really appreciate this video. I have really bad ADHD (medicated), but I just started using Duo Lingo to learn Japanese again after learning basic hiragana several years ago. I find the system *really* helps with the dopamine hits encouraging me to keep going every day. It's a relief to know I can at least get my foundations with it before moving on to actual textbooks and a real teacher!
I don't have ADHD but do agree Duolingo is fun. However, it doesn't teach you very well... I've been learning way faster without relying on it. There's no spaced repetition, you repeat the same thing ad nauseum then never see it ever again.
21:43 I actually recognized that one from the anime "Belle: the dragon and the freckled princess", where the opponent to the main character tells the main character about why he does what he does. And in there he also uses wareware (or however you'd romanize it).
I think in those last questions, you should refute the result using that "Report" button, you can provide feedback on what you think should also be allowed as a correct answer. The "Discuss" button is also useful to comment and reply to other users regarding that particular question.
I would absolutely love to learn Japanese from you, Shogo. You're awesome and very knowledgeable, and bring a lot of friendly and approachable energy to learning about Japanese history and culture. Your tutelage in the language would be a great experience!
Excellent video on the Duolingo Japanese language! Have been studying for about a month now and I too wear a kimono while practicing. You know for immersion and to help my mind absorb it more readily :).
Pimsleur is the best beginner's app for learning Japanese imo. What I like the most is that you don't get overburdened with the writing system, but instead focus on the essential things: speaking and listening.
See, I want to learn how to read as I go. I know for a fact that my accent is going to be so heavy that people will struggle to understand me, so I'm putting all my effort into being literate first and foremost. I'll probably also never get to Japan in my lifetime because I'm poor (maybe when I'm old I'll get to go), so most of my interactions with Japanese people are going to be online. It's really important to me that I can read the language. The first things I taught myself in Japanese was hiragana and katakana.
My problem with learning reading and writing too early (apart from romanji) is, that our brain can’t refer to anything already known, so it is an extra layer of complexity. After all, we didn’t learn our first language and writing/reading at the same time.
@@ravenmusic932 this is probably mostly true, but I do remember I read a lot of books as a kid - so there were quite a few words I learned from context from reading, rather than learning them from speaking or from school. So it is entirely possible to learn like the alphabet, and how to read first, and then learn actual vocabulary and grammar and such.
@@chewtoy1107 And I absolutely wouldn't dispute what you have said. But don't forget that you already were pretty comfortable in your native language before you learned reading. Actually connecting new things (like letters from the alphabet) with already known things (like words) is the way our brain likes to learn.
Since this was posted a year ago, a lot of things have changed for the japanese courses in Duolingo. I think they started making sure that you understood more of the fundamentals especially when it came to formality in the language which it was not paying as much attention to. But besides that I took proper Japanese classes which helps me affirm my existing understanding of the language so far
I'm hitting 1000 days on Duolingo in less than a week now (been learning Spanish) but I've started doing Japanese on it recently. it's been going pretty well. I've just been doing the basics and it's helped me better than other apps dedicated to just Japanese. this video is very nice and shogo seems like a very lovely guy to be around :)
Edit (5/12/23): it seems Duo has updated their app, and honestly I like it. They have broken down the lessons to make them easier to use-and in addition have different voices to say the sentences you have to type so you get a feel of different accents and talking speeds. For learning hiragana, they have implemented a system where you now to write the hiragana symbols to move on to the next section. I’m glad they’ve made these updates. Makes learning Japanese a lot better 😊 (What’s below is pre-Duolingo update) To be honest, I’ve been (trying) studying Japanese for like 5 years now, and one of the biggest things I hated about Duolingo was that it taught you sentences or phrases rather than words…like…it didn’t really teach you how to form the sentences (by which I mean why each part of the sentence goes where), nor did it explain the grammar (very well). It also didn’t explain (well) how to say certain phonics (like ra, ro, etc). I downloaded an app called Bunpo and that has helped me more in a month than Duolingo has in 5 years (albeit I was able to remember katakana and hiragana). I also wish it told you how to write the symbols or something. Not to mention, it would at random substitute hiragana for Kanji and it expected you to know that. Like, I remember when 人 showed up and it took me having to google why you either say “hito” or “jin”, because Duolingo didn’t explain that, but rather expected me to know that.
6:39 In India in our Bangali language , our week days are on gods name/ planet. Sunday is Sun ☀️🌞 ( রবি,Rabi ). Monday is moon🌙🌝(সোম , soum) Tuesday is Mars(মঙ্গল, Mangal ) Wednesday is mercury(বুধ, Budhā) Thursday is Jupiter(বৃহস্পতি , Brihaspati ) Friday is Venus (শুক্র, Sukra ) Saturday is Saturn 🪐 ( শনি , Sani) 😊😊😊
I started taking japanese lessons taught by an actual japanese person. I can say that duo did help very much but it really didnt explain why things were said the way they were. My only problem was that i only used duo to keep up my streaks and rankings rather than actually learning so i stopped using it..
I'm using Duolingo as a base to learning Japanese but will go on to learn it from a Japanese Teacher in the future. At least you can learn the basics and some of the grammar rules (but not all of them) and just see if the language is the one you want to learn. I'm also using it to learn Danish and soon to start French as well. I'm homebound at the moment and have the time to spend learning languages...
I'm on a 37 day streak currently, cramming for a trip to Japan in a few months. I know it's not perfect, but as someone with ADHD who struggles really bad with any kind of self-teaching, the progress I'm making is amazing. My ultimate goal is to be able to just read and watch things in Japanese.
You have a wonderful, valuable RUclips channel, Shogo. I'm so impressed by your dedication to education and I love this channel so much. Arigatou gozaimasu!
I've been studying Japanese on Duolingo for 1 year and yes, I agree, it's not enough on its own as it can leave me with questions sometimes that would probably be answered if I would be living in Japan and using the language daily, but I am not, so I use many other ways of learning, Japanese taught by qualified Japanese teachers videos, following Japanese people on twitter for casual Japanese learning, listening and watching videos of people speaking Japanese, with subtitles, learning about Japanese culture, so even watching your videos help me sometimes as the Japanese language and culture go along together and Shogo san and his team can teach me a lot about Japanese culture so thank you for your very informative videos.
Yuta, A youtuber who specializes in helping people Learn Japanese, has a video about animes that use normal Japanese that you can use for studding and says to watch them with Japanese subtitles instead of English sub titles.
For the questions which the arise, I found the Duolingo discussions (which you could access from inside the app) to be _very_ helpful. Unfortunately, they have locked literally all of the discussions since March of 2022, so they can still be read, but no new posts or answers can be made.
I use duolingo, and I also get mistakes with the English part, as English is my second language. And it is a little frustrating, but when I started using it, there wasn't a course for Spanish - Japanese
(late I know but...) 6:30 It's interesting, but not too surprising considering that the English days of the week are expressed via Gods. Sunday - SUN/DAY - Sol Invictius Monday - MOON/DAY - Luna Saturday - SATURN/DAY - Saturn These come from the old Roman gods (which the planets were named after), and in French you can even see that Tues/Wed/Thurs/Fri still represent Mars/Mercury/Jupiter/Venus (Hence, Mardi Gras = "Big Mars-day"). However, English is a mix of both French and Germanic languages, so due to syncretism those middle days were renamed after the Norse gods who were seen to be alternate interpretations of the roman gods: Tuesday - Tyr's Day Wednesday - Woden's Day (an alternate spelling of Odin) Thursday - Thor's Day Friday - Frigg's Day (an alternate name for Freya) Thus, it isn't surprising at all to learn that in Japanese, they have their own way of reckoning the days of the week, based off what would have been more significant to them.
