Japanese and Korean Surprise!
Those changes on the exercise page @karint told you about were supposed to make it easier for us to port mobile-only courses to web, right? Like... Japanese, right?
We are delighted to announce that today you will be able to try the Japanese beta course on web!
We are sure you have many questions… such as “What about Korean???” Alright, alright. We did both. Treat yourself and try Korean beta on web today as well! :)
The languages should appear in your standard language picker today. If you can't wait and want to start right away, go to your settings and select from the dropdown. If you started on mobile, it should be available in your dropdown flag above, in the blue menu bar.
And here is a small beginner’s kit of optional things:
Japanese course!
Japanese Duolingo forums
Japanese Hiragana practice deck
Japanese Katakana practice deck
Korean course!
Korean Duolingo forums
Korean alphabet deck
Korean foods
We are very excited, and hope you enjoy it!
TL;DR Japanese and Korean now on web, no big deal.
270 Comments
901
I had a feeling something was going on. For a week or so I haven't been able to use Strengthen Skills on web and, at the same time, some of my skills had become unable to be gilded anymore. It's nice that these things are now working once again. Well done! ^^
(Don't read any more of this post, as I've run out of positivity...)
*Sigh.* I knew this day would come eventually, but I'd complacently assumed there would still be a couple more months before the web courses got nerfed with these "character challenge" exercises. It seems that I was entirely correct about how they'd be implemented on web:
https://www.duolingo.com/comment/23975326
It's now no longer possible to do the courses without a mouse; we're now required to tediously switch back and forth between keyboard and mouse (similar to Memrise), from which not even Timed Practice has escaped...
HOWEVER, I can't believe there's something else far FAR worse than anything I had been worrying about...
Please tell me this is only temporary!! Is there really not going to be any Japanese typing on web anymore?!?! The course on web has now mutated into an exact replica of what it's like in the app...
If this isn't just some horrific coding accident which was never supposed to have happened, then... I... don't even know anymore... This feels like a really awful nightmare right now. (;_;)
Urgh... And in my comment above asking to not put the new exercises in the "old" courses I only thought about those "tap the pairs" challenges. I didn't even think "rearrange the words" would be a possibility. -.-
- 1522
This is even more fiddly than the app, and I didn't like the app because it is so slow and fiddly to enter an answer even if one immediately knows what it is; these sorts of exercises simply don't work on a non-touch screen. I hope this is because the course has just been transferred from the ap and the sentences have yet to be differentiated from the 'match-the-pairs'-type exercises (which are also fiddly, but more defensible when teaching the script), and will soon be fixed so that one can type normally like every other course on the Duolingo.
Until they do something about this, I find myself in the unprecedented situation of considering that the app is now better than the website for Japanese.
What about non-touch screens on computers with mice, so that you can use the mouse to move the cursor and click on a point on the screen instead of touching the screen itself at that point with your fingers?
I surmise that this option has not escaped garpike's notice, and it is precisely this that has been rightly termed "fiddly," a judgement which I wholeheartedly share. There are those of us who are quite turned off by incessant switching between keyboard and mouse. At least Memrise provides keyboard shortcuts for their clicking exercises!
- 901
That phrase "simply don't work" is a figure of speech, not literal.
It means, for use on non-touchscreen devices, this click-the-tiles way of answering is highly inappropriate and unsuited, not that it's literally 100% impossible to answer even a single question this way. ^^
I didn't see your post here and replied to one of your comments higher up but can only agree here again with you. I found out about this like you and can only console myself with the Jp to En course which (along with the Japanese discussions) is teaching me a lot.
Hopefully they'll provide us with an option to choose between a typing mode and a "rearranging tiles" mode. However I wouldn't be very optimistic as the tile system is much easier to maintain (you don't have to take into account all the different ways to say something in Japanese).
I really don't like reordering the tiles and matching the tiles, especially in timed practice. Typing Japanese would be much easier, although I'm glad that Japanese is on the web now.
Agreed, that's mental energy spent in visual search and scan, not a skill I use when reading or writing or speaking. The old DuoLingo was very efficient for me.
This looks terrible. Please Duolingo Staff, don't do this to any other courses on the web version. We use the web version for a reason. I can understand how people feel. If a language means a lot to you and you want to learn it, you would prefer to type in it frequently.
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!!! (I'll have a more articulate response of happiness later. I am just inarticulately happy at the moment.) aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!!
Little Duos! <3 I love them!
Where's Duo and his sweetheart that brought these little ones to life? <3
On 2013-09-18, I joined Duolingo looking to find a JP for EN course. When they didn't have it, I decided to take Spanish while I waited, as there were whisperings that Duolingo would be adding more courses.
The next month, Luis announced Coming October 9th: the Duolingo Language Incubator.
With your help, Duolingo will soon be available in every language -- Chinese, Japanese, Russian... maybe even Elvish. All 100% free.
