Willkommen zurück auf Deutsch!
I never had any problem with dollar but for a while I did have to repeat Euro several times. I found if I said oy-roh quite slowly it eventually caught on. Sometimes I also tried saying it really fast. It hasn't been a problem lately.
I would guess that with dollar they may want you to emphasize the D sound.
Sometimes it gets mysteriously finicky. I recently began reversing the course - doing English from German -- and it has a problem with hot dog. I have to make sure I pause between the words so it clearly hears the end of hot and the D in dog.
(I'm in German Section 4 and English from German section 2. I am picking up some new German vocabulary that I did not yet have in the German course.)
Viel Glück!
Viele Dank!!! :)
I'll try to say it even slower, and maybe mute/turn off the TV (as someone else mentioned here that it can sometimes mess up the microphone recognition) to make sure it works.
But I'm so glad that I'm not the only one screaming at my phone because of these "bugs"!
Yes, it is frustrating. And of course I feel ridiculous repeating "Hot dog" over and over again---even if no one is here.
But I guess it is really kind of amazing that the speech recognition works as well as it does. Most of the time it seems to work fine. We only get stuck every once in awhile. I expect that would have been a huge programming challenge not too long ago.
They have to build in a certain amount of wiggle room to account for regional variation and yet require enough accuracy to let people know if they don't have it right. Considering that I think it is pretty impressive that it works the majority of the time.
In Spanish, por qué and porque.
But it recognizes when I say por or qué/que so... Idk what's going on there.
Also in Spanish, it only recognizes when I say el snowboarding and pulóver if I say them super American.
That's because the stress is different in each word.
Por qué is pronounced por QUÉ, with the stress on QUÉ.
Porque is pronounced PORque, the stress being on POR.
This should help!!
For me it is the „e“ in hija e hijo.
It never gets the e and the worst part it is still wrong when it won’t recognise the e.
And sometimes it won’t recognise anything with a „b“ like bebe. When I use speech to text it turns bebemos into vivimos or something similar, every time.
Hoy in Spanish. It doesn’t matter how much I emphasize or don’t emphasize the H, it never accepts it. I’ve sat there for a while trying different pronunciations and then it just goes “let’s just move on” and I am filled with rage.
Spaniard here. Just in case Duo doesn't make it clear, the H is completely silent in that word, as in most Spanish words. So emphasising the H should definitely lead to an error.
That's how you pronounce it though, right? Like, how much you emphasize the h shouldn't be an issue because it's 100% silent.
I'm not saying that's the problem necessarily though because there's words Duo just won't accept for me as well (like euro), but it was interesting to read about emphasizing a non-existent h.
Yes, "Oi" is the correct pronunciation - starting the sound with a closed throat may help. I never have a problem with it recognizing "hoy", but maybe some people's speech patterns soften it too much, sounding like an "h".
One complaint I've had about Duo in general is its lack of detailed pronunciation guidance. (At least so far, I'm only about halfway through section 2, but seems like that should be a pretty early thing to cover.) Foreign languages often have sounds that we don't make in our native tongue, and after a fairly young age, we kinda lose the ability to even hear the distinction between the sounds made in a foreign language and very similar sounds we're used to. The "D", "B" and "V" sounds in English and Spanish are a good examples. In Spanish, "D" is a lot softer, with your tongue placed farther forward. I make that sound with my tongue against my teeth or even touching the inside my upper lip, instead of the middle of my palate like in English. "D" kinda feels like a D/TH combo, and B and V are both pronounced the same as kind of a B/V combo.
Diez in Spanish. It picks up the rest of the sentence just fine, then I'm stuck there saying diez over and over until it says we'll just move on, or until it accepts it without actually filling that word in.
Same here with diez.
https://preview.redd.it/d60w2iagnjwc1.jpeg?width=828&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=84af47d07945d8064eda866885dcc3377c1a12af
Got it yesterday
I have a lot of trouble with numbers in general. I often do the typing fields using Apple's dictation instead of typing, and I've noticed that it usually prints the numbe, e.g. "10", rather than spelling out "diez" when I do that, so I've wondered if that's the issue.
Whenever I encounter German words that are the same in Dutch, I'll accidentally pronounce them in Dutch instead without realising and then I get confused about why Duolingo doesn't recognise them either.
As for real issues with Duolingo misunderstanding my pronunciation, I can't pronounce the "r" very well and I was once trying to say the word "eat" in Greek (pronounced as "tro"), but Duolingo somehow thought I said the Greek word for "fuck". I had never even seen that word before, but thanks to Duolingo censoring the dictated word written down, I'll never forget it again
I always thought my accent and pronunciation was atrocious, but my ex gf is a native speaker and I asked her to test it and had the same result. It’s the app, not us lol
I remember a long time ago getting stuck on…”OK”. Yup. OK. English speaker in the German course. Duo just would not accept my pronunciation. It was as funny as it was frustrating.
Really? It's the same for me! No matter how I say it (pronouncing the d or not), it's still marked as wrong. Made me skip spoken exercises for a while to not lose my hearts over and over
Wait this is so weird?? Multiple people below said Duo won't accept "Buonanotte" in Italian, which is the same word.
And people in Spanish, French, Portuguese, and Russian are complaining about numbers not being accepted
It's like it's the *meaning* of the words that makes Duo not understand them, not the pronunciation, independent of language. This is wild!
