Open Source

31568 readers

257 users here now

All about open source! Feel free to ask questions, and share news, and interesting stuff!

Useful Links

Rules

Posts must be relevant to the open source ideology
No NSFW content
No hate speech, bigotry, etc

Related Communities

Community icon from opensource.org, but we are not affiliated with them.

founded 5 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

119

How hard is it to build an open source alternative to Duolinguo? (feddit.it)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

33 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Speaking as a total ignorant from a coding perspective. But I guess that wouldn't be the hard part, considering that most of Duolinguo is just boxes and text inputs. How difficult it is to create a database of competent linguists with an efficient training who can progressively enhance your understanding of languages?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (2 children)

I've used Language Transfer with good success. Don't even need to sign up, you can just go, click on a course and start streaming lessons. You can also download them locally.

https://www.languagetransfer.org/free-courses-1

The idea is to create rules that help you "transfer" words from the source language into the target language, hence, "Language Transfer".

For example, going from English to Spanish: Words in English that end in ation, will end in acion in Spanish.

Confirmation -> Confirmación Conversation -> Conversación

Further, words following this rule are "ar" verbs. Confirmation -> Confirmación -> confirmar

Another one is words ending in al, which came to Spanish and English via Arabic... are the same. Just said with an accent.

Normal -> Normal Formal -> Formal

A few rules might get you a few hundred words. And while some words might be more formal than how something is typically said, you should still be understood.

They're completely donation based, ad-free, and no sign-up required.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

Looks really good! I'm sad they don't have Dutch though, that's what I'm struggling to learn

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

+1 for LT. The guy that runs it certainly has an open source ethos. The German one despite being a "Complete" series is frustratingly very incomplete, but that aside it was a useful way into the language. The word order explanations were particularly good. Everything is always free and the project as a whole is expanding with the help of volunteers and donations. It's a good thing to be a part of.