So, I thought it would just be a short wait. I've been here waiting ever since. So, I am ecstatic over this. :'D
I took some classes in 2011 and 2012. I wanted a course so I wouldn't forget all of it. When I took the placement test for it in the app, I think I cleared 5 skills. (So, I forgot most of it.) But, I was able to challenge some sections along the way. I'm currently going back through and strengthening everything. I did some timed practices yesterday, testing out my week spots (2/3 of the tree, apparently. haha)
That's almost exactly me, but I was looking for a Hungarian course, and decided to take french while I was waiting!
Then uh... I got distracted with some other languages
yeah. i speak french as an almost natural native language (english is my 1st) and wanted 2 practice @home. found this then goofed off.
Where are the open-ended translation / typing exercises? I have done 300XP of Japanese so far and there has not been a single of these types of exercises. Are there any at all in the course?
And why am I being given these multiple choice questions? They're boring, and wasting my time.
I feel betrayed. I signed up for this course thinking it would be like other DuoLingo courses, having open-ended recall and typing, and so far it's just been multiple choice.
It feels like I'm being given a mobile course on Desktop. There are multiple reasons I don't use DuoLingo on desktop, and one of the biggest ones is that it's mostly choosing things from lists, it doesn't require open-ended translation and typing, and I think this is a huge omission.
It's also frustrating given that the reverse course (English for Japanese speakers) which I had been doing for months (until I was forced to stop when the site redesign happened because the reverse tree userscript broke and still hasn't been fixed), had these open-ended exercises. So it's like I'm regressing to a more elementary level.
It's really frustrating. I want to learn and to be challenged. I don't want to be bumming around wasting my time doing stupid exercises where I choose things from a list of words. I want to have to recall those words and I want to have to type them out using an input method of my choice that I installed and configured and learned how to use. I already invested my time in doing those things, now you invest your time in giving me a real course that I can learn from instead of some watered down junk that is no different from your mobile courses.
- 901
I had a 168 day streak starting from the 24th of April from doing this course on web, and it has been full of exercises requiring Japanese typing...
... At least, that was how it was up until last night...
Upon the course finally getting its "official" release for web last night, now it has suddenly transformed into this exact replica of the app. Now there isn't any Japanese typing in the whole course whatsoever.
However, personally I still believe (naïvely?) that this is just temporary. Sure, we're almost certainly going to be stuck with the horrible tile matching exercises for eternity, but I don't believe the open-ended translation exercises requiring Japanese typing won't ever be coming back.
My reasoning for this belief is based on the fact I've received 33 emails from "Duolingo feedback" for this course where a contributor said they added my alternative translation to the list of accepted answers. Of these 33 emails, 14 of them are for Japanese sentences such as where I'd been marked wrong for typing more kanji than what appears in the default answers.
If we really were never going to be allowed to type Japanese answers ourselves, then I don't think the contributors would have spent so much time adding hundreds of alternative Japanese translations. ^^
(I'm still not entirely confident in this belief though. And I'm also worried about whether this change is even allowed to happen until after the course reaches Phase 3 now...)
While Lingodeer is currently in a similar situation (They only have tile matching). They have received the suggestion to allow typing on exercises and seem to be considering it. Don't give up all hope!
Here was their exact quote:
Q: I have only completed a couple of stages so far so I don't know if this is coming later or not, but I think it would be really helpful if you could actually type the words by yourself instead of pressing premade words/parts of words. Duolingo doesn't have this which I think is unfortunate. In the case that you do not have this already, do you have any plans on adding it as a feature?
A: Good question. The reason we implemented this feature is because many new learners haven't installed a typer in that language and therefore can't type the answers with their own keyboard. We can definitely understand the need and necessity to type the characters from scratch. Thanks for the suggestion. We'll see what we can do!
- 1522
The reason we implemented this feature is because many new learners haven't installed a typer in that language and therefore can't type the answers with their own keyboard.
I cannot see how this could be DL's logic as learners are left to their own devices to install keyboards for Russian, Greek, Hebrew, Vietnamese, etc. However, the problem could easily be overcome simply by presenting a dialogue box asking 'Do you have a Japanese keyboard installed?' at the start of the course, and adding a toggle button for this in 'Settings'.
garpike,
Different course teams, different logic applied at different stages. I won't be surprised if we'll see updates and changes in the future. I'd like to use my keyboard too. I'm not worried it won't eventually happen.
I like your suggestion of a dialogue box guiding new participants through preparations to begin using the course. I'd like to see this too. :)
- 901
Another way they could easily completely solve that issue is by simply making it so that any half-width Latin characters typed in the Japanese answer text box get automatically converted directly into hiragana glyphs.
This would be exactly like how typing hiragana works using a Japanese keyboard. Then at least users can answer every sentence in full hiragana, which is already accepted by the course anyway. ^^
They could optionally extend this further to have ways of switching the conversion to katakana, and maybe even find a way to enable typing the 101 kanji currently taught by the course. But none of these extra things are absolutely necessary for solving the problem.
