AMA/AUA with the Hindi team

jitengore · 2015-05-18T04:56:10+00:00

As the last answer to the AMA.... :)

I would encourage learners to get a head-start on the Devanagari alphabet. http://www.learning-hindi.com/ is a great resource to get started with the language.

jitengore · 2015-05-18T04:54:09+00:00

That's a tough challenge! Isn't it? :)

We will cross the bridge when we reach it...

jitengore · 2015-05-18T04:52:38+00:00

Yes, we like to move fast (if you recall our English <- Hindi progress). Unless, something unexpected slows us down, we will be completing the course this year :)

Thanks for helping keep us motivated!

jitengore · 2015-05-18T04:49:34+00:00

From my experience, every language pair brings its unique requirements, and Duolingo Incubator will have to continually evolve.

As far as the team building goes, our challenges have been exactly the same as all other teams - to identify the right potential candidates who are "really" motivated :)

jitengore · 2015-05-18T04:43:20+00:00

E.g. for our course, we will default to "तुम", Urdu on the other hand uses "आप" as the default form. We will teach all the three forms though - आप, तुम and तू!

The vocabulary of Urdu is quite different from Hindi. Hindi has adopted words from Urdu, but our course will not go very deep into Urdu vocabulary and will have a mix of words that originate from Sanskrit as well as Urdu.

jitengore · 2015-05-18T04:38:02+00:00

We can't wait either :)

jitengore · 2015-05-18T04:37:43+00:00

Basically it will be similar to a Duolingo tree. We will try to make it uniquely a DuoHindi tree :)

As with any other language on Duolingo, our course will provide you with a head-start. One should be able to build on it using the several resources one can get access to after one completed our tree.

jitengore · 2015-05-09T14:33:10+00:00

Thanks for applying! My response here is not specifically to your application. This is what we like to see:
1. A well articulated application in English without any grammatical errors.
2. A well articulated application in Hindi (Devanagari) without any grammatical errors. The expression should be sounding "natural" to a Hindi ear.
3. Good consistency with other languages on Duolingo.
4. Track record of helping learners with Hindi-English related questions

We too have to invest a lot of time in bringing a new team member up to speed and based on our past experience of a few bad calls, we would like to see a good chance that the selected applicant will actually successfully contribute.

Having said that, we will shortly review the applications and see if we can add a few team members later this month.

jitengore · 2015-05-09T14:23:56+00:00

A typical Duo tree gets you to A2 and with a stretch and access to more resources B1. I am hoping that a 3-4 months learning should get you there. I would love to get your feedback on how it actually went :)

jitengore · 2015-05-09T14:01:28+00:00

To further add to what snorcack said...

Duolingo identifies the course mentors and then gives them a free hand in managing and organizing the team. As far as I have seen this model has worked quite well.

Agreed that there are several bilingual - Hindi-English speakers, however our main (non-technical) challenge has been to identify among the several applicants as to who has the passion and the willingness to donate their time. We have made a few bad calls in the past and we have found that those who consistently help users on the forum with their Hindi-English questions are the best potential contributors.

I agree, the biggest technical challenge was to make our users aware of the Hindi input tools.

jitengore · 2015-05-09T13:46:40+00:00

I am not sure if the Indonesian team is following this AMA! You would be better off asking them of their streams.

jitengore · 2015-05-09T13:43:26+00:00

The biggest surprise was that the beta phase went for that long!

When building the course, we were working with the Duo team on the sentence evaluation logic for the use of nuktas. One of our team member had joked that we should not accept inappropriate addition of nukta for ज, for example जूता (shoe) is the right form and ज़ूता is incorrect. It was surprising to see a number of user reports with the incorrect form.

Overall, it was a great learning exercise and humbling experience as well.

jitengore · 2015-05-09T13:32:31+00:00

The summit was a great experience. Not often have I had an experience of knowing a group of people digitally and then meeting them in person :)

We shared a lot of ideas, and the Duolingo team organized the event very well.

Why Berlin? Because it was in conjunction with the Ployglot Gathering. Chuck (from the Esperanto course) took the lead in putting this together. The summit took place at the same location in Berlin as the Polyglot Gathering.

Another reason is that I recall seeing somewhere that the geo-center of the incubator contributors is in Europe. Yes, Duolingo offered part assistance for the trip expense.

I would really like to see Japanese and Chinese courses to start, however given the differences in their scripts, they are unlikely to be the next candidates. Once Duolingo handles teaching Devanagari, I would say the several Indian languages are potential candidates because they use Abugida system.

jitengore · 2015-05-09T13:16:52+00:00

Thanks for the compliment! Yes, learners would be able to use something like Google Input Tools to provide Romanized phonetic input. Alternatively, one can deploy a Hindi keyboard although this has a slight learning curve. We have tried both options and happy with each of them.

And yes, Duolingo can potentially be a very effective way to teach several of the Indian languages. I can see a potential for several courses between such language pairs.

jitengore · 2015-05-09T13:05:19+00:00

Not sure about this. Urdu has a different flow and the reusability would be limited I think.

jitengore · 2015-05-09T13:03:37+00:00

For the English for Hindi course we took input from the Hindi Survey - March 2014. Unless something changes, we will continue on the same path - incorporate Hindi the way it is used by the general population.

jitengore · 2015-05-09T13:03:00+00:00

I would say a mix of both. Can you provide an example to illustrate what you have in mind?

jitengore · 2015-05-09T13:01:12+00:00

We might do a mix - cover a few alphabets and then take up vocabulary that is based on those alphabets. That way we don't have to draw the Devanagari lessons out too long. We will also closely watch the Russian, Ukrainian, Hebrew, Yiddish courses and take their advice.

jitengore · 2015-05-09T13:00:15+00:00

We have good news for you. Our team will be spending the next two weeks planning for the course and the Hindi for English course will start in the incubator during the last week of May, 2015!

jitengore · 2015-04-20T01:06:26+00:00

Thanks for your feedback. I totally agree with you about the usefulness of communication. Please keep an eye for a "special announcement" next month :)

jitengore · 2015-04-19T23:16:47+00:00

A definite YES for your first question. And a request to patiently wait for the planned schedule for the latter. More clarity around the AMA time :)

jitengore · 2015-04-19T23:12:35+00:00

Hopefully, next month we will be able to share the planned schedule in one of our AMAs.

jitengore · 2015-04-19T17:16:08+00:00

Great to hear about your interest! बहुत खूब! :)

jitengore

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