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It's quite hard to lose a Duolingo streak

leejo.github.io

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Re: It's quite hard to lose a Duolingo streak

#11

Post by gwd »

gilbertbw wrote: post #3
Rerarom wrote: post #2

What are some good alternatives to Duolingo with fewer dark patterns? (And don't suggest traditional methods, I am very much not against them, I am just curious about apps and such.)

I don’t feel like the dark patterns are really that dark when used by an education platform. All they are trying to do is encourage practice, which is very important to language learning.

I don't feel like Duolingo's gamification is dark, so much as counter-productive. They always give you a 15-minute "double XP" reward when you gain a crown; and there was a time when I got into a rhythm such that I always started my session just about to gain a crown; then I spent 15 minutes almost finishing the next crown, so I could start it again tomorrow.

But of course, when you're doing that, you're pressuring yourself to get through as many lessons as possible, not to engage well with the material. You don't want to stop and read the discussions about a particular translation. And (since I'm studying Chinese), you often have a choice between attempting to speak Chinese, typing Chinese using pinyin, or clicking on the character blocks. The first two are almost certainly better practice; but the last is a lot faster and more predictable.

And of course, now when I'm out of that rhythm, I'm totally not motivated to study, since I'm getting half the points I would otherwise be getting. If I'd been rewarded (not competitively, but just personally) simply for spending time in the platform, I'd probably be spending it more effectively.

Re: It's quite hard to lose a Duolingo streak

#12

Post by superasn »

jonathanjaeger wrote: post #5

My boss stopped learning Spanish on Duolingo when he lost his streak. It's a powerful motivator even if it's not a "true streak" due to streak freezes and such. My streak is at 1436 and if I lost it, I wouldn't stop Duolingo because I actually like it to learn, but the streak does make me happier, haha. I think I've had 2 days in the last few years of streak freezes due to 1 day forgetting and 1 day the site not savi…

Same for me. I had a 800+ day streak and I remember that on the days I couldn't practice, I used to play Duolingo story #1 at 1am with half eyes open just to keep it going.

But as soon as my streak ended, my frequency of playing went from 6 days in a week, to 5 days.. and now I haven't played it in months. Fake or not, keeping the streak alive did help me learn a lot of French (well actually there is one more side to it.. even after all that I can't speak a single proper sentence now apart from the basic je m'appelle stuff)

Re: It's quite hard to lose a Duolingo streak

#14

Post by someotherperson »

One thing I found odd about Duolingo is that they disabled offline lessons. It was the most powerful thing they had -- to me at least. I was able to board planes and just grind for hours, I could travel cross country and do the same. Even in normal travels I was able to use it without constant disconnects -- it was great.

But they decided one day to just nuke it... for no reason as far as I could tell. My subscription went with it. Shame.

EDIT: based on the responses below I did a quick search and it appears that it was silently removed, refactored and then returned slowly back to people depending on their account age/device. This is actually incredible news (to me).

Re: It's quite hard to lose a Duolingo streak

#16

Post by leejo »

toyg wrote: post #8

Of course you can refill freezes, but you need enough credits to do so. You accumulate credits as you complete lessons and hit targets. So OP was, effectively, living for a period off the riches he had accumulated over almost 10 years (!) of efforts. That's not easy.

That is a fair point. I went back through my history in the app to figure out the real numbers:

    First day of use: 11th Dec 2014
    First missed day: 19th Jun 2017 (921 days later)
    First freeze use: 20th Oct 2020 (2,140 days after first day of use)
The missed days were down to (IIRC) time zone crossing and patchy internet, I can't recall if Duolingo let you off here or if there was leeway in the streak calculation. Those could also be Duolingo being down for maintenance.

I think when I started using the freezes was when the value of the app had dropped for me. 2,140 days is a pretty good run.

FWIW: living in a French speaking country has provided the most value. Duo helped initially with vocab building. I find/found the lack of colloquialisms one of the biggest problems with it.

Re: It's quite hard to lose a Duolingo streak

#17

Post by aliswe »

What made me lose interest in Duolingo was (losing the friends whom I conversate with and) 1. The lessons are so sluggish, if I know everything I want to be able to zip through them. But no - apparently these success animations and transitional effects are good for me. And 2. The totally senseless examples and also the sometimes cryptic questions when you don't know what they are asking for because the language is ambiguous.

Re: It's quite hard to lose a Duolingo streak

#18

Post by occz »

someotherperson wrote: post #14

One thing I found odd about Duolingo is that they disabled offline lessons. It was the most powerful thing they had -- to me at least. I was able to board planes and just grind for hours, I could travel cross country and do the same. Even in normal travels I was able to use it without constant disconnects -- it was great. But they decided one day to just nuke it... for no reason as far as I could tell. My subscriptio…

Sounds strange - I've been able to do offline lessons as recently as this week. On android with a free account. Maybe this was something temporary in the past?

Re: It's quite hard to lose a Duolingo streak

#19

Post by iandanforth »

someotherperson wrote: post #14

One thing I found odd about Duolingo is that they disabled offline lessons. It was the most powerful thing they had -- to me at least. I was able to board planes and just grind for hours, I could travel cross country and do the same. Even in normal travels I was able to use it without constant disconnects -- it was great. But they decided one day to just nuke it... for no reason as far as I could tell. My subscriptio…

How did this not result in refunds for thousands of people?

Re: It's quite hard to lose a Duolingo streak

#20

Post by jonathanjaeger »

superasn wrote: post #12
jonathanjaeger wrote: post #5

My boss stopped learning Spanish on Duolingo when he lost his streak. It's a powerful motivator even if it's not a "true streak" due to streak freezes and such. My streak is at 1436 and if I lost it, I wouldn't stop Duolingo because I actually like it to learn, but the streak does make me happier, haha. I think I've had 2 days in the last few years of streak freezes due to 1 day forgetting and 1 day the site not savi…

Same for me. I had a 800+ day streak and I remember that on the days I couldn't practice, I used to play Duolingo story #1 at 1am with half eyes open just to keep it going. But as soon as my streak ended, my frequency of playing went from 6 days in a week, to 5 days.. and now I haven't played it in months. Fake or not, keeping the streak alive did help me learn a lot of French (well actually there is one more side to…

Yup, I always do one story when I'm strapped for time just to keep it going on days I can't do exercises.
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