Of course, this should only be for the user to use as a last resort. It should only be there as a fallback. It would be best to develop a guide for setting up Japanese input that is so clear that no user on any system would ever be able to not understand it, and have everyone typing Japanese the real way. ^^
I wish they would communicate with us about this. Right now I just feel frustrated and betrayed.
Time to neglect my life for a few days. Also will the Japanese tree be updated? It seems short for a language like Japanese.
- 2280
All trees will be updated eventually... one step at a time PotatoSanta :D
silently mourns my old username which used to be 'berniesandwich' with a profile picture to match
The course is supposed to teach enough to pass the JLPT N5 test, the Japanese Language Proficiency Test , easiest level.
Japanese looks beautiful! I can't wait to see how Chinese is going to look like!
I really hope they don't ruin it like they did Japanese by making it all mobile-like exercises, and that they give Chinese open-ended typing exercises.
I know, me too! I cant wait to start learning Chinese on Duolingo! I'm already learning Japanese, Korean, and other languages with Duolingo and it is great so far.
- 1531
Ah, why is it that even the animated owl for the Japanese course looks beautiful?
And I was about to say that maybe I should change my profile picture for the occasion, but then realized I already did - over 4 years ago when I made my account. :)
Thanks, but it's a half baked solution. as other people have already mentioned one should be given the opportunity to actually type the answers, either in hiragana or romaji, as it's much easier to memorize the vocabulary if the words are needed to be written and it also helps you to learn different sentences structure that way.
- 863
For the exercise type where we need to match pairs of things, could we please get numbers associated with the choices so that they can be done with the keyboard? I don't think I've seen them with more than 10 tiles, so numbers should be enough (if not, just use letters instead). Press a digit to select and another digit to match, or tap the first digit again to unselect.
- 2280
No need to drop it! In a Duolingo student's belly, there is probably room for croissants and mochi ice cream amirite #duolinguists #internationalbellies #uselesshashtags
- 251
I must say, the Korean course has a lot of inconsistencies. I hope it will not still be this way once it has graduated from Beta. My progress is very slow because I never know what way the program is going to want me to translate a sentence/word. Here is just one example - I put in the same answer for 그쪽 both times, but the fist time it was marked correct, and the second time it was marked incorrect. https://s1.postimg.org/15hphyno4f/duo_1.png
https://s1.postimg.org/8c96vamltr/duo_2.png
This happens very often.
Ahhh finally, I was practicing in the app, but the web version is so much better, so much more comfortable. When I've entered the web version and saw the Korean and Japanese flag I thought it was a bug or a glitch or whatever, I'm just happy now.
Are there plans to add character exercises to other non-Latin language courses that already exist like Russian, Hebrew, Greek, and Ukrainian?
I believe the Hebrew team does have plans for a tree 2.0 so hopefully they can introduce the alef-bet the same way they do in the Japanese and Korean courses.
That would be amazing, especially since users have no choice but to learn the Hebrew alphabet on their own right now.
Yes that would be very nice but the thing that I would like the most is if they could add the niqqud to the words. It would be very helpful.
Greek already has an ABC skill, which teaches the sounds/names of the characters by themselves as well as the characters in words, so no need there. Russian could definitely use some, (though it teaches it in the T&N). Hebrew, yes. Definitely yes.
True, Greek does technically have a skill for the alphabet, but it would be much more uniform if all non-Latin Duolingo courses used the character system. I think the character system would be more beneficial and specialized than the system that's already in place for the Greek course.
Thank you so much Duo Team!!!!!
So an issue I have with the Japanese Web course so far is that the most efficient way to pass a level is to copy paste phrases from notepad. Let me explain:
The web course offers a small number of phrases which each only give a small amount of progress to the progress bar on completion. This leads to certain sentence translations repeating 3, 4, 5, upwards of 6 times in a single lesson. Instead of typing them out everytime, it is much faster to translate the sentence into notepad, and copy/paste the phrase back into Duolingo whenever it shows up.
That is a problem.
Thanks! Looking great but my Japanese owl is missing even though I finished the tree. Is there supposed to be one on the web?
The Korean owl is missing for me on desktop as well. It seems that owl-sprite#.svg hasn't been updated yet.
- 1501
Now this is a really beautiful surprise! Thanks a lot! Now I'm off to check out the Japanese tips and notes!
They don't have tips and notes yet :( I went to check if they did, and nothing.
I found some tips and notes in the Food 1 skill: https://i.imgur.com/qMxTri7.png
(Now I feel like I'm on a treasure hunt! :D)
Happy Happy Joy Joy
But so far, there don't seem to be any exercises requiring Korean language input. Hangul keyboards are available, so hopefully that is coming.
- 901
This course was full of exercises requiring typing in hangeul on web, until when it released officially yesterday (when it suddenly changed to become exactly the same as the app instead)...
