Le freak-out
Earlier this week, while trying to do my Duolingo exercises, something weird happened. I toggle between French and German, doing German first since that one's newer to me. Since I end with French, that's the language the app opens to. Because I'm so far along with the first so many exercises in French, I've reached the maximum levels on them, and their icons are gold. I have to scroll down to find exercises to complete. This is how I noticed something was off--the exercises at the top, aside from the very first exercise (Basics 1), were purple, signifying a new-to-me exercise. Whoa, what is this? I also noticed that the titles of the exercises were different, so it wasn't just the app reverting to nothing. It was very strange. When I toggled over to German, then back to French, it was like nothing happened. Weird.
This afternoon, when I went to do today's batch of exercises, it happened again! This time, before toggling out of French, I grabbed my camera and took a video. It actually took a few tries because one second into the first video, my battery died, then I realized trying to scroll with my left hand wasn't working well and I had to change up how I was holding the camera. This time, I really looked at the names of the exercises, and they definitely were different--stuff like Routine, Groceries, Opinion, Housing, Memories, Leisure, Weekend, Hotel, Going Out, Decorating, Emergency, Dream Trip, Doctor, Junk (!), Bad Day, Manners, On Sale, Nightmare, Grooming, Request, Protest, Encounters, even Paris. Contrast that with the more grammatical-type names in the original French exercises like Plurals, Adjectives, Clothing, Colors, Pronouns, Questions, Prepositions, and various verb ones like Present, Infinitive, and Demonstrative. Obviously, it appears to be a reordering of things to make more sense, and perhaps I could move through them quickly since I have a decent French vocabulary by now, three years in. I can read it okay, but I wouldn't say I speak French. Anyway, I took that video, toggled over to German, then went back to French--where it was reset to what I'd had before. I took another video just a minute later to show that. I kind of wished I'd taken video of my switching back and forth; maybe I'll do that tomorrow, if it happens again. I also noticed, care of the videos, that my crown levels (showing how many exercises you've leveled-up on) were at 160 for the new and improved French, versus 316 for the old version. There were some exercises that apparently hadn't changed and were at the same levels either way.
Part of me wonders, if I start doing exercises in the new version, if that's the version I'll be stuck in. I mean, I'm not opposed to it, and it's sort of exciting to learn new things to keep it fresh. But am I ready for that? Unsure. I'm also curious as to why it's doing that, but the app gives no explanation. I'd likely have to go to the website on a computer to check that out. German, since I'm still going through all the initial exercises, has been unaffected as far as I can tell. Das ist gut.
Edit, 7:10 PM: Perhaps I should have checked the website before posting this. ;) Yes, they've reordered Spanish and French to better follow the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages. A thread in the Duolingo forum explains it thusly:
We have begun rolling out new courses (or “trees,” as we call them) for Spanish and French to older accounts. This is completely separate from the redesigned new look that’s also rolling out. These trees had been tested a while ago on brand new learners with great results, and new learners who sign up to Duolingo have been receiving these new trees for months now. New learners with these new trees stuck around much longer and did around 13% more lessons each day on average compared with the old trees. Here’s what’s new:
If you’re familiar with CEFR, these new trees now completely cover material through the end of A2. We have reordered the course material so that it covers basic/most important communicative functions first.
We now teach grammar more comprehensively and in a more digestible way. Important grammatical concepts are now embedded in themed skills that also teach practical things to know in the language.
Make sure to click on the lightbulb button on a skill’s popout to read our fun, illustrated tips! We have comprehensive, high-quality tips on the new content in these trees.
So why offer new content at all? Those of you who have been around for a while surely remember seeing a new skill or a re-ordered tree with some dents in the perfect color-coding language tapestry that you were working on. We’re committed to providing the best possible way to learn languages, and sometimes that involves being willing to change to what works better. Keeping old trees around not only adds a lot of maintenance work to our staff and contributors that would be better spent moving forward, but also prevents learners from getting access to better material that is proven to teach better.
Although tree changes are nothing new, this week’s change is bigger, as we are aligning entire courses with the CEFR. So this particular update might have felt especially jarring to those who have completed most or all of the course, which is fair-some learners might find their work looking incomplete, their trophy missing, or see several rows of purple skills that weren’t there before. Although we realize a forum explanation helps when it comes to getting the details, many learners prefer a quick understanding of what is happening to their course-so we have also been working on improving how tree updates are communicated on your course page since last time. You will notice that:
We changed the banner notification to better communicate that skills have been added and updated.
We added blue dots next to skills with new content to help you identify them. These will go away once you’ve completed a skill or 48 hours after you first see them.
We preserved your old total crown count, so that you still get credit for all your hard work on the previous tree version [Ed. note: THIS IS A LIE.]
What now? We’d like to encourage you to make use of the test out function (the key on checkpoints and on each skill's pop-out) if you feel the material is too basic, and as a way to review and solidify your knowledge. You also have the choice to skip some skills you are not interested in learning, as all skills you have done previously should still be available no matter where they are now in the new tree. Every skill that was updated does contain material that wasn’t in the previous course, so we encourage you to get that trophy by checking out the all new skills and discover that new content our experts prepared for you.
We hope you are excited to learn about getting new material (we are working to bring this to other courses as well). If you are interested in learning even more about the updates that are happening, stay tuned for a blog post next week which will go into more detail about our commitment to improving content and our methodology around how these new trees were designed.
TL;DR Our experts rearranged, removed, and added a lot of content to the French and Spanish course in order to better align to A2 of CEFR. If you had made progress in those courses, the tree might look quite different now. If you had crowns on skills that have been replaced or removed, you may notice some of those old skills and their crowns missing in the tree. Those shiny crowns are still in your total crown count, and you now have new content to look forward to learning!
