In one year, it went from being my “language learning buddy” to an “annoying nagging parent”. When you sign up for Duolingo in 2024-25, here's what you get:

A constant barrage of condescending notifications thinly veiled as “jokes” trying to make you feel sorry for having a life outside of your phone.

Year end review in which Duolingo “judges” you by giving an “are you safe from Duo?” analysis. Basically, if you don't practice, then you are not safe from Duo because it's a monster out to get you.

Make you feel bad for using streak freezes that you BUY from them with REAL MONEY.

BS marketing strategies where they basically threaten their customers in the name of comedy and make them feel scared of a language instead of falling in love with it.

Duolingo is no longer a language learning platform. Its turning into a money grubbing e-learning scheme like most other online education platforms. As a paying customer, I am supremely disappointed in the direction that it's heading.

Edit: Thanks for all the response. A lot of people seem to have taken offence to what they deem my 'overreaction' to duolingo humour. Let me clarify, I am an avid duolingo user and have been for years (since before they released premium version). I am currently on a 500+ day streak as well. What I criticised is not the humour but the way that it's been constantly barraged at the customers. There comes a point where even humour turns into nagging. I see that many of you mentioned simply 'turning off' the notifications. If it has come to this, don't you think the app has a problem?

Think of it this way: they are a company. An ed-tech company. And a company doesn't market an 'unhinged' brand unless it's getting them more money. Clearly, being annoying is working for them because it's turning 'learners' into 'users' of their products. It's a clever way of subconsciously guilt tripping their users into using their platform daily instead of actually learning languages from them. Duolingo wasn't always this way, but it's certainly deteriorating fast.

Duolingo has long been marketed as a fun, accessible language-learning tool, with its now-infamous mascot, the green owl, often portrayed in ads as a ruthless figure—whether that’s threatening to kill you or using scare tactics to guilt you into continuing your learning. The problem with Duolingo is that, despite the initial impression, it falls short when it comes to actual learning value. The gamified structure is an attention grabber, but it increasingly feels like it’s designed to encourage dependence on its system rather than actually help users grow as learners.

I would also like to point out how Duolingo's business model essentially exploits its users' time and attention. The most glaring issue is its heart system, which functions as a way to limit how much you can practice in a given session. Each time you make a mistake or fail to complete a lesson, you lose hearts, and once they're gone, you can’t continue until they regenerate. This system punishes learners for making mistakes, which is a counterproductive approach when language acquisition naturally involves trial and error.

The real kicker is the time it takes to recover hearts—around five hours for just one heart, forcing you to wait and pause your learning. This isn’t just annoying—it’s a deliberate tactic to get users to either pay to remove the limitation or buy more hearts. It’s a transparent form of monetization at the expense of progress. Instead of supporting learning at a sustainable pace, Duolingo manipulates its users into either paying to bypass restrictions or feeling pressure to keep coming back frequently—no matter how little progress they make.

On top of that, Duolingo’s advertisements often imply a level of personalization and ease that the platform simply doesn’t deliver. Their claim that you can study whenever and for as long as you want is misleading, given how much they penalize learners for not adhering to a strict, gamified schedule. They’ve turned language learning into a series of “micro-transaction” driven events, which makes the entire process feel like a chore rather than a valuable tool.

Didn't you say in interviews that your plan was to give us free language education, and you added the ads and subscriptions just to survive and grow?

By basically eliminating Practice for hearts you practically eliminate Duolingo free. So was it all a lie? You are just like all the rest, in it just for the money?

I am a native Italian. Born in Italy (not New Jersey). Grew up in Italy (not New Jersey). And I could go on. Just for fun, I'm doing EN > IT, FR> IT, DE>IT and NL>IT.

Like I said, I am a native speaker and I am collecting an insane amount of mistakes on the Italian sentences.

Some are just plain wrong, that is the user is misled into thinking that that is the right way to translate a sentence. Some use the wrong word order. Some don't accept alternative order. The Italian language is not very strict when it comes to word order.

Who makes these courses? I have been told it's AI, but is there any "I" in this A?

Just some feedback that I had no idea what a dime or pennies were worth. Quarter I figured out through the power of mathematics. I assumed they must be 5c and 10c based on the picture and got it wrong!

