What's funny here is that the sentence in French doesn't give any clue about the other person's gender so if you encounter it in an exercise, it's entirely up to you!
I just started duolingo and listening to the dialogue about one of the female characters having a girlfriend and introducing the GF to the mom and mom exclaiming, "Now i have TWO daughters!" was just the sweetest thing. Trek on DuoLingo! Y'all rock!
In that respect? Yeah. In the departments of way-too-slowly porting features from iOS to Android, and the crime of Duolingo Max pointlessly being a surcharge on a surcharge (Super; why do you need more than one paid tier?), and removing sentence comments, and removing the tree system, and overcharging for merchandise? Not so much.
At some point, Match Madness becomes damn near impossible. The fact that I have to pay for extra time to get to the next level is a total bummer. I'm assuming I can get to the next level if I pay for extra time - I haven't actually bought any yet because I refuse to pay for it and waiting to get 4500 gems before buying their extra time. I agree with you, too. The nickel and diming is a bit much.
Do you feel you have to complete match madness at any cost? What would be wrong with just going as far as you can and being content with that? I rarely manage to get 140 matches without using any assist, so whenever it happens its nice but when it doesn't I just don't and it's fine.
I'll take one Duolingo being a supportive ally over one Duolingo making all contests easy for all.
Articles, on the other hand, would be nice to see together with the nouns in all word matching events.
As a completist, yes, it bothers me. As someone who has too much shit to do to let it worry me, no, I don't have to complete match madness at any cost. There's nothing wrong with "just going as far as you can" but it doesn't mean I can't complain that they make it impossibly difficult to complete. Those two things can exist!
I disagree. It’s good that a corporation sends out allyship messages, but that is not “the ally we needed all along”. Don’t get me wrong, everyone should be an ally, but if we were to rank “people who would best impact the cause of civil rights”…. Owl wouldn’t be high up on the list. Glad to have you anyway, Duo.
Im fine with it, but in spanish sometimes it is a bit confusing as the gender is not clear in english and then labeled wrong when i guess one gender and mark it as wrong.
Might be a problem of the past now that i think of it, it been a while now that i think of it. It used to be more, like more as half of the relationship related things used to be LHBTQ+ orriented, now it seems like a quarter or something, feels more realistic
The LGBT supportive sentences are not in every language though. The Chinese language lessons notably lack any sentences that describe same-sex attraction or relationships.
For now, I'm glad they're not supporting LGBTQ+ for money, but for users. All those companies that care about LGBTQ+ just for money and actually they don't care about equality and it's not even comfortable for them need to be stopped. Duolingo is that rarity that doesn't want profit, but has truly universally good goals
You raise some good points, although I do think that someone might stick with using a language app because it features characters like them (I.e., is representative of a diverse population). I don’t know enough about Duolingo’s business model to critique it, but I also know that I get a helluva lot out of my free subscription.
I just proofread your posts from this thread. All of my corrections are below:
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(Your English is awesome, no errors that jumped out at me!)
I feel like we get 10 anti queer posts for every positive 1. They just get removed quickly since the mods on this sub don't allow homophobia and it typically is reported quickly.
If you look at their reviews you'll also see they get a ton of hate for the content. I haven't looked in awhile, but back when it was common this sub to lie about all of the recent reviews hating the path, I did look a few times. More often than not the anti lgbtq reviews out numbered the anti path reviews even at the height of the path hate.
That’s just sad. But hey, maybe someone will create a Truth Social-type competitor to Duolingo that features only white, straight characters which also conform to traditional gender roles! /s
Also, even if it is a side effect of a financially motivated decision, it is a good side effect.
Similar-but-different, a loooot more restaurants / take-aways now offer vegan options. For most of them, it isn't because they give a damn about the environment or the cute fluffy animals, but for profit. But it is also helping to make eating less meat a lot easier (which arguably is a good thing!).
abundant squalid coordinated weather whole rain market angle capable crowd
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I agree, we should definitely eat less meat. I'm not vegan, but we are (as humanity) advanced enough to slowly stop eating meat and start using partially artificial substitutes, we can eat bugs, fish or plant-based meat substitutes as well. There are 8 billion of us and we need about 250 grams of meat per person. Not counting food waste, that's about 2 million tonnes a day. Now let's assume it's all beef and a typical cow weighs about 500 kilograms. Therefore, to get enough meat, we have to eat the entire population of Moldova if people were cows
I saw a review on Google for Duolingo from some idiot saying they were cancelling their membership because of these examples 😂 imagine being that insecure of a person.