I had some fun teaching myself the hangeul keyboard on my computer when I was typing the answers. If I'd known the official release date was going to be so soon, then I would've spent a lot more time doing Korean on web to make the most of it before this day came. ^^;
So excited! Hopefully I'll have enough time to learn three languages, because I am already learning Czech and Swedish, and I have school so I'm still deciding whether or not I should learn it.
Eh... I've found four hours is more than enough to work on eight languages in a day--though you are probably learning them more proper than me.
I was actually looking for Korean lessons on Google for how I found Duolingo. I opted to try to learn French with this website in the mean time...
And well... I am REALLY happy. Now I can begin work on not making myself look like such a fool in front of various Korean Women. I have no idea how I found myself in a position in life to look like a constant douche bag in front of Korean Women... but now I can work on learning the language, so I can stop doing whatever face palm inducing nonsense I apparently am doing.
I mean... it is also a useful language and what not... but I mean... I am learning French for the same reason.
I think you mean 아줌마들 lol. And I agree, you are not necessarily doing anything wrong. They're quite critical culturally, at least that is the impression I get.
Sees this after having a rough day
The world is beautiful, I am no longer stressed, I'm not failing, the universe is perfect.
How did I not know about this? Nothing can express how truly thankful and grateful I am towards the Duolingo team, especially those who worked on the Japanese and Korean courses!
I'm surprised I haven't seen any anime gifs, so I guess I'll be the one to do it.
And, I'll leave this concerning Korean...
My feelings in a nutshell.
- 16
Such good news, as I was recently thinking that I wanted to learn another language, in addition to Spanish---preferably an Asian language. I eventually landed on Japanese, and then went to Duolingo to see if it was offered. Apparently so! haha
As native Korean, I'm hoping that Korean language popularity grows through Duolingo.
Awesome! Can't wait to get the full experience with Japanese. Does this mean Chinese will be released in beta for both mobile and desktop on the same day?
Now they're on the web we can see the number of signups to these two courses so far.
-
Korean: 319,000
-
Japanese: 3̶1̶6̶,̶0̶0̶0̶
(Edit: Course selection page showing the wrong number for Japanese signups).
A correction:
Japanese – 2.89M
The counter shown in the courses page is off. The incubator counter is correct.
Thank you for that correction. The number I saw for Japanese did seem very low. (But I see the Korean numbers match up from both sources).
- 1522
Dear Duolingo,
perhaps it didn't occur to you but the reason many people were so looking forward to having Japanese & Korean on the web is because many of us think the web format (more typing, no boxes) is a much better and more efficient use of learning time than the mobile format.
Typing can be fiddly on small devices, and boxes are intuitive for touch screens; conversely, boxes are very fiddly on large computer screens using a mouse, and typing is both intuitive and triangulates the senses (aural input of the spoken sentence, tactile output of typing, which mediates sound and text, and visual feedback of the correctly-written sentence) in a way that greatly enhances recall.
The way these courses have been ported to the web manages to avoid the major benefits and convenience of all other web courses, whilst keeping the most frustrating aspects of the app such as the inability to naturally use a full-sized keyboard and the necessity to squint at tiny boxes.
Please bring the format of sentence exercises in these courses in line with that of every other Duolingo course on the web. Or, at the very least, make the boxes an option that we can disable (as with microphone exercises in some courses) in favour of normal typing boxes.
I am sorry to be so negative, but I was very much looking forward to practising Japanese on the web, and it is very disappointing to find that this outcome has been implemented in such a way that it negates every reason I was looking forward to it in the first place.
"Please bring the format of sentence exercises in these courses in line with that of every other Duolingo course on the web. Or, at the very least, make the boxes an option that we can disable (as with microphone exercises in some courses) in favour of normal typing boxes."
--> This. I feel this very strongly.
Open-ended recall is super important to me...and the multiple choice ones don't challenge me enough, I think they're a waste of my time.
If I wanted that garbage, I'd use DuoLingo on smartphone. I use it on Desktop because I want the typing/spelling practice and the challenge of open-ended recall.
This course is making me feel like I'm being given a mobile experience on Desktop, and having the most valuable aspects of DuoLingo cut off from me, and I hate that.
Anecdote: I just completed practice sessions in both Spanish and Japanese, and it was painfully slow in Japanese.
I assumed Duolingo would never implement an interface designed for touchscreens on the desktop. (You'd think that lesson would've been learned from Microsoft's foray into Windows 8.) I'm quite surprised that DL did this.
Thank you Duolingo Team! Now I can finally pursue languages and cultures other than Celtic ;;
I am in total agreement with Cazort, Fayke, and Garpike. The Korean course is only useful for an elementary familiarization with the language. I was also hoping to better my ability to spell, type, and recall, so am disappointed after the 3-year wait. Of course, we all should be well aware that DL only purports to be a stepping stone into the world of language study. I thank the founder for the site and I think familiarization with the languages of different cultures is a great benefit to the world, but if our goal is true fluency we must utilize other sources.