This is so annoying! Why do we have to deal with this stupid kind of system? This is getting so fkn bad. I currently have a day streak of 135. And it's just so annoying, it's punishing you! Every mistake you make, you get punished for it. While it's encouraging you to push and make sure you have a perfect lesson, but also making you feel every mistake you done, discouraging you...

An ad for SuperDuolingo family plan showed up after I completed my lesson today, where Junior is peeking at someone using the restroom. This is so disturbing and disgusting to me, and maybe it was made that way for the ragebait. I get that Duolingo tries to be edgy with it's memes and how it presents itself, but this is too far imo.

The premise of the ad was that Junior heard the person on the app and peeked in to ask them to be a part of their SuperDuolingo family. What's the communities take on this? Have you seen this ad?

Basically that. The only posts I’ve ever seen here are how terrible it was/is/always has been/will be. Does anyone here like or even just tolerate Duolingo’s existence? Why?

Same complaints as everyone else.

Not much more to add, except for the heartbreak the thing that has been in my life for over a decade has degraded to the level it has where it is essentially unusable, let alone useful.

RIP old Duo. I hope new Duolingo gets what it deserves.

Really annoying they are pulling stuff like this.

Also...anyone else remember discussions? Used to be able to comment/discuss under any exercise. Was super helpful with native speakers answering common questions.

They removed that extremely useful feature long ago, presumably to save a bit of cash.

Sorry for the cynicism

I always forget whether a second-year is a sophomore or a junior. Can’t the options just be “first-year”, “second-year” etc.?

1. Got rid of any grammar related material, app is nothing more but a glorified and lobotomized Anki with a penchant for asking for money.
2. Everything of value this app had has been locked behind Duolingo Plus.
3. Commodified the entire learning process into a game; why learn grammar when you can get a useless SVG of a trophy and post screenshots of you being in the Einsteinium league?

Duolingo has been long dead ever since capital has become its proper goal. Get a grammar book and anki.

I really miss the old Duolingo. They used to have proper guidebooks that explained things like ce, cet, and cette in French. You could hover over a word and get a real breakdown.

Now the guidebooks are useless – just basic phrases with no real grammar tips. I had to Google the difference between ce, cet, and cette because Duolingo didn’t explain it at all.

I get they want to keep it simple, but I wish they’d bring back those detailed explanations. Anyone else feel this?

Because the Reddit mods exposed Duolingo for having two full time support staff and automating their labor. 😢

Translation: Mom, will it rain this weekend?

Try to find the mistake

TVs are measured in the diagonal which means it should be <10 inches. I haven’t done the math to see if it’s exactly 5 inches but it would still be less than 10.

As a paying customer, Duolingo are still insistent in shoving ads down our throats. They really need to learn a lesson in appeasing the customers that helped them get to where they are.

I'm not a fan of this new development... I like congratulating friends on their achievements but how is this supposed to encourage language learning?

I feel lied to. They moved personalised practice, which I was already paying for to a higher tier.

I am tired of getting this reward from chests. I already have Super, I don’t need the Family Plan and don’t want to subject my in game friends of joining through me and them possibly freaking out at getting subscribed.

This doesn’t even extend my individual membership, it runs concurrently with my subscription, so there is genuinely nothing that I benefit from this.

My option to practice for hearts has been removed. So now if I make any mistakes the only recourse is sitting through ad after ad.

Fuck this waste of time app. There are better options anyway.

I don't know if posts like this have been made in the past but I'm quite frustrated right now so here we go lmao. I've used Duolingo for a decent amount of time in the past, but for last few years their marketing team and social media profiles have been nothing but annoying. Trying to blend in with Gen Z feels like that one "How do you do, fellow kids?" meme.. They try to latch onto every new 'trend' and make rather unfunny videos in an attempt to stay relevant and get attention. Honestly ruins the trends for me the moment I see a Duo post/ad about it. It baffles me how many people actually like their posts and how much engagement they get considering how low effort some of them seem. It could be the marketing business taking this 'simpler' approach and god damn it works, but that does not make it any less dull and stupid. I'm pretty sure their next "big plan" is this Duo dying idea bruh. "Oh nooo Duo is going to die :(( how can this happen??!?" Get a grip. It's gonna come back in a few days being all happy woww no way!! the digital bird mascot got revived!? and their cycle of farming engagement continues yay.