Duolingo is on a roll this month! They released their first podcast in French, had their 7-year anniversary, and now they're releasing their Arabic course.
Arabic must have been eagerly anticipated and in development for a while, at least that's the impression I've gotten from reading comments on their facebook posts. To accompany the launch announcement, they also posted a link to this blog, What makes Arabic hard (and why that shouldn't stop you from learning it), which talks a bit about some features of the Arabic grammar, sound, and writing systems (compared to English), and how those characteristics influenced the design of the course. They've written posts like this before, like back in 2017 to discuss the launch of their Chinese course. I really like these type of posts, because it makes the app more relatable to be able to peer behind the curtain a bit, so to speak. The Arabic post did a great job of talking about elements of linguistics and language learning in a reader-friendly way without simplifying to the point of mischaracterization. They also frame the difficulty of learning Arabic as a challenge, which gives it a nice positive spin. It's an effective enough take that, if I'm feeling brave in the near future, I might give the course a try.
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AuthorThis is a place where I record thoughts on second language research and pedagogical theory Archives
June 2019
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