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The worst part of Duolingo is how boring it is to level up a skill to 5 when you already understand the topics taught. When learning German or Italian and testing out of the earlier levels, the exercise you get most of the time is just "sort these English words to translate the sentence". You can get it right all the time just by looking for a grammatically correct sentence with the most superficial of understanding.…
Duolingo felt Like a massive waste of time to me. I don't remember it helping me beyond reinforcing my hiragana a bit. Multiple choice vocab training doesn't work and the amount you learn per day is way too low considering I did 30 minutes per day. After I switched to Anki my vocabs took off like a rocket. Duolingo basically cost me 3 months without learning anything. Of course back then I was lazy so maybe Duolingo…
Currently, I'm taking on Japanese. Becoming fluent with this app (or any other single app) is going to be just impossible. In isolation it will be a haphazard collection of phrases picked up at a glacial pace.
The pluses to Duo are huge, though. What some see as repetition to gain master on a mini-subject are of huge benefit compared just seeing the one or two sample sentences in a book, or hearing the same. I have to build sentences with the correct structure and I'm immediately graded and shown the answer.
As a self learner, there was nothing like this thirty years ago. With Japanese, there are particles which mark the different parts of a sentence. Sure, these are all in grammar books, but having them drilled into me and forcing me to construct sentences with them is hugely helpful.
There are lots of complaints that the Japanese course in particular is bad or leads to stilted speech, but at the structural level it seems to agree with the grammar guides and textbooks I'm also using.
Learning Arabic, I had a stack of textbooks three feet high and dozens of cassette tapes. Surely Duolingo replaces a large chunk of these, especially the starter ones.
It isn't good at bulk/breadth, and there is no speaking component.
Edit: I guess I'm saying I'm a huge fan of Duo (and other apps) as an addition to the tools available for learning a language.
I envy the author's persistence. 500 days of working on a task without skipping a day is impressive.
Now it becomes a part of my routine to practice German on Duolingo. Everyday for only about 10 minutes, and I like the Duolingo stories feature very much now and I can practice even for about 30 minutes on weekends.
The worst part of Duolingo is how boring it is to level up a skill to 5 when you already understand the topics taught. When learning German or Italian and testing out of the earlier levels, the exercise you get most of the time is just "sort these English words to translate the sentence". You can get it right all the time just by looking for a grammatically correct sentence with the most superficial of understanding.…
Just for fun, I tried passing that test in three different languages.
Italian: I don't speak Italian at all, but with cognates and guesswork, I still managed to answer many questions correctly. Not enough to skip any lessons, though.
Japanese: I've been learning Japanese for maybe 6 months and the test result would've let me skip 60% of the course. That's despite the fact that I don't know any vocabulary related to some of those skipped topics (such as clothes).
Chinese: I'm fluent and answered all questions correctly, but was only skipped past 86% of the course.
I'm using Duolingo to learn my 4th language. My previously recent language was studied in the early 90's, for perspective. Currently, I'm taking on Japanese. Becoming fluent with this app (or any other single app) is going to be just impossible. In isolation it will be a haphazard collection of phrases picked up at a glacial pace. The pluses to Duo are huge, though. What some see as repetition to gain master on a min…
Everyone who has learned a language says I need to talk to native speakers, this game is trivia.