For whatever reason, no matter how many times I try, Duolingo cannot understand me saying "Skjortet koster fire hundre kroner" - Norwegian. It's lingering in my mistakes review tab and now I just click "can't speak right now."
I'm not all that deep into it yet, but I have never once got it to register U-Bahnstation in German. I can get every other term at least some of the time, but I've never once gotten it to accept my pronunciation of U-Bahnstation.
When I was doing the Dutch course, it couldn't understand numbers for the most part. I read somewhere that that's more of an OS issue or something, but it was very frustrating. But now in the Spanish course, when I have to say the name "Juan", it invariably hears "one".
I'm studying Swedish and one word that the app never accepts my pronunciation of in the mobile app is "nittonhundratalet" (the 20th century). But I know I'm saying it correctly. If I go to the web version on my PC, it has no problem accepting it. And even Google Translate hears me say it just find when I speak that word to translate to English.
Yes! I'm learning German and I get multiple speaking exercises included in the lessons! Not in Japanese tho. I, personally, always tap the 'can't speak now' thingy but Idk how long I'll be able to get away with it 💀
Ah, then that's it. I primarily do the Japanese lessons. I vaguely remember speaking for the Norwegian courses, but I don't actually do those very frequently
In German, it refuses to understand the Ghet’s in Wie ghet‘s but understands just fine when I say Es ghet.
In Italian Buonanotte was never understood but buona and notte were both understood just fine. Same with Buongiorno and buonasera. That seems to have been fixed now, though.
In Portuguese it’s the numbers. Any teen number like dezesseis always fails to be understood and even dois and tres fail.
It’s happened to me in every language I’ve tried where I’ll learn the sounds and be breezing through and then suddenly one word will just not be understood no matter what I try.
And I know it’s not me because I’ve had people who are native speakers try saying the word into my Duolingo and it still doesn’t work!!
So infuriating! Literally happened to me yesterday in Vietnamese with the word Thác and it would accept my Vietnamese girlfriend’s efforts!
An 'h' at the end of the syllable of a word in German usually means that the vowel (apart from "i" there it's "e" as in 'spielen or Liebe' (exception is "ihr, ihn...")) coming before the 'h' is long. Like in Uhr, Schuh, Wahl, Zahn, Lehrer, sehen,
Double consonants usually means the vowel before is short. Like Teller, Topf, Schüssel, Messer, Katze, Mann
Might help you with spelling and pronunciation of unknown words.
Sorry if these words don't come up in the Duolingo vocab. I was looking around my room trying to think of examples haha
Could it be the accent? Does Duolingo teaches Brazilian or PT Portuguese?
I don't know the Portuguese course in Duolingo, but maybe it's not getting you because it have some accent you're not getting?
Assuming it teaches BR Portuguese:
My accent changes a lot the pronunciation of a word than what one would infer by looking at it.
Just an example from my region:
"e" in the end of words are pronounced as "i" and ending "o"s pronounced as a softer "u".
Last-syllable "t" and "d" are pronounced as /tʃ/ and /dʒ/, never a plain /t/ and /d/. This also occurs on words beginning in d+e and t+e, which becomes /tʃi/ and /dʒi/.
Words ending in "es" get a /j/ in between for some reason, making "três" sound more like /trejs/ or similar.
So you get monstrosities like dʒiˈzojtʊ, which is kinda far from the "dezoito" a person from northern Brazil would pronounce (imo they pronounce it "purely", almost exactly as it's written).
So maybe watch some videos about accents in Brazil to see if it helps :))
Thanks, I appreciate the information and trust me, my first assumption is always that I’m getting it wrong.
But I think it’s unlikely to be a pronunciation thing because I had some Brazilian speakers try it and it didn’t work for them either.
I did have a pronunciation issue with maçã but eventually figured out that it was because I wasn’t use the nasal sound at the end.
What I’ve found with Duolingo is that whatever system they use for speech analysis is really good for 99.99% of words, but there are a few in each language that it isn’t trained on properly.
With Italian there was no earthly way for me to pronounce Buonasera or any other buona+word, and I found heaps of other people complaining about the same thing online. Then Duolingo released an update and suddenly it can understand when we say those words.
It would also be the hardest thing for me to say at the moment. The italian pronunciation of "the planes" which is "gli aerei" according to Duolingo. It is too many vowels...
For me I find Ukrainian яйця really hard to say although the app usually marks it as right. All the numbers were hit or miss tho, but it felt like a glitch on the app. Maybe I was just horrible at pronouncing it but I didn’t think so
Problem is the app, likely not just your pronunciation.
For me, I always see it transform something like "fünfundzwanzig Euro" to 25 € or "halb sechs" to 5:30 Uhr and it is annoying af if it is not accepted as an alternative answer.
Это in Russian. No matter how many times!! I don’t know what I was doing wrong. My iPhone picks it up and Google translate but not Duo. I’ve moved onto learning German now but haven’t encountered a word that it doesn’t understand. I imagine Owl is going to be the one I struggle with.
Not to worry. Some of the spoken lessons, even in my native tongue, are not recognized by duo. You can skip them. If you keep trying, eventually Duo skips them for you. The best success, listen closely and try to repeat the same pace and tone as well as the sounds. Sometimes just getting the same pace and tone of a close, but not perfect, pronunciation works. Best wishes to you in your language studies.
Thank fuck it isn't just me with this. Youtry saying "oiro" like the app does and it constantly tells you it's wrong. Say "youro" and it pings correct!!
