you have a typo

[Saperlipopette!]

No, Duolingo has a typo.

I'd like Duo to have a canned report for these types of things. I'm trying to think of a good alternative suggestion to, "I don't have a typo, you have a typo."

I've noticed that Duo seems to have more of these mistakes in the web than on the app. It seems like Duo has a separate database for acceptable answers on the web than on the app.

That would explain the comments in the forum such as, "x is now accepted", with a reply "not for me."

Also the web doesn't have a free form response like there is on the app. To report an error like this one, you have to select 'something else went wrong.'

entendre is the right answer, not "ententre."

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[Corinnebelle]

That's so confusing, what to pick with those reports, like my answer shouldn't be accepted is not the one you want for this instance.

[MoniqueMaRie]

In such cases I sometimes write the wrong answer and then report " my answer should not be accepted."

[Dana_Dany Danuta]

Hi, I in this case, I write my correct answer several times for someone to notice it later (indicating that my answer should be accepted).

Finally, I will write this wrong answer because I have to move on.

I often get thanks for the corrections made, and it is most often in the Polish-English or English-Polish course.

[zerogrqvity]

Hi! I hate this too. I tried like completing my whole Japanese lesson and when I typed the RIGHT thing, it said I had a typo but didnt let me pass and I got it wrong. I do not have the app, so this appears often for me. (I know it's right because after that I checked google translate.)

[LICA98]

Hi! I hate this too. I tried like completing my whole Japanese lesson and when I typed the RIGHT thing, it said I had a typo but didnt let me pass and I got it wrong. I do not have the app, so this appears often for me. (I know it's right because after that I checked google translate.)

yeah because google translate never makes mistakes

[zerogrqvity]

Not really, there's multiple translations for Japanese. <3

[Deleted User 4833]

The other thing I noticed about typos is that Duolingo is really random about what they'll say is a typo versus what they'll flat out mark as wrong.

I have had some answers I realized were wrong after I hit enter, but Duo marked them as typos. Whereas I have given other answers that were actually typos and would be clear to a human that the answer was correct and just a misspelling but Duo marks them wrong.

On the phone app, though, I get annoyed when I typed something correctly and autocorrect changes it to the wrong answer, but I don't notice it till after I've hit "enter" and gotten it wrong.

[Steve579062]

I have also seen that happen. I suffer with Mom/mum, Color/colour etc . When you add in another language it gets a little harder. Top it off with slight dyslexia and it's enough to turn you mad. Some nights I dream of that green chicken being chased by an hungry fox.

[John Little]

...... I get annoyed when I typed something correctly and autocorrect changes it to the wrong answer, but I don't notice it till after I've hit "enter" and gotten it wrong.

Me too. I found you have to keep an eye on the autocorrect options and delete the suggestions that are actually your previous mistakes!

[Deleted User 4833]

So today I was told I had a typo in Hebrew. I looked at the correction and at what I typed and they were both the same. I must have stared at it for a few minutes trying to figure out why Duolingo thought I had a typo and I still can’t figure it out.

[Corinnebelle]

[mention]JudieLC[/mention] That's cool you're study Hebrew! אני לי! שלום! Thing to do in such situations is to take a screenshot and post it here.

[Deleted User 4833]

@JudieLC That's cool you're study Hebrew! גם לי! שלום! Thing to do in such situations is to take a screenshot and post it here.

I didn't think of taking a screen shot at the time. I was just kind of annoyed.
I also get annoyed with the Hebrew because they mark valid alternate spellings of words wrong.
So be it.

Oh, and hope you don't mind: "Me too" would be translated to Hebrew as גם אני
לי literally means "to me".

I'm actually fairly fluent in Hebrew, having spent four years in Israel (3 of them in graduate school taking science classes in Hebrew!). I initially tried the Hebrew course to see how much I could test out of. Ironically, I tested lower in Hebrew on Duolingo than in French (a language which I took in college but don't know as well) because Duolingo rejected certain turns of phrase that are common usage but weren't accepted as "correct" in the Duolingo Hebrew course. I had the same problem when I tried to test out of lower levels in Spanish, for the same reason.

So when I tried to test up to higher Duolingo learning levels of the languages I had learned previously, I did the best in French, the language I have the least knowledge of.

I got active in Duolingo because I wanted to learn Arabic, a language that many of my family members know but which I had never learned, except for isolated words. And names of yummy middle eastern dishes.

שלום לך ותודה רבה

[Corinnebelle]

[mention]JudieLC[/mention] על לא דבר! I am definitely very much a learner of Hebrew. I think they use of lot words with added י's and what not. That's a pity you didn't test out as well as you hoped. Did you report those times?

[Deleted User 4833]

@JudieLC על לא דבר! I am definitely very much a learner of Hebrew. I think they use of lot words with added י's and what not. That's a pity you didn't test out as well as you hoped. Did you report those times?

I didn't bother when I first joined Duolingo, and I didn't stick with it at first.