Thank you, Shogo, for this review. I think it was a very fair summary of Duolingo. Very interesting to know a Japanese person's perspective. I have been studying Japanese on Duolingo for just under a year and find it really useful as a way to keep myself motivated. However, as was said in the video, you cannot expect to learn conversational Japanese from this alone. I use multiple resources to help me, both on-line and in books, but there really is no substitute for actual speaking practice with a person who is proficient in Japanese. I would like to recommend the resources available from the Japan Foundation, which I have also found very useful. There is online material that you can access for free, and is worth looking at, but it is meant to work with the Marugoto series of workbooks which are easily obtainable. I look forward to your reviews of more language resources. Duolingo may not be perfect but as a free learning tool, where you can access many languages including Navajo, Latin and even Klingon, it is definitely worth checking out.
Hi Shogo and thank you, as a new user you might not be aware that what you've been using is the new "path" homescreen. Previously the, lessons, stories and syllabary sections were all separate in their own section. I''ve been on Duolingo for several years now and have grown attached to the old "crowns" homepage and was rather apprehensive of being forced to change to the new system next month; seeing you go through the lessons makes me think it may not be as bad as I had feared.
I just started learning Japanese 2 days ago so this review really helps. It seems learning the alphabet and a few basics is what Duolingo really helps in but a lot of videos strongly suggest using textbooks and other resources. Thank you for the heads up!
I've been using Duo for about a year and a half now (not Japanese though) and honestly I like the occasional fun silly exercises. I can say there "is no spoon" in my chosen language and it cracks me up. I'll never be fluent using Duo and I know it but I can hear and get the gist of things much better and I can roughly read some things. It has value but will never replace actual instruction and experience and they tell you that pretty clearly
I would love to see your thoughts on wanikani next! it's a program designed specifically for japanese with lots of mnemonics, I used it for about 6 months and I was very happy with my learning through it! it's a bit expensive though so I'd love to know if you think it's worth it.
One small thing tho: Japanese (in Duolingo) is available to English speakers, but not (by default) to Spanish speakers. I am a teacher of English, but my native language (and thus my IP region) is Spanish so I had to switch Duolingo to English so I can access to the Japansee course. That is not because I can't learn Japanse from Spanish, it is because there is no Japanse course written in Spanish in Duolingo.
Tuve el mismo problema. Si bien es cierto me considero fluente en ingles, puedo conversar, leer, escribir, escuchar distintos acentos y entender en un 99% el idioma, hubiera sido genial hacer el curso de Japonés desde el Español, se siente raro cuando uno en la cabeza tiene la fonética del ingles y luego pasarla a la del Japonés que es tan similar a la fonética del Español, es casi la misma. Se siente raro aprender un nuevo idioma tomando como base un idioma que no es tu idioma natal, independiente si siento que lo manejo bien y me siento cómodo con este.
@@BaghNakh1 Lo siento igual. O sea, no tengo problemas en usar el inglés para aprender otro idioma. Me viene bien sobre todo si quiero aprender otro idioma germánico. Estoy aprendiendo holandés y el inglés me ayuda mucho por ser parecidos. Pero con el japonés lo veo igual que tú. Sería más fácil y cómodo aprenderlo desde el español directamente. De hecho, me siento mucho más cómodo aprendiendo cualquier idioma desde el español ya que es un aprendizaje más directo. Pero mientras estos cursos no estén disponibles en español, tendremos que esperar y usar el inglés. Aún así lo bueno del español es que tiene una buena cantidad de idiomas para elegir. Hasta tiene dos exclusivos (catalán y guaraní). Otros idiomas no tienen la misma suerte. Me fijé y algunos idiomas solo tienen entre 3 y 5. Los que tienen menos hablantes solo tienen el inglés así que imagínate.
Interesting. I have been using duolingo for Japanese for about 4 months now, and suspected based on yours and others' videos, that it is far from perfect. Duolingo is a great way to get the basics, but you and others here on RUclips provide better context and the nuance that is often missing. Great content - thank you!
The names of the days in a week are derived from the seven moving objects in the sky (five inner planets plus sun and moon) both in East Asian and in Graeco-Roman (and later Germanic) traditions. 日 - Sun - Sunday 月 - Moon - Monday 火 - Mars (Tiw/Tyr) - Tuesday 水 - Mercury (Woden/Odin) - Wednesday 木 - Jupiter (Thor) - Thursday 金 - Venus (Frigg) - Friday 土 - Saturn - Saturday
when learning the characters, what i think are invaluable are flash cards. when doing the japanese character teaching part of duolingo i had a hard time learning the characters because they were taught in such a messy fashion, but using flashcards and going at it slowly and orderly (starting with あ え い お う and when youre confident with them you can move to か け き こ く) it is actually surprisingly easy and comfortable.
Im planning on going to Japan in 9 months so I started with Duolingo one week ago. So far I’m having fun and I also already watch anime and have noticed I pick up a lot more of the sentence structure compared to before knowing anything. I also want to self study to hopefully be conversational in basic everyday situations and then going with a teacher.
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As just want to say congratulations on getting this job for teaching people the Japanese language
I'm really glad you made this video!
I used Duolingo for a while, but didn't have much success with it. I'm still very eager to learn Japanese, but I don't know what resources are out there that are effective.
I hope you decide to do videos about other apps in the future! :)
You should do a video reacting to duolingo memes.
I love the video! You should try drops next!
I am actually using DuoLingo to learn Japanese, so I want to see your reaction 😂😂😂
2:39 shogo remarking "ohhh you can get a daily reminder to make your goal! perfect!" and then moving the mouse very clearly to the block button took me OUT
Yeah that one slayed me too hahaha
I thought I was the only one who noticed 😂😂😂
I'm so glad that, when I paused to see if I was alone in seeing that, I saw this...
Right? So two-faced! (just kidding, of course)
,,,with that perfect circular motion too 💀
My problem with Duolingo is that my family was kidnapped after I missed a single lesson and it’s a bit too strict
is that all you got? im homeless because of it
Is that all you got guys
And here my whole family was unalived by itachi😢
wait you guys have familys?
@@RainbowKittenswait u r alive?
@@gojoshisuna wait u exist?
"Oh so you can get notifications too, perfect"
*Block*
😂😂😂
😂😂😂 I laughed way more than I should have at chat.
I had a 180 day streak on Duolingo, but when I started studying Japanese in Japan, it became more stressful to keep it going. The biggest problem with Duolingo is that it doesn’t explain why things are the way they are, you just kinda have to figure it out on your own.
goddammit if it ain't true
On the website it's explained. On the app though..........
I’m currently at a little over 180 days.
True, to some extent.
It explains in the Tips where you use a phase.
But most of the time, you gotta figure out yourself why the phases become like that.
This is my problem. I took Spanish classes so I understand conjugations and how different letter combinations sound. I tried French on duolingo and can't for the life of me understand sounds different letter combinations make. It's so frustrating.
For me the biggest problem with DuoLingo is that it gets really tedious after a while. It's the same kind of exercises over and over. The upside is the stories are really cute, and there are classes that are varying in quality, but at least you can start talking to real people. I've done a few of the beginner conversation classes, and they're okay! Another thing is that the progress quizzes are SO much harder than the material you're learning.
@@DREDD.7356 You could absolutely learn to speak a language at a party
I like that it's repetitive and tedious. It reinforces basic words and phrases. But that's just me.
You are compressing learning a language in a few years so in many ways it like re-reading a abridged dictionary cannot be helped. It takes multiple iterations to learn a language especially a one that completely different from English apart from lone words.
For me quizzes are usually kind of the same as normal lessons... But Android version may be different form others...
just do it daily 20 minutes or less a day. i literally cannot do it for more time.
Tips to learn Japanese more efficiently:
- Do NOT attempt to learn more than one language at once. If in doubt, learn the one that you're most interested in.
- Repeat every letter/word/sentence out loud to get a closer pronunciation (tip from Teuida).
- Avoid trying to learn everything at one sitting to prevent yourself from forgetting words.
- Try to memorize kana/kanji stroke order for more efficient writing.
- If you feel unmotivated and/or tired, take a break and proceed your learning after a while and remember: you can do it!