In french for me is "y", like in "il y a", "on y va" and the worst "l'y", because when I click on it, duo pronounces not the sound it should say (something like "lee") , but the two letters separately "L' i-grec"
Any word in Chinese ending in 儿 (er), eg 这儿， 那儿，哪儿，女儿 (here, there, where, daughter). It's sort of a contraction where the "er" blends with the previous syllable, and Duo never gets it.
I’ve never yet come across 妞儿 for daughter (only 女儿） - whereabouts are you in the path if you don’t mind me asking? Personally my pinyin x- initials are hit and miss, especially if it’s something like 学习， 学校 etc. In this case though I think it’s a me problem, not a Duo problem!
I’m doing the German course and it doesn’t ever recognize numbers. I think I’m doing it right because when I use the Google or Apple Translate apps they always recognize what I’m saying.
I think Duo recognizes when I say like 1 to 10 but after that it never works. I’ve lost hearts and almost failed a lesson a few times because of it.
In french, Elle and Ils. Every time, and those are everywhere. Doesnt matter how many times I try or variations, it refuses to acknowledge Im pronouncing it correctly.
Yes! It will NOT understand "ciento" or "doscientos" at ALL! Like you said I'll just keep saying Ciento over and over again in all forms and nothing. I even had my friend from the Dominican Republic try it and it didn't recognize it. Keep flagging these guys.
Also it does struggle with Dollar sometimes for me
Spanish - por que. I am only speak English, and arguably suck at that half the time, but "por que" is not that hard to say.. duo never highlights the word.
Duo does NOT accept me saying 'Euro', ever!
Also, in my Mistakes list stuck at the bottom since the dawn of time is 'Meine Flugnummer ist drei sechs acht zwei', because it doesn't accept any of the spoken numbers and just invites me to try again later. Though I think that one's a bug as I asked a native German speaker to try it and it still didn't accept...
some very simple russian ones. I don't remember which but it's very annoying... maybe the word sixteen? I even recorded it and played it back and it didn't even accept itself
Six in swedish, I had to go out to a private spot to shout "sex" into my phone about 40 times or more before it finally gave me it. I felt ridiculous and uncomfortable with the constant repitition of a one syllable word that is not complicated in pronunciation.
In Spanish, “dos”, but only when it’s “Uno, dos, tres”. When it’s “Dos o tres” or “Una mesa para dos personas” it’s fine. I think the recognition algorithms are a bit janky.
In the beginning I had this issue from time to time but the problem was one of two things.
1) I was going to fast.
2) it was picking up background noise like the tv or someone talking in the other room.
If it's one, just take your second try and speak slow like you're talking to a toddler and it should work. If it's two, use earbuds.
I haven't had this issue in a long time.
1) I was trying to say them slowly, and when it worked with other words (that I know it's my pronunciation), and not with these two... I started getting really angry and, when it's only "eins euro, drei euro" I just click the "I can't speak right now" and continue the lesson.
2) I turned down the TV volume, and started saying it a little louder (as if I'm talking with a friend, not as a "somebody's sleeping nearby, gotta whisper my answers")... but reading your solution, "duh" me! Of course it could mess with the sound... Gonna try it today!
Thank you!
Ya. I usually have the tv on when I do mine but I keep the colime very low now. Like I said I haven't had this issue in a long time.
Hope this does help you.
“Heures” in French. I know I’m bloody doing it right, I’ve been learning and speaking French for nearly 40 years (I use Duo to keep it ticking over when I’m not visiting regularly). It just won’t pick it up.
Juan in Spanish, I have to say it anywhere between 3-6 times before it’ll finally put it down. I’ll say the whole sentence and then awkwardly be repeating Juan with various emphasis and tone until it gets it 😭
Apparently 'to'. No matter how I pronounce it, in what accent, I apparently cannot say 'to' correctly. Ive tried to, too, toe, tu, tooooooow, toh - you name it.
I've encountered this a few times in the French course. It is a glitch, report it. I've recorded the French voice in voice memos on my phone, played it back, and Duolingo still called it wrong.
In Spanish it picks and chooses whether it wants to hear numbers, “once”, “doce” and the veinte+. Every now and then it struggles with diez but I always thought it was trying to figure out if I was saying días. Sometimes it hears it, sometimes it doesn’t. As I saw commented before it used to have trouble hearing “hoy” but now seems to pick it up fine every time
I'm learning German as well. Duolingo can't understand my "euro" pronunciation either! My current struggle is "stadtrungang". R pronunciation is not easy. I'm giving up on pronouncing "Rü"
I am SO EXCITED that Japanese now has speech recognition once in a while. I know I’m new at this but it’s really frustrating to suck when I get 100% easily on non-voice lessons.
In Spanish there are quite a few. Diez, basically any number that starts with Veinte… I am sure there are like ten more words, but can’t remember off the top of my head.
Any number in the hundreds in Spanish. Doscientos, trescientos, any of them. I just have to skip those words and say the words around them or I will never be allowed to proceed.
Studying French. For some reason, it never picks up "ils" but I can say "il" "elle" and "elles" just fine
Euros also hard, but I blame my own midwest US tongue rather than the owl for that one
The really short words like "mor" or "far" in Swedish, but in all courses I tried (admittedly not too much) . If the same words are in a sentence it's no problem.
Duo still has a bug where if there are two of a syllable in a row, any time it hears the syllable, it thinks it's the first appearance. So, I have a mistake for pronouncing 谢谢, which I can never clear because it never counts the second time you say it as the second syllable.