Hi, I'm from Korea and just wondering why you guys call Japanese's alphabet Hiragana, Katakana but don't call Korean's alphabet Hangul? our alphabet also has a name like Japanese.
Hi JangHyeonK1,
That is not a question I'd contemplated before, so thank you for bringing it up! When I want to refer to a specific Japanese writing system, I say Hiragana and Katakana because they are not alphabets, but rather syllabaries. Jointly, I refer to them as kana. I also refer to Japanese written using the roman script as "Romaji". If I am referring to Japanese vaguely, you can see that I just call it "Japanese". I have noticed you seem to use this as well: "our alphabet also has a name like Japanese."
So far, I've noticed I use both "Korean" and "Hangul". When I say "Hangul", I am intending to be more specific. So "Korean writing" vs "writing in Hangul." But, upon reflection, I say "Korean" more often than I say "Hangul". I will try to be more mindful and say "Hangul" in the future. :)
That's awesome!
But - now that tapping exercises are possible on the web - I just want to ask, that you please don't put them into the other courses! A lot like the web version for the added difficulty of the typing exercises (and think it's easy enough as it is, because there's not that many typing exercises in the target language). Tapping exercises are okay on the go, with the app, but not if you want to do some serious study time on the computer.
I don't know if you even considered that, but I just wanted to say it anyway. There's a lot of love for the typing exercises around here. Thanks! :)
In fact, Japanese typing exercises would be kind of nice. Much more of a challenge than other languages, but still.
I wouldn't say they would be "nice", I think they're essential if you want to be able to function in the language. The main way I use DuoLingo is like, as a boost to get me good enough in a language to go the rest of the way by immersion.
Without these typing exercises, I doubt I'd be able to get this far on my own. I think the replacement of typing exercise with the "choose words from a list" makes the course HUGELY inferior to other DuoLingo courses. In particular, the things that are lacking:
- No open-ended recall, which is the skill actually needed to come up with words in conversation or writing
- No typing practice, essential if you want to communicate online in the language
- No spelling practice. Not only is spelling important if you're wanting to type/write, but I find it helps me to understand pronunciation and the internal logic of a language when I really master spelling.
- Few or no alternate wordings of things. One of the great advantages of DuoLingo is how it allows you to experiment with alternate wordings or translations of sentences, and then it marks you wrong and corrects you. This helps broaden my vocabulary and develop a deeper understanding of each word, i.e. not just associating isolated words with each other but truly understanding the range of meanings that a particular language associates with a particular word.
- Fewer opportunities to correct you if/when you get grammatical details wrong. Multiple choice can give you the option to explore "some" wrong grammar, but these might not be the mistakes you're recalling things on your own. This aspect is HUGE to me
- For Japanese in particular, learning Kanji...which is super important for reading the Kanji and being able to function in Japanese society or read Japanese written materials that are not on the web. I find the practice of typing out Kanji and selecting them from lists is super helpful for learning how to read them, even if I never learn how to write them by hand.
DuoLingo's current choices in the course cut off all these options from me. I feel like they're giving me a tiny fraction of the benefits that I get from courses like Spanish, German, or Russian even.
I really want them to prioritize adding these open-ended typing exercises and give us an option to turn off the choose-from-list exercises.
How would we type in Japanese if most people learning Japanese would have a different language keyboard and I would just recommend if you are really desperate to just get a Japanese writing book or just a piece of paper and the internet you don't have to focus all your main ways of learning on duolingo.
SaraLarkin2, Japanese adapts to the English keyboard very well. One just needs to change the input method and type romaji (Using Roman alphabet to phonetically write Japanese.) There is a built in converter with your computer's language packs (if your computer has the Japanese language pack. Which, most do now.) The Duolingo Wiki has Instructions for how to change your computer's input method for various languages. ^_^
And now we see this happen! We're now able to toggle this off so we can type in our own answers. The devs are really incredible.
Yes please! Typing in Japanese + more Kanji would be incredibly helpful. (not even more vocab, just more Kanji for the current vocab)
Not to mention that it means the timed lessons can't be done with a keyboard only anymore. Switching between the keyboard and mouse just wastes time, which is already tight for some lessons
I understand where you are coming from, however, this is a very basic Japanese course. I think an option to type would be nice but not as the only way to study on the web; beginners would not have a good time as typing in Japanese is tough at first. Since not everyone has a cell phone, Duolingo taking the easier method for learning purposes is ideal for the majority of users imo.
+1 vote for being able to type the answers on the web version despite the post.
- 901
Are you certain it's that way round?
Click word tiles in order — The user has to read all the tiles written in their mixtures of hiragana, katakana, and kanji, to work out each tile they want to add to their answer sentence.
Typing — The user types the sentence in romaji. This romaji gets automatically converted into hiragana on the screen as it's typed. The course already accepts answer sentences written completely in hiragana, even for words that would usually be written in katakana or kanji.