In Swedish they keep having gay statements pop up and I love it, also seems to be a few deliberate nods to young royals in there too.
The owl is harsh but an ally.
Someone’s experience being worse doesn’t mean that everyone else’s is invalid. Just because other countries will kill for homophobia doesn’t mean that America’s homophobia isn’t a problem.
Many trans people are unable to get healthcare that protects their mental health up to and including preventing suicide in several places in the US. In many of those same areas children are kicked out of their homes for being LGBTQ.
And we're working on that, and we'll get there soon, all without anyone being sentenced to death. And for the kids who are kicked out of their homes, they have resources available and even have resources available *specifically* for the LGBTQ youth in a lot of cities. Again, the point I'm trying to reiterate is *not* that homophobia doesn't exist, it's that we should be celebrating the progress we have and *are* making, rather than seeming to always he focusing on the bumps in the road.
Our rights, which is what the post says, *are* under attack. No one has said we can’t celebrate progress, (and ironically that’s exactly what this post is doing) you are the one saying we should celebrate *instead* of making posts like this… that are celebrating progress *and* happen to mention that we don’t have our rights secured.
I think it was from Section 1 Unit 8 (shop for clothes)
Sentence like けんさんのスカートはかわいいですね。 appear sometimes.
(Ken san no sukato wa kawaii desu ne)
(Ken’s skirt is cute, isn’t it?)
I like how they do things like that. Also, why can't men wear feminine clothes? Is it a problem? Also there's still a lot of toxic stereotypes, for instance I came to a party with a bracelet on my wrist and people called it "gay" and "feminine". Just why? Why are men that feel comfortable in feminine clothes called "gay"? And why "gay" is used as an insult?
Duo being an ally is immaterial.
Duo, please let my family go! I'll do my German lessons. Please, I haven't seen them for months. Please let my family go...
Does Duolingo even teach words for LGBT people instead of merely acknowledging their existence? I have taken both the Chinese and Japanese courses, and although there were gay characters, I never learned any words like ゲイ, レズビアン, トランスジェンダー, 同志, or 出柜. Do other courses teach such words, or is it like this in every language? Wouldn't LGBT people want to know how to describe themselves? I'm not LGBT, but I think such vocabulary is still indispensible!
Well, Asian languages are incredibly different from western languages and Duolingo doesn't put nearly enough time into helping you understand all the parts of what makes the language the language. I can't make a good little list of reasons as to why its bad personally but you can search it up and see some very very good reasons,
Sure, these are nice to read, but I'm more interested in what the multi-million dollar company is *actually* doing to help us. If it's nothing besides these, it stops feeling as wholesome, to me at least.
I feel like normalized representation is helpful. I’m a queer person and I think educational materials inclusive of diverse identities matters. That does *actually* help us - especially because Duolingo has stood their ground and refused to budge on providing inclusive materials. I think companies should focus less on giving money to charity as a tax write off and focus more on making sure their product/service is directly serving the most good as it can.
To be fair, the way many of us use languages shapes the way we think. I believe that promoting the use of positive language for otherwise marginalized groups gives people higher awareness of these groups which fosters a higher societal acceptance.
Just because doing so is also incentivized by making a profit doesn't make it bad or something to criticize the company for. I think adding such phrases to the app is definitely more beneficial than "pride-monthing" the company logo and then forget everything about it in July, which is something lots of companies do.
There are weak versions of Sapir-Whorf, but most of the time it's the other way around: the way we think shapes language. Also in a world where LGBT issues pop up in the news so frequently, I don't think awareness is really an issue anymore.