- Watch anime and practice singing in Japanese. They will help you to increase your vocabulary.
- Try not to skip the difficult parts of learning. They may be essential.
- Get yourself a partner conversation or use Teuida!
- Use your Japanese knowledge in daily occasions (Example: whenever you're going upstairs, count every step in Japanese).
- After finishing your studying session, write out everything you have learned so far, physically (pencil and paper) or virtually (note pad app on phone/computer)
- Keep watching this video as many times as possible for days or weeks. It is not possible to learn everything in a few moments.
Now, I wish you, the reader, a very happy learning, do not give up and give it your all! がんばってください! 💪✌️
THIS
This is different for different people. I’ve learned more than one language at once in the past, and in my experience it helped me learn each language better and increase my understanding.
Arigatou! This is helpful, I should be able to use this and get better!
anime is not suitable for learning Japanese
@@feedmewithhate hard agree. Informal Japanese, fast speaking, inaccurate English subtitles, exaggerated voice acting and pronunciation, makes you look like even more of a weeaboo, etc. etc.
One time I was talking in Japanese to my friend who takes Japanese classes, and he was actually really confused with how casual the words that I learned were and said that it could be possibly insulting to a stranger. Thanks for the insight.
That seems to be an issue in other languages as well.
I use Duo to review German and Czech.
(Since I have been in the US so long and don't get to use those languages I am starting to forget.)
And I noticed that they throw in a LOT of slang without marking it as such.
Some of it would be downright rude. Certainly, nothing that should be used unless it is with someone you know very well. Or if you want to offend your coworker or boss.
@@tak60viz so are you Czech then or German?
@@tak60viz Could you tell me what insulting things you have learned in german from Duo? I am german, maybe i can learn a bit
@@paulglandorf4858from my experience it is the opposite. Nearly all phrases i saw were in Höfflichkeitsform and never explained why there is a „Sie“ and not a „du“. I am german tho so it’s a bit different, just saw it from friends and the german course i took out of curiosity
@@god3485 yup, i mean a "Du" probably wouldn't be as bad for everyday use either, but "Sie" sure is the safest bet.
A lot of people miss this, but every single question on Duolingo has a comment section. You can access by pressing the discuss button after answering the question. In the comments a lot of native Japanese speakers break down the sentence, explain the grammar and the formality of words.
OMG IT DOES TY
It says that "the conversation is limited" or something like that and comments don't show on any question i try 😢
@@Roonil69 the comment section is limited because there is too many comments, but you can still read it and people will most likely answer the question you had
Not anymore, unfortunately
Glad to know that the Comme ts are still there. That was a big part of the old Duolingo app. You could also translate articles to practice your skills, but that seems like it's gone?
I've been self-learning Japanese for around 2 months now, mostly because I plan on immigrating to study in Japan, while I recognize Duolingo is not a great app for coversational japanese, it was actually really helpful in teaching Hirigana and Katakana, as they use a flash-card system which makes it easier to memorize!
I agree
Another great site for it is Busuu. It has native speakers who are learning English that you can actually interact with. They’ll give you an exercise like “explain your morning” and then a native speaker can critique your grammar and may even record themselves saying it back. It’s super helpful. It also has a slightly different learning track than Duolingo that some find very helpful, and can change up your lessons based on your goals (reading manga, traveling to japan, watching anime, conversing with native speakers etc)
Thats the funniest joke I've ever heard
nah that's true, after like a week of learning i can already read like 90% of the hiragana and kanaka@@connerwine8705
@@connerwine8705?
Shogo should make an app to teach us
Fr
ya but it would probably cost $50 a month
I would download it
True :DD
@@kirby1676 Probably still cheaper than learning it in college
You can report errors in Duolingo too. So if something is really informal or your translation was right but, for example you used "cash" instead of "money" you can essentially protest and tell them, "No I was right!" Or "This is very informal!" It helps them improve.
I'm glad they're open to critique. It displays integrity on their part.
They don't really take it in consideration, it was very common on duolingo comment section that people were writing the date when mentionning mistake and some of them are not corrected after two years...
there was a forum inside, and they removed completely early 2022.
In the settings, you can turn off romaji to help memorize Hiragana, Katakana, and Kanji sounds
But they ignore everything, their customer service is none existent. I raised an issue recently, response was -send screen shots. Did this, plus 3 more times and 3 weeks later still no response. So, i sent a complaint. Zero! Tumbleweed. It was a system error of which I couldn't progress course. Have now wiped my data and deleted them. Annoying cos I kinda liked it and i was learning quite well.... 🤷♀️
Duolingo actually helped me A LOT for starting off learning japanese, ever since the pandemic and classes being delayed, I had a lot of spare time on my hands so I decided to self-study japanese. A few months of Duolingo mixed with youtube tutorials, anime watching and music listening, I could understand A LITTLE bit of japanese but enough to understand simple conversations.. I still need to learn A LOT of other words and Kanji study using OTHER learning materials.
As of now I can watch some Vtubers and sometimes listen to japanese radio through radiogarden, (radio is tough to listen to, they talk fast for me to follow, but that just means I ain't there yet).
Where are you at now after 10 months and do you have any advice hehe? I have been starting to learn Japanese and I know some of Hiragana already alongside some words in Japanese currently!
Where are you right now after 2 months? I just started to learn and I want some advices
how are you n😢
The problem with DuoLingo is that it almost never takes you out of your comfort zone, making real situations be an impossible challenge even for someone that's practiced many hours in DuoLingo. Real word usage and input, even if simulated, is by far the strongest method to learn languages.
Duolingo is meant to help you know vocabulary and keep you consistent in studying. After a few months when you understand a lot of vocabulary you can then start with other resources like books or even movies. If it wasn’t for duolingo I would never find the time to consistently study languages everyday. And I’m sure most locals would be very happy with you trying to learn their language and correct your mistakes/pronunciation.
@@notradamaza4035 so true, i learn so many vocabularies from duolingo! and the goals set made me keep consistent with my learning
Its definitely not a full time resource. However, it is very digestible for a beginner, especially someone who’s never studied a language before and have no idea how to start. It keeps you doing at least a bit of study everyday. I find it makes a nice warmup!
I learned 5 years of english in school. But the time afterwards, speaking to natives and other L2 speakers from entirely different countries helped me more with actually learning to speak the language than school ever did. Learning a language and "learning" a language wre two entirely different things.
@@notradamaza4035 Duolingo is a terrible, inefficient way of doing that. Just memorize a bunch of vocab using SRS flashcards, much more efficient way. Other thing is memorizing the conjugation rules, which are complicated. DL doesn't tell you anything, and the conjugation rules are too complex to learn from it, IMO.
My problem with duolingo is that my brain uses more efficient heuristics for determining the correct answers. So instead of thinking about what is correct, I just know what to choose because duolingo uses the same pattern/structure for everything.
Eventually the repetition does start to take hold. But I have to make an effort to really study each exercise. Otherwise it just becomes a japanese language themed puzzle game to me
I had the same issue with learning Dutch on duolingo. I've always been a great test taker because I can pick up on patterns but that's never been reflective of how well I've absorbed the information.
@@ConswaMcGaga Blijven gaan 👍
This! For all my time using Duolingo it never felt like i was truly soaking in anything, pattern recognition was mostly at play
I do exactly the same! But you can jump to other topics to avoid that :)
@@IzzyOnTheMove they're usually give you the numbers in other exercises where you have to say how many things there are.
I’m currently studying Japanese and using duolingo since I can’t rlly afford an actual teacher, plus it’s actually really useful. Thank you for this video, it helped :)
You know that the Japanese grammar is difficult when even a native speaker is having a difficult moment with it.
To be fair, the same is true with native speakers of many languages. For example, how many native English speakers do you know who have a flawless understanding of English grammar? I don't think even a single friend or family member I've known has. Most people make a variety of technical mistakes every day (using me instead of I, using who instead of whom, etc.), and that's how many languages tend to be used in common practice. This is doubly true when taking regional variations into account.
