I've been missing days on purpose the last two weeks, this post is such a coincidence for me!
It's quite hard to lose a Duolingo streak
211–220 of 231 posts
Re: It's quite hard to lose a Duolingo streak
#212Earlier quoted context omitted.
It can be demotivating. I use other language learning apps (not Duolingo, which is garbage), and I try to maintain a streak not because I care about it, but because I want the daily habit. Nevertheless, the number goes up… and help but get attached to it. I mean I don’t care about the number per se, but it was a reminder of my good study habit, which as someone with ADHD is an accomplishment itself. Then, like GP, I…
Out of interest, what other language learning apps are you using? I'm going to Portugal nest year and learning Portuguese through Duolingo at the moment. It's ok and some stuff is sticking, but I can't help but feel some of the why is missing and I'm just learning how to interpret their questions, rather than learning the language (I guess that's your problem with it?)
For German I'm using Speakly. What I like about it is that it goes in order of the most used words, and all phrases are actually realistic and something you would use.
There's a streak, but it's so easy to ignore, specially since the app focus on 'learned words', something that duolingo had many years ago. The study is also organized in just chunks of 100. So instead, I focus on how many words I want to learn on the next week/month, or when I'm getting to the next group.
Re: It's quite hard to lose a Duolingo streak
#213Losing a Sojourner medal streak in Ingress (due to being busy due to my own wedding!) made me quit playing the game regularly. Streaks can be effective in keeping the user returning, but once it's broken it can be a perfect moment for the user to churn. Hence, I can understand how the Duolingo devs made the streak less fragile than it would initially appear, but doing so (and having the cover blown) also makes return…
there is a difference here though where you realize that you are meeting the street to an addiction versus your meeting this streak due to something you would like to productively learn
Re: It's quite hard to lose a Duolingo streak
#214Seems like a strange way to measure language proficiency.
Can you hold a conversation in said language?
Re: It's quite hard to lose a Duolingo streak
#215duolingo (back when I used it years ago) also made it pretty difficult to even get questions wrong. They seemed to shy away from questions where I had to type in the answer (ie come up with the translation out of my own head) when I was out near the edge of my knowledge in favor of multiple-choice (ie they give you the translation but you pick it out of a couple wrong answers)
Typing in the answer is difficult from a UX perspective (on Android at least): Barring Gboard, all Android keyboards that I've tested do not support automatic switching of languages[1]. Even with Gboard, you need to explain to the user how to install the language for the keyboard. This is not trivial. You then may have to deal with another input method, and recommending one to use (for example: do you want Pinyin/Can…
Maybe but they had that as an answer type, they just used it very sparingly.
Re: It's quite hard to lose a Duolingo streak
#216Had a somehow similar experience with Strava.
I am biking these days only to commute - so doing the same boring 15km urban route 2, 4 or 6 times a week (Returns). Each time my performance would be driven by the weather, my load (public library books weight a ton), fatigue state after a long word day or a poor night, traffic, roadwork etc...not by my training consistency or motivation.
Yet the app would keep notifying me of new records beaten each time to keep me engaged by shortening time after time the distances measured,resorting down to timing every single "one block long" segment between traffic lights, stop signs or various landmarks to find new records to beat :(
"your best time is now 41sec (instead of 42 2 years earlier)" -> that's when I stopped completely using it.
Re: It's quite hard to lose a Duolingo streak
#217I am very pro-duolingo as a product.
However, I am not sure if there's a use case for it that Anki doesn't achieve with notably less adverts. Am I just not the target audience?
Re: It's quite hard to lose a Duolingo streak
#218Earlier quoted context omitted.
Dailies are great for getting you to come back, but losing a streak can be enough to make you reconsider your life and never come back; especially when you were doing it out of habit and not really "into" it anymore. Cf: World of Warcraft
That makes sense, I think that's more of a reason for not enforcing the streak so strictly. Giving levay days helps you not obsessed over it. Also, for a user who lost his streak and is devastated over it, I do think Duo support helps them restore it. I do think they realize it's just a number and there is not need to traumatized people over losing it.
On the other hand, may be it should not be things like obsession at all?
Many important things in life like fitness, diet etc are very repetitive and hence boring to some extent. There are times when you just to have to get through the grind even if you are not interested or you are aligned with it. The point being don't just depend on the initial euphoria of things to do a thing that's good. If something is good on the longer, at some point it does get a little boring, and that's ok, just keep doing it.
There are things that I stopped doing because I was bored and a few months later I had like a moment of epiphany- It wouldn't have hurt me if I had stuck to this, quitting has cost me more.
May be one should think beyond doing things for immediate emotional relief.
Re: It's quite hard to lose a Duolingo streak
#219Losing a Sojourner medal streak in Ingress (due to being busy due to my own wedding!) made me quit playing the game regularly. Streaks can be effective in keeping the user returning, but once it's broken it can be a perfect moment for the user to churn. Hence, I can understand how the Duolingo devs made the streak less fragile than it would initially appear, but doing so (and having the cover blown) also makes return…
I had this problem with the Books app on my iPad. I had a nearly 300 day streak going of reading at least 5 minutes every day (and I have not been an avid reader throughout most of my life.) The books app would keep track of the streak at the bottom of the screen in your library view. Then one night I started reading at 11:57 PM, and by the time I was reading for 5 minutes, it was 12:02AM and I technically missed a d…
As a sporadically avid reader I wish I could impart my experience directly, but I'll try to describe briefly the wonderful moment of the 'flip', when, after working at a book for some time I become absolutely hooked. Then it's actually harder to stop reading, I want to know what happens next, I care about the characters, and am looking forward to the next chance I get to return to the story. At this point I actually want to read slower and make it last.
The trick is 1) finding the story that you want to read.
and 2) putting in the time to reach that state of flow/pull.
It's extremely pleasurable and I wish it on everyone.
I think the timetracker sort of motivation is like the runway before the flight. The bootstrapping. Or the kindling of a fire that will grow to sustain itself.
Re: It's quite hard to lose a Duolingo streak
#220Earlier quoted context omitted.
The ones I’m using now are specific to Japanese (WaniKani and Bunpro), but if you want to level up from Duolingo I would recommend Memrise for a similar bit more effective experience. They have a Portuguese course. If I were in your shoes, I would do Memrise to fill the little moments throughout the day. But the focus of my studies would be (1) a local community college Portuguese course; (2) the FSI Basic Portuguese…
Idk, I started out using both Memrise and Duolingo in August 2018 for French, used both for a couple of years but now use Duolingo only for French and Italian the last couple of years. I think both are good but prefer Duolingo. But to get conversational I believe you would have to go to more personal methods…
There’s no app that can build up conversational fluency. You can’t master a thing without actually doing the thing.
SRS apps can be good for building up a vocabulary base. Self-study drill based programs like the old FSI series can be great for internalizing grammar rules so that you don’t have to consciously think about it.
That does give you a great foundation for developing linguistic fluency though, should you relocate to the country or start immersing yourself in native media.