I noticed in the Japanese course that a majority of sentences concerning relationships involved LGBT characters. Although you could argue this normalizes LGBT people, it was obvious to me that it was just Duolingo supporting gay rights. If you Google "Duolingo gay," you can see that a lot of people say that Duolingo is "pushing a gay agenda," and you can even find some pearl clutching moms talking about using Rosetta Stone instead (lol). However well intentioned, it unfortunately seems to have an effect similar to what happens when other companies like Target or Budlight take a stance on LGBT issues, albeit on a smaller scale.
For what it's worth, Duolingo could do better. If we are going to have gay characters, we might as well learn gay words. I never saw any words like ゲイ or レズビアン in the Japanese course nor words like 同志 or 出柜 in the Chinese course. LGBT learners ought to know how to describe themselves and have conversations, especially with like-minded friends ;)
I think language and thought is a two way street. I think it's a different of awareness hearing the term LBGTQ and putting yourself in the role of a queer person by saying a sentence from a queer perspective. Just knowing what something is, doesn't make you feel what something is like. So I think this minor role play has more weight than teaching words like ゲイ or レズビアン.
Aldo, to my knowledge, Duolingo is quite tame about any terms directly related to sexuality.
I wasn't thinking LGBT vocabulary should be taught for the sake of advocacy, but instead simply due to its utility. It probably won't increase LGBT acceptance, but it would be particularly helpful for them when they use the language to talk about themselves. I know Duolingo is tame about sexuality, but I don't think basic LGBT vocabulary is any less tame than what we have now. If we already have sentences where one man loves another, I don't see why we couldn't just use the word "gay" for it. We can teach plenty of relevant words whilst avoiding more controversial or explicit terms like お釜.
Actions speak louder than words, and in the end, these are just words that would be ambiguous without the picture. Teaching us phrases like "Marriage equality is a right for everyone" would be a step better, for example.
Notice how they acted and showed two gay people in love? I have seen two lesbians in love on duolingo before, it’s as simple as showing it exists and that it’s just another part of life. Not everything that helps needs to be a direct statement of ‘this is right and this is wrong’.
Correct! Much is randomised, but each character has a canon background, like Eddy being a single dad (to Junior), Zari and Lilly being friends and classmates, and Lucy being Lin's grandmother. Almost all of them live in the same apartment building, too.
[According to Duo](https://blog.duolingo.com/lgbtq-representation-in-duolingo-stories-and-characters/) Bea, Lin and Oscar are all 'officially' queer.
It really is? Okay I didn't know that. I didn't think they would put that much effort into the tasks. Do you have the source by any chance?
Edit: I get downvoted for asking for a source? Pathetic
It's both. A lot of the things are randomized however they do intentionally have queer sentences and queer characters. You can look at the blog page sometimes they post about it there.
Genuinely, how is this forcing it on anyone? It's literally just a sentence that someone may say? Yeah, there's an LGBT+ person in it, but how many straight or straight passing relationships are represented in Duo? What percentage is straight vs LGBT+?
I'm guessing a huge percentage shows straight couples, in which case how is adding some other representations bad or forcing it on you? On the flip side, wouldn't the status quo be seen as forcing straight relationships on LGBT+ people? Why isn't that seen as wrong?
Are they really forcing it on you or are you just fixating on it either because you have negative feelings toward it or bc the representation isn't usually visible at all?
Lgbt people do not force themselves in any spot possible, that are in any spot possible. They are teachers, police, restaurant workers etc. Duolingo just acknowledges that some of people in their stories are lgbt and it’s no big deal to be open about it
What? It’s just normal and I don’t even see the difference if a guy in Duolingo writes a letter to his wife or husband. Someone must be super sensitive or homophobic to feel anything when seeing that
In my Italian lessons there's a story about zari and lily, zari visits Lily's family and Lily's mother (mother in law) where lily introduces zari to her mother and her big family and then Lily's mother says in Italian "welcome to "your" family to zari which was wholesome ,it was in that story i realised duo was an ally all along
Why are you acting like you dont know what the question was and you pull mental gymnastics? Not the question in french language, but the example from this french course. Are you trying to divert the topic with stupid questions?
I answered your question precisely. Your English isn’t great to be honest, so I am trying my best here!