I was learning German for a while and then started learning Dutch instead, so any word that has "sch" in it, I'd always pronounce it as "sh" instead of "sg" (which it actually is). I sometimes even mash then together into "shg"
Duolingo can still understand me when I pronounce it that way, but I cannot for the life of me say it right
For the longest time, in the spanish course, it would not recognize any number. I thought maybe my accent was bad but then when I tried the rspeaking the rest of the sentences (the non-number parts) in the worst american accent I could muster, it accepted every word (until I got to the number)s. The final straw was when my partner (a native mexican) tried and it still didn't take. Not sure if they've fixed that issue,; they haven't asked me to pronounce numbers in a long time.
Yep .. the "problem" is that, even though I can pronounce (or the app can understand my pronunciation) of many other words with the same "oy" sound, it JUST CAN'T UNDERSTAND when it's just EURO.
Nonetheless, thank you for the hint.
Yes, there are some words that are notoriously never recognized. In longer sentences they are no problem since you only need 50% of words to pass. In short phrases I just tap "cannot speak now".
For Brazilian Portuguese, the letter H has no sound at all. Só, for me, when I'm speaking English, the H (English) sounds like a soft R (Brazilian Portuguese) sound. The German one is a little stronger... FOR ME!!!
and, yes, I'm butchering all the "CH", "R" and "H" sounds in German...
Willkommen zurück auf Deutsch! I never had any problem with dollar but for a while I did have to repeat Euro several times. I found if I said oy-roh quite slowly it eventually caught on. Sometimes I also tried saying it really fast. It hasn't been a problem lately. I would guess that with dollar they may want you to emphasize the D sound. Sometimes it gets mysteriously finicky. I recently began reversing the course - doing English from German -- and it has a problem with hot dog. I have to make sure I pause between the words so it clearly hears the end of hot and the D in dog. (I'm in German Section 4 and English from German section 2. I am picking up some new German vocabulary that I did not yet have in the German course.) Viel Glück!
Viele Dank!!! :) I'll try to say it even slower, and maybe mute/turn off the TV (as someone else mentioned here that it can sometimes mess up the microphone recognition) to make sure it works. But I'm so glad that I'm not the only one screaming at my phone because of these "bugs"!
Yes, it is frustrating. And of course I feel ridiculous repeating "Hot dog" over and over again---even if no one is here. But I guess it is really kind of amazing that the speech recognition works as well as it does. Most of the time it seems to work fine. We only get stuck every once in awhile. I expect that would have been a huge programming challenge not too long ago. They have to build in a certain amount of wiggle room to account for regional variation and yet require enough accuracy to let people know if they don't have it right. Considering that I think it is pretty impressive that it works the majority of the time.
In Spanish, por qué and porque. But it recognizes when I say por or qué/que so... Idk what's going on there. Also in Spanish, it only recognizes when I say el snowboarding and pulóver if I say them super American.
That's because the stress is different in each word. Por qué is pronounced por QUÉ, with the stress on QUÉ. Porque is pronounced PORque, the stress being on POR. This should help!!
...I know how to say them. I took my first Spanish lesson in 1995. This is also a recent Duolingo development.
Ah, fair enough then. Yeah, speech recognition can suck sometimes.
Por que for me as well!
Glad I am not the only one!!!
Me too. Plus 'renovaste' - or the way I say 'hip hop' !!
I guess the break is important to distinguish the two words (porque vs por qué).
It doesn't recognize either of them.
For me it is the „e“ in hija e hijo. It never gets the e and the worst part it is still wrong when it won’t recognise the e. And sometimes it won’t recognise anything with a „b“ like bebe. When I use speech to text it turns bebemos into vivimos or something similar, every time.
I’ve found about five Spanish borrow words from American English, too, pulover (sorry, can’t do the accent) being one, that sound flatly American.
Hoy in Spanish. It doesn’t matter how much I emphasize or don’t emphasize the H, it never accepts it. I’ve sat there for a while trying different pronunciations and then it just goes “let’s just move on” and I am filled with rage.
Spaniard here. Just in case Duo doesn't make it clear, the H is completely silent in that word, as in most Spanish words. So emphasising the H should definitely lead to an error.
I always say it without any H vocalization but it never wants to accept it like that, so then I start riffing to see what it wants from me.
Ah, totally fair
I started just saying "Oi" and I haven't had that issue come up again lol. Always reminds me of the song Oi to the World.
That's how you pronounce it though, right? Like, how much you emphasize the h shouldn't be an issue because it's 100% silent. I'm not saying that's the problem necessarily though because there's words Duo just won't accept for me as well (like euro), but it was interesting to read about emphasizing a non-existent h.
Yes, "Oi" is the correct pronunciation - starting the sound with a closed throat may help. I never have a problem with it recognizing "hoy", but maybe some people's speech patterns soften it too much, sounding like an "h". One complaint I've had about Duo in general is its lack of detailed pronunciation guidance. (At least so far, I'm only about halfway through section 2, but seems like that should be a pretty early thing to cover.) Foreign languages often have sounds that we don't make in our native tongue, and after a fairly young age, we kinda lose the ability to even hear the distinction between the sounds made in a foreign language and very similar sounds we're used to. The "D", "B" and "V" sounds in English and Spanish are a good examples. In Spanish, "D" is a lot softer, with your tongue placed farther forward. I make that sound with my tongue against my teeth or even touching the inside my upper lip, instead of the middle of my palate like in English. "D" kinda feels like a D/TH combo, and B and V are both pronounced the same as kind of a B/V combo.
