Duolingo (for Welsh)

I’m a qualified teacher but not a language teacher. Like most people my age I was taught languages at school, French and Latin in my case, and I’ve dabbled with other languages at various points since. I know a bit of Mandarin and some conversational Portuguese plus a smattering of Māori. Learning languages, or attempting to, is something I’ve done, on and off, over the years. Duolingo is the latest of those.

In terms of my Duolingo experience I’m up to 100 days experience, so this review is based on that first three months or so. I’m aware that what it teaches changes somewhat as your experience in the language increases, but I haven’t got there yet. I’ve been learning Welsh, but as I understand it the general structure is the same for other languages.

At this point, there is a very distinct approach to learning a language with Duolingo. It’s loosely conversational. You could describe it as “advanced phrase book” learning. You start off with introducing yourself, saying hi, talking about shopping, the weather, food and drink, clothes and gradually expanding out from there. But there are no lessons directly about grammar, you're expected to pick them up as you go along from the examples given. Children do this of course, and it’s how we natively learn languages. It does work to some extent. I’m learning the grammar, but I’m flailing around to really understand it and feeling sure that I’ve got it. Saying there are no lessons about grammar… I’ve just finished a set of lessons about giving orders, in Welsh there are a few imperative forms (an informal, a polite and a negative) and so that’s a grammar lesson in some senses, but it’s still all done by conversational examples and leaving you to try and deduce the rules.

I would be lying if I said I only used Duolingo. Google Translate of course, but I also have an online Welsh Dictionary app - part of how I learn words (and taught jargon in biology) is based on their etymology. A good Welsh dictionary that gives me the etymology is helping me learn the new vocabulary. I have a couple of tabs open to pages with help on Welsh grammar too. And, although it’s not every day, I hit up Reddit or similar with questions fairly often. For example, you can talk about 12 o’clock like that, or as noon or as midday. In Welsh, without going into all the details, there are several options too. Some of them don’t have obvious parallels in English and, just like it doesn’t explain grammar, it doesn’t explain how you can and can’t use these alternatives. This is made extra fun by the fact that there are two somewhat distinct dialects in Welsh. They use many of the same words, but to like is hoffi in S. Welsh and licio in N. Welsh for example. Some of the words are really different.

Without signing up for individual lessons, something I really can’t afford, any learning app or classes are going to have a syllabus and an approach that they take. Duolingo is not perfect, but supplemented by the other things I am using to supplement its lessons - which you could call homework - I am learning Welsh. I’m spending between a few minutes and (very rarely) an hour, typically about 30 minutes a day in a couple of bursts learning some Welsh. Three months in and I’m happily watching preschool TV programmes. A bit more and I hope to be watching a bit more.

I’m aware that when you’re learning a language you go through a phase when it feels like you’re bumping along not really making much, if any, progress. There’s always more to learn, new words, new grammar, new stuff. Duolingo is good in having “gym sessions”, both available at any time - you can do word lists, review exercises, listening exercises and review your mistakes whenever you like. I like to do one or two of these as a warm up before the main lesson each time, just to get my brain into thinking in Welsh again - but each unit has a “personalised learning lesson” that takes you over an area that it considers you’re weak in. Sometimes I wonder how it determines this, when it flags as a weak word one of the character names it uses… but most of the time it’s pretty good. It’s also quite a confidence boost in some ways. Although I might be struggling with the latest verb I’m learning (which I am) knocking these reminders and ‘weak words’ out of the park is a nice ego boost and a reminder of how far I’ve come.

Duolingo is not perfect, one of the things that it lacks is an ability to practise speaking, for Welsh another is the ability to choose North or South Welsh. But I am learning, enjoying most of what I’m learning, and the reading around that I’m doing to supplement the structural weaknesses around grammar that I feel it has are not hard to dig up. I wouldn’t hesitate to suggest it as somewhere to dip in to learning a language if you want to try.