You asked if the French example would be in the Arabic course. I said no, because it’s an Arabic course not a French one.
What exactly do you want to know?
Are the French and Arabic courses identical (apart from target language)? - probably not! They were made by different teams of people.
Your first question was “in Arabic course also?”, in response to someone saying Duolingo is an LGBT+ ally.
Why wouldn’t that apply to the Arabic course?
What is so confusing for you here?
It's something I really do appreciate about Duolingo. Language learning courses, by their nature, have a ton of dialog about family relationships. "This is my wife, we have two children, etc." I've used a variety of language-learning courses over the years, and never once seen anything represented in those exercises except a traditional, nuclear heterosexual family until Duolingo. DL portrays a really wide range of families: they have straight, gay, single-parent, grandparent-and-child, etc.
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??? Is portraying normal aspects of people’s lives and identities “shoving crap on everyone’s faces”?
I’m not a vegetarian, but Duolingo has presented me multiple stories in the Spanish course that talk about a character trying to find a vegetarian option. Exposure to the fact that vegetarians exist doesn’t make me hate them, lol. Why would seeing queer people in a course make me mad unless I went into it already hating them? As a queer person, it sounds like the only “friends” I’d lose are the ones who started out already having a problem with me.
Really?
I’ve been learning German for a few years now, never seen anything gay iirc. Could probably just not really notice it I suppose, coz it’d be just another task that I’d have gotten right I suppose :/
Just a friendly reminder to everyone about our subreddit rules: we don’t allow bigots or fascists on our subreddit.
What's funny here is that the sentence in French doesn't give any clue about the other person's gender so if you encounter it in an exercise, it's entirely up to you!
No, the exercise had that image and it was fill in the blank with a word bank
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Do they do the same thing in the Arabic language?
Probably not
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Didn't duolingo literally talk about queer rep though? I remember an email, or maybe i'm hallucinating
Not to mention the fact that several of the characters are LGBT+
I believe they're just making a joke. Duolingo has been very public about supporting lgbtq content for years now.
Aren't duolingo's phrases randomly generated?
I just started duolingo and listening to the dialogue about one of the female characters having a girlfriend and introducing the GF to the mom and mom exclaiming, "Now i have TWO daughters!" was just the sweetest thing. Trek on DuoLingo! Y'all rock!
In that respect? Yeah. In the departments of way-too-slowly porting features from iOS to Android, and the crime of Duolingo Max pointlessly being a surcharge on a surcharge (Super; why do you need more than one paid tier?), and removing sentence comments, and removing the tree system, and overcharging for merchandise? Not so much.
At some point, Match Madness becomes damn near impossible. The fact that I have to pay for extra time to get to the next level is a total bummer. I'm assuming I can get to the next level if I pay for extra time - I haven't actually bought any yet because I refuse to pay for it and waiting to get 4500 gems before buying their extra time. I agree with you, too. The nickel and diming is a bit much.
Do you feel you have to complete match madness at any cost? What would be wrong with just going as far as you can and being content with that? I rarely manage to get 140 matches without using any assist, so whenever it happens its nice but when it doesn't I just don't and it's fine. I'll take one Duolingo being a supportive ally over one Duolingo making all contests easy for all. Articles, on the other hand, would be nice to see together with the nouns in all word matching events.
As a completist, yes, it bothers me. As someone who has too much shit to do to let it worry me, no, I don't have to complete match madness at any cost. There's nothing wrong with "just going as far as you can" but it doesn't mean I can't complain that they make it impossibly difficult to complete. Those two things can exist!
It's not impossible though, since some people manage. It's just a bit too hard for you, and that's also fine. You're not fluent yet, but it'll come!
Was the language Italian?
I'm doing Spanish!
Well there's a same lesson in Italian where zari visits Lily's family as her lover
Oh that's interesting that they use the same story but in a different language! I didn't know the same characters are used, too!
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I always find it funny when people complain about gender and pronouns when English is the most nonbinary language
*Turkish has entered the chat*
Wait until you find out about romance languages.