Therefore, typing Japanese answers on Duo is simply typing out the sentence in romaji and then pressing enter at the end. Don't necessarily even have to remember what the hiragana look like to type them. ^^
(Unless what you meant is instead more about how the user would be required to compose a sentence from nothing except peeking at the source text word hints? But then this is exactly the same as in other courses.)
ＲＩＰ web version of the Japanese course as we knew it.
Fortunately I am now doing the Jp->En course (following your advice) and learning a ton of little things everywhere, kinda sad for people who are not there yet, an option to turn off the tile system would definitely be great for them.
I can confirm the typing exercises can work. Using glitches to get Japanese on the web before it was released, I was able to do this,
Why not to type with hiragana/katakana? You should't have a Japanese keyboard to do it. For example, Hebrew course has characters on the screen. Why not to follow this way?
- 914
Normal Japanese PC keyboards are (almost) the same as typical English keyboards in their layout. Typing kana is the same as typing romaji. For example pressing the same keys used to type "sushi" on a Japanese keyboard makes it type "すし".
My only problem is i like to do it on the web at work, and its impossible for me to use a Japanese keyboard or IME on this as I don't have admin privileges! So the tapping ones are better for me!:P
true that. but i think that it would take a ton of time. i'm not saying it's a bad idea, though. here is a crazy idea: what if there was a way that duolingo would give us a code and we could type that letter/#/symbol and get a japanese letter??
You can install an IME (Input Method Editor) either from Microsoft or Google to type Japanese on a US keyboard. I actually made a tutorial video on the topic. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVlQk8rXc2Q
I have an English keyboard. I type Japanese sounds in English and it converts it to Japanese.
Also, I don't know if you have a real email connected to your Duolingo account or not. But, I sent you an important email. If you didn't get it, please stop spamming and take a moment to check out the Community Guidelines. Many thanks! :)
Well, I think that typing is still really helpful, because it helps (at least me) associate romaji with the kana, and recognize what is right and wrong.
100% agree.
For those of you who read my in-depth review of the Japanese course following its iOS release, you probably remember me saying something about its shortcomings hopefully being overcome upon the web version's release.
Suffice it to say that none of these shortcomings being addressed is pretty disappointing, but as long as more learners are jumping on board and giving Japanese a shot, I can't complain too much. In lieu of a full, robust web experience on Duolingo, however, learners will have to be a lot more mindful of the methods and resources they use to supplement Duolingo, especially with a more "difficult" language like Japanese.
If you're interested in reading more about this topic, here's the full review, along with some study tips to get the most out of Duolingo in your Japanese studies.
- 102
I can't stand the tapping/matching exercises and really wish I could turn them off. They make everything feel longer for me and they suck the fun out of learning. They're the main reason I don't like the app, and if they're brought in as standard there should really be an option for turning them off. I'm sure they're more useful for some people but for me it straight up ruins the learning experience.
HOLY COW THIS IS AWESOME THANKS TO THE DUO TEAM FOR THIS!!!!!! IS THE CAPS STILL ON I GOTTA TURN IT OFF ahh that's much better
Does this mean that the Chinese course will be available on mobile and web when it is released?
Ah, here's the official post. Thank you so much duolingo!!! Now I might start studying Japanese on here since I don't have to use the app. And I can't wait to do Chinese as well!
yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy Been waiting for this so much time 
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Thanks for the typing exercises, now this is much more challenging and i like it :]
- 1501
Hey HelpfulDuo! Just wondering, but is the option to switch between Word Bank and Keyboard an A/B test? So far I did not get the opportunity to switch to Keyboard input and I would really really love to finally type in Japanese.
Wow!
I'm learning Japanese at the moment and I think it would be better if there were more typing in Japanese :)
I am unable to do the Japanese course because it contains lots of kanji that are simply not explained, I have no idea if they represent a word or just a few sounds. I understand the course is in "beta" right now, but beta means the course may contain bugs, not that it's undoable and lacking definitions... Will this get fixed eventually or is it supposed to stay like this?
So far every kanji I've seen has been taught before it's used. If not taught specifically it will have underlined text you can click to learn it.
Dear Duolingo Korean creators — PLEASE HELP ME! In the Korean “Alphabet” skill,
/1/ the underlining in the matching-pairs exercises makes it difficult to see the letters, because a lot of Korean letters have horizontal lines on the bottom already normally, so the underlining that is used in the matching-pairs exercises makes me always have to slow down to guess if the underline I’m seeing on a letter is/isn’t really supposed to be there as part of the letter. To fix this, PLEASE make all the underlining in exercises be some other color (maybe just pale gray) instead of black like the letter ... please? Please?!
ALSO:
/2/ Once I got into the “Alphabet 2”part, the program started quizzing me on letters I hadn’t been taught yet. This isn’t fair or helpful.
