I Am Crying and the Onion is Laughing
Everything is gained in the translation
I downloaded the Duolingo language learning app 110 days ago and have never become so obsessed with anything so quickly.
Duolingo is waving smelling salts under the nose of my high school Spanish, and I can already communicate things like, “Yes, the owl is smart and nice,” “The cat does not play piano,” and “Dogs do not write newspapers,” along with more common phrases like “Rafael likes to sleep late in the morning.”
Duolingo likes to use quirky phrases because who can forget “I am crying, and the onion is laughing” or “The cow does not eat children.” Though every now and then, I get nervous when the app offers up phrases that seem created just for me by an all-knowing algorithm; “I am a writer,” “I do not have children,” “The woman writes on a computer,” hitting a nerve with “You always worry about everything.”
The Owl Knows All
Duolingo keeps me coming back again and again precisely because it was designed to be addictive. Learning a language becomes a game with bite sized competitions, points, leaderboards, and a finite number of tries before it’s game over and you must repeat a lesson. But when you win, umm…. I mean successfully complete a lesson, you’re rewarded with trumpet fanfare and a wonderful sense of accomplishment. Excellence is rewarded with prizes and treasures called Lingots that you can use to buy insurance against ruining your streak by missing a day. For real diehards, it’s possible to use your treasure to purchase fun blocks of targeted instruction such as romance phrases or native speaker expressions. The little green Duolingo owl understands how humans are wired and what makes us crave reaching the next level (and then the level after that).
Not so gentle nudging by the Owl
As I recall, these endorphins packed emotions were not what I felt during Sister Noreen’s 10th grade Spanish class. Don’t get me wrong. I’m far from fluent. The tenses still trip me up, and the gendering of every noun can baffle me. Despite my obsession, I still speak like a first grader. Which is part of the magic. Beginners mind forces me to slow down, think carefully about what I’m trying to say, why it needs to be said and to whom I’m saying it. I also hold back from unnecessary comments that I throw out all too often in my native tongue. In Spanish, I take nothing for granted. And no matter how many times I make mistakes or must repeat a lesson, nothing is lost in translation. Everything is gained.
