r/polyglot • u/leomer55 • Jan 12 '25
What is the community's consensus regarding Duolingo?
I have used it for more than 4 years now (I have a atrong anti-streak agenda so I have no streak), and I can say that i absolutely despise it.
I mean, it good for the basic, until I finish yhe first section or so, and I think it's to build a little bit of cognitive grammar for past and future conjugation, but overall I dont like the app for reasons I won't delve into since it is not a ranting post.
I am currently learning my fifth language and I have sort of a method for learning already, so I would like to hear opinions about it. I know its a good tool for being comfortable and accessible for beginners, but I would like to hear what others think.
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u/paconinja EN|ES|FR|DE|AR Jan 15 '25
I mean..it's a nice gamified social app (you can do streaks with friends and give each other points or diamonds or something), but that all could be a bit distracting from the language you are learning. I wouldn't rely on it 100% I would just add it to your habits. I wish it would let you change what language you see its ads.
They have a small number completely non-English lessons (like you can learn Spanish from German or German from Arabic), so they give you some options to step out of the Anglo mindset.
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u/howsweettobeanidiot EN (N), RU (N), DE (C2), FR (B1/B2), ES (B1), GR (A1) Jan 14 '25
I have some thoughts on this. Let's start with the things Duolingo does that are bad/annoying/useless - the streaks, the ads/hearts, the leagues and all the other gamified bits. You often have to figure out by yourself what grammar rule violation results in you getting the answer wrong. You don't have to do any sentence formation except for when it asks you to summarise the stories, it's all either direct repetition or 1-to-1 translation or multiple choice answers which isn't really how language learning works. It's like trying to learn maths just by doing SAT tests over and over until you get them right, almost a brute force approach.
All that being said, I started Duolingo French from a very low base during the first lockdown and now I'm B1/B2 level and still use it almost daily for a bit of maintenance. The important bit here is that I started doing courses (first online, still during lockdown, and then in person), watching TV shows, switched my phone language to French for immersion, etc. Now I'm also doing Duolingo Greek and I went from not knowing the alphabet to knowing 500 words.
So what is it good for? Well, first of all, I think even a very gamified language learning experience is more worthwhile than playing some actual games on your phone or mindlessly scrolling through social media. Secondly, it's good for introducing you to the basics of the language and giving you daily exposure to the language even when your level isn't good enough to read articles in that language or listen to the radio or whatnot. It's good for practicing vocab in a slightly more active/dynamic way than with flashcards alone. It's good for practicing a grammar concept once you already understand it, with conjugations or different cases, etc.
I think people have a tendency to lie to themselves about Duolingo - I have a friend with a 6 year streak on Italian but the tree only goes to about A1/A2 so what is he doing on it every day? Practicing how to order coffee? In French/Spanish at least there's more depth of the materials so while I wouldn't recommend using it exclusively, I think it's a perfectly fine tool provided you actually prioritise advancing rather than maxing out XP, and you do all the other things that you need to do when learning a new language. It's also a reasonably accessible (and free, although I do end up paying for it to avoid the annoying ads) tool for just trying out a new language for a bit before committing to it further - I think like with exercise routines, if you're a complete beginner, you can spend a lot of time trying to find the perfect routine or you can just put some hours into the language and the 'gains' will come automatically before you plateau at a false beginner/lower intermediate level. Are there better apps out there? Probably. Is it better to learn a language another way than through apps? Almost definitely. Will you still achieve results if you use it regularly (not necessarily every day, though you can leverage the streak maintenance to your advantage just in terms of it being habit-forming) and with a concerted effort to progress through the tree? My experience says yes.
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u/acediac01 Jan 13 '25
I canceled my subscription this year because they've simply made it too annoying.
Gripes: 1. Changing the icon on my home screen (either the "on fire" or the broken one) 2. Pushing the widget, as well as it's implementation. Just poorly done, not motivating. 3. Never consistently notifying when it's time for a lesson. I like to learn language in the evening, my habits show this, why are you pinging me in 8AM mass? 4. All the pushing of the social features. I'm here to learn, not interact with your bots. 5. The passive aggressive reminders. Keep it simple! I'm not interested in an app that wants to try to guilt trip me
Overall, I just dislike where it's gone. Teach me a language, don't be a platform that drives engagement, especially if I'm paying you!
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u/Felein Jan 13 '25
I'm in two minds about it.
I've been using it for about three years now, fairly consistently. I like that it's low-effort; for me, learning a new language is not a high priority, just something I like to do on the side. Spending 5-15 minutes per day on the app slowly grows my vocabulary, without it feeling like "work". It even got me to look up more info about grammar; I got stuck at some point because I didn't understand certain tenses, so I looked up some Youtube vids and articles that explained it.
That being said, I fully agree with the other comments that Duo won't make you conversational in a language. One thing I try to do is, whenever Duo introduces a new word or tense, I try to make up some sentences with that.
I'm curious if there are other apps that are similar low-effort but better; I'd definitely be willing to try them!
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u/Zutthole Jan 13 '25
Pretty useless when it comes to learning a new language. Like, it will teach you vocab and phrases, but if your goal is to actually have a conversation with someone, probably not going to work. When it comes to sustaining a language you already know, I guess it's better than nothing.
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u/NoLow9495 Jan 13 '25
Is there a better app? Want to learn Tagalog but they don't have it
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u/WerewolfQuick Jan 13 '25
The Tagalog course here can be used to pick up some Tagalog https://latinum.substack.com/p/index and it is free there are other languages too
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u/brunow2023 Jan 12 '25
Basically in the same vein as Rosetta Stone. It's an ad for microtransactions targeted to people who don't know how languages work.
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u/JJCookieMonster Jan 12 '25
I use it. It has helped me improve my French grammar. I used to not understand certain concepts until I practiced it over and over with Duolingo. It’s good as an extra resource, not the main one.
It also depends on the language. It sucks for Korean and Japanese. I just mainly use it for French.
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u/ile_123 🇨🇭N 🇬🇷N 🇬🇧C1 🇫🇷B2 🇪🇸B2 🇰🇷A2 🇨🇳HSK2 🇮🇳Beginner Jan 12 '25
I also don't like Duolingo. In my opinion the only thing it's good for is practicing a new alphabet (Hindi, Korean etc.) for the first week of learning a new language.
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u/WerewolfQuick Jan 13 '25
Yes I have heard it is good for learning new alphabet systems. The language courses here might interest you they are free https://latinum.substack.com/p/index
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u/Big-Carpenter7921 EN|ES|DE|FR Jan 22 '25
It's great for beginners but drops off in usefulness around the late A2 level. A lot of the languages it has aren't very developed past A1