I came back to doing Duolingo regularly when I got an email announcing the Arabic course, as that was a language I had wanted to learn for a long time. Knowing Hebrew helps, there are a lot of cognates and similarities between the two languages. Though I find the Arabic alphabet much more difficult because the letter forms change depending on whether it's in the beginning, middle, or end of a word.

I have reported a few alternate translations in all the languages I've been working on, and occasionally got a response back that they changed something in response to my "this answer should have been accepted" reports. But not recently.

I was also waiting for the Haitian Creole course, as I could have used it in my work in a hospital, when I had patients who only spoke that language. The course was activated too late for me to use it that way, as I'm no longer working in a hospital, but I decided to try it out anyway, as I have a lot of Haitian friends.

[John238922]

The other thing I noticed about typos is that Duolingo is really random about what they'll say is a typo versus what they'll flat out mark as wrong.

... would be clear to a human that the answer was correct and just a misspelling but Duo marks them wrong.

I don't think that's quite fair.

Duo is not a human, but even some humans have pretty idiosyncratic ideas about what language is correct.

Duo is a computer system that uses algorithms to apply defined, but not necessarily published rules.

Some rules are (I think)

• more than 1 misspelling in an item, will not be a typo

• misspellingof a proper name will not be a typo (even in dictee, where it is phonetically accurate)

• Wrong vowel in a verb ending will not be a typo

[John238922]

I have also seen that happen. I suffer with Mom/mum, Color/colour etc

I don't experience this in EN->ES.

But I'm not surprised. It would be because that course is a very mature one and Duo probably got thousands of error reports.

What's disappointing is that Duo's computer and its human attendants aren't smart enough to recognise that is a problem between two base languages, American English, and English English, and propagate the corrections/synonyms into all courses from/to English.

That's just cheap Jack programming and quality control.

Maybe Duo could develop an English to American English course.

[Deleted User 4833]

The other thing I noticed about typos is that Duolingo is really random about what they'll say is a typo versus what they'll flat out mark as wrong.

... would be clear to a human that the answer was correct and just a misspelling but Duo marks them wrong.

I don't think that's quite fair.

Duo is not a human, but even some humans have pretty idiosyncratic ideas about what language is correct.

Duo is a computer system that uses algorithms to apply defined, but not necessarily published rules.

Some rules are (I think)

• more than 1 misspelling in an item, will not be a typo

• misspellingof a proper name will not be a typo (even in dictee, where it is phonetically accurate)

• Wrong vowel in a verb ending will not be a typo

I’m not seeing any reasonable patterns. Very random what’s marked wrong and what’s marked a typo.

[Stasia]

I’m not seeing any reasonable patterns. Very random what’s marked wrong and what’s marked a typo.

I noticed the same thing, and I have heard voices from other users (I remember [mention]angus[/mention] for example) saying the same, so it's not just you, it's just "the green chicken" (thank you [mention]Steve579062[/mention] for getting that image into my head) being himself.

[Saperlipopette!]

Here is another typo. They give you tiles, and they want you to arrange them into the correct English translation for the French sentence. I arranged the tiles as such, and was told "I have a typo."

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As if wasn't wasn't a word. It isn't? Wasn't it your tile ?

[Saperlipopette!]

This is a fairly common problem -- this noise about typos when there are none. That it happens when I'm selecting tiles is just plain sloppy.

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[Stasia]

As if wasn't wasn't a word. It isn't? Wasn't it your tile ?

Yes, I get these, too.

[Deleted User 4833]

Here is another typo. They give you tiles, and they want you to arrange them into the correct English translation for the French sentence. I arranged the tiles as such, and was told "I have a typo."

![](

As if wasn't wasn't a word. It isn't? Wasn't it your tile ?

I've had this happen with the word bank too. I was sort of flabbergasted the first time it happened. How can I have a typo if I'm using words you provided for me to arrange in the correct order?

[Deleted User 4833]

Find the typo in these two screen shots:

[gmads]

Find the typo in these two screen shots:

Easy... the punctuation marks: the period in the first one and the question mark in the second one

[Deleted User 4833]

Right. Cause Duolingo counts punctuation as a typo.

Never as far as I can tell.

[gmads]

Right. Cause Duolingo counts punctuation as a typo.

Never as far as I can tell.

Coming from a green owl... anything can be expected

[John Little]

I’m not seeing any reasonable patterns. Very random what’s marked wrong and what’s marked a typo.

I havent noticed a pattern either so was impressed and intrigued by the other "John's" observations and will try to look out for them.

[gmads]

What I recall about the criteria to differentiate typos (typographical errors) from mistakes (actual errors) is:

1. only one typo allowed per word, that is, two or more will then be taken as a mistake

   • adding one extra letter: receive → resceive
   • exchanging two adjacent letters: receive → recieve
   • missing one letter: receive → receiv
   • replacing one letter: receive → receibe
     

2. if the typo does not lead to a valid word (e.g. hate → hte), it will then be marked as a typo, otherwise (e.g. hate → hat) it will be marked as a mistake
   
   

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  ㆍenglish ㆍSentenceDiscussion ㆍduolingo

[uralicnomad]

Here's a couple more for your amusement.