this post was submitted on 23 Oct 2023
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Wales's minister for education and the Welsh language said he will write to the company to see how the government might be able to support the course's continued development.

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[–] neutron@thelemmy.club 110 points 2 years ago (3 children)

It's actually cool to see a government body embrace new technologies to promote their language and culture.

[–] Salamendacious@lemmy.world 59 points 2 years ago (3 children)

It is! It's unfortunate that Duolingo killed the volunteer program.

[–] Kolrami@lemmy.world 51 points 2 years ago (2 children)

I can't even see comments on lessons anymore. There was one Brazilian dude named Paulenrique who would answer anyone's questions about quirks of the language and now all his efforts to help people are just gone.

[–] Salamendacious@lemmy.world 30 points 2 years ago

Yeah there were lots of people in the Italian comments who did the same thing. It was invaluable. Now all that work is gone. It's frustrating. I cancelled my super Duolingo subscription over that.

[–] neutron@thelemmy.club 9 points 2 years ago

Yeah, tons of helpful tips on actual natives chiming in, just gone. It's a shame.

[–] Etienne_Dahu@jlai.lu 8 points 2 years ago

It's because they didn't connect for 7 days... A warning to the other students.

[–] elscallr@lemmy.world 5 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I'm not sure if you've ever moderated anything volunteer based but.. honestly you can't give the internet anything nice.

[–] Kolrami@lemmy.world 7 points 2 years ago (1 children)

But then why did they get rid of the comments that were old, locked, and useful? Sometimes it feels like Duolingo cares less and less about whether or not people learn languages. It's not surprising, but unfortunate.

[–] elscallr@lemmy.world 1 points 2 years ago

I'm not saying it was the ideal thing, I'm saying people mostly suck and moderating something sucks a lot less when you can fire the person who decided to say "pinche tu madre" meant "have a nice day."

[–] shneancy@lemmy.world 11 points 2 years ago

the Welsh government is desperate. Welsh was close to being eradicated because somebody wanted more land, like they literally used to beat children in schools for speaking Welsh.

Now Wales is trying really hard to bring it back, and duolingo offering a free course for anybody on the planet helps a ton. Especially because it's hard to find learning resources when you don't live in Wales. Hell, the resources are scarce even when you do live in Wales!

[–] onlinepersona@programming.dev 2 points 2 years ago

It's unfortunate to see them embrace closed source solutions. They could either fund an opensource project and build a welch program on top of it making them the owners of their own fate, or they could beg a company to not let their language die.

[–] veniasilente@lemm.ee 24 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Instead of depending on a for profit / corpo for maintaining something like a whole language maybe that should be left to a coöp? Or at least something open source / Creative Commons so that people actually are authorized to contribute?

[–] Salamendacious@lemmy.world 9 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Is there an open source language learning platform? I'm not very invested in the FLOSS community but I didn't think there was anything.

[–] veniasilente@lemm.ee 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I don't know either, I just assume that since it's 2023 and there's corpos, at least someone, somewhere, is thanklessly working on a FOSS language learning platform.

[–] Salamendacious@lemmy.world 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Does corpos refer to corporations?

[–] veniasilente@lemm.ee 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Yeah it's like, the same way "pharmaceutics" get shiv'd into "pharma" (or "big pharma") "corporations" get shiv'd into "corpo".

[–] Salamendacious@lemmy.world 2 points 2 years ago

It must be a regional thing. Personally I've never heard pharma by itself only as big pharma, shiv is an improvised knife a prisoner might make, and I've never heard corpo before. English is a huge language with a lot of regional differences. When I was young I would say wicked to mean very. If something was really fucked up I'd say it was wicked fucked up or wicked fucked.

[–] autotldr@lemmings.world 16 points 2 years ago

This is the best summary I could come up with:


The Welsh course on language learning app Duolingo will no longer be updated from the end of the month.

The course, which the company describes as "the world's most popular way to learn Welsh online", will remain available but not developed further.

"Duolingo is a valuable resource which can help learners on their journey to become Welsh speakers, alongside other language learning opportunities," Mr Miles added.

He wants to see an extension of another year to allow the National Centre for Learning Welsh to complete its work on the course.

Read more:Boy gets GCSE in Welsh months after fleeing Ukraine warUni lecturer 'sacked' after branding bilingual signs 'dangerous'

"Our aim is to channel limited resources into enhancing high-demand courses like Spanish, French, and German, which serve a larger audience in the UK and worldwide.


The original article contains 329 words, the summary contains 134 words. Saved 59%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

[–] Aatube@kbin.social 5 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Does the website have no problem with that outdated logo staring into your eyes

your eyes

[–] rustyricotta@lemmy.ml 10 points 2 years ago

Well, the current logo on my phone is the owl screaming with its face melting, so it was probably the better choice.

[–] elscallr@lemmy.world 3 points 2 years ago

The one that looks like it's had a stroke?