Technology

HelloChinese is a little better on content and a lot better on not being an annoying ad machine.

I believe that a clickbait title about 400 idiot people starting the first lesson in Duolingo and then quickly quitting without deleting their accounts is the through line here.

I think it's great for basic grammar and vocabulary. Pair it with a grammar text book, dictionary, and media in the target language (written and spoken) and you should be able to understand the language fairly quickly. If you can get conversation practice with a native speaker, you'll learn so much faster.

Duolingo is a game for points and badges. it's not actually useful for learning anything.

As with learning anything, you have to commit yourself to using multiple resources. Duolingo has been a great way for me to pick up vocabulary. Do I use it for sentence structure and grammar lessons? No. But it's a fun way to replace the monotony of flashcards.

I guess it's better than some alternatives, at least because we never found out what the Space Confederates were fighting for

Nah, they'd learn Toki Pona, because it's an amazing interlanguage.

I'm no anti capitalist, but I also learned Esperanto a few years ago. But nobody really speaks it, so I switched to learning something a bit more practical (SO's native language so I'm less helpless when we visit their country).

May I ask why?

That depends on how you use it.

I use DuoLingo as daily practice, and I add a bunch of other stuff to it as well. I did really well learning Esperanto this way, and have learned a fair amount of Spanish and Korean as well. Generally:

1. Duolingo for a couple weeks, blitzing as many lessons as I can
2. Find lessons elsewhere (YouTube, books, etc), while using Duolingo for 5-10 min/day
3. Read childrens books (look up everything you don't understand) and watch children's shows (write down what you don't understand) in the language, and use that to review grammar and vocab
4. Read the news in the target language, looking up unknown words
5. Watch TV in the target language
6. Finish up the Duolingo course while doing the above

Duolingo by itself won't get you fluent, but it'll teach you basic grammar (if you read the grammar notes), vocab, and build a habit of learning with a minimal time commitment. Use it as a sort of stretching routine before more serious study.

All this hatred for a tool that is bridging the gap between not speaking a language and being able to understand basic sentences.

And it's so fucking slow. Like yeah I remember the word for man and woman please stop asking me to click on it especially with the image next to it..

More like start learning a second language and give up after a week.

This may be a stereotype, but TikTok specifically caters to people with short attention spans.

I wouldn’t overthink it. It’s just a youthful rebellion/protest thing. Old people banned an app young people like and young people were like, “Ok, fine. We’ll use a different app, assholes.” And they found one even more Chinese just to be obnoxious.

But to answer your primary question, Instagram is a bloated app with a terrible algorithm made by a garbage company owned by a garbage person. But just as important, Instagram is also where TikTok users’ parents are. Youths don’t want to hang out with friends where their parents are watching. Hell, I’m middle-aged and I was annoyed when my mom followed me on Instagram. Like, “Stay on Facebook, mom. That’s the boomer app.”

I’m sure almost every TikTok user is a YouTube user too. But YouTube Shorts isn’t the same as TikTok. Shorts are basically a way for established creators who make longer, professional videos to make little casual ones between their main video releases. It’s not a drop-in replacement for TikTok. The vibe is different. (If Shorts had been released as a totally separate app with a separate algorithm, it’d be a drop-in replacement for TikTok but they just duct taped it onto YouTube proper.)

Plus, the data and national security excuses were always horseshit. Congress was trying to protect American dominance in social media and during the debate, members of Congress said their issue with TikTok was that it didn’t have an Israel boner. https://forward.com/culture/688840/tiktok-ban-gaza-palestine-israel-antisemitism/

Forward is a publication aimed at a Jewish audience, for the record, so that’s not some antisemitic conspiracy theory.

It's not even to go for a TikTok clone, it's more to do with the avoidance of Meta products because they're following Twitter and allowing toxicity and constantly pushing ads and influencers and MAGA. Someone decided hey it would be funny if we just installed an actual Chinese app just out of spite since we're effectively getting censored anyway so getting censored on a chinese app to blow it all up would be funny. It was supposed to be a meme.

Turns out the chinese people on there were mostly excited to get so much attention and an opportunity to talk with americans. Loads of kids there practicing their english, and people felt so welcomed they're trying to learn the language and everything's subtitled in chinese+english because they want to communicate back and make their content accessible to them out of respect. There's plenty of content there to teach chinese to the newcomers too. Bunch decided to stay because it's just pretty nice since the lack of politics and "sensitive" topics it's a very positive and welcoming platform for once.

The whole thing is a completely accidental cultural exchange on a massive scale, and a very rare case where americans and chinese people kind of can talk directly like that. Both sides gets to peek at the other's lifestyle and bond over common things instead of hating on eachother. They aren't learning chinese to use the app, they're learning it to communicate and exchange with the people. The chinese government seems unconcerned and welcoming as an extra fuck you to the US.

The algorithm is surprisingly not really biased nor pushing propaganda. It's happily suggesting me openly queer content (with a lack of hate comments and americans being called out for their hateful comments), they have gun content, they have a car scene, they have their thirst traps (with respectful comments), it's really not all that different than us and not the propaganda machine the US is so concerned about. It kind of leans more left than TikTok if anything, which makes the ban even more questionable.