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submitted 11 months ago by jherazob@beehaw.org to c/technology@beehaw.org

Duolingo is very much on the Enshittification path, seems like they fired a number of translators and have the rest just proofreading AI.

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[-] intensely_human@lemm.ee 1 points 11 months ago

Isn’t English able to disambiguate by using helper words like “will” or “would”?

What tenses can’t be translated completely?

[-] addie@feddit.uk 1 points 11 months ago

That's almost exactly the problem. English uses helper words exclusively for future tense, and indeed, helper words like 'to' to form an infinitive. 'Will' is the helper word to show that something is a fact, that it is definite - grammatically, it is indicative. (The sun will rise tomorrow.) 'Would' is the helper word to show that something is an opinion, or dependent on something else - grammatically, it is subjunctive. (If you push that, it would fall; if it was cheaper, I would buy it.)

Spanish has both helper words for future tense (conjugations of 'ir', analogous to 'going to', often used in speech) and straight-up conjugations for future tense (doesn't exist in English; often used in writing). It also conjugates verbs differently if they're indicative, subjunctive, or imperative (asking or telling someone to do something). This is how Spanish manages to have fifty-odd ways to conjugate every verb, which is very confusing to English speakers who make do with three ways and helper words.

Translating a 'future tense sentence' for Duolingo requires you to have psychic powers about whether something is fact or opinion, which helper words are wanted, and so on, and it usually comes down to guessing between multiple 'correct' answers, which Duo will reject all but one of.

this post was submitted on 10 Jan 2024
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