@@harbingerdawn I had a friend who was asking me why a Spanish speaking student was failing Spanish class... and I reminded him that a lot of native English speakers are also failing English class.
The world of learning is cold blooded
@@harbingerdawn i don't even know alphabetical order of my native language. nor i can speak it properly. because i didnt study it like a language learner would.
on the other hand i have no problems in sonkei go/kenjou go because i studied japanese
@@harbingerdawn yes like the people that don't know the difference between "to" and "too" or "their" and "there".
@@harbingerdawnFor example when most people say Me and my friend... instead of My friend and I...
Keep in mind that Shogo is from Kyoto and Duolingo is teaching standard Tokyo Japanese.
That doesn’t mean anything dude. It’s like saying someone from Liverpool can’t understand someone from London. Everyone known standard Japanese in Japan.
@@christopherluke9658 There are differences in dialect between areas of Japan. It's like how in the US, different parts use different words for the same thing
@@christopherluke9658 Tbh my relatives are from birmingham and when they come over I can barely understand what they're saying, despite us all speakig english.
The dialect can be very different from different regions, even in england.
That and although similar, Tokyo and Kansai dialect is still somewhat different.
@@christopherluke9658 there are always differences within any language. you go to italy you will have not only different accents but almost different dialects from city to city. venetians for example have a much more academic italian and romans have a more sped up and casual italian (in my opinion at least). if you put a brazilian and a portuguese side by side, not only their accents will be completely different in many cases so will words and grammar, even though the base is the same. a brazilian who has never been exposed to portuguese from portugal will have a hard time understanding (not my opinion, i have heard this from many brazilians)
@@n.m.fergus Exactly. This is the same thing with french; theres many way to say the same thing. Duolingo is badly made.
Currently I have a bit over 700 day streak on duologue practicing Spanish and japanese. Duolingo starts off really slow and you think there is no progress but because I’ve been so consistent I understand a lot more than I gave myself credit for.
I think Duolingo is fine. It helps you start off insanely easy with game-like experiences, and helps you keep consistency. I’ve personally used it before and the hiragana/katakana Flashcards are extremely useful.
I will say that I got off the platform because of how slow it was. I studied with more serious tools like Anki and Genki and was able to skip through most of the Duolingo courses with a simple test.
yo soy yash agarwal
apreando espana los cuatrocincos dias
Hi Shogo! I am licensed teacher in my country and I am impressed with your new goal of becoming a certified Japanese language instructor! Teaching has its ups and downs but I know that you'll love every minute of it! More power to youuuuu!
As someone that is currently using DuoLingo, I found Shogo's "Mistakes" to be perfectly indicative of the experience. Typos or Unintended entry (do not the feed the animals), Narrow or Inflexible translations, or strict vs colloquial translations. Sometimes it is very easy to understand a sentence and be completely unsure as to how Duo will accept an answer.
In the Skip Ahead test, Shogo had 3 Hearts, which is not the case for most lessons. While Mobile does have a hearts system that replenishes over time, PC does not have such a hindrance and you can make many mistakes.
putting the time and forgetting to put "it is " is infuriatnig for me,grrr
I think it's fair enough to reject extra words being inserted. The translation is in fact, incorrect. It might be a bit frustrating, but what do you expect from a computer program?
Apparently many Duolingo sentences already have thousands or even tens of thousands of acceptable answers, but you can't expect it to catch every possible sentence with a similar meaning.
Yes the translation engine is clearly too inflexible - it should be able to spot that 'do not' and 'don't' are equivalent. Do not is simply applying more emphasis and is slightly more formal - it is also different between spoken and written English. Writing conversational English you are really supposed to use the spoken form..
I wish they'd remove from the mobile version the questions that require manually typing in answers. Unless you have a tablet, it's not exactly pleasant to type in full sentences using the virtual keyboard.
Yeah.. I never understood the difference between, "that's a big bed" and "that bed is big". Only the second one is right in Duolingo.
I've been using Duolingo for about 4 months now, and I know it isn't perfect, but it was definitely great for learning hiragana and katakana through lots of practice drills, and it achieves the base level of being able to understand some of the vocabulary. I just visited Japan (Tokyo, Osaka, and Kyoto) for the first time this past October with my family, and while I couldn't really form many meaningful sentences to communicate, my ability to read signs in hiragana and katakana, and the ability to pick out certain key words when a Japanese person talks to me were instrumental in surviving the trip. I did sense that a few people were offended or frustrated at us not being able to communicate efficiently, but we did what we could with my base level of understanding on things (my parents didn't learn any Japanese prior to the trip).
In the end, I don't imagine I'll be able to be a conversationalist from this app, but I hope that I would at least begin to understand the language in some small part, and I'll probably take some formal classes later on to reinforce my speaking ability.
I started learning Japanese on Duolingo and switched to Spanish. Honestly, if Japanese had as much care and attention paid to it as Spanish does with the app, I would have stayed with it. There are Hiragana and Katakana flashcards that ask you to draw the figures, but I'd like the same for the Kanji in the lessons as well.
Thing is though, unless you are planning on actually LIVING in Japan, or you need it for some kind of exam, you don't really need to know how to write the kanji by hand. I mean, nowadays we rarely even have to write things anymore in general. Everything is done via keyboard.
Kanji is the most difficult in read a loud not in written of characters in levels of middle school or high school.
Writing kanji in the app would be hard
That feature has been added now
This is the first Duolingo reaction video I've seen that isn't also trying to sell its own language learning product, and 99% of those act like it's not great for learning.
i agree with you so much i swear i see everyone bash all the tools i use except for reading ofc (except for one person who said it'll lead to hoarding 😂 yes he offered his program afterwards) and then offer me their expensive product
What about learning the basics like the alphabet
@@alanood9962 I use it for Japanese learning. It gives both Hirigana and Katakana alphabets.
I’m currently an Australian learning Japanese from absolutely nothing except for the word arigato (thank you) and a limited understanding of numbers. This video really helped me! Thanks shogo!
I've been on DuoLingo specifically for Japanese for two years now -- I adore it. I know it's not perfect because language through an app just can't be, but it follows alongside some of the textbooks I have and threw Kanji at me really early on, which I super appreciated.
I think it's important to note that no one should ever use one single source for learning. Even Duolingo suggests using other sources to supplement, but it keeps me coming back every single day and even teaches me newer references that a textbook wouldn't.
What textbooks or other sources did you use?
I stopped using duolingo due to the amount of kanji😭
This is my experience. I would never got this far without Duolingo. I’ve also cycled through , manga, watch lots of Slice of Life anime, and RUclips videos, and ordered paper dictionaries from Japan. It’s slow going, and even although I repeat early levels a lot to improve reading speed and comfort, I still make mistakes even with kana after 2 and a half years. The recent dramatic update of the Duolingo phone app, which I was initially shocked by, is making kana finally stick better. I also very much like the emphasis on words rather than isolated kanji, and have got used to-and developed a feeling for-the variant onyomi and kunyomi that it throws at you-in general onyomi is often given for kanji in isolation, but sometimes bleeds over into compounds where it wouldn’t normally be heard. It’s a pretty huge course, and I expect to take another couple of years at it to get to a reasonably comfortable level, even with spending an average of 1.5 hours a day on Duolingo, not counting the other resources I use. But I really couldn’t see any other system maintaining my interest and enthusiasm, with my personal learning style.
@@Oreocycllo I have the Genki textbooks!
i cheat the kanji by listening, and can only prevent myself from doing that by muting my phone. but if i'm pressed for time and need to preserve my streak, i'll just unmute the phone and listen to everything instead of trying to read.
I’ve always said that language is a forest, and each book, person, program or other lesson is a path in that forest. You cannot learn the entire forest from one path 🙏💕
Wow, such a beautiful metaphor!! 🤩👏
Well said.
