Watch Video to Open Treasure Chest?

[Deleted User 4833]

I updated Duolingo 3 days ago and yesterday I was presented with the latest annoying animation that I wish I could turn off. I got to a treasure chest, note the image of the treasure chest has a sideways carat to play a video on it:

But instead of being able to just collect additional gems I was forced to sit through an annoying animation with Zari (and another character, I can't keep track) that I found totally unnecessary and a waste of my time.

Guess it's aimed at kids, but wish they'd give us the option to bypass the video. The cartoon voices are super annoying.

There's no way to collect gems from the treasure chest without watching the video, as far as I can tell. Unless you collect lingots on the website instead of gems on the app, I guess. The animation feature does not seem to exist on the website.

[buho]

lol, that's getting more childish than I thought. Glad I left the service for Busuu which does have videos and audios, but they're spoken by real people.

On a related note, what was the video about? almohadita? (since it seems to be about diminutives).

[Deleted User 4833]

It was about diminutives. Featuring Zari's squeaky voice and the purple haired character's bored voice (Lily, I guess?). First Zari explains in English what diminutive are (dog-doggy is an example given). Then she goes on to give examples in Spanish. Interspersed with a lot of extraneous chatter that I guess is supposed to be amusing but isn't. It's a little over a minute and a half long. Which is a minute and a half too long as far as I'm concerned.

[buho]

So, duolingo-tok?

[Deleted User 4833]

So, duolingo-tok?

Something like that.

[Deleted User 4833]

Oh, joy. I got another video treasure chest.

I muted it.

[Thomas.Heiss]

Hi,

what language do you learn on Busuu? Multiple?

Glad I left the service for Busuu which does have videos and audios, but they're spoken by real people.

It comes with its own kind of problems (like missing FR subtitles, missing text, missing EN translations).

viewtopic.php?t=11864

I used it for French A1 (from scratch) and I'm still reviewing a bit where I'm not locked out but the pacing is very quick; the new Web UI forces community exercises and going back from PremiumPlus to the free account locked me out at A2 lesson 38.
I see other lessons have changed in the A1 course or got added but I'm not allowed to recomplete them (grammar, review or some kind).
Edit: I was able to recomplete some on the Web portal as the (old) Android app only showed the orange locked symbol.

Have you started a language from scratch there?

IMHO Busuu better fits a FALSE beginner or low-intermediate.
If you don't have some 4-6 years or at least 1.5-3.0 years learning background with Duolingo and other resources Busuu is too challenging and very early jumps into dialogues, reading texts, full paragraphs, offers a lot of grammar lessons but often has no audio button so you need to use "Hi translate" app on Android with Accessibility support, etc.

Others trying Arabic have given up soon.

There seems no way around skipping the writing/speaking community exercises without being Premium and using the older Android app from November last year (which doesn't have the new layout).
Only then you can freely jump to other lessons without completing everything before and allows you to SKIP over the Productive exercises.

Makes no sense how they have implemented it.
Even the old Android app won't let me skip without Premium. New UI also didn't allow this, not even a PremiumPlus account last year.

Busuu has its own problems and the audio sometimes is not fully comprehensible. Many times I got lost at the second half or last 1/3.
Some videos are sooo fast in French that even the subtitle/legend can't keep up with the speed of this one guy.
Also the audio quality varies and the one French video was with a very bad mic and over pitching noise.
Very hard to understand. I suggested to re-record it in studio quality.
The other voice of the woman was much better understandable in the same video, spoke much slower and obviously used much better hardware.
It's realistic to a show a conference video (Skype & Co.) under "normal" real life conditions but this won't make it any easier for a beginner.

My listening comprehension in Portuguese is better because of the Duolingo Pt-Br TTS (and using Memrise, Mondly, 50languages in parallel) and drilling single words where Busuu knocks me out with full paragraphs or 2-3+ sentences in a block (single audio file)
I focused here more on repeating aloud, but I won't be able to freely formulate FR sentence or make use of interactive chatting if I don't relearn more slowly from scratch (incl. SRS drills of single words).

