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- 10 million users and counting!
10 million users and counting!
Here's what Duolingo's community of 10 million looks like! Thank you everyone for your love and support. : )
88 Comments
Okay, I'm a little skeptical of the "10 million users". I believe that's correct, but I'm not sure it's very significant. What percentage of those users actually use Duolingo?
I told one of my friends about Duolingo, and he made an account, but he never learned anything. He just made an account and then forgot about it. I have also noticed that other users' accounts are dead too.
Plus, some users may have multiple accounts. I have an extra account which I use as a test account to try things that might clear my data or whatever. I wanted to add extra languages to my account, but I wasn't sure whether a certain button would clear my German progress, so I used my test account to make sure it was safe.
If you ignored the unused accounts and the test accounts, there might only be a 2 or 3 million users.
Yes, I agree Timothy, because i also have an extra account that i use for testing certain features(www.duolingo.com/BenTheGeekTest).
Therefore, I think that Duo should only state the number of accounts that have at least one language higher than Level 2.
My own statistics, if you are interested:
Over the past 14 months, I have been trusted by 681 friends on the English speaking French learning site.
-30% are little active or very recent joiners, with less than 1,000 points.
-45% are what I call the "soft belly" (ventre mou) with probably very different profiles, with 1,000 to 5,000 points.
-15% have probably worked well with 5,000 to 10,000 points.
-10% are among Duo's champions, multilingual, frantic translators, etc. with 10,000 to over 108,000 points.
Of course I would need computer aided analysis tools to give deeper insights... but I think it gives another perspective.
I agree with "Sitesurf" until the last point.
I believe it takes a lot more effort, commitment and points to be considered frantic translator, multilingual or "Duo's champions". More, like well over 30,000 points in a specific language not total points (so if a guy is learning 3 languages at varying levels like level 20 to 25 then his/her total could be 80,000. Then, I would consider that individual Duo's Cham
I am currently on total of 65,000, and have over 31,000 points in French. So, nearly there.
Scoring that many points is a lot of effort not just visiting the site for the piss and score like 30 to 50 points a day but one should be committed to score 150-250 points a day.
I think duolingo is perfectly aware of this Timothy. It is just like how facebook doesnt really have 1 bil users. This is just a celebration mark (I am surprised I dont see any 10mil user cake photo). If you compare it to Dropbox, which go public on sept 2008, and reach 50 mils users on Nov 2011. Duolingo is going with a healthy rate (beta on 2011, public on 2012, and 10mils user on Sept 2013, yay!).
Gente de Duolingo, su pagina es ideal para aprender idiomas. Llevo aprendiendo ingles desde hace unos dias y he aprendido cosas que nunca me explicaron bien en la escuela. Realmente me planteo remplazar mis clases de ingles escolares con este mecanismo (Aunque tampoco quiero desmerecer el trabajo de los profesores de mi escuela, ustedes junto a peliculas, musica y otros me enseñaron todo lo básico sobre el idioma). Saludos desde Chile
I'm also interested in how many users have split personalities, meaning two duolingo user ids for the same person.
(PS, it's not necessary anymore to have multiple ids since Duolingo added ability to delete or restart languages. and the elusive "6th" language (meaning the language that users identify as a native language) can also be accessed by going into settings and changing your preference, "learning french and i know english" for example, to another selection. jrikhal confirmed that elsewhere in this discussion!)
Some English-speaking Americans are lazy. They look at it and say "cool, but English is good enough for me, and I don't have time to learn anything else", and then they forget about it. It's often the non-English speakers who have the motivation to actually go and learn a language. My guess is because they know how common English is, and feel a need to learn it.
I can't speak for the other countries, because I live in America and don't know what the other countries are like.
Another thing is this: if somebody does not know English, that's probably the first language they'll try to learn. If somebody already knows English, they randomly choose one of those other languages and learn it.
Shout out to all you English learners! Welcome! Is there any way for native English speakers to help those learning? I never ever see their questions. And for quite a few years I taught English grammar part time to adults. They were English speakers, mind you.