I love that metaphor
Recently started learning Japanese on Duolingo. Very important: you can turn off the romanization appearing above every word in the course settings. I doubt you would ever be able to learn the language through hiragana with it otherwise. I'm glad they have that option, it's really difficult to focus on the Japanese characters/immerse yourself otherwise. But most people won't see it, so I wish they had it disabled by default.
So helpful comment, I was discussing this with my siblings that I can't focus on japanese letters because of romanization
Finally a RUclipsr that promotes Duolingo! Almost everyone says it's bad, but for me I used it for German a while ago, and when I started learning Japanese it made me hooked, and the system to learn Kana helped me memorize every character. I use Duolingo as a supplement to some textbooks and workbooks that I have. No access to a teacher, but I surround myself in Japanese to learn, and Duolingo was a motivator for me.
Which book do you use for japanese
I’m learning German with duolingo
Right? I don’t understand people always hating everything. I just started with Japanese and the kana learning system (even if sometimes repetitive) is still nice, and I see it just as a way to memorize it even better. Why do people always have to complain about everything…
@@BorutoOtsutsuki__ I'm using Genki 1 textbook and workbook right now. It's interactive, and has all the beginner grammar concepts. I would recommend!
@@MehDrac- me too 😊
Duolingo is certainly not perfect but its goals are making language learning accessible and fun and I'd say it succeeds quite a bit. Its more engaging than a textbook, with stories, quests, and characters. And the encouragement and emphasis on forming a study habit are small things that will push a lot of people forward when they first start
Exactly. People seem to expect it to be perfect, but it got me interested in learning more
I feel like using Duolingo for casually learning and using an actual Japanese school textbook to refine it is best. That way learning the basic stuff won't be so tedious and boring, and going through the textbook you know most things so it's easier to get through.
The possibility to practise more in Duolingo also helps.
I'm a Duo Lingo User and I've been subscribed to your Channel since way before, But I'm studying Spanish since I'm a Filipino Spanish Citizen 🇵🇭 I hope Duolingo would Support your Channel. Also the Heart ❤️ Replenish everyday and other ways to gain more heart ❤️
Hi Shogo! I’m 99% sure you don’t remember but a couple months ago I posted a comment I was doing in an exchange year in Japan. I’m happy to say that I’m in Japan right now! I am situated in Yokkaichi-Kameyama (Mie-Ken) and I told my entire host family about you! I’ll be staying here for the next 9 months and I’m really enjoying myself. Hopefully I’ll be able to come visit the Dojo sometime!
Actually I've been using Duolingo for 4 years to learn Japanese daily. But, this app gives you a repetition of exercises and it's very basic. And as you say it is an easy to go app to keep in touch with the language but not really useful for JLPT proficiency tests levels. I also use NHK world and NHK easy Japanese news to read which is useful to strengthen the difficult version while reading different news in Japanese.
Spanish or Vansish
I also use NHK its a great resource!!
Shogo made me feel very motivated when I first saw him on RUclips, he didn't only motivate me to study Japanese but also motivate me to study normal school subjects such as math since I really wanna be a teacher in Japan. Shogo is the best example for motivation in my opinion.
I have 703 day streak on Duolingo, and while it’s helpful for learning vocabulary, I find that it’s only really useful for when you’re just starting out learning Japanese. I was able to master hiragana and katakana really fast because of it, but after that it doesn’t feel like I’m learning much 😅
703...well...cheers to your dedication
Gosh dang. Here I was thinking my 63 day streak was impressive.
"Learn Japanese words free" is an amazing app to try for vocabulary, I am using their apps for other languages, pretty cool.
Well... you learn Hiragana and Katakana in 7 hours... completely.
550 days and im loving it. As long as you complete all the levels language stays in your mind
Back in university I spent one year abroad in Japan and got a JLPT N3. Recently I’ve been using Duo just to keep Japanese in my head and learn a few new words. I can tell some things are not super accurate, but the playfulness really helps keep me practicing regularly! Altogether very positive for me!
You are so pleasant to watch. The way you explain is so soothing and fun. Im glad i found you
I finished the Japanese course and am now studying spanish. I'm on a 1137 day streak. It's not perfect but it got me somewhat conversational and I continue to review the lessons!
I couldn't even do a 3 day streak. Thats amazing!
Amazing!! I'm on 360 days right now, only doing a lesson or two per day, I'm working through it slowly. The new one line track made it a bit annoing tho.
I still on Japanese unit11 on 45 day streak, I wonder if I can finish Japanese in one year ?
Real Chad 💀
Man has been studying other languages so much he forgot its course not coarse. 1137 days is very impressive!
I think it’s nice to give you a taste and help you decide how much you really want to learn a language. And if it’s a rare language, like Scottish Gaelic, it may be your only place to start. But it’s never going to be anything like having a real class or a teacher.
I had one teacher that was way worse than Duolingo :( he only babbled stories about his life between Finland and Japan and taught us some words relating to his stories here and there + told us to work through the book at home on our own. So after 3 hours of class (once a week) I knew what a word like きれい meant but mostly I had learned details about him and had 30-50 pages of homework to complete (which we rarely - if ever - went through the next time). I ended up quitting after one course and sadly he was the only teacher available. So Duolingo has managed to teach me a lot more more in 10 days. Though of course actual classes are superior 99% of the time
I have gone through soooo many “on the go” apps and duolingo is something that definitely helps with my studies to GO ALONG with my Genki Books.
I also enjoy the competitive aspect of the “leagues” and that’s basically a global leaderboard and you compete throughout the week for earning XP. You are seeing real people’s profile photo and username with a score right next to there name. I love competition and it’s a great motivator. ESPECIALLY when I first started.
As a Duolingo user, it was great to see your reactions! I've taken a few Japanese courses in college, and I'm SO glad I started there. Duolingo can't explain the "why and when" aspects of a language, and- like you said- is really mainly helpful as a supplement to what you already learned
I would never suggest ONLY Duolingo for learning Japanese. I enjoy using it, but I also use wanikani for kanji/vocab and satori reader for grammar/vocab. What I also like about Duolingo is that it's free, meaning a lot more people can mess around with different languages.
It is confusing because most of us are not from countries where English is the official language, but we have to translate from Japanese to English and from English to our language that we speak at home
There's an option to change your language options from English to your native one. The downside is that the choice of languages you can learn in your own language becomes very small. I chose Japanese as my first language to learn French, so it can be done.
Ako ništa Japanski ćeš lakše naučiti ako si srbin jer oni čitaju slova slično kao srbi osim što J čitaju ђ i ima jos nekih malih promena
I don't really have that problem because I can just think in English
I am studying Polish in DuoLingo and a friend is studying Swedish. I delight in earning Polish, and she is very half-happy. It depends on who creates the language lessons. The Polish is often hilarious! My favorite sentence is "Excuse me, I am an apple" which blew "the elephant is drinking milk" right off the scale. I did start with Transparent Language which is free from my library system. Having a dual view helps so much!! And I know native speakers of Polish. A great benefit.
the japanese lesson has the "i am an apple" sentence as well
My polish lessons on Duolingo always get me dying, I had a sentence once that read "the evil child drinks coffee" like tf 😭
@@xXghosttoastXx Oh, yes! That was a hoot!
I am Polish and I checked Polish lessons on duolingo. I can say that some sentences do not make sense or are hilarious, also there are often unnecessary words / phrases in the sentences
@@Kitsune_Miko unnecessary words? 🥺
I’d recommend for anyone using Duolingo on mobile, after you’ve learned hiragana and katakana, try switching from the word bank to typing it out, there should be a little keyboard icon one certain question. It’s really helped me memorize the lessons more effectively and helps me improve my reading speed since you’re getting more comfortable with each letter not just the words, plus it helps even when they start using kanji because you’re practicing remembering what that kanji sounds like in that situation. Duolingo definitely has issues and needs to be supplemented by other material, ie books, classes, speaking to native speakers etc. buuut getting in the habit of studying every day, practicing, and connecting with other people on the app really can help you stay motivated and focused at least at first
Edit: my biggest issue is that the way it gameifies learning is counter productive, you should get more XP the harder the questions are, otherwise maintaining your position in a league is less about learning and more farming xp with quick and easy high reward challenges.