I am using the Japanese beta now and I was really hopeful there would be a pronunciation part when learning, of course I know it is still in beta but I hope you do eventually put it in!
HELLO TO ALL OF YOU PEOPLE IN DUOLINGO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I was excited when I found Japanese on Doulingo...it wasn't there when I looked before. I had been learning it for a little while and wanted to try learning through a website. It's great we finally have Japanese!
So I’ve tried the Japanese and that what I’m working on but in some of the lessons it makes a weird echo and I thought I’d just let you guys know that
In the URL that has you starting the first alphabet course change the /1 to a /2... it will drop you into the second lesson.... after you do that, you can do the first lesson without it redirecting you to the main page.
Hopefully they will make it so this work around is not requied.
very beautiful! thank you very much! now we can learn more great languages! thanks very much!
YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!!!!! I've waiting for Japenese for so long! Thank you! 5 lingots!
I've been waiting for the Korean course for so long, I didn't realise I had been kind of holding my breath all those months. Who would've guessed the release would be so cathartic? I literally have tears in my eyes. Thank you everyone who made this possible!!!! (gave 5 lingots to the post. never done anything like this before.) Breathe Dhawal, breathe.
Nice. This was the whole reason I joined the site, but give the difficulties I have with the style of teaching Duolingo provides, I think it's best that I don't select this one, this time. Perhaps in the future when I better understand it. For now, however, I'll be looking at them on a different site.
thank you so much!!! so excited to use Korean online now, 대단히 감사합니다!! ^-^
This is so awesome omg thank you so much to all the hardworking people who made this possible so fast
I've had some issues with korean course, but I don't know how to report them. I did the test out option, and I don't know much korean, but I can read hangul, however the app didn't recognize any skills. First time around it didn't recognize my translation of "yes, yes, yes" to korean, and then it broke down later when it asked me to translate it from korean to english. So I started again, and it didn't accept my answer for "Hyundai, samsung, mcdonalds" or something like that. I even got some basic sentences right, and I fully expected it to recognize the fact I can read / write hangul, but no. I mean, the test out breaking the first time round is probably due to app always being jumpy at the same time of day, which is evening where I live, but not recognizing correct answers as correct is a problem, and then just disregarding all the correct answers and making me start from 0 are definitely a course issue
I think that's great! I am not interested in learning these languages (right now), but I know some friends that are! (Of course, they are anime fans!)
:)
Does anybody know if the Japanese course is heavy in typing, as I'd expect? If so, are there are tips you can give regarding the execution.
Nope. The Japanese course mainly relies on clicking on word blocks, like the mobile app. I really hope this is temporary and Duolingo implements a typing option.
- 160
I don't know if this is permanent or an accident but today I didn't get any word block things. It made me type in Japanese. It first hit me with that in the middle of a timed practice, which wasn't great for me because I didn't even have the Japanese keyboard installed. Some warning would have been nice. Being able to type in Japanese is probably better long term, anyways.
- 841
It looks like the typing just rolled out today. I'm still trying to familiarize myself with the Microsoft IME Japanese keyboard thing in Windows; I can do hirigana and katakana easily but finding some of the few kanji I know has been difficult.
and if you refer to a an 아가씨 (young-unmarried lady) as 아줌마, you have really put your foot in it. Being perceived as an "old married woman" is pretty much a "turn-off" for most young Korean ladies.
There is pressure then on women to be something other than they are at every age in many cultures. So, I am not surprised, though it is still disheartening, that there is stigma on women who manage not to die young. :(
As someone who actually studies Japanese I have to say that this is... not ideal. I didn't understand the test at all. The selectable answers were very dubious in part, and sometimes what I translated was marked as wrong depsite being completely acceptable. It put me in level 2 and now I'm supposed to asign romaji to hiragana. To say it's boring is the understatement of the year. Also, since this is for beginners, please translate sentences with "I [do X]" at the start with "私は". Furthermore there were barely any kanji in the test. I you ever want to have any understanding of Japanese you need kanji. If the test asks for "travel" I expect "旅行" in the answers instead of the hiragana. Also I was supposed to translate め. I knew it wanted the translation for 目 as answer, but in general this is wrong because め is not simply or only "eye". All in all I'm disappointed so far.
The course is still in beta. And, we can expect more in the future.
I also want to have Japanese Tree ver. 2 with a lot more words, grammar points, and Kanji, with which hopefully we can introduce more advance sentences in a more natural way." -mhagiwara Source
Mhagiwara is one of several, native Japanese people on the course creation team. :)
I'm really happy with the Japanese course. Also glad to have typing exercises.
Thank you ! You have saved me! My ipad just crashed and now I can do the lessons on the web!
I'm so glad Korean is on now! I am Korean, and I was really glad to have found my language on here. My friend is still sad that there's no Chinese, but at least Korean is on now. Thank you!