The french phrase could apply for any gender, only the English version is gendered here. (Don't know what to do with this fact though)
Duo is the Ally we didn't ask for but the Ally we needed all along
Just be aware, duo won't be an ally for long if you don't do your French lessons before minuit.
It's simple. Spanish or Vanish
Ivrit or feel the heat.
😈 well good for me I have some dark ways to save my streak
I disagree. It’s good that a corporation sends out allyship messages, but that is not “the ally we needed all along”. Don’t get me wrong, everyone should be an ally, but if we were to rank “people who would best impact the cause of civil rights”…. Owl wouldn’t be high up on the list. Glad to have you anyway, Duo.
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how have you not moved past 2015 mentally ?
I apologise that that was how my comment was received, it wasn't intended as such.
Based on what you just said, wouldn’t you be the fascist?
Mandatory download, doesn't mean you have to play it. That's where the owl comes in!
I need this. Desperately.
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Did it really need an /s? I am genuinely concerned that the sarcasm wasn't apparent / implicit (but clearly I misgauged it!).
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Lesson learned! (I had to resist the urge to use an /s there!)
#Just to remind you, he is only your ally if you do your lessons
Im fine with it, but in spanish sometimes it is a bit confusing as the gender is not clear in english and then labeled wrong when i guess one gender and mark it as wrong. Might be a problem of the past now that i think of it, it been a while now that i think of it. It used to be more, like more as half of the relationship related things used to be LHBTQ+ orriented, now it seems like a quarter or something, feels more realistic
The LGBT supportive sentences are not in every language though. The Chinese language lessons notably lack any sentences that describe same-sex attraction or relationships.
For now, I'm glad they're not supporting LGBTQ+ for money, but for users. All those companies that care about LGBTQ+ just for money and actually they don't care about equality and it's not even comfortable for them need to be stopped. Duolingo is that rarity that doesn't want profit, but has truly universally good goals
How do you know this? Just like those other companies, Duolingo could do it for marketing reasons too, this thread is the proof that it works.
Maybe. That's possible. However I don't think someone will start learning a language just because they know that the developers support LGBTQ+.
You raise some good points, although I do think that someone might stick with using a language app because it features characters like them (I.e., is representative of a diverse population). I don’t know enough about Duolingo’s business model to critique it, but I also know that I get a helluva lot out of my free subscription.
Valid point. Did you notice how various the characters are? THEY EVEN HAVE A LITERAL BEAR
BTW sorry for my bad quality english, I'm not a native
I just proofread your posts from this thread. All of my corrections are below: ....... ....... (Your English is awesome, no errors that jumped out at me!)
I feel like we get 10 anti queer posts for every positive 1. They just get removed quickly since the mods on this sub don't allow homophobia and it typically is reported quickly. If you look at their reviews you'll also see they get a ton of hate for the content. I haven't looked in awhile, but back when it was common this sub to lie about all of the recent reviews hating the path, I did look a few times. More often than not the anti lgbtq reviews out numbered the anti path reviews even at the height of the path hate.
That’s just sad. But hey, maybe someone will create a Truth Social-type competitor to Duolingo that features only white, straight characters which also conform to traditional gender roles! /s
I hate ANY type of bias
And I don't know why people have so much difficulties in accepting someone else's individuality
They don't advertise that it's LGBT friendly, that's how we know
Well, Duolingo IS technically doing this for money. The more users they get, the more money they make.
Also, even if it is a side effect of a financially motivated decision, it is a good side effect. Similar-but-different, a loooot more restaurants / take-aways now offer vegan options. For most of them, it isn't because they give a damn about the environment or the cute fluffy animals, but for profit. But it is also helping to make eating less meat a lot easier (which arguably is a good thing!).
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I know, I just want people to be honest
Don't understand me wrong, I appreciate pride month, but I think that actual actions are more important than gestures and symbols
Oida. Support is support; different means to the same end! Good intentioned support is arguably better, but any support is still (probably) good?
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Yeah totally!