Have you tried to submit the lower part to duolingo? I would prefer that as well
2:40 "You can get a daily reminder to meet your goal. Perfect!"
*Blocks notifications*
For me, the fact that you don’t really learn if a word is slang or keigo is one of the reasons I switched to French. I felt so awkward and thought I should just go back to the Genki textbooks
You went from learning japanese to learning french because the lessons are clearer in the french class? (On duo I mean)
@@Niklaus2112 yeah, my partner is French and he said that it’s mostly accurate. Sometimes a little bit old-fashioned or cringe but rarely a politeness issue
@@andthatsshannii As a French person myself, it's quite hard to teach French, as it's becoming more and more of a generational gap between Québec, scholar and older people, and the actual French that's spoken today, with more arabic words being borrowed, verlan slang etc. Also we have a lot of words that are only used in some regions, the most famous one being "chocolatine", in Occitany and southern Aquitaine.
@@stratonikisporcia8630 verlan is killing me! I get the general premise! Couple it with people talking fast, though? Yikes!
@@stratonikisporcia8630 I've heard that that's becoming an issue for a lot of languages. You would almost need a friend to write to/speak to to clarify what age group you'd be talking to with some of the sentences Duolingo throws at you.
I just LOVE your dramatic pronunciation and explaining why something might not work, very entertaining and informative! ❤😂
Is it dramatic though? 😅
@@francis7336 yea nobody speaks japanese like that naturally
Yeasss😂
I was just flipping through videos about languages and IF I were to study Japanese YOURS are the videos I would use....and others of course but yours first. I am a big fan of DUO. But of course a serious learner should use various means to truly learn any language. Thanks and BTW, your attitude is wonderful. So refreshing.
I like Duolingo, but my fear when speaking other languages is accidentally offending people or starting in Japanese panicking then accidentally mixing in German and Spanish. The other problem is remembering what I learned. However, I learned more and retained more with Duolingo than books, and Pimslur.
Great video though.
Thank you so much 💖
It think that Duolingo just was not made for languages were the connotation weight so much like Japanese.
It's a great tool, just don't works perfectly for every case.
If you do not remember what you have learned, you did not learn it.
There is a difference between discovering something, getting to know something and learning it.
Do not get manipulated
I’m so sorry but I chuckled a bit when I imagined someone speaking Japanese then all of the sudden speaking German and Spanish 😂
I hope I didn’t upset you or anyone but that’s just my idiotic humor
Wow omg ty i studied Duolingo and pinsluer glad to know duo is better
Hey, thanks for the contextual video for my duolingo studies! Not sure if you've tried it or had anyone else mention it... I've interacted with or looked up long time players (not sure my sources) and they've recommended that once you get far enough into a language (or if, say, you're a native speaker of the other language!) it's worthwhile to start a second course inside the app that is the flip of what you're otherwise studying. So if you're studying Japanese from the context of English, start a course on English via Japanese. That way you can see both sides of what the languages focus on for structuring and whatnot.
Hope I've offered something beyond two cents, thanks again for the Japanese! It's going to be a long time before I can try learning that language again, but it's been a long term dream for so long it's only a matter of time - so get your license and I might be able to buy your lessons ^_^
The problem is that the Japanise course is only in English, so if I want to learn it in Spanish I can't. I have the luck of being studying English so I can take the Japanese course but other people can't.
@@tizianoguy2904 i do that for German and English
I've actually thought about trying this to see how it differs
I started doing this around lesson 35 in the Japanese course and it has helped me a lot. Also watching Japanese streamers learning English either from Duolingo or other sources has been very helpful for me. Other than that I almost exclusively watch Japanese streamers and listen to Japanese music for immersion.
It works well for many courses. I did it in Italian.
"ohh you can get a daily reminder... Perfect"
*Blocks the notifications*
I study Japanese at a university and your whole vibe makes me really excited to do my best. It's really difficult, but it still feels like I get to do my hobby full-time. You are so encouraging, I can't wait for you to be an instructor and help and inspire
more people!
I'm learning Japanese in University at the moment and I'm on week 1! I grinned when he said "Amerika-jin desu" because I learnt about introductions and nationalities in my first Seminar :))
I'm gonna watch more of your video's so I can practice :)
One of the first things I learned was rock paper scissors in Japanese and it was very helpful because when I traveled there a lot of the kids wanted to play it with me. It was a great way to build rapport and connect with the kids. So I think it’s important to learn about how to play it in Japanese.😊
I’m so glad you did a video on this because I’m actually using Duolingo to learn Japanese. 😊
I'm also studying with Duolingo for my student exchange program to kyoto. Starting from November up to april.
Thanks for your like. I'm soooo looking forward to my stay in Kyoto.
congratulations
@@bramsamain4859 well how is life now?
@@kingcocaman could be better. Who's asking and why?
Dkd you learn it
I am learning Japanese for the future
The fact that YT showed me a duolingo ad before this is just perfect
I think duolingo is such a nice tool to introduce a new language to someone. It's not a big deal to learn the whole thing, and it gets a bit tedious further, but sumetimes it's really enjoyable to go back to this app and answer their exercises just to remember some of the basics! ^^
This was so interesting. I've been studying Japanese on duolingo for a couple years now, and I took beginning Japanese in high school and college, so I feel like I have the basics down pretty solid. But I've been wondering if I should try another program to become more fluent, because I still don't feel like I could have a whole conversation with another person yet. I'll be curious to see what other methods you review!
To be fair, I was taught English since 2nd grade, grew up with English music, movies, TV and games and I still didn't learn to speak it conversationally, until I got internet access in my late teens and were able to communicate with actual, native English-speakers. I think very few people can learn how to converse in another language, without commucinating with native speakers in some way. That's why I got stuck on Italian, once I reached the most difficult part on Duolingo... They completely botched it, so I'm stuck at this point, without knowing any Italians I can ask for elaboration or practice with in general :/
@@VelkanAngelsu could find people who know the language you want to be friends with and talk to on language learning subreddit
The fact that I got an Ad of Duolingo when I clicked on this video-
As you said, duolingo has some definite limitations. But I still find it really valuable as something that makes it easy to get started and easy to do a couple exercises every day. And, it’s easy to build on, whether by writing out each exercise by hand to practice my handwriting, or reading manga and listening to conversation podcasts to help fill in the gaps that duo’s very vocab-focused exercises inevitably create. But of course, there’s no substitute for an actual teacher, or conversation with native speakers.
I'm so happy to see Shogo finally looking at Japanese Duolingo!
6:40 the English days of the week are named after norse gods Tyr, Wodin (old English spelling of odin) Thor, and Freya.
Saturday is after Saturn and Sunday Monday are the sun and moon.
Shogo don’t be surprised your native language is getting more and more popular thanks to japans soft power= culture,music,movies,manga and anime
i guess it's included in culture (as is the rest) but don't forget the delicious food!
@@chewtoy1107 Unhealthy though
@@TheCausalParadox Japanese food and unhealthy? R u sure
@@tvojejidlo8143 Positive.
White rice as a staple... nutritionally void, empty carbohydrates.
Copious consumption of sugar, sake, and soy in every meal.
Approximately 13.5% of the Japanese population now has either type 2 diabetes or impaired glucose tolerance.
Type 2 diabetes, in case you didn't know, is directly linked to diet. High carbohydrate diets, specifically sugar, grains, and soy are very destructive to human health.
And lets not forget the crazy amount of chemicals and pesticides the japanese put in/on all their food.
You might be confusing the fact that japanese people are generally skinny with an indication of health.... that comes down to portion sizes. But even if you only eat tiny amount of poisonous crap, its eventually going to catch up with your health on the inside.
