Duolingo Impressions

The reason why Duolingo works is that they added the AI chatbot. Without it, the whole thing would be mildly useless.

The chatbot is a beaut. It was designed by people who really know how to teach languages, and I say this as somebody who has been teaching languages since age 14. I always get distracted in the midst of chatting with the bot by my admiration of how every precept of the methodology of foreign language teaching is followed.

A couple of weeks ago, I was talking to the chatbot in German in an empty hallway. Right at the moment when I was saying, “I prefer to order food delivery from this place because they don’t charge for rice or drinks”, the German professor from my department suddenly walked in. He never knew I could say anything in German, and this is a very random phrase to hear from your department Chair upon arrival at work. I haven’t seen him since then. He probably thinks I lost the last of my marbles and is hiding.