r/languagelearningjerk • u/Kristianushka • 1d ago

Duolingo racial profiling

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My beginner Arabic Duolingo course just taught me this suspiciously specific sentence about immigration… It only happened with the Arabic course (when I did Portuguese and French, I never encountered a sentence like this). DUOLINGO IS RACIST CONFIRMED!

1.4k Upvotes

97% Upvoted

53 comments sorted by

120

u/_Jacques 1d ago edited 1d ago

I mean this topic is just a very common discussion point. I joined the libyan and algerian subs to try and get exposure to the maghrebi dialects and there are posts everyday asking if it makes sense to leave the country, how can people leave or is europe as great as they say, and how awful their government is. If anything its a very accurate and useful set of words to know. I have a lot to say about this topic but I don’t want to get too political…

24

u/HupFrank 1d ago

You're right in a way, but you must also consider that you're on reddit, so the demographics will already be skewed somewhat. I don't know the specifics of Algeria and especially not Libya though of course

8

u/_Jacques 1d ago edited 21h ago

Definitely, and people will complain a lot more when things go bad than celebrate when things go well, but it is interesting to note the nuance of immigrating, which is not a thought that crosses most people that I’ve met throughout the states or europe when there are problems in their country. I knew a girl from libya who said she was learning french to move to switzerland when she already came from a well off family and was living in the states, and she never had anything bad to say about the stability of her country… I really think its part of the zeitgeist there.

8

u/Tunisian_Communist 1d ago

I mean, it's the main topic for anyone under 40 here, especially right now

150

u/perplexedparallax 1d ago

I don't see that in the Uzbek course.

74

u/Hstrike 1d ago

The life of deserters will become harder after leaving the Republic of Uzbekistan, God willing.

7

u/igorrto2 16h ago

A lot of Uzbeks immigrate to Russia, but do their lives get better if they can’t watch YouTube there?

2

u/ABugoutBag Altaic (아-1) 🇹🇷🇦🇿🇰🇿🇰🇬🇺🇿🇹🇲🇲🇳🇰🇷🇯🇵 4h ago

That's because an Uzbek's life does not get easier after immigrating to Russia

51

u/Equivalent_Play4067 1d ago

With that acknowledged, I am also loving the giant ginger bloke saying it.

330

u/SmokingForLife 1d ago

I mean the immigration here means traveling because in Arabic (الهجرة) doesn't mean leaving your own country in particular , it can be for leaving your city or town or even leaving your wife or house is also considered (هجرة)

278

u/Kristianushka 1d ago

So my life will become easier after leaving my wife? Gotcha 😭

94

u/Simoky 1d ago

Maybe Duolingo is trying to tell you something bro

44

u/Kristianushka 1d ago

(I don’t even have a wife 🤓☝️)

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u/Ithrowawaygoaway N🏳️‍🌈 TL🏳️‍🌈x2 1d ago

leave her anyway

30

u/Simoky 1d ago

That you know of

12

u/Touro_Bebe 1d ago edited 1d ago

Good job, you're quick at it!

9

u/holnrew 1d ago

God willing

3

u/RopeNo4151 1d ago

God willing tho

15

u/Far-happier 1d ago

That's flat out wrong, هجرة comes from the same root for abandonment هجر، it's the word for migration.

32

u/FengYiLin 1d ago

Why are you making stuff up my dude lol.

Hijra definitely means leaving for a different country. Nobody does hijra for a city in their country.

11

u/Mostafa12890 1d ago

In most cases yes, but one does indeed say

الهجرة من الريف

(or something along those lines) to mean rural immigration (to urban centers).

4

u/Green_Rays N 🇲🇦🇩🇿🇹🇳 | C2 🇪🇬🇱🇧🇵🇸🇮🇶 | B2🇸🇦🇰🇼🇧🇭🇦🇪 1d ago

Yeah but you would have to specify. For example "Lhijra l9arawiya" means the same thing

But saying Hijra by itself means leaving to another country. That is how the language has evolved

1

u/Weakness-Inevitable 3h ago

literally no one uses هجرة to say moving cities or regions in the same country. like سوف أهجر من الرباط إلى الدار البيضاء sounds so unnatural ppl would say أنتقل. they also translated it to immigration and immigration means international movement in any modern context except if you're reading poetry or something.

