Who Wants a Balloon? Or how I learned to love the owl

Like most people I know, my introduction to learning a foreign language occurred in elementary school. In my case, the language was French and the setting was a smaller than average classroom that might have accommodated 15 students. The lessons were scheduled later in the school day and the close quarters and bright sun that came through the windows warmed the small room, making it harder to focus.

Nevertheless, Madame W succeeded in capturing our attention with the help of a textbook that incorporated a series of dialogues—most memorably, one in which a child and his parent encounter the balloon man in a park. Even now, a friend and I can recite the lines.

Credit: Duolingo

Vendor: Ballons, ballons! Qui veut des ballons?” [Balloons, balloons, who wants balloons?]

Child: “Je voudrais un ballon.” [I would like a balloon]

Vendor: “De quelle couleur?” [What color?]

Child: “Je voudrais un ballon bleu.” [I would like a blue balloon.]

Vendor: La voila! [Here it is]

Parent: Combien ca coute? [How much does it cost?] My command of French is still quite modest, but I’m pleased that some of the early

vocabulary—and a tiny bit of grammar—stick with me. Fast forward many years, an upcoming trip to Quebec (where I do not expect to buy any balloons) has inspired me to brush up my skills using Duolingo. I’d read about the company’s co-founder and CEO, Louis von Ahn, some time ago and was duly impressed by his personal story and his early commitment to making foreign language learning accessible at no cost to anyone with Internet access. The policy remains in place, although users are frequently invited to upgrade to the inevitable (paid) premium level.

My first experience with Duo, the little owl mascot well known to users, who alternately cajoles, cheerleads, and guilts you into continuing your lessons, left me with the feeling that I am not the right demographic for the app. In fact, the company reports that the top three groups of users by age are 13-17 years old, followed by 18-22 year-olds and 23-29 year-olds.

“Too many bells and whistles,” I thought, as I tried to understand the rewards system and the meaning of the vibrations that took over my phone. “Not enough depth.” “And what about the grammar?” which continues to be my biggest challenge. But to my surprise, within a few days I was hooked. In addition to the satisfaction of seeing what I already know and regularly mastering new vocabulary, what keeps me motivated is the modest time commitment—in my case a maximum of 10 minutes a day—and the satisfaction of building an uninterrupted streak of daily lessons completed. I also have to admit to taking a certain satisfaction in eliciting approving responses from the various “people” who guide you through each session, peppered with references to nights out and who likes sushi (you can go down the rabbit hole on these characters here). Moreover, selective use of the mute function mitigates the gratuitously noisier

aspects of the Duolingo experience.

In the end, for me Duolingo is best viewed as a complement to more rigorous, traditional learning, whether through a program like Mango (free through many libraries) or in a physical or virtual classroom, but I am now a fan. The app’s use of social media is pretty interesting, too—a recent campaign in which Duo the owl was falsely reported to be dead made quite the impression in the Duo-sphere.

In preparation for my travels, in addition to brushing up my basic skills, I’m now spending some time on Youtube viewing videos that explain the differences between French as its spoken in Canada versus French spoken in France! But the creators of this content uniformly reassure the viewers that demonstrating a little effort toward speaking the native tongue goes a long way. As the Quebecois say, “C’est tigidou!”*

*Roughly, “It’s all good.”

Note: Duolingo has been in the news recently with a decision that those with reservations about AI can applaud. After announcing that employees’ effective use of AI would be part of their performance review, van Anh acknowledged that “At the end, we backtracked [on this decision], and we said, ‘No, look. The most important thing in your performance is you are doing whatever your job is as well as possible.’”