Alpha courses are super duper rough and still in the beginning stages of building the course. Beta course is full of errors. Courses in beta used to not be available to the general public. Only a comparatively small group of people were selected to help test it. But, the community asked to be allowed to help test it en mass. So, Duolingo allowed them. Full release courses still have errors, but far, far fewer and they improve even further as they mature with user feedback.
I don't know exactly how to implement it for Korean, but it would be really nice to include the romanization alongside the Hangul. It can be a little overwhelming learning the new alphabet and massive words and sentences. With the romanization alongside, I think it would tremendously help in the beginning association of a syllables with sounds. Of course, it would be good to have it optional as a toggle on/off.
I just noticed that the Japanese web lessons don't give a Combo Bonus like the app does. That means doing at least one extra lesson to maintain the streak.
Combo bonuses are a test feature. I was in the test group for a while before they rotated me back out of it. It's not a permanent feature even in the app at this time. :)
it would be nice to have on the mobile app, some exercises where you need to type in Korean, not just English
Dear Duolingo Korean creators — PLEASE HELP ME! In the Korean “Alphabet” skill, the underlining in the matching-pairs exercises makes it difficult to see the letters, because a lot of Korean letters have horizontal lines on the bottom already normally, so the underlining that is used in the matching-pairs exercises makes me always have to slow down to guess if the underline I’m seeing on a letter is/isn’t really supposed to be there as part of the letter. To fix this, PLEASE make all the underlining in exercises be some other color (maybe just pale gray) instead of black like the letter ... please? Please?!
I'm excited to see both Korean and Japanese courses are offered and I thank you to all the people that are involved in making this happen! The only thing I would ask is that in the matching symbols part of the learning; could you please make the symbol a little bigger? It would make it so much easier for me (and others) to see what the symbol looks like. I try to write each symbol to help me remember them and there are a few I can't see very well at all.
Excited to start learning these great languages! I don't know why they are not rendering well on my windows lumia phone.
i am sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo excited for this course, but, dose anyone happen to know what languige people speak in india?
Hi soleste429, Wikipedia states that, according to Census of India of 2001, India has 122 major languages and 1599 other languages. A lot can change in 16-17 years. Languages all around the world are becoming extinct at an alarming rate. It is concerning, considering (among other things) that certain languages allow for different technical innovations and tools to troubleshoot various other challenges both technological, scientific, mathmaticall, and social. So, when we lose languages, we lose our capacity to troubleshoot the worlds problems and discover new things, according to Lera Boroditsky.
It says I do not learn Japanese but I am learning it right now. On another subject, it does let me type
Is Japanese course in beta only in the web version or it's also in beta in the app version?
Thanks
I just started Duolingo and I'm loving it and it is awesome!Having a Japanese and Korean surprise!
You need to hire a real Korean fluent speaking person cause the Korean alphabet has some wrong pronunciation but I don't judge you it is still in beta.
Apt observation by Samuelsong. With all the work that has gone into the course it is a shame to start it off with an alphabet (hangul) section that is so filled with errors. Not only are there multiple poor pronunciations, but many of the character combinations are non-existent in the language. There have been critical comments for about 2 months now, so we would hope the team would remedy the situation soon.
The course moderator (team lead) is native and fluent in both Korean and English. The pronunciation is TTS (computer generated). Character combinations in the section teaching typing?
Typing of hangul could be taught much more effectively using combinations that actually exist in the language. There are so many to choose from, it seems really strange not to select from valid choices. And naturally, correct pronunciation is preferable. I wonder if efforts could be made to improve the computer generation. I understand there are cost considerations, but I find most of the pronunciation through the course to be very representative of native speech, so would think corrections could be effected.
It may be a bit of a challenge but for the Korean course, it would be very useful to construct a Korean keyboard. Instead, we must use the pre-formed words in the word bank. That sort of defeats the purpose of learning the characters and what sounds they correspond with, since in most cases, all one has to do is look at the first character and know that it's "McDonald." Perhaps not an easy task, and maybe I'm being too picky, but it sounds like a very useful tool for learners!
From the perspective of what learners NEED: 1. Option to either type or not type Foreign language, depending on what the user needs. 2. Option to either have matching and tile rearranging or not have it, depending on what the user needs.
Why?
Blind learn languages using their ears. I do not know how many blind people are here (and I mean 100% blind and not just "sight impaired".
Deaf do not hear and can not solve hearing only questions as they can't hear what you hear.
Some people are like me, and do better with the visual. I am rubbish at finding the right Kanji I want. Some need that visual because they are simply visual learners.
Some people are not visual learners to the point where visual drives them crazy. Its slow and fiddly for them.
Some people are exactly like me and need BOTH visual and typing. Typing for me, is stage 2 of my learning. I'd go through the entire tree with no typing and then redo the entire tree with typing.
- 730
Wow, I remember months ago when I first joined how many people were asking for Japanese...and now it's here. I'm so excited to start the course! Thanks Duolingo :D!