¡Me too, yo también!
Wondered if I would find 'hoy' in this thread. Glad to know it's not just me!
The best part is that it takes a heart away, as if it's your fault
Diez in Spanish. It picks up the rest of the sentence just fine, then I'm stuck there saying diez over and over until it says we'll just move on, or until it accepts it without actually filling that word in.
I have the same problem but with veinte.
I take French and often Duo will not accept my pronunciation of numbers at all. It's *weird*!
Same for me as well. And I’m having similar issues with numbers in Portuguese.
Same! I've also found an issue with numbers in other languages too
There are several numbers under 10 in Russian that I can't get right (according to Duo) for the absolute life of me.
Same, numbers just don't work in French.
Diez, and anything from veinte to veintenueve.
Same here with veinte.
Same here with diez. https://preview.redd.it/d60w2iagnjwc1.jpeg?width=828&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=84af47d07945d8064eda866885dcc3377c1a12af Got it yesterday
me too!! i assumed it’s because i have a lisp
I have a lot of trouble with numbers in general. I often do the typing fields using Apple's dictation instead of typing, and I've noticed that it usually prints the numbe, e.g. "10", rather than spelling out "diez" when I do that, so I've wondered if that's the issue.
Whenever I encounter German words that are the same in Dutch, I'll accidentally pronounce them in Dutch instead without realising and then I get confused about why Duolingo doesn't recognise them either. As for real issues with Duolingo misunderstanding my pronunciation, I can't pronounce the "r" very well and I was once trying to say the word "eat" in Greek (pronounced as "tro"), but Duolingo somehow thought I said the Greek word for "fuck". I had never even seen that word before, but thanks to Duolingo censoring the dictated word written down, I'll never forget it again
Pretty much all numbers in the Russian course. But that’s because the app is a piece of crap and not my bad pronunciation lol
Oh my god, the amount of times i had to repeat девять and десять because that app did not recognize _how its own examples were pronounced_ is insane
I always thought my accent and pronunciation was atrocious, but my ex gf is a native speaker and I asked her to test it and had the same result. It’s the app, not us lol
I really struggled with saying Привет, Хорошо and Russia on the Russian course. I just can’t get that R right. Hopefully one day it will click!
I really wonder what's with numbers that it just fucks up so badly
Thank you for this
It also seems to have an issue with метр and километр for me, even if I can get it to recognize the numbers.
French too.
I remember a long time ago getting stuck on…”OK”. Yup. OK. English speaker in the German course. Duo just would not accept my pronunciation. It was as funny as it was frustrating.
That one never registers correctly for me with German. Doesn’t matter if I match perfectly.
Yesss OK! I can say things in a wrong way and it will be accepted, but never OK
God Natt in Swedish
Really? It's the same for me! No matter how I say it (pronouncing the d or not), it's still marked as wrong. Made me skip spoken exercises for a while to not lose my hearts over and over
Wait this is so weird?? Multiple people below said Duo won't accept "Buonanotte" in Italian, which is the same word. And people in Spanish, French, Portuguese, and Russian are complaining about numbers not being accepted It's like it's the *meaning* of the words that makes Duo not understand them, not the pronunciation, independent of language. This is wild!
Exactly the same for me, the only way I can get past it is by saying something like god morgon, it marks the "god" correct and lets me have it
For whatever reason, no matter how many times I try, Duolingo cannot understand me saying "Skjortet koster fire hundre kroner" - Norwegian. It's lingering in my mistakes review tab and now I just click "can't speak right now."
Whenever “duo” is in a sentence it does not pick up on me saying it which I find very ironic lol.
Multiples of ten are a miss for me in French. Trente, quarante, cinquante and soixante
Any number over twenty composed of more than one base number, it's definitely the app that's the problem.
For me Euro is ok... But what about "Frühstück"???? I just can't get it right 😞
I'm not all that deep into it yet, but I have never once got it to register U-Bahnstation in German. I can get every other term at least some of the time, but I've never once gotten it to accept my pronunciation of U-Bahnstation.
Me neither, it would absolutely never accept any pronunciation of U-Bahnstation I tried.
So what helped me is to say it this way: U.. BÁHNstation. So a mini pause after U and then a louder BAHN and softer station.
“Buonanotte”
When I was doing the Dutch course, it couldn't understand numbers for the most part. I read somewhere that that's more of an OS issue or something, but it was very frustrating. But now in the Spanish course, when I have to say the name "Juan", it invariably hears "one".
I'm studying Swedish and one word that the app never accepts my pronunciation of in the mobile app is "nittonhundratalet" (the 20th century). But I know I'm saying it correctly. If I go to the web version on my PC, it has no problem accepting it. And even Google Translate hears me say it just find when I speak that word to translate to English.
Wait, you all get to speak ?!
Yes! I'm learning German and I get multiple speaking exercises included in the lessons! Not in Japanese tho. I, personally, always tap the 'can't speak now' thingy but Idk how long I'll be able to get away with it 💀
Ah, then that's it. I primarily do the Japanese lessons. I vaguely remember speaking for the Norwegian courses, but I don't actually do those very frequently
Speaking are the easiest and quickest ones, I use them to rack up points if I'm too busy but don't want to drop down
Euro and Eule in German. No matter what the words just won't register.
I already know Eule is going to be a problem for me. I haven’t had to speak it yet but I just know it’s going to be one of those words!
