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submitted 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) by Salamendacious@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world

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 111 points 2 years ago

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

[-] Salamendacious@lemmy.world 64 points 2 years ago

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

[-] Kolrami@lemmy.world 52 points 2 years ago

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 31 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 10 points 2 years ago

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

[-] Etienne_Dahu@jlai.lu 9 points 2 years ago

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

[-] elscallr@lemmy.world 6 points 2 years ago

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 8 points 2 years ago

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 2 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 12 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 3 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.

this post was submitted on 23 Oct 2023
331 points (97.4% liked)

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