This was interesting. While I have no illusion it will make me fluent, I am finding Duolingo very helpful for learning vocabulary and getting more comfortable with the verb tenses. I plan to finish the levels (I am currently on 90 out of 130) and move on to something else. But I can already see how its improved my comprehension of French films, which has been fun.
For a common language that has a lot of resources for learners, I’d recommend not using any single app for more than a year. For a less common language, maybe extend it to two years. Maybe other people’s experiences will differ, but I think generally your learning starts to lose effectiveness is you stick with a particular resource or method too long.
Duolingo is fun. My most studied language is German. It is definitely complementary to my learning. I find it useful and that sometimes surprises me. I have run across many phrases that reinforce content I have learned outside of Duolingo. The best way for me to improve my German is immersive learning. It’s hard and rewarding at the same time. I also have a native-speaker tutor.
As far as augmenting my conversational French, I found the Michel Thomas series very helpful. He breaks it down and for some reason I retain what I learn listening to him. They are available through Apple’s bookstore for iPhone listening. I’m so glad I’m not the only one who had to abandon Duolingo, the streak concept was ridiculous and many of the sentences are incorrect and aren’t even spoken in daily French. The concept initially was great then it lost its way imo.
I have also given up on the Duolingo app, but their podcasts are good for getting into listening comprehension if you’re learning Spanish or French!
I think the case of the 5 min session to keep the streak is interesting- sure a little video would probably be more useful but in that scenario I think the alternative is actually not doing anything because you forgot, in which case I do think going over something you’ve already mastered is better than nothing…but yeah I did get fed up with lack of progress overall.
I have been learning Romanian on Duolingo for about two months. I have learned many new words and gotten way more comfortable speaking Romanian, which surprised me, because I honestly didn't expect it to help me at all.
However I live in a small Romanian village, and have done for quite a long time, (and I was looking to get better at the language - never had a chance to learn more than a few basic words) so if I did not have that constant exposure to Romanian, I don't think it would do me a bit of good.
It has helped me a lot, but there are some weird things about Duolingo I don't like. For example, as you said, strange sentences that make no sense, wrong grammar, (I can tell it's wrong because I have lived here for so long, so even if I don't completely understand it, I know it doesn't sound right,) and things like that. I'm sure the new AI integration has something to do with it, for it sounds really mechanical and strange.
But these weird sentences! Like when I was learning about animals, Duolingo was like "three cows are eating a lion" which makes no sense at all and you would never say that in real life.
So yes, Duolingo has helped me the most with confidence in speaking which I did not have before, and I have learned lots of new words that I have not heard before in daily life in Romania.
But I definitely feel that I would NEVER be fluent if I only learned from Duolingo, and if you'd only learn on there and then traveled to the country where they speak that language you were learning for the first time you would probably fall flat on your face. Only because it is so often unhelpful, not out of your own deficiency. So I don't love Duolingo, but it has been slightly useful in learning Romanian.
I’ve been learning since 2011, my streak is over 1600 days. I spent 2 years in the top league (diamond) I have every badge and I won a tournament. I was doing goodness knows how many lessons twice a day. Now I do 1 lesson a day just to keep learning. Am I any good at the language? Not really. About 15 years ago I did an Open University module in my target language. That really pushed my learning on. Unfortunately I can’t afford to do the modules any more.
Thanks for the post and recommendations. I think I do get some value from Duolingo, mainly to reinforce what I’m learning in my actual in-person (!) classes. But I also like ConjuGato and just signed on to Pimsleur, which is great for pronunciation. The passive aggressive Duo notifications used to be cute, but now I’m finding them really irritating.
I’ve been doing Duolingo’s French off and on since 2018 - more frequently in the last 3 years. When the year finishes and my renewal comes up, I’m saying, “non!” Even though I score at a B2 level in reading and comprehension according to them, I’m still no further in speaking than I was at the end of four college quarters of French. My best experiences with speaking have been: traveling and stopping in at my local L’Alliance Française for coffee and chat. I’ll put my money toward those two modalities before spending on Duolingo again.
This was interesting. While I have no illusion it will make me fluent, I am finding Duolingo very helpful for learning vocabulary and getting more comfortable with the verb tenses. I plan to finish the levels (I am currently on 90 out of 130) and move on to something else. But I can already see how its improved my comprehension of French films, which has been fun.
I’m at 677 days on Duolingo and I can confirm that this lack of fluency and learning words I’ll NEVER use is very disappointing. I won’t be renewing.
Maintaining the streak and the incessant notifications got exhausting for me.
Same here. I found the gamification started to really stress me out in the end and I just quit.
Wow, you shared some really awesome resources in this post, Mathias, thank you! I've been using Babel to learn Spanish. What do you think of that app?
For a common language that has a lot of resources for learners, I’d recommend not using any single app for more than a year. For a less common language, maybe extend it to two years. Maybe other people’s experiences will differ, but I think generally your learning starts to lