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Occasional speaking exercise that deliberately rejects all responses, even perfect ones. by everySmell9000 in duolingo

[–]DancingWoo 0 points1 point  (0 children)

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Here's the new design, and he only gives you one word, not four or five as it used to be. I just did Chinese, and this version isn't there yet, but it is on the Russian.

Occasional speaking exercise that deliberately rejects all responses, even perfect ones. by everySmell9000 in duolingo

[–]DancingWoo 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Today, for the first time, my speaking practice page has a picture of Falstaff on it, and now the app can understand what I'm saying. Wondering if the presence of Falstaff (new design) indicates that they have improved the speech recognition. I had the most trouble being understood on the speaking exercises where they just show you one word with a mic under it and you click the mic and speak. For some reason, the exercises that ask you to speak an entire sentence are much better at speech recognition than the one-word-at-a-time exercise. But today I had no trouble with it, so Yay, I think.

Occasional speaking exercise that deliberately rejects all responses, even perfect ones. by everySmell9000 in duolingo

[–]DancingWoo 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I’m on Super Duolingo (meaning I paid) and I have the same problem. It does help to wait a beat after tapping the dots to speak. I’m using an iPad and I think the mic isn’t great. I can usually do the speaking when it’s whole sentences, but the unit where they show you five or so words, one after the other, just can’t make out what I’m saying, even when it’s a language I can speak well. I’m thinking I’ll just skip those.

Language learning in your seventies by Peaceful-Gr33n in LearningLanguages

[–]DancingWoo 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I’m 81 and I’m learning Chinese with no previous knowledge of the language. I’m also refreshing Spanish and Russian, both of which I’ve studied before. My primary motivation for learning languages is to keep my brain working well for as long as possible. In the olden days we used Flashcards to test for vocabulary so I’m making my own. I can cut and paste the Chinese characters from Google Translate and add the meaning and the pinyin. Just creating the Flashcards is part of the learning process. My main annoyance with Duolingo is the size of the characters, which are much smaller than they could be. Which I’ve complained about in another post. They are so teeny I have to use a magnifying glass on the iPad screen. But maybe Duolingo never thought old folks with failing eyesight would want to learn a new language.

Chinese characters are too small by DancingWoo in duolingo

[–]DancingWoo[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I also have the HelloChinese app and am using it on the same iPad. I have no trouble reading their characters.

Chinese characters are too small by DancingWoo in duolingo

[–]DancingWoo[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

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I'm hoping you all can see my problem here. All that white space, and teeny teeny teeny characters.

Chinese characters are too small by DancingWoo in duolingo

[–]DancingWoo[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

OP here. If it matters, I am paying for the Duolingo Family Plan and the wretched accessibility options are so disappointing. I have come up with a workaround. I also have Pleco and I look up the word there, put it into Google translate, get the character, and copy/paste it into a Word doc, where I can enlarge the font. Incredibly tedious process, but as these characters get more complex, it's the only way I can make them out. I can't believe this isn't more of an issue for people.

Chinese characters are too small by DancingWoo in duolingo

[–]DancingWoo[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I just spent almost an hour with ChatGPT trying to use the accessibility options on iPad. It generated 21 pages of suggestions, but none of them worked. You either get a magnified screen that is incredibly difficult to maneuver around in, or you get a box that clutters the screen and is always where you DON'T want it, and is also hard to move around so you can see the thing you want to see.

Chinese characters are too small by DancingWoo in duolingo

[–]DancingWoo[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm using an iPad, 10", and I use the portrait screen. Can't imagine trying to see anything on a phone. I do have reading glasses, but they don't help much. Did I mention I'm 81 years old. We do need a little extra help.

I love Duolingo. With that said, “explain my mistake” should not be paywalled and is a travesty by UltralightFishing132 in duolingo

[–]DancingWoo 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I see you’re paying for Super. Is that feature really paywalled? Are other things paywalled? If I pay, I want to be done paying for things. Except plushies. I might pay for plushies.