Maybe Duolingo should have an "ambassadors" or "natives" designation, for users who are natives in a language and pass a proficiency test in that language, too. Let the natives see questions from users who are merely learning the language. It could be another tab. Instead of coins, we'd get satisfaction, maybe some thank yous and goodwill. Maybe a cool, "natives" badge and t-shirt? ;)
All four links I gave in that discussion give you access to English learners. People who learn English here do it via one of four languages: French, Spanish, Italian or Portuguese. There are no English via English lessons.
Of course, you could always provide help in any of those four discussion areas in simple English and hope the learners understand, or try to do the same thing in their native language (and thereby sharpen your language skills at the same time).
No problem. I misunderstood what you had posted. Read too quickly, the links look like they lead to discussions of those languages. But I get it now.
There are a lot of questions out there! Maybe there could be a way for the questions that have gone unanswered longest could be listed first. The opposite of new. But that would probably include questions from people no longer (active) on Duolingo.
Maybe a list of questions weighted so that it only shows questions from users who come to the site at least a few times a week, and lists those questions by how long they have gone unanswered.
I also suggested something I called an "Active Tab" a long time ago: http://www.duolingo.com/comment/633086
That's true, but it requires you to change your profile each time you want to help out in the appropriate English section. There is no need to that, I give direct links to the four discussion areas here: http://www.duolingo.com/comment/697453.
Yes, it clearly be more practical to have -- instead of "French", "Spanish" etc. in English interface and "English" in French interface and "English" in Spanish interface and having to click on "more"/go to the Settings' page, as currently -- "French from English level XX", "English from French level YY", "Spanish from English level ZZ" etc. in each interface (for each "language1 from language2" you have activated/started) on the left-upper drop-down menu. It would permit to having to change of interface (no need to change of profile/account).
And, IMO, it would be more practical than to have to, each time, look for the link you kindly provided (I'll not start to bookmark every interesting links... :)).
You are right, it would be handy if Duolingo provided an easier route. If bookmarking is not your thing, just remember the number 652 (or scribble it on a piece of paper). If you are on any Duolingo page, just edit the address line in your browser by scrubbing everything after "www.duolingo.com" then add "/topic/652" and you are in the French via English discussion area.
Indeed, I could remember the number. ;) But since I'm also (slowly) doing the english (from French) tree, I anyway go into the French interface sometimes.
But the better thing, for me, would be to merge "XXX from YYY" and "YYY from XXX"'s discussion (as proposed here http://www.duolingo.com/comment/746673). Maybe not totally merge but tabs accessible from both interface.
I'm actually replying to mon copin jrikhal, but you're welcome, too, davu.
"I anyway go into the French interface sometimes." Now that would be a fun and beneficial improvement for Duolingo! Allow learners of a language to immerse themselves by switching interfaces, too! Again without maintaining split personalities (dual or even multiple duolingo accounts!) -- how many of those do you think there are? If it is a significant fraction of the 10 million, that would puncture the big balloon party a little bit. :|
I say merge the split personalities, allow free access to all duolingo languages and interfaces!
Wait, just thought of something else. Under settings there is an option, "Learning Language." If one changes that, would it be enough to reveal the sixth language? Would it occlude/hide/erase! data for the "I know ___" language? Has anyone tried changing this? I have not because I want to keep all my data intact.
Okay, that's enough for me. Have a great day! A tout, bon chance!
Mmm... I cheated: Google translate to have a vague idea of the meaning. :)
By the way, it's not "believed" anymore, it's sure: http://www.duolingo.com/comment/868354
I am very surprised to see English is the most popular language when most of the comments here in Discussion are in English. Is the learning English section so good that learners quickly become fluent enough to be able to express themselves so well? I wish the learning German, which I did, was so good.
The people learning English here are essentially segregated from people learning other languages. The barriers are not very strong however, as I explain in my reply to tariqnisarahmed elsewhere in this discussion. If you follow the links I mention you'll see that their discussions are conducted in a mixture of their native language and English. Unfortunately, there is no English via German option so you will probably find the links uninteresting.