My love-hate relationship with DuoLingo

Updated 13 October 2024

DuoLingo is a language app available on Android and IOS as well as a web browser version. I have been using it every day for nearly two years to learn Ukrainian, usually on my phone (Android) and sometimes on my iPad (IOS) and once or twice on my PC. My experience, therefore, is based on just one language, so some of my comments are specific to that, whilst others are more generic.

Even the “Greens” are capitalists!

I am a supporter of the “green lobby” – that is, anything to do with helping to mitigate the effects of climate change. But sometimes the things you do just seem to come back and slap you in the face, and a case in point is green energy.

It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World

Source: Cinema a Go-Go

We live in the strangest of times. It feels like the 1963 movie's title that heads this article is more true of our world today than it was of the crazy comedy for which it was the title. Here are my contenders for why this is so.

The Crown - Netflix's often untrue history of the Royal Family

I have a love-hate relationship with The Crown, I love it because it is so well made and acted. The choices of actress and actor have been inspired. The production values are high and the filming is sumptuous. In short, it's great to look at, impeccably acted and very entertaining.

What can we learn from COVID-19?

It’s a truism to say that prevention is better than a cure ^[1], and no sane person would deny it’s better to stop something bad from happening than to deal with its consequences after it does.

So what can I do about climate change?

I am a foster carer and one of the 15-year-old girls in my care (we also care for her twin sister) is very keen on campaigning about climate change, having been on two recent climate school strikes. However, when I talk to her about what she could do personally, it's a struggle as she sees the problems as:

a) too big for an individual to make a difference;
b) the responsibility of the adults (who are to blame).

So this post is a kind of response to that, because I think everyone can make a difference - no matter how small. And a lot of small differences add up! Now there are lots of online resources that provide great advice about what you can do, and I have provided links to some of them below. I don't pretend to offer better or different options; this is simply my personal response to the issue. If it makes even one reader stop and think, and maybe take personal action as well, then I'll be well pleased!

Is Labour anti-Semitic?

Is the Labour Party anti-Semitic? I don't think anyone will ever know all the facts, but it seems to me that the media are playing up this label because

1. it's sensational, and the media love sensation, and
2. it's an easy way to tar Labour's image without actually analysing its policies or politics.

I'm Jewish by birth (though I became a Christian in my teens) - so that makes me Jewish by race, if not religion. I'm also a Labour supporter. That's because I believe that Labour's policies are the best for the country as a whole (and I'm not just talking 'Brexit' here). My take on Labour's so-called anti-Semitism is as follows:

Project Viability – a cybernetics approach, part 4

So far this series I have looked at the idea of Requisite Variety (part 1) in project management communications in terms of assessing the environment (part 2) and internal communications (part 3) within the project. In this final part we return to the environment this time looking at how we get the project messages “out there” effectively.

Project Viability – a cybernetics approach, part 3

In the first part of this series I introduced the idea of Requisite Variety and attempted to outline how it might apply to project management.  The second part looked in more detail at the inputs into a project from its external environment and the need for Attenuation (or filtering). This third installment covers information flows within the project.

Project Viability – a cybernetics approach, part 2

In the first part of this series I introduced the idea of Requisite Variety and attempted to outline how it might apply to project management.  This second part will look in more detail at the inputs into a project and the need for Attenuation (or filtering). There are two aspects to this: where attenuation should occur and how to attenuate effectively. The terms attenuation and filter are used interchangeably below.

Project Viability – a cybernetics approach, part 1

A lot has been said and written about why projects succeed and why they fail. Surveys are carried out and analyses published. And whilst many common themes emerge when you read about them, not a lot seems to change. It leaves me wondering whether we’re on quite the right track when we ask about project success or failure. I wonder of we should ask about project “viability”. Let me explain…

The five powers of “why”

As a parent I well remember when my daughters were little and they would often ask the question “why?”… repeatedly, and sometimes to the point of frustration! Intuitively they knew the power of why: it’s so much more important than what or how or who or when.
This article briefly discusses several ways in which why is so powerful.

The little law of project management

OK, so you think project management is an overhead. You know what has to be done, so why not just get on with it? All this paperwork just adds time (and cost)!

If I could have a penny for every time I’ve heard this or seen it written I’d be as rich as the proverbial millionaire! (Well a bit of an overstatement, but you get my meaning).
Well, for anyone who is a PM sceptic (and maybe even those who aren’t) let me introduce you to Little’s Law.

Business as unusual

The great InThinking thought-leader Bill Bellows gave an inspiring talk at the recent Lean Management Journal (LMJ) Annual Conference in Amsterdam (8-9 July 2015). A lot of what is written below draws from his insights¹ but I have added some of my own thoughts and references as well.

Is our fishbowl too big?

Imagine you are in a fishbowl. Imagine that you can see all around it, so you're completely aware of what's going on inside it. If you saw other fish causing havoc to the fishbowl environment so that the water is getting polluted and that the bowl has sprung a leak, would you ignore that? "Gosh, the water is running out and if I/we don't stop it draining the bowl, soon we'll have no water left!" If that was your reality, would you act?

If people want to do a good job, why don't they?

You often see it written or hear it said that people don't want to do a bad job at work. They may not love their job ("it's a means to an end") and they may not be workaholics ("I work the hours I'm paid"), but nevertheless while they are at work they don't want to do a bad job because it's demoralising and not good for self-esteem.

Viable Systems Modelling for Project Management part 8

In this series so far we have looked at each of Stafford Beers 5 Systems within the Viable Systems Model, relating them to project management, and also how the model is recursive so that the 5 systems are repeated at both lower and higher levels. I promised a round-up final post that proposed a VSM check-list for project management. That was over a year ago - how time flies! But I have got there eventually.

Viable Systems Modelling for Project Management part 7

If you have followed this series so far you’ll know that we have looked at each of Stafford Beers 5 Systems within the Viable Systems Model, relating them to project management. What more is there? Well Beer’s model is recursive, or fractal, and this is what this article covers.

Viable Systems Modelling for Project Management part 6

We have finally reached System 5 in our survey of the Viable Systems Model and how it applies to project management. As noted in the previous article, System 5 is responsible for top-level decisions.

Viable Systems Modelling for Project Management part 5

You can divide project management into three very broad areas of activity: governance, management and work stream activity. If you’ve followed this series on VSM so far you’ll hopefully realise that System 1 (operations) maps on to work stream activity, and Systems 2 and 3 map on to management. So it doesn’t take a genius to realise that governance maps on to Systems 4 and 5.