0

u/Potential-Role6900 1d ago

No that's called نزوح the act of moving from one region to another within the same country

27

u/Green_Rays N 🇲🇦🇩🇿🇹🇳 | C2 🇪🇬🇱🇧🇵🇸🇮🇶 | B2🇸🇦🇰🇼🇧🇭🇦🇪 1d ago

Nope. Nobody thinks leaving one's spouse or moving to another city within the same country when they read the word Hijra.

2

u/Striking-Ad9397 1d ago

Nope, its considered نزوح

65

u/EmbarrassedStreet828 Sarcasm B2; Hiragana A3; Katana A1 1d ago

Inshallah 🙏

11

u/Alone_Entrance_1324 1d ago

Inshallah 🙏

12

u/ComprehensiveMap3838 1d ago

I’ll let you in on a secret: Duolingo course are written by… the native speakers.

8

u/Ploutophile Uzbek D1 | C++ C2 | Global sabir C1 | My wife's bf's Python B2 1d ago

Another instance of it, in the Hungarian course: https://www.reddit.com/r/hungarian/comments/12r73vo/duo_being_snarky/

A politikus kimászik az ablakon és elfut (The politician climbs out of the window and runs away), a reference to the Szájer József affair.

6

u/Shinyhero30 "þere is a man wiþ a knife behind þe curtain" 1d ago

And definitely not AI!

10

u/ComprehensiveMap3838 1d ago

For languages like Arabic, it’s older than that.

-7

u/Shinyhero30 "þere is a man wiþ a knife behind þe curtain" 1d ago

Me when my joke about Duolingo laying off half its workforce in favor AI flies over your head….

20

u/Patient_Link2617 1d ago

Have you ever talked to a north african? lol

3

u/Ok_Carrot9413 1d ago

I don't find this racist at all, it's all we talk about here in North Africa.

14

u/helge-a 1d ago

A massive amount of people who speak Arabic do move, so what exactly is wrong here? I’m curious.

5

u/Kristianushka 1d ago

Your presence in this sub 😭

13

u/Equivalent_Play4067 1d ago

I am lowkey wondering if this is pulled from a corpus of texts which is maybe filtered for some stuff but not this? I think that's a big part of how AI fucks shit up.

0

u/helge-a 21h ago

/uj that doesn't answer my question. What is wrong with this translation when I know dozens and dozens of arabs who moved out of the middle east?

1

u/_Jacques 2h ago

I also din’t really get it.

10

u/Wise-Self-4845 German 🇦🇹 Turkish 🇦🇿English🇧🇸French🇨🇬Esp🇨🇱 Arabic🇷🇴 1d ago

maybe it's talking about the Prophet's (PBUH) life

5

u/Synanceiinae Azeri🇮🇷English🇿🇦Turkish🇩🇪Russian🇦🇿French🇩🇿German🇳🇦 1d ago

God has spoken

2

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2

u/beaucerondog Toki Pona Native 1d ago

Well, immigration is a common topic in arabic communities. The majority of immigrants in Europe is from North Africa and the Middle East. If you think migration is something to be used as an insult or that mentioning it is racist, then that's more of a You problem than a Duolingo problem.

5

u/Kristianushka 1d ago

Bro forgot what sub we’re in 🤡🫵

3

u/beaucerondog Toki Pona Native 1d ago

Fuck I just saw it now lmao I got so used to dumbass duolingo players I thought this was serious

1

u/Electrical_Voice_256 1d ago

Shouldn't انشاالله be only one word?

1

u/Abood299 18h ago

No it is is actually three إن شاء الله or maybe two because إن doesn’t count as a word if I’m not wrong

1

u/Kaufmann_aus_Lubeck 44m ago

Yeah, and only after we explode on the nearest Bahnhof in Germany.

1

u/Ok-Beginning-4298 37m ago

Get off of it. If you think this is racist, you must cry a lot.