Originally Posted by MaeMcA
Here are some answers to the most commonly asked questions we get asked as contributors.
When someone says “how hard would it be to X???”, the answer is usually “very hard” or “we can’t, it’s up to Duolingo” because we do actually think about these things and talk about them amongst ourselves all the time! We’d be grateful if you could point people towards these answers.
When is the course being released for mobile/Android?
It usually takes a few weeks for the mobile versions to be released after a course is released into Beta. This is something that Duolingo itself takes care of, we have no control over this.
Why is there no audio for individual words?
For every course, there is a choice between using a text-to-speech program (TTS) and a recorded audio. For Hebrew, we chose the latter for several reasons - the main one being that there is only one available TTS for Hebrew (Carmit) and it’s not very good. A lot of the pronunciation is a little bit off and it struggles mightily with all context-specific pronunciations. We want the best learning experience possible and we promise you that this is the better option, but in exchange for clear and correct pronunciation we have to sacrifice a few things like the slower speed option (which would be no good to you if the words weren’t said correctly in the first place) and audio for individual words, which the incubator is just not designed to handle and is totally out of our hands.
Our alpha tester Aaron has come up with a great idea which involves using recorded audio for sentences and the TTS for individual words and this is something we will put to Duolingo, but it’ll be a lot of work for them so this is a longer-term goal. This is also the reason some sentences are missing audio - in the thousands of recordings a few things got lost in the post, but this is something we can fix in the middle-term, we are compiling a list of all the missing or faulty audio and get them re-recorded when it is ready.
Why does it mark my answer as almost correct when I leave out the niqqud?
This is a bug which we are trying to fix. At present, we think that this happens only in the listening exercises and are attempting to test this theory. Incidentally, if you report this error, it would be super-helpful to mention whether this occurred in a listening exercise or not. In fact, at the moment, that is literally the only helpful thing you can tell us when you report this error.
The reason it happens is because our original sentence has niqqud. When it asks you to write what you hear, it is expecting exactly that sentence back (as opposed to in translations, where we give it lots of possible correct answers). These exercises are automatically generated and we have no control over this. The current plan is to remove all the niqqud from the course since the vast majority of the pronunciations are context-specific and therefore unambiguous anyway, but we can’t do this right now as the tree is locked and it’ll need to wait for tree version 2.0.
Why can’t we have niqqud for individual words?
Because, again, it’s not how the incubator works, sadly. The way it works is that we have a bunch of words we’d like to teach in a lesson, and we make sentences made entirely out of those words or words taught in a previous lesson. The “translate this word with pictures” exercise is automatically generated. If we put the words in with niqqud, we’d have to use them to make sentences and then we’d have full niqqud everywhere, so it’s an all-or-nothing case I’m afraid.
Why do the first few skills teach sentences and words when they are called “letters”?
Again, this is how the incubator was built and we have no option not to. The incubator was not designed to teach languages with non-Latin alphabets and the only mode of teaching we have is via sentences. We’ve modelled our system on the Ukranian course, where we introduce the letters slowly through simple words. We start you off with three letters, and add one more every lesson. I wish we could do it more gently with flashcards for individual letters and such, but we can’t. We have done the next best thing however, which is create just such a Memrise course.
What is the most helpful way for me to report an error?
“My answer should be accepted” if you think it should have been accepted. Remember to read through the forum posts for that sentence first. Anything else, tick the relevant box AND tell us exactly what is wrong using the freewrite box. REMEMBER that if you do not choose “My answer should be accepted”, we cannot see what answer you submitted. Please bear this in mind when you submit such a report.
My answer wasn’t accepted for the umpteenth time. Why?
We’re in Beta. You are all testers. Thank you for testing. Please use the Report an Error button!
Why is there no on-screen Hebrew keyboard?
This is something we have been discussing with Duolingo since first starting to build the course and the answer is that it’s apparently not super-straightforward to do, although we hope to have one at some point if possible. Again, this is pretty much entirely out of our hands. To be honest, if you’re set on learning Hebrew you should consider downloading a Hebrew keyboard or using a virtual one. See the welcome post for more details.
If I learn Modern Hebrew, will I be able to understand Biblical Hebrew (and vice versa)?
See the welcome post. There are literally hundreds of posts answering this question in more detail if you are still interested, a quick rummage should yield interesting discussions.