Therefore I won't recommend Busuu for usage for a TRUE beginner despite available formal grammar lessons and quizzes/practice.
Curious what your own experience has been and how it fits into your toolset.

[buho]

Sorry @Thomas.Heiss, I thought I'd replied but noticed just now that I had put this reply in draft. :')
Here's the original reply:

Hello Thomas, I really like your well put answers.

what language do you learn on Busuu? Multiple?

I'm just learning Spanish on Busuu for now.

First, a little bit of background:
I've been learning Spanish for 5 years now. Started with Duolingo, and switched to Busuu in November.
Though I've learnt more from podcasts, songs, YouTube videos, etc. than from these language learning apps.

Have you started a language from scratch there?

no, not yet.

IMHO Busuu better fits a FALSE beginner or low-intermediate.

I agree with this assessment. Busuu is okay if you already know the basics. Duolingo was good for basics(can't say the same now).

As for their interface, it went shit in November when Chegg bought it(most likely to capitalise on anger against changes in Duolingo's UI.
I too don't like it much. But it's better than Duolingo's childish UI.
I also miss many accessibility features that Duolingo had, especially their autocorrect mistake one.

[John Little]

I've had super duo foisted on me for the last couple of days and haven't had a single free gem.

Not that I need them. But that's not the point
.

[Thomas.Heiss]

As for their interface (Busuu), it went shit in November when Chegg bought it

How bad have the Android app from March-June rollouts gotten this year?

I'm still on the nice Busuu Android app version from November last year.
Has the OLD layout with the sub module exercise list per lesson which opens when you click on a lesson name.
It's really great that way as you can redo selected single sub modules / exercises too.

I like it very much as you can see if it's a dialogue, a text, a grammar quiz, practice or develop or vocabulary sub module...
On the new Web layout this info is now just hidden (you only can restart or resume).

Honestly, the new checkpoints per chapter in a section aren't too bad on the Web and I enjoyed the French challenges to meet the minimum 85% accuracy score, but they now hide everything what is exactly available behind the lessons.
No sub module views anymore

The chapter grouping per section might not be too bad with the CEFR category filtering, but removed lesson numbers and renamed lesson names (I can't always identify pure grammar lessons anymore) sometimes confuse me.

Freemium only works on the new Web layout; that is what I'm constantly hearing from Busuu support.
The old Android app has multiple LOCKED Premium lessons.
But several were also locked on the Web last November when I still had PremiumPlus access.

The OFFLINE mode was also broken (sync of completed lessons got more and more buggy) on my current Nov app version and at least 2-3 or 4 versions before.
In Summer 2022 the app worked much more reliable for the OFFLINE sync with PremiumPlus.
So the more Busuu developers changed the old Android code the buggier that feature became.

I heard newest Android app versions have temporarily removed the OFFLINE feature again.

Whenever I tell the Busuu support I need to SKIP Productive speaking/writing A2 exercises - now labeled "Developing fluency" - there's no real solution for this.

Once I've re-recompleted the A1 French course for the x ten time and my already finished 38 A2 lessons I guess I will have to just write a "generic EN message with reference to a ticket_id" that users shall ignore my posted text as their community lesson continues to block access to the remaining A2 course.
Makes no sense...
Guess I will have to make Busuu users mad reading non-related French posts...

Hope there is another fix next 4-7 months...(without going Premium).

Also no unlimited LIFETIME subscription is available with Busuu.

[Pinta]

I wonder how long those animations are. Is it like 15 seconds or 1 minute? I never saw it.

[Deleted User 4833]

I wonder how long those animations are. Is it like 15 seconds or 1 minute? I never saw it.

The one I saw was a bit over a minute and a half.

[Pinta]

I wonder how long those animations are. Is it like 15 seconds or 1 minute? I never saw it.

The one I saw was a bit over a minute and a half.

That's pretty long.

[Deleted User 4833]

Yup. That's why it was annoying.