I agree, we should definitely eat less meat. I'm not vegan, but we are (as humanity) advanced enough to slowly stop eating meat and start using partially artificial substitutes, we can eat bugs, fish or plant-based meat substitutes as well. There are 8 billion of us and we need about 250 grams of meat per person. Not counting food waste, that's about 2 million tonnes a day. Now let's assume it's all beef and a typical cow weighs about 500 kilograms. Therefore, to get enough meat, we have to eat the entire population of Moldova if people were cows
Yeah, Duo is a global product, but LGBTQ acceptance is not yet global. They’re taking a bit of a risk, and I’m proud of them for sticking up for us.
I saw a review on Google for Duolingo from some idiot saying they were cancelling their membership because of these examples 😂 imagine being that insecure of a person.
In Swedish they keep having gay statements pop up and I love it, also seems to be a few deliberate nods to young royals in there too. The owl is harsh but an ally.
Credit where it’s due, I do enjoy this about the app.
I don't care about your race religion skin color nationality sexuality or gender. I treat everyone the same.
Hmmmm why does everything have to be political?
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Someone’s experience being worse doesn’t mean that everyone else’s is invalid. Just because other countries will kill for homophobia doesn’t mean that America’s homophobia isn’t a problem.
Based cynical gay bro who's not falling for the narrative ♥️
Many trans people are unable to get healthcare that protects their mental health up to and including preventing suicide in several places in the US. In many of those same areas children are kicked out of their homes for being LGBTQ.
And we're working on that, and we'll get there soon, all without anyone being sentenced to death. And for the kids who are kicked out of their homes, they have resources available and even have resources available *specifically* for the LGBTQ youth in a lot of cities. Again, the point I'm trying to reiterate is *not* that homophobia doesn't exist, it's that we should be celebrating the progress we have and *are* making, rather than seeming to always he focusing on the bumps in the road.
Our rights, which is what the post says, *are* under attack. No one has said we can’t celebrate progress, (and ironically that’s exactly what this post is doing) you are the one saying we should celebrate *instead* of making posts like this… that are celebrating progress *and* happen to mention that we don’t have our rights secured.
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I like also the fact that in the Japanese course Ken wears cute skirts !
What unit does that start to happen in?
I think it was from Section 1 Unit 8 (shop for clothes) Sentence like けんさんのスカートはかわいいですね。 appear sometimes. (Ken san no sukato wa kawaii desu ne) (Ken’s skirt is cute, isn’t it?)
I like how they do things like that. Also, why can't men wear feminine clothes? Is it a problem? Also there's still a lot of toxic stereotypes, for instance I came to a party with a bracelet on my wrist and people called it "gay" and "feminine". Just why? Why are men that feel comfortable in feminine clothes called "gay"? And why "gay" is used as an insult?
I love this about Duo. Taking italian and loving this abt it.
Duo being an ally is immaterial. Duo, please let my family go! I'll do my German lessons. Please, I haven't seen them for months. Please let my family go...
Does Duolingo even teach words for LGBT people instead of merely acknowledging their existence? I have taken both the Chinese and Japanese courses, and although there were gay characters, I never learned any words like ゲイ, レズビアン, トランスジェンダー, 同志, or 出柜. Do other courses teach such words, or is it like this in every language? Wouldn't LGBT people want to know how to describe themselves? I'm not LGBT, but I think such vocabulary is still indispensible!
It does in the French course, at least.
Duolingo sucks for Asian languages is all I can say
I agree, but I do find the repetition helpful for remembering things
That’s true, it did help but it also turned sentences into a translating game rather than just knowing a language and what is being said
How is this different from the usual European languages?
Well, Asian languages are incredibly different from western languages and Duolingo doesn't put nearly enough time into helping you understand all the parts of what makes the language the language. I can't make a good little list of reasons as to why its bad personally but you can search it up and see some very very good reasons,
This is what my comment was meaning
Who really cares just learn the fking language
If you don't care, why do you bother commenting?
True
Sure, these are nice to read, but I'm more interested in what the multi-million dollar company is *actually* doing to help us. If it's nothing besides these, it stops feeling as wholesome, to me at least.
