In my 2016 post I pointed out that my languages are French and Ukrainian, and that Duolingo was a community-based project; obviously, things have changed since!

Duolingo now has branded plushies and notebooks, and that’s one of the most minor changes. Now, AI seems like it’s everywhere. Even with language learning.

Duolingo is more of a force now than it was in 2016, but it’s not the only option for language learning apps. And my language learning list has changed: I’m still trying to maintain Japanese (and improve my knowledge), but I’m trying to learn French and Korean. Ukrainian is taking a break for now, if only because I’m having to relearn conjugating not only for tenses (present, past etc), but for person. An example of conjugating for person is not great in English, but here’s an example in French:

Je parle, tu parles, vous parlez, nous parlons…

Those are all “to speak” (infinitive: parler) in present tense. In English, we’d say “I speak” or “they speak” – the verb does not change, even if the subject does (I, we, etc). But in other languages, the grammar changes. The verb encodes the person (or the subject, rather, but you get the idea).

Japanese does not do this sort of conjugation for person, but languages like French do, and Slavic languages often have more cases and conjugations than even that. So there’s a lot to re-learn!

This also impacts accessibility because while language learning often has multiple domains of learning – speaking, writing, reading, understanding – it’s been a known thing that people learn differently. And if you’re learning a language as an adult, it can be a different experience than learning as a child – and motivations like learning for a job can be burnt out easily, even as an adult. A lot of common apps don’t have certain languages, or there are issues with 1-to-1 translations or phrases that no one actually uses.

I still remember when I started learning, and one such phrase was “this is a pencil”. In Japanese, it’s often portrayed as “kore wa enpitsu desu” (often given in romaji even when Japanese uses about 3 scripts, further complicating the issue!). It’s a phrase using a structure underlining that this specific object is a pencil. Doesn’t sound like much of a difference, but unless you spilled your backpack, purse, or pencil bag, and are trying to find maybe a special pen, or your inhaler, or whatever else – when would you actually say this? You’d maybe say “this is a pencil” when you’re not expecting a pencil, or are trying to differentiate it between a mass of pens and other things in your bag. Otherwise, it sounds silly to say. How did this pencil end up here? Why should I care about this phrase? What’s the point?

In contrast, if you can tie in lessons to a subject you like – music, or anime, or whatever the case might be – you now have context, you have motivation, you care about what you’re learning even if it seems silly. I’ve been seeing plenty of phrases from Korean meant to help fans of K-dramas and K-pop. It might be silly, but if it helps you learn and sustain that motivation, even the silliness has a point that you can remember.

Are you learning another language? What apps do you use, if any? How can this help you learning about user experience – and how you yourself learn?