You'ré acing this skill

[Saperlipopette!]

I never liked this message. It's made for those "testing out" of elementary levels because they're working on a language where they already have some prior knowledge. But there should be an option saying I don't want to jump levels.

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The way the course is structured, the messages don't make logical sense:

1. macaron, concours, cuire, huître, fondre, à moitié
2. ratatouille, comme, cuisiner, mettre, typique
3. surgelé, frire, quantité, au plat
4. poudre, cacao, dur, brouillé, qualité, griller
5. fonctionner, bonne affaire, convaincre, extrêmement.

If I aced lessons 1 & 2, what does that have to do with 3. The vocabulary & lessons are different. Same thing for 4 & 5.

[water_color]

Yeah, that's one of the features that don't make sense for serious language learners. Not only because the vocab is different in different lessons, but also because "no mistakes" doesn't mean you know it well. You can be hardly familiar with the concepts of the lesson but still finish it without mistakes if you do it carefully and use hints. You can already know everything you are supposed to learn but still make some stupid mistakes like misreading a pronoun and typing "we" instead of "you". Speaking about me, I think I make more mistakes with stuff I am already familiar with because I pay less attention to the lesson in this case.

But anyway, you can just ignore it by choosing "not now".

[Saperlipopette!]

Now, I have to choose Not Now twice to skip it. Once it comes up right after completing the lesson, and a second time a few minutes later, say if I take a short break after completing a forty-minute lesson then come back to do something else a few minutes later. It's now double the chances of making a mistake & taking a path I don't want to take when Duo could easily code something more convenient for all.

[BlahBlah]

If I aced lessons 1 & 2, what does that have to do with 3. The vocabulary & lessons are different. Same thing for 4 & 5.

This is SO stupid. I wish they would already fix it.

[back4morelater]

If I aced lessons 1 & 2, what does that have to do with 3. The vocabulary & lessons are different. Same thing for 4 & 5.

This is SO stupid. I wish they would already fix it.

BUT for some people it might be the right thing. If you know some of the language when you start then the initial test might put you at a place where you do know all the words and constructs that you skip. It is optional whether you skip them or not and might help some people get to the bits they don't know faster (and make them stick with Duolingo longer that than getting bored)

Personally I don't skip them since I want the practise and I know that at times I've gone from getting the whole lesson perfect to making lots of errors on the next ones. I know doing English from Spanish some of early stuff what very basic having already got a golden Spanish owl and being a native English speaker

Duolingo is trying to do things for learners of all sorts of backgrounds and experience so what works for someone might not be what somebody else needs

[BlahBlah]

BUT for some people it might be the right thing. If you know some of the language when you start then the initial test might put you at a place where you do know all the words and constructs that you skip.

You know what would be even better? To be able to manually mark the words that you already know or consider to be fully learned. Then you wouldn't need to practice "un chat et une orange" sillyness.
Also, you should be able to unmark the words that Duolingo thinks you have learned, but you don't feel comfortable with.

And, let's be honest, the initial test is not really good. It would put a native speaker around level 4 or level 5.

It is optional whether you skip them or not and might help some people get to the bits they don't know faster (and make them stick with Duolingo longer that than getting bored)

That's fine, but if you ace lessons 1 & 2, Duolingo should put you on lesson 3 of the next level. What's the point of skipping lessons 3, 4 & 5 only to be placed at lesson 1 all over again!? In theory, you could ace lessons 1 & 2 all the time and never see the content from other three lessons.

[dakanga]

As a native speaker of the language being taught, who also knows adequately the source language/language known, you can skip to the last unit in the tree by testing out the very last unit in the tree.

For example, on the new "Duolingo learning path" for the French course, if you test out successfully on Unit 199. Then you just need to progress through the few lessons in Unit 199, and you will have completed the tree.

[BlahBlah]

No argument there, I was just talking about the initial test that Duolingo offers when you select a new language or register an account.

And by the way, you should just be able to select what you want to learn. I may know how to count or tell the time in my target language, and at the same time may not be able to say "a cat" or "the dog". It would just be faster and more productive for everyone if we could take charge of what we want to learn instead of being forced to play the levels game (or test out all the time).

[dakanga]

I 100% agree with you there.
That students should have greater control of where they are taking their learning.

However, at this stage of development, in my observation of Duolingo, they are not allowing you to do that.

Now - imagine you are teacher, and you are trying to get a bunch of students up to the standardization of a test, external to Duolingo.
And as a teacher, you do not have the control to do that at the moment with your Duolingo registered students.

All you can do is give them XP challenges.

Duolingo still has a lot of development to make this app the powerful and engaging tool so many of us are looking for.
It has made some progress - but it has a long way still to go - even on its declared ambitions.

[dakanga]

You can watch, and even participate in some of my research and development of resources to give greater controls to motivated students and for educators, across these two posts :

• viewtopic.php?p=29622-french-from-engli ... its#p29622
• viewtopic.php?t=6618-course-overview-199-units

They are both works very much in progress - but I am starting to work out ways you can choose to take greater control, and/or to assist others to take control.

Unfortunately, I am still in my baby steps at learning how to do this with the new Duolingo "Path" course structure. I am though making progress.

And continue to look forward to share what I learn with others and to support their learning journey.

[EranBarLev]

As a native speaker of the language being taught, who also knows adequately the source language/language known, you can skip to the last unit in the tree by testing out the very last unit in the tree.

For example, on the new "Duolingo learning path" for the French course, if you test out successfully on Unit 199. Then you just need to progress through the few lessons in Unit 199, and you will have completed the tree.

Not quite. I tried to test out everything until the subjunctive, but I failed because Duo doesn't accept alternative answers. For example:
viewtopic.php?p=26745#p26745
viewtopic.php?p=26754#p26754
viewtopic.php?p=26571#p26571