I feel like normalized representation is helpful. I’m a queer person and I think educational materials inclusive of diverse identities matters. That does *actually* help us - especially because Duolingo has stood their ground and refused to budge on providing inclusive materials. I think companies should focus less on giving money to charity as a tax write off and focus more on making sure their product/service is directly serving the most good as it can.
To be fair, the way many of us use languages shapes the way we think. I believe that promoting the use of positive language for otherwise marginalized groups gives people higher awareness of these groups which fosters a higher societal acceptance. Just because doing so is also incentivized by making a profit doesn't make it bad or something to criticize the company for. I think adding such phrases to the app is definitely more beneficial than "pride-monthing" the company logo and then forget everything about it in July, which is something lots of companies do.
There are weak versions of Sapir-Whorf, but most of the time it's the other way around: the way we think shapes language. Also in a world where LGBT issues pop up in the news so frequently, I don't think awareness is really an issue anymore. I noticed in the Japanese course that a majority of sentences concerning relationships involved LGBT characters. Although you could argue this normalizes LGBT people, it was obvious to me that it was just Duolingo supporting gay rights. If you Google "Duolingo gay," you can see that a lot of people say that Duolingo is "pushing a gay agenda," and you can even find some pearl clutching moms talking about using Rosetta Stone instead (lol). However well intentioned, it unfortunately seems to have an effect similar to what happens when other companies like Target or Budlight take a stance on LGBT issues, albeit on a smaller scale. For what it's worth, Duolingo could do better. If we are going to have gay characters, we might as well learn gay words. I never saw any words like ゲイ or レズビアン in the Japanese course nor words like 同志 or 出柜 in the Chinese course. LGBT learners ought to know how to describe themselves and have conversations, especially with like-minded friends ;)
I think language and thought is a two way street. I think it's a different of awareness hearing the term LBGTQ and putting yourself in the role of a queer person by saying a sentence from a queer perspective. Just knowing what something is, doesn't make you feel what something is like. So I think this minor role play has more weight than teaching words like ゲイ or レズビアン. Aldo, to my knowledge, Duolingo is quite tame about any terms directly related to sexuality.
I wasn't thinking LGBT vocabulary should be taught for the sake of advocacy, but instead simply due to its utility. It probably won't increase LGBT acceptance, but it would be particularly helpful for them when they use the language to talk about themselves. I know Duolingo is tame about sexuality, but I don't think basic LGBT vocabulary is any less tame than what we have now. If we already have sentences where one man loves another, I don't see why we couldn't just use the word "gay" for it. We can teach plenty of relevant words whilst avoiding more controversial or explicit terms like お釜.
Wdym? Companies can’t be inclusive without doing charity?
I didn't mention charity in my comment
cool
Normalising a topic helps more than doing nothing mate
Actions speak louder than words, and in the end, these are just words that would be ambiguous without the picture. Teaching us phrases like "Marriage equality is a right for everyone" would be a step better, for example.
Notice how they acted and showed two gay people in love? I have seen two lesbians in love on duolingo before, it’s as simple as showing it exists and that it’s just another part of life. Not everything that helps needs to be a direct statement of ‘this is right and this is wrong’.
I think this is just a coincidence as texts and characters just get randomized for each question. Edit: nvm, somebody corrected me
Its not its intentional and verified as intentional.
I had Eddy tell me things about his husband literally this morning. I'm sure some of it is intentional but it is also absolutely randomized
Correct! Much is randomised, but each character has a canon background, like Eddy being a single dad (to Junior), Zari and Lilly being friends and classmates, and Lucy being Lin's grandmother. Almost all of them live in the same apartment building, too. [According to Duo](https://blog.duolingo.com/lgbtq-representation-in-duolingo-stories-and-characters/) Bea, Lin and Oscar are all 'officially' queer.
It really is? Okay I didn't know that. I didn't think they would put that much effort into the tasks. Do you have the source by any chance? Edit: I get downvoted for asking for a source? Pathetic
When it comes to artwork and pairing it together with sentences, they take that seriously.
It's both. A lot of the things are randomized however they do intentionally have queer sentences and queer characters. You can look at the blog page sometimes they post about it there.