@@TheCausalParadox im ngl Japanese food (especially just the avarage food in the supermarkets) is extremely healthy compared to america’s, i’d say.
It's great as a companion tool to learn a language, but I think you def need to be following up with some textbook studying to understand context, appropriateness, etc. They methods they use definitely help the info stick way faster than anything else I've used, so I use it to lay a foundation and then build on the knowledge after it's committed to memory. Currently doing Spanish, Japanese, and French. Not confusing or any more difficult than 1 language at a time, tbh!
@@mdklzz To me, I feel like digital would be really useful. Idk much about Japanese, I'm still VERY basic (I literally don't know all of the hiragana yet, I've been focusing more on Russian and Spanish), but most of my usage of Japanese, as well as my other target languages, will be digital. I'm not gonna hand-write much stuff in Japanese, I don't even hand-write a lot in English, which is my native language.
@@mdklzz That makes sense. Haven't really thought about that.
there are much much better companion tools for learning Japanese than Duolingo
I love your personality, this did not feel like a 24 minute video
I really appreciate this video. I have really bad ADHD (medicated), but I just started using Duo Lingo to learn Japanese again after learning basic hiragana several years ago. I find the system *really* helps with the dopamine hits encouraging me to keep going every day.
It's a relief to know I can at least get my foundations with it before moving on to actual textbooks and a real teacher!
Oh really ? Alright that's more incentive for me to start then, thanks for that input !
Your comment is amazing, I havent been able to pick up a book in years due to my adhd, and duolingo is actually able to get my focus!
With the way my brain works Duolingo got me to learn all of the hiragana in like 3-4 hours (maybe less I forgor) over the course of 2 days
I don't have ADHD but do agree Duolingo is fun.
However, it doesn't teach you very well... I've been learning way faster without relying on it. There's no spaced repetition, you repeat the same thing ad nauseum then never see it ever again.
Would definitely be happy learning Japanese from Shogo, hopefully lessons come soon
When did he say he was going to teach Japanese
@@Kamfechi You tell me
21:43 I actually recognized that one from the anime "Belle: the dragon and the freckled princess", where the opponent to the main character tells the main character about why he does what he does. And in there he also uses wareware (or however you'd romanize it).
I think in those last questions, you should refute the result using that "Report" button, you can provide feedback on what you think should also be allowed as a correct answer. The "Discuss" button is also useful to comment and reply to other users regarding that particular question.
I would absolutely love to learn Japanese from you, Shogo. You're awesome and very knowledgeable, and bring a lot of friendly and approachable energy to learning about Japanese history and culture. Your tutelage in the language would be a great experience!
Excellent video on the Duolingo Japanese language! Have been studying for about a month now and I too wear a kimono while practicing. You know for immersion and to help my mind absorb it more readily :).
From 4:12 your pronunciation from reading from duolingo sounded exactly like the duolingo japanese language. That was awesome!
Pimsleur is the best beginner's app for learning Japanese imo. What I like the most is that you don't get overburdened with the writing system, but instead focus on the essential things: speaking and listening.
Idk, learning how to write kanji is often discouraged for beginners but personally it helped me so much with memorizing kanji.
See, I want to learn how to read as I go. I know for a fact that my accent is going to be so heavy that people will struggle to understand me, so I'm putting all my effort into being literate first and foremost. I'll probably also never get to Japan in my lifetime because I'm poor (maybe when I'm old I'll get to go), so most of my interactions with Japanese people are going to be online. It's really important to me that I can read the language. The first things I taught myself in Japanese was hiragana and katakana.
My problem with learning reading and writing too early (apart from romanji) is, that our brain can’t refer to anything already known, so it is an extra layer of complexity. After all, we didn’t learn our first language and writing/reading at the same time.
@@ravenmusic932 this is probably mostly true, but I do remember I read a lot of books as a kid - so there were quite a few words I learned from context from reading, rather than learning them from speaking or from school. So it is entirely possible to learn like the alphabet, and how to read first, and then learn actual vocabulary and grammar and such.
@@chewtoy1107 And I absolutely wouldn't dispute what you have said. But don't forget that you already were pretty comfortable in your native language before you learned reading. Actually connecting new things (like letters from the alphabet) with already known things (like words) is the way our brain likes to learn.
Since this was posted a year ago, a lot of things have changed for the japanese courses in Duolingo. I think they started making sure that you understood more of the fundamentals especially when it came to formality in the language which it was not paying as much attention to. But besides that I took proper Japanese classes which helps me affirm my existing understanding of the language so far
I'm hitting 1000 days on Duolingo in less than a week now (been learning Spanish) but I've started doing Japanese on it recently. it's been going pretty well. I've just been doing the basics and it's helped me better than other apps dedicated to just Japanese. this video is very nice and shogo seems like a very lovely guy to be around :)
Oh wow, that's nearly 3 years.
Edit (5/12/23): it seems Duo has updated their app, and honestly I like it. They have broken down the lessons to make them easier to use-and in addition have different voices to say the sentences you have to type so you get a feel of different accents and talking speeds. For learning hiragana, they have implemented a system where you now to write the hiragana symbols to move on to the next section. I’m glad they’ve made these updates. Makes learning Japanese a lot better 😊
(What’s below is pre-Duolingo update)
To be honest, I’ve been (trying) studying Japanese for like 5 years now, and one of the biggest things I hated about Duolingo was that it taught you sentences or phrases rather than words…like…it didn’t really teach you how to form the sentences (by which I mean why each part of the sentence goes where), nor did it explain the grammar (very well). It also didn’t explain (well) how to say certain phonics (like ra, ro, etc). I downloaded an app called Bunpo and that has helped me more in a month than Duolingo has in 5 years (albeit I was able to remember katakana and hiragana). I also wish it told you how to write the symbols or something.
Not to mention, it would at random substitute hiragana for Kanji and it expected you to know that. Like, I remember when 人 showed up and it took me having to google why you either say “hito” or “jin”, because Duolingo didn’t explain that, but rather expected me to know that.
It's used to explain the grammar in the foruma, but they closed the forums 😢
Bunpo? I am going to try it.
Oh yeah, i found it too and i like it a lot! Would def reccomend
6:39 In India in our Bangali language , our week days are on gods name/ planet.
Sunday is Sun ☀️🌞 ( রবি,Rabi ).
Monday is moon🌙🌝(সোম , soum)
Tuesday is Mars(মঙ্গল, Mangal )
Wednesday is mercury(বুধ, Budhā)
Thursday is Jupiter(বৃহস্পতি , Brihaspati )
Friday is Venus (শুক্র, Sukra )
Saturday is Saturn 🪐 ( শনি , Sani)
😊😊😊
I started taking japanese lessons taught by an actual japanese person. I can say that duo did help very much but it really didnt explain why things were said the way they were. My only problem was that i only used duo to keep up my streaks and rankings rather than actually learning so i stopped using it..
I'm using Duolingo as a base to learning Japanese but will go on to learn it from a Japanese Teacher in the future. At least you can learn the basics and some of the grammar rules (but not all of them) and just see if the language is the one you want to learn. I'm also using it to learn Danish and soon to start French as well. I'm homebound at the moment and have the time to spend learning languages...
I'm on a 37 day streak currently, cramming for a trip to Japan in a few months. I know it's not perfect, but as someone with ADHD who struggles really bad with any kind of self-teaching, the progress I'm making is amazing. My ultimate goal is to be able to just read and watch things in Japanese.
You have a wonderful, valuable RUclips channel, Shogo. I'm so impressed by your dedication to education and I love this channel so much. Arigatou gozaimasu!
