Tips for the Esperanto Course on Duolingo

I’ve recently been studying Esperanto using Duolingo, which has been a great experience. Duolingo has a beautiful and simple design and is completely intuitive, and I love how I can use the app when I’m not around my computer. There are a couple of tips I want to offer for people who are just starting off in the Esperanto course.

The Keyboard

The Esperanto alphabet is a little different from the English alphabet. The Esperanto alphabet has 28 characters:

a b c ĉ d e f g ĝ h ĥ i j ĵ k l m n o p r s ŝ t u ŭ v z

Notice the diacritical marks above some letters. Obviously, this poses problem when you’re trying to translate English sentences or transcribe spoken Esperanto words. And if you use both the web app and the mobile app, the problem is in two places. I’ll talk about getting the keyboard layout installed for a Mac first (if you have a different OS, check out this thread) and then I’ll talk about how to install a new keyboard for an iPhone.

MacOSX

The way my special keyboard works is by typing the semicolon character followed immediately by the character. For example ;c results in ĉ and ;C results in Ĉ. Super simple.

I downloaded this keyboard package from the New Zealand Esperanto Association. Look for the download under the heading “U.S.ExtEsp keyboard layout uses semicolon as dead key.” Once you download the file, the included ReadMe.pdf should help you do the rest.

iPhone Keyboard

Installing the iPhone layout is even easier. Just download the app Klavaro from the App Store. You can switch to another keyboard layout by pressing and holding the globe icon until it brings up additional keyboard options. While using the Duolingo Esperanto app, it should switch back and forth automatically where appropriate.

Mobile vs. Web App

It’s important to know ahead of time that the mobile app version of Duolingo is very different from the web version of Duolingo. I use both equally because each has their advantages. The mobile app is great for when I’m already in bed for the night but still need to complete some lessons to reach my goal for the day. I just pull out my phone, select a lesson and get started. Sometimes I do a lesson at lunch, too.

The web application offers a good amount of extra instruction at the beginning of each lesson group. In these instructions they explain (in English) things like the conjugation rules or how a certain letter is pronounced or the history of a set of words. Since Esperanto has completely regular grammar, this can accelerate learning because the rules are spelled out before the lesson. Before when I was using just the mobile app, it was taking me longer to figure out the general rules.

In addition, the web application also has timed practice, which helps me train by brain to translate more quickly, and a badging system, which is a nice feature, too.

Lernu kun mi! (Learn with me!)

I hope you’ll come learn Esperanto with me. It’s a lot of fun!