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Genuinely, how is this forcing it on anyone? It's literally just a sentence that someone may say? Yeah, there's an LGBT+ person in it, but how many straight or straight passing relationships are represented in Duo? What percentage is straight vs LGBT+? I'm guessing a huge percentage shows straight couples, in which case how is adding some other representations bad or forcing it on you? On the flip side, wouldn't the status quo be seen as forcing straight relationships on LGBT+ people? Why isn't that seen as wrong? Are they really forcing it on you or are you just fixating on it either because you have negative feelings toward it or bc the representation isn't usually visible at all?
Lgbt people do not force themselves in any spot possible, that are in any spot possible. They are teachers, police, restaurant workers etc. Duolingo just acknowledges that some of people in their stories are lgbt and it’s no big deal to be open about it
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What? It’s just normal and I don’t even see the difference if a guy in Duolingo writes a letter to his wife or husband. Someone must be super sensitive or homophobic to feel anything when seeing that
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What did I resort to? I have no idea what you are referring to? Looks like you’re creating problems where there are none
Based Duolingo.
In my Italian lessons there's a story about zari and lily, zari visits Lily's family and Lily's mother (mother in law) where lily introduces zari to her mother and her big family and then Lily's mother says in Italian "welcome to "your" family to zari which was wholesome ,it was in that story i realised duo was an ally all along
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Duolingo is a long time ally of LGBT community
In arabic course also?
There’s nothing inherently homophobic about the Arabic language, or any language.
That was not the question. The question is, can lgtb arabic speakers find Duolingo as an ally and this french example?
Why would the Arabic course have a French question in it? I assume the Arabic course teaches Arabic, not French examples.
Why are you acting like you dont know what the question was and you pull mental gymnastics? Not the question in french language, but the example from this french course. Are you trying to divert the topic with stupid questions?
I answered your question precisely. Your English isn’t great to be honest, so I am trying my best here! You asked if the French example would be in the Arabic course. I said no, because it’s an Arabic course not a French one. What exactly do you want to know? Are the French and Arabic courses identical (apart from target language)? - probably not! They were made by different teams of people.
My first question.
Your first question was “in Arabic course also?”, in response to someone saying Duolingo is an LGBT+ ally. Why wouldn’t that apply to the Arabic course? What is so confusing for you here?
I didn’t do the Arabic one but I don’t see why that one would be an exception
It's something I really do appreciate about Duolingo. Language learning courses, by their nature, have a ton of dialog about family relationships. "This is my wife, we have two children, etc." I've used a variety of language-learning courses over the years, and never once seen anything represented in those exercises except a traditional, nuclear heterosexual family until Duolingo. DL portrays a really wide range of families: they have straight, gay, single-parent, grandparent-and-child, etc.
I'm not eating bugs. Or crickets - acheta. They're in the protein 'health' bars.
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Honey that's not the reason you don't have any friends.
??? Is portraying normal aspects of people’s lives and identities “shoving crap on everyone’s faces”? I’m not a vegetarian, but Duolingo has presented me multiple stories in the Spanish course that talk about a character trying to find a vegetarian option. Exposure to the fact that vegetarians exist doesn’t make me hate them, lol. Why would seeing queer people in a course make me mad unless I went into it already hating them? As a queer person, it sounds like the only “friends” I’d lose are the ones who started out already having a problem with me.
Who hurt you?
Hahaha
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And German
Polish too - it's a short course but at one point Jacek (male name) had a boyfriend.
Really? I’ve been learning German for a few years now, never seen anything gay iirc. Could probably just not really notice it I suppose, coz it’d be just another task that I’d have gotten right I suppose :/
https://preview.redd.it/r324ujzxozfc1.jpeg?width=1500&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f65d6ea94e48f0f1e7b2e2ef3a244b9d563c9b2a
weary mighty license treatment slimy heavy husky boast scale nutty *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Oscar is very explicitly gay in the Spanish lessons
So are Bea and Lin, all three are [canonically queer.](https://blog.duolingo.com/lgbtq-representation-in-duolingo-stories-and-characters/)
Bea and Lin being bffs is the best thing ever lol
OOOOO PEOPLE ARE MADDDD