I've been studying Japanese on Duolingo for 1 year and yes, I agree, it's not enough on its own as it can leave me with questions sometimes that would probably be answered if I would be living in Japan and using the language daily, but I am not, so I use many other ways of learning, Japanese taught by qualified Japanese teachers videos, following Japanese people on twitter for casual Japanese learning, listening and watching videos of people speaking Japanese, with subtitles, learning about Japanese culture, so even watching your videos help me sometimes as the Japanese language and culture go along together and Shogo san and his team can teach me a lot about Japanese culture so thank you for your very informative videos.
Yuta, A youtuber who specializes in helping people Learn Japanese, has a video about animes that use normal Japanese that you can use for studding and says to watch them with Japanese subtitles instead of English sub titles.
For the questions which the arise, I found the Duolingo discussions (which you could access from inside the app) to be _very_ helpful. Unfortunately, they have locked literally all of the discussions since March of 2022, so they can still be read, but no new posts or answers can be made.
2:42 "Perfect" (block)
Great video!! So fun to watch and very interesting!
I use duolingo, and I also get mistakes with the English part, as English is my second language. And it is a little frustrating, but when I started using it, there wasn't a course for Spanish - Japanese
same here 🥲
Same here and it’s frustrating when you know the answer but you mistake it in English😅
Saaaaaame
nearly same here (i miss german->japanese)
well at least we are learning two languages! 🇧🇷
(late I know but...)
6:30 It's interesting, but not too surprising considering that the English days of the week are expressed via Gods.
Sunday - SUN/DAY - Sol Invictius
Monday - MOON/DAY - Luna
Saturday - SATURN/DAY - Saturn
These come from the old Roman gods (which the planets were named after), and in French you can even see that Tues/Wed/Thurs/Fri still represent Mars/Mercury/Jupiter/Venus (Hence, Mardi Gras = "Big Mars-day"). However, English is a mix of both French and Germanic languages, so due to syncretism those middle days were renamed after the Norse gods who were seen to be alternate interpretations of the roman gods:
Tuesday - Tyr's Day
Wednesday - Woden's Day (an alternate spelling of Odin)
Thursday - Thor's Day
Friday - Frigg's Day (an alternate name for Freya)
Thus, it isn't surprising at all to learn that in Japanese, they have their own way of reckoning the days of the week, based off what would have been more significant to them.
Thank you, Shogo, for this review. I think it was a very fair summary of Duolingo. Very interesting to know a Japanese person's perspective. I have been studying Japanese on Duolingo for just under a year and find it really useful as a way to keep myself motivated. However, as was said in the video, you cannot expect to learn conversational Japanese from this alone. I use multiple resources to help me, both on-line and in books, but there really is no substitute for actual speaking practice with a person who is proficient in Japanese. I would like to recommend the resources available from the Japan Foundation, which I have also found very useful. There is online material that you can access for free, and is worth looking at, but it is meant to work with the Marugoto series of workbooks which are easily obtainable. I look forward to your reviews of more language resources. Duolingo may not be perfect but as a free learning tool, where you can access many languages including Navajo, Latin and even Klingon, it is definitely worth checking out.
Hi Shogo and thank you, as a new user you might not be aware that what you've been using is the new "path" homescreen. Previously the, lessons, stories and syllabary sections were all separate in their own section. I''ve been on Duolingo for several years now and have grown attached to the old "crowns" homepage and was rather apprehensive of being forced to change to the new system next month; seeing you go through the lessons makes me think it may not be as bad as I had feared.
I still haven't updated the app.
I think many people judge Duolingo from the start and how simple it is. If you only ever do the first few units it's so simple.
I just started learning Japanese 2 days ago so this review really helps. It seems learning the alphabet and a few basics is what Duolingo really helps in but a lot of videos strongly suggest using textbooks and other resources. Thank you for the heads up!
I've been using Duo for about a year and a half now (not Japanese though) and honestly I like the occasional fun silly exercises. I can say there "is no spoon" in my chosen language and it cracks me up. I'll never be fluent using Duo and I know it but I can hear and get the gist of things much better and I can roughly read some things. It has value but will never replace actual instruction and experience and they tell you that pretty clearly
I think that depends on the language.
For English I leaned more in 3 months of Duolingo than in 3 semesters of classes.
I definitely think if you really want to learn a language you have to add in supplemental material, like books, or podcasts.
I would love to see your thoughts on wanikani next! it's a program designed specifically for japanese with lots of mnemonics, I used it for about 6 months and I was very happy with my learning through it! it's a bit expensive though so I'd love to know if you think it's worth it.
One small thing tho: Japanese (in Duolingo) is available to English speakers, but not (by default) to Spanish speakers. I am a teacher of English, but my native language (and thus my IP region) is Spanish so I had to switch Duolingo to English so I can access to the Japansee course. That is not because I can't learn Japanse from Spanish, it is because there is no Japanse course written in Spanish in Duolingo.
Tuve el mismo problema. Si bien es cierto me considero fluente en ingles, puedo conversar, leer, escribir, escuchar distintos acentos y entender en un 99% el idioma, hubiera sido genial hacer el curso de Japonés desde el Español, se siente raro cuando uno en la cabeza tiene la fonética del ingles y luego pasarla a la del Japonés que es tan similar a la fonética del Español, es casi la misma. Se siente raro aprender un nuevo idioma tomando como base un idioma que no es tu idioma natal, independiente si siento que lo manejo bien y me siento cómodo con este.
@@BaghNakh1 Yo soy profesor en inglés. No me cuesta "pensar en inlgés" y estoy acostumbrado a usar esa lengua como base para aprender otras cosas.
Yeah it’s the same for Italian. I had to switch to English and sometimes the lost in traslation became a little bit too much.
@@BaghNakh1 Lo siento igual. O sea, no tengo problemas en usar el inglés para aprender otro idioma. Me viene bien sobre todo si quiero aprender otro idioma germánico. Estoy aprendiendo holandés y el inglés me ayuda mucho por ser parecidos. Pero con el japonés lo veo igual que tú. Sería más fácil y cómodo aprenderlo desde el español directamente. De hecho, me siento mucho más cómodo aprendiendo cualquier idioma desde el español ya que es un aprendizaje más directo. Pero mientras estos cursos no estén disponibles en español, tendremos que esperar y usar el inglés. Aún así lo bueno del español es que tiene una buena cantidad de idiomas para elegir. Hasta tiene dos exclusivos (catalán y guaraní). Otros idiomas no tienen la misma suerte. Me fijé y algunos idiomas solo tienen entre 3 y 5. Los que tienen menos hablantes solo tienen el inglés así que imagínate.
Interesting. I have been using duolingo for Japanese for about 4 months now, and suspected based on yours and others' videos, that it is far from perfect. Duolingo is a great way to get the basics, but you and others here on RUclips provide better context and the nuance that is often missing. Great content - thank you!
The names of the days in a week are derived from the seven moving objects in the sky (five inner planets plus sun and moon) both in East Asian and in Graeco-Roman (and later Germanic) traditions.
日 - Sun - Sunday
月 - Moon - Monday
火 - Mars (Tiw/Tyr) - Tuesday
水 - Mercury (Woden/Odin) - Wednesday
木 - Jupiter (Thor) - Thursday
金 - Venus (Frigg) - Friday
土 - Saturn - Saturday
That's really interesting! Now I finally know the connection between Thursday and what you call it in german (basically "Thundersday")
木 - Jupiter (Thor) - Thursday --german-> Donar - Donnerstag
when learning the characters, what i think are invaluable are flash cards. when doing the japanese character teaching part of duolingo i had a hard time learning the characters because they were taught in such a messy fashion, but using flashcards and going at it slowly and orderly (starting with あ え い お う and when youre confident with them you can move to か け き こ く) it is actually surprisingly easy and comfortable.
Im planning on going to Japan in 9 months so I started with Duolingo one week ago.
So far I’m having fun and I also already watch anime and have noticed I pick up a lot more of the sentence structure compared to before knowing anything.
I also want to self study to hopefully be conversational in basic everyday situations and then going with a teacher.
Best part as soon as I click on the video I get an ad for Duolingo