what the hell, Duolingo?

[lederhosen]

I've been listening to German music for a while (Rammstein, Die Ärzte, Einstürzende Neubauten etc.) and especially in the last six months with ASP. So I've been using Duolingo to learn beginner German so I can understand what I'm listening to.

Partly so I don't accidentally end up singing along to some modern equivalent of the Horst-Wessel Lied* but mostly because the lyrics are interesting!

Anyway, so, Duolingo works by translating (or occasionally repeating) sentences spoken by cute little cartoon people. Most of the sentences are mundane: how do I get to the train station, she is my wife**, etc. etc.

Then it started:



Okay, that's sad, but I guess it might be useful for conversation.



Ha ha, very meta.



...you may want the personals section.




Yeah, that will happen.



???



This was part of the "science" module, so okay, fair enough.



Why is this kid lying to me?

And then it took a sinister turn.





Why do they smile so?





Uh.



Then some clues:








Yeah, I am starting to see the problem here.




Don't believe them!





Don't make eye contact!



Renfield Junior?












...and that book would be the Necronomicon.



Is that bad?













All those and a few more available here. All these are genuine screenshots.

*Happy to say, this is not an issue. ASP's liner notes frequently include something along the lines of "Wir danken allen Rechten dafür, dass sie unsere Musik nicht mögen" which is roughly "we thank all right-wingers for not enjoying our music".
**Incidentally, German Duolingo seems to have a lot of queer couples. Not sure whether this is an intentional choice or just not bothering to micro-manage speaker gender for the relevant sentences, but either way, it's good!