Geoff P.
For Hungarian - give Mondly a miss
I have been trying to use Mondly for a few weeks to help brush up my Hungarian. I’m about to stop because so much of the Hungarian is either innacurate or not the normal way the language is used. Here's a few of the worst problems. Pronouns Far too many Mondly sentences contain pronouns, especially the first person singular "Én" and "Nekem", when Hungarians don't normally use them. For example Mondly says "Nekem van útlevelem./(I have a passport)", when Hungarians would say "Útlevelem van". The Mondly Hungarian kind of says "I have a passport (and not you)". And "Ki ő?" does not mean "Who is this?" (which would be "Ki ez?, and more usual). Word order is suspect Mondly Hungarian is often written subject-verb-object, which is not normal. For example Mondly says "Én jeggel iszom a vizet (I drink water with ice)”. This would more usually be written as "Vizet iszom jéggel”. Verbs Mondly also TEACHES ALL VERBS INCORRECTLY. For example it insists that "dolgozik" means "to work", when it doesn't. It means he/she/it works. "To work" would be "dolgozni". In quizzes it marks me wrong if it asks for (say) "to travel" and I write "utazni" (which is correct). Neither does it appear to understand the use of definite and indefinite conjugations, for example is translates "I understand" as "Én értek", when more usually a Hungarian would say "Értem én", meaning "I understand it". Translations It also looks as if the English translations have been overviewed by someone who doesn't speak Hungarian. Here are some examples: "szobalány", which means "room-maid" is given as "cleaner" (should be "takarító"). And how about "Ő az ő tanára", which M says means "This is his teacher". It doesn't. It means something like "He is her teacher". Correct would be "Ez a tanára". And "Hogy érezte magát nálunk" is translated as "How was your stay with us", which would be fine for a phrase book, but useless for learning Hungarian because it literally means "How did you feel (about yourself) at our place?". Accents Mondly completely ignores what you write. If the underlying (English version) of the letter is similar to the Hungarian one, it will be marked as correct. As a result you may never learn the correct spelling, pronounciation or meaning of a word. For example "kemény" means "hard" and "kémény" means "chimney". You could write "kémeny" or "kemeny" for either and they could all be "correct", but wrong. Chatbot Writes what I say (in Hungarian) , but does not understand Hungarian. It can only answer with phrases which it is expecting (ie been pre-programmed with). It would be good if this worked like a LLM chatbot. Content There is very little content and far too many repeats "Ő egy kórházban dolgozik". I have done the entire DuoLingo course (it took about 400 days), and there is far more there. Mondly, even at the so-called "advanced" level is very elementary.
Response from MondlyNov 4, 2024
Hi Geoff, Thank you so much for sharing your detailed feedback on our Hungarian course. We truly value the insights you've provided, as they help us understand where we can improve the learning experience for you and others. Pronouns and Word Order: We understand that Hungarian doesn’t typically require personal pronouns, and that the word order can change when pronouns are added. Our approach focuses on beginners, so we include pronouns to help learners grasp them alongside verb conjugations. We recognize this can make the sentences sound different from how a native speaker might phrase them, and we appreciate your patience. Verbs: We teach verbs in conjugated forms to help learners understand how they are used in everyday speech. However, we also understand that this can be confusing when learning the infinitive forms. We will take this into account as we look to improve the way we present verb forms. Translations: We strive to make translations sound natural, rather than literal. For example, Hungarian does not have gender-specific pronouns, which can create ambiguity when translating to English. We appreciate your specific examples, and we will work on improving these translations to make them clearer and more accurate. Accents: We currently accept answers without accents to make learning more accessible, especially since not all users have access to a Hungarian keyboard. However, we understand the importance of correct spelling and pronunciation, and we will look for ways to emphasize this in our lessons without causing frustration. Chatbot and Content: Our chatbot is currently designed with preset responses, and we acknowledge that it is not as flexible as a large language model. Speech recognition can also vary depending on the device, especially on older Android versions. Regarding content, we recently updated our lessons on iOS, web, and newer Android versions to include more diverse material, with over 230 lessons covering different categories and conversations. We hope this addresses the need for more varied content. We appreciate your time and effort in providing this feedback, and we're committed to making Mondly the best learning tool. If there are any specific features or improvements you’d like to see, feel free to share them with us at [email protected]! Thank you again, The Mondly Team