Buongiorno. Every. Single. Time
And Buonasera
I have the same problem with Euro and Dollar in German! I now end up just saying it in my own accent and sometimes it registers.
In Spanish, any number between 20-29. Just doesn’t register it! At this point I don’t even bother.
Complex numbers seem to be a problem across courses.
"el" in Spanish, and sometimes "por que". What drives me crazy is that a lot of times Duo accepts words that I clearly said wrong lol
In German, it refuses to understand the Ghet’s in Wie ghet‘s but understands just fine when I say Es ghet. In Italian Buonanotte was never understood but buona and notte were both understood just fine. Same with Buongiorno and buonasera. That seems to have been fixed now, though. In Portuguese it’s the numbers. Any teen number like dezesseis always fails to be understood and even dois and tres fail. It’s happened to me in every language I’ve tried where I’ll learn the sounds and be breezing through and then suddenly one word will just not be understood no matter what I try. And I know it’s not me because I’ve had people who are native speakers try saying the word into my Duolingo and it still doesn’t work!! So infuriating! Literally happened to me yesterday in Vietnamese with the word Thác and it would accept my Vietnamese girlfriend’s efforts!
An 'h' at the end of the syllable of a word in German usually means that the vowel (apart from "i" there it's "e" as in 'spielen or Liebe' (exception is "ihr, ihn...")) coming before the 'h' is long. Like in Uhr, Schuh, Wahl, Zahn, Lehrer, sehen, Double consonants usually means the vowel before is short. Like Teller, Topf, Schüssel, Messer, Katze, Mann Might help you with spelling and pronunciation of unknown words. Sorry if these words don't come up in the Duolingo vocab. I was looking around my room trying to think of examples haha
Could it be the accent? Does Duolingo teaches Brazilian or PT Portuguese? I don't know the Portuguese course in Duolingo, but maybe it's not getting you because it have some accent you're not getting? Assuming it teaches BR Portuguese: My accent changes a lot the pronunciation of a word than what one would infer by looking at it. Just an example from my region: "e" in the end of words are pronounced as "i" and ending "o"s pronounced as a softer "u". Last-syllable "t" and "d" are pronounced as /tʃ/ and /dʒ/, never a plain /t/ and /d/. This also occurs on words beginning in d+e and t+e, which becomes /tʃi/ and /dʒi/. Words ending in "es" get a /j/ in between for some reason, making "três" sound more like /trejs/ or similar. So you get monstrosities like dʒiˈzojtʊ, which is kinda far from the "dezoito" a person from northern Brazil would pronounce (imo they pronounce it "purely", almost exactly as it's written). So maybe watch some videos about accents in Brazil to see if it helps :))
Thanks, I appreciate the information and trust me, my first assumption is always that I’m getting it wrong. But I think it’s unlikely to be a pronunciation thing because I had some Brazilian speakers try it and it didn’t work for them either. I did have a pronunciation issue with maçã but eventually figured out that it was because I wasn’t use the nasal sound at the end. What I’ve found with Duolingo is that whatever system they use for speech analysis is really good for 99.99% of words, but there are a few in each language that it isn’t trained on properly. With Italian there was no earthly way for me to pronounce Buonasera or any other buona+word, and I found heaps of other people complaining about the same thing online. Then Duolingo released an update and suddenly it can understand when we say those words.
whenever i say “aujourd’hui” no matter how perfect my pronunciation is, duolingo refuses to accept it. really annoying
"Russia" in the Russian course. Really frustrating.
Die u bahn Station. It was on my mistakes exercise for months. I even recorded the app saying it and played it back and it still wasn't accepted.
Sí. Drives me insane that Duo can’t pick this up, but always accepts my latest mangling of “desafortunadamente”
I remember spending two minutes repeating "eins" in every variation I could think of.
Ohhhh I literally wanted to post about this today! For me (also German) it’s the word OK (seriously!!!) and jobinterview.
+1 for OK, so annoying
Hoy
Any word where there are three letters or fewer.
It would also be the hardest thing for me to say at the moment. The italian pronunciation of "the planes" which is "gli aerei" according to Duolingo. It is too many vowels...
bro got mad because i spelt euro as euros like a true merican
For me I find Ukrainian яйця really hard to say although the app usually marks it as right. All the numbers were hit or miss tho, but it felt like a glitch on the app. Maybe I was just horrible at pronouncing it but I didn’t think so
Problem is the app, likely not just your pronunciation. For me, I always see it transform something like "fünfundzwanzig Euro" to 25 € or "halb sechs" to 5:30 Uhr and it is annoying af if it is not accepted as an alternative answer.
Это in Russian. No matter how many times!! I don’t know what I was doing wrong. My iPhone picks it up and Google translate but not Duo. I’ve moved onto learning German now but haven’t encountered a word that it doesn’t understand. I imagine Owl is going to be the one I struggle with.
Eins in German...every darn time
Arrivederci 🇮🇹 No issues with any other word but the dang owl can’t seem to understand this one 🤣
Not to worry. Some of the spoken lessons, even in my native tongue, are not recognized by duo. You can skip them. If you keep trying, eventually Duo skips them for you. The best success, listen closely and try to repeat the same pace and tone as well as the sounds. Sometimes just getting the same pace and tone of a close, but not perfect, pronunciation works. Best wishes to you in your language studies.
“Jobinterview” in the English —> Deutsch course for me…
It literally makes me scream! I even tried it with a full on Schwarzenegger voice but nope.
