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Native English proofreader needed. Topic is solved

flootzavut
Great Britain

Native English proofreader needed.

Post by flootzavut »

I have no idea if the Romanian team still has access to the course, and don't know where else to mention this, but some of the English sentences in the course are very unnatural and/or wrong. There are numerous times when I've struggled to make an English sentence that makes sense out of the words given in the mobile app, and have frequently been marked incorrect because the most sensible sentence I've managed to make hasn't been accepted, and the "correct" answer I've been given makes absolutely no sense or is simply wrong in English.

I'm just doing the tree for fun, this isn't a major issue for me, but it is frustrating. I can only imagine that serious learners of Romanian will be even more frustrated. Most importantly, it impedes learning; when the English translation is wrong/strange/ambiguous, it means I'm not actually learning what the Romanian means.

Two specific examples:
What is the itinerary to destination?
They go on an international travel.

Both of these sentences are glaringly grammatically wrong in English, and with both of them, I'm unclear enough about what they mean that the meaning of the Romanian is also obscured.

User avatar
Stasia
Poland

Re: Native English proofreader needed.

Post by Stasia »

[mention]flootzavut[/mention], as you know, Duome is an independent entity from Duolingo.

I would recommend reporting the error the next time you get these sentences, and hope that a human will eventually review your report.

Native: :poland:; Fluent: :es:, :us:; Getting there: Image; Intermediate: :fr:; Beginner: :ukraine:

Bornhoffer
Norway

Re: Native English proofreader needed.

Post by Bornhoffer »

From what I've read, Duolingo has completely abandoned the community based creation system for their courses, so the old team probably does not have access. I and my husband were planning to join that team once I hade finished the course, which I have now, but it is no longer possible to join the group. During my time taking the course, I have reported innumerous errors. I've jokingly said many times, that the creators of the course don't know English, and actually not really Romanian either, because there are so many strange things with that as well, according to my Romanian husband.

I think the Romanian course exemplifies why Duolingo decided to skip the community based creation of courses. They offer plus memberships, and hence the content should be of professional quality, which of course this is not. The problem also with volunteers, is that they will burn out after some time. When you look at the old forum threads, you see that people have been complaining about the same errors for years, without anything happening. The makers were no longer around to fix the errors.

I hope Duolingo will set aside resources to fix the course. I presume Romanian might not be their first priority, but I have a hard time thinking that any other courses need correction more than this one. I've read that the courses from now on will follow more set templates. That could be nice, because I feel there is a need for improvement of the pedagogical structure as well.

User avatar
Sofia222677

Re: Native English proofreader needed.

Post by Sofia222677 »

The volunteer program was indeed ditched in April 2021, just over one year ago.

Bornhoffer wrote: Mon Apr 25, 2022 11:38 am

I presume Romanian might not be their first priority, but I have a hard time thinking that any other courses need correction more than this one.

If it's any consolation, Italian, the 6th most popular course from English, is in the same boat.
Not only is the English of some sentences grammatically wrong, but DL's Italian, the very language the course purportes to teach, is even worse: mistranslation of false friends, wrong usage of prepositions, articles and verb tenses, literal translations that don't make sense in either language, accepting wrong word orders, not accepting valid translations.

The only courses (from English) Duolingo has put any effort into are Spanish, French (those two were, in fact, the first two courses to get aligned with CEFR standards), German, and Japanese.

:it: N - :gb: B2 (working towards C1) - Learning :de: - Dabbling in :cn:, :ru:

flootzavut
Great Britain

Re: Native English proofreader needed.

Post by flootzavut »

Stasia wrote: Tue Apr 05, 2022 6:14 pm

@flootzavut, as you know, Duome is an independent entity from Duolingo.

I would recommend reporting the error the next time you get these sentences, and hope that a human will eventually review your report.

That's what I have been doing, I just posted here in the hopes someone from the team might be able to do something about it, but it appears not :?

flootzavut
Great Britain

Re: Native English proofreader needed.

Post by flootzavut »

Bornhoffer wrote: Mon Apr 25, 2022 11:38 am

I've read that the courses from now on will follow more set templates. That could be nice, because I feel there is a need for improvement of the pedagogical structure as well.

I have mixed feelings about this; it depends how it's implemented. Some languages have such different structures and areas of difficulty that having one template to fit a given language into could go very badly very quickly. It would work well for some languages, especially with closely related languages, but trying to teach all languages with the same modules in the same order would mean some courses were taught in an order that was very poor for that specific language.

I hope they're still working on the courses in the incubator. There are a couple I was really excited to see. (Ukrainian from Russian? GIMME!)

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