Okay. Guess I'm getting an updated tree, whether I want to or not. I think I'll stick with the old one until I no longer have a choice. I'm not sure how soon that will be.
This afternoon, when I went to do today's batch of exercises, it happened again! This time, before toggling out of French, I grabbed my camera and took a video. It actually took a few tries because one second into the first video, my battery died, then I realized trying to scroll with my left hand wasn't working well and I had to change up how I was holding the camera. This time, I really looked at the names of the exercises, and they definitely were different--stuff like Routine, Groceries, Opinion, Housing, Memories, Leisure, Weekend, Hotel, Going Out, Decorating, Emergency, Dream Trip, Doctor, Junk (!), Bad Day, Manners, On Sale, Nightmare, Grooming, Request, Protest, Encounters, even Paris. Contrast that with the more grammatical-type names in the original French exercises like Plurals, Adjectives, Clothing, Colors, Pronouns, Questions, Prepositions, and various verb ones like Present, Infinitive, and Demonstrative. Obviously, it appears to be a reordering of things to make more sense, and perhaps I could move through them quickly since I have a decent French vocabulary by now, three years in. I can read it okay, but I wouldn't say I speak French. Anyway, I took that video, toggled over to German, then went back to French--where it was reset to what I'd had before. I took another video just a minute later to show that. I kind of wished I'd taken video of my switching back and forth; maybe I'll do that tomorrow, if it happens again. I also noticed, care of the videos, that my crown levels (showing how many exercises you've leveled-up on) were at 160 for the new and improved French, versus 316 for the old version. There were some exercises that apparently hadn't changed and were at the same levels either way.
Part of me wonders, if I start doing exercises in the new version, if that's the version I'll be stuck in. I mean, I'm not opposed to it, and it's sort of exciting to learn new things to keep it fresh. But am I ready for that? Unsure. I'm also curious as to why it's doing that, but the app gives no explanation. I'd likely have to go to the website on a computer to check that out. German, since I'm still going through all the initial exercises, has been unaffected as far as I can tell. Das ist gut.
Edit, 7:10 PM: Perhaps I should have checked the website before posting this. ;) Yes, they've reordered Spanish and French to better follow the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages. A thread in the Duolingo forum explains it thusly:
We have begun rolling out new courses (or “trees,” as we call them) for Spanish and French to older accounts. This is completely separate from the redesigned new look that’s also rolling out. These trees had been tested a while ago on brand new learners with great results, and new learners who sign up to Duolingo have been receiving these new trees for months now. New learners with these new trees stuck around much longer and did around 13% more lessons each day on average compared with the old trees. Here’s what’s new:
If you’re familiar with CEFR, these new trees now completely cover material through the end of A2. We have reordered the course material so that it covers basic/most important communicative functions first.
We now teach grammar more comprehensively and in a more digestible way. Important grammatical concepts are now embedded in themed skills that also teach practical things to know in the language.
Make sure to click on the lightbulb button on a skill’s popout to read our fun, illustrated tips! We have comprehensive, high-quality tips on the new content in these trees.
So why offer new content at all? Those of you who have been around for a while surely remember seeing a new skill or a re-ordered tree with some dents in the perfect color-coding language tapestry that you were working on. We’re committed to providing the best possible way to learn languages, and sometimes that involves being willing to change to what works better. Keeping old trees around not only adds a lot of maintenance work to our staff and contributors that would be better spent moving forward, but also prevents learners from getting access to better material that is proven to teach better.
Although tree changes are nothing new, this week’s change is bigger, as we are aligning entire courses with the CEFR. So this particular update might have felt especially jarring to those who have completed most or all of the course, which is fair-some learners might find their work looking incomplete, their trophy missing, or see several rows of purple skills that weren’t there before. Although we realize a forum explanation helps when it comes to getting the details, many learners prefer a quick understanding of what is happening to their course-so we have also been working on improving how tree updates are communicated on your course page since last time. You will notice that:
We changed the banner notification to better communicate that skills have been added and updated.
We added blue dots next to skills with new content to help you identify them. These will go away once you’ve completed a skill or 48 hours after you first see them.
We preserved your old total crown count, so that you still get credit for all your hard work on the previous tree version [Ed. note: THIS IS A LIE.]
What now? We’d like to encourage you to make use of the test out function (the key on checkpoints and on each skill's pop-out) if you feel the material is too basic, and as a way to review and solidify your knowledge. You also have the choice to skip some skills you are not interested in learning, as all skills you have done previously should still be available no matter where they are now in the new tree. Every skill that was updated does contain material that wasn’t in the previous course, so we encourage you to get that trophy by checking out the all new skills and discover that new content our experts prepared for you.
We hope you are excited to learn about getting new material (we are working to bring this to other courses as well). If you are interested in learning even more about the updates that are happening, stay tuned for a blog post next week which will go into more detail about our commitment to improving content and our methodology around how these new trees were designed.
TL;DR Our experts rearranged, removed, and added a lot of content to the French and Spanish course in order to better align to A2 of CEFR. If you had made progress in those courses, the tree might look quite different now. If you had crowns on skills that have been replaced or removed, you may notice some of those old skills and their crowns missing in the tree. Those shiny crowns are still in your total crown count, and you now have new content to look forward to learning!
Okay. Guess I'm getting an updated tree, whether I want to or not. I think I'll stick with the old one until I no longer have a choice. I'm not sure how soon that will be.