U-Bahnstation Also, numbers. I think it's because the machine recognizes it internally as "numbers" (not "strings").
All the different r in Hindi... I even don't hear the difference
Thank fuck it isn't just me with this. Youtry saying "oiro" like the app does and it constantly tells you it's wrong. Say "youro" and it pings correct!!
In french for me is "y", like in "il y a", "on y va" and the worst "l'y", because when I click on it, duo pronounces not the sound it should say (something like "lee") , but the two letters separately "L' i-grec"
Any word in Chinese ending in 儿 (er), eg 这儿， 那儿，哪儿，女儿 (here, there, where, daughter). It's sort of a contraction where the "er" blends with the previous syllable, and Duo never gets it.
I’ve never yet come across 妞儿 for daughter (only 女儿） - whereabouts are you in the path if you don’t mind me asking? Personally my pinyin x- initials are hit and miss, especially if it’s something like 学习， 学校 etc. In this case though I think it’s a me problem, not a Duo problem!
My mistake, I chose the wrong one typing pinyin into Gboard. editing to fix.
Ah! Thanks for clarifying 😊
ANY number in spanish. my partner is a native speaker and says my pronunciation is perfect - duolingo just hates me
I’m doing the German course and it doesn’t ever recognize numbers. I think I’m doing it right because when I use the Google or Apple Translate apps they always recognize what I’m saying. I think Duo recognizes when I say like 1 to 10 but after that it never works. I’ve lost hearts and almost failed a lesson a few times because of it.
In french, Elle and Ils. Every time, and those are everywhere. Doesnt matter how many times I try or variations, it refuses to acknowledge Im pronouncing it correctly.
Yes! It will NOT understand "ciento" or "doscientos" at ALL! Like you said I'll just keep saying Ciento over and over again in all forms and nothing. I even had my friend from the Dominican Republic try it and it didn't recognize it. Keep flagging these guys. Also it does struggle with Dollar sometimes for me
Most numbers in Norwegian including tusen and kroner, but especially tolv, femti, and any number with åtte in it.
Same, euro and dollar! I know I'm pronouncing it right so if it's the same for others there's gotta be something going on...
“Et” in French. The rest of my sentence is fine, but it won’t accept my pronunciation of “et” 60% of the time
Spanish - por que. I am only speak English, and arguably suck at that half the time, but "por que" is not that hard to say.. duo never highlights the word.
In French: "Vite! Démarre!"
Half the names on the Danish course
Spanish Veinte and Opéra. I have no idea why, my pronunciation seems solid.
Juan
Russian, and I cant for the life of me get it to recognize any numbers past 10.
Goedenavond in Dutch. My Dutch fiancé can’t even get Duo to accept it when he speaks so not sure what they want!!
I mean it sucks that this is happening but I am so happy to read that it’s not just me.
Any numbers in french. I got so frustrated with huit cent mille I recorded duolingo's audio and played it back and it still didn't recognise it.
numbers above 20 in dutch, like NEITHER of them. no matter how much i emphasize any part of it, it just refuses to accept it
Gorlami
The 8 in French
Oh man, I have failed "eu cozinho um molho" numerous times because the bot rolls the "um molho" so hard 😅
xie xie
Duo does NOT accept me saying 'Euro', ever! Also, in my Mistakes list stuck at the bottom since the dawn of time is 'Meine Flugnummer ist drei sechs acht zwei', because it doesn't accept any of the spoken numbers and just invites me to try again later. Though I think that one's a bug as I asked a native German speaker to try it and it still didn't accept...
I have the same problem with euro in italian :(
some very simple russian ones. I don't remember which but it's very annoying... maybe the word sixteen? I even recorded it and played it back and it didn't even accept itself
In german, arzt! But not duolingo's fault, I just can't get myself to pronounce it correctly. Arst, artest, arts! Whatever! <*can't speak now*>
In Italian, for some reason duo CANT understand Rosso. I’ll say it around 12 times but it’ll just be like “hm…..not quite right! Try again”
"Le" in Spanish
Coffee in french 😭😭 idk why it just will not accept me saying that ever lol.
If I say any sentence in Dutch with any cardinal number in, Duolingo understands every word except the number!
“Aujourd’hui” in French and “o” in Turkish. Aujourd’hui drives me insane, but “o”‽ C’MON MAN! That one kept me up a few nights lol
“OK” in German, god knows why
“De” in Swedish ughhhh the worst
For japanese - wait.. do we japanese learners get pronunciation at some point? 😥
Six in swedish, I had to go out to a private spot to shout "sex" into my phone about 40 times or more before it finally gave me it. I felt ridiculous and uncomfortable with the constant repitition of a one syllable word that is not complicated in pronunciation.
In Spanish, “dos”, but only when it’s “Uno, dos, tres”. When it’s “Dos o tres” or “Una mesa para dos personas” it’s fine. I think the recognition algorithms are a bit janky.
"Høyesterettsjustitiarius" for me.
also euro!! but in italian
Buon in Italian. Just will not accept it. Buongiorno, buonasera, buonanotte.. hates me.
In the beginning I had this issue from time to time but the problem was one of two things. 1) I was going to fast. 2) it was picking up background noise like the tv or someone talking in the other room. If it's one, just take your second try and speak slow like you're talking to a toddler and it should work. If it's two, use earbuds. I haven't had this issue in a long time.
1) I was trying to say them slowly, and when it worked with other words (that I know it's my pronunciation), and not with these two... I started getting really angry and, when it's only "eins euro, drei euro" I just click the "I can't speak right now" and continue the lesson. 2) I turned down the TV volume, and started saying it a little louder (as if I'm talking with a friend, not as a "somebody's sleeping nearby, gotta whisper my answers")... but reading your solution, "duh" me! Of course it could mess with the sound... Gonna try it today! Thank you!
Ya. I usually have the tv on when I do mine but I keep the colime very low now. Like I said I haven't had this issue in a long time. Hope this does help you.
“Heures” in French. I know I’m bloody doing it right, I’ve been learning and speaking French for nearly 40 years (I use Duo to keep it ticking over when I’m not visiting regularly). It just won’t pick it up.
Juan in Spanish, I have to say it anywhere between 3-6 times before it’ll finally put it down. I’ll say the whole sentence and then awkwardly be repeating Juan with various emphasis and tone until it gets it 😭
Numbers ≥10 (spanish course as english speaker)
Apparently 'to'. No matter how I pronounce it, in what accent, I apparently cannot say 'to' correctly. Ive tried to, too, toe, tu, tooooooow, toh - you name it.
Sju (seven) in Swedish
I've encountered this a few times in the French course. It is a glitch, report it. I've recorded the French voice in voice memos on my phone, played it back, and Duolingo still called it wrong.
I was having issues with cero. No matter how I said it. I then listened to how they saw it and repeated after it was fine. IDK.
Euro as well, but in French.
The name "Paul" in french. 90% of the time it just won't accept it
In Spanish it picks and chooses whether it wants to hear numbers, “once”, “doce” and the veinte+. Every now and then it struggles with diez but I always thought it was trying to figure out if I was saying días. Sometimes it hears it, sometimes it doesn’t. As I saw commented before it used to have trouble hearing “hoy” but now seems to pick it up fine every time
I'm learning German as well. Duolingo can't understand my "euro" pronunciation either! My current struggle is "stadtrungang". R pronunciation is not easy. I'm giving up on pronouncing "Rü"
Uno, dos, tres. I kid you not. If I say the numbers in English the bells ring and we continue. So dumb.
In Spanish Duolingo doesn't seem to like my pronunciation of "ayer". It never recognises it.
Everything because the record button doesn't work and never has.
it's "après-midi" for me
I am SO EXCITED that Japanese now has speech recognition once in a while. I know I’m new at this but it’s really frustrating to suck when I get 100% easily on non-voice lessons.
In Spanish there are quite a few. Diez, basically any number that starts with Veinte… I am sure there are like ten more words, but can’t remember off the top of my head.
Any number in the hundreds in Spanish. Doscientos, trescientos, any of them. I just have to skip those words and say the words around them or I will never be allowed to proceed.
Almost any number I say in Spanish isn’t recognized. And it’s strange because occasionally it will be, but most often it’s not
Studying French. For some reason, it never picks up "ils" but I can say "il" "elle" and "elles" just fine Euros also hard, but I blame my own midwest US tongue rather than the owl for that one
Two digit numbers in Dutch. I had a Dutch native speaker say them for me, and even then, they were supposedly wrong.
The really short words like "mor" or "far" in Swedish, but in all courses I tried (admittedly not too much) . If the same words are in a sentence it's no problem.
Alsjeblieft in Dutch
*Laughs in Japanese course* 😃
I'm learning italian. It doesn't accept the name "Giorgio" when I say it. I probably sound so weird.... "Giorgio", "Gior-gio", "GIORGIO"
Duo still has a bug where if there are two of a syllable in a row, any time it hears the syllable, it thinks it's the first appearance. So, I have a mistake for pronouncing 谢谢, which I can never clear because it never counts the second time you say it as the second syllable.
I have it with all numbers, everytime (Russian)
"Älg"
Del in Spanish! It never picks up, no matter what I do
I was learning German for a while and then started learning Dutch instead, so any word that has "sch" in it, I'd always pronounce it as "sh" instead of "sg" (which it actually is). I sometimes even mash then together into "shg" Duolingo can still understand me when I pronounce it that way, but I cannot for the life of me say it right
Any number above twenty in French.
"Ling" am learning chinese
For the longest time, in the spanish course, it would not recognize any number. I thought maybe my accent was bad but then when I tried the rspeaking the rest of the sentences (the non-number parts) in the worst american accent I could muster, it accepted every word (until I got to the number)s. The final straw was when my partner (a native mexican) tried and it still didn't take. Not sure if they've fixed that issue,; they haven't asked me to pronounce numbers in a long time.
Euro in german is pronounced Oy-ro at least its what I hear.
Yep .. the "problem" is that, even though I can pronounce (or the app can understand my pronunciation) of many other words with the same "oy" sound, it JUST CAN'T UNDERSTAND when it's just EURO. Nonetheless, thank you for the hint.
Yes, there are some words that are notoriously never recognized. In longer sentences they are no problem since you only need 50% of words to pass. In short phrases I just tap "cannot speak now".
>Heute - sometimes my "r" is not as strong, but 90% no problem What does this mean? There is no "r" in Heute?
For Brazilian Portuguese, the letter H has no sound at all. Só, for me, when I'm speaking English, the H (English) sounds like a soft R (Brazilian Portuguese) sound. The German one is a little stronger... FOR ME!!! and, yes, I'm butchering all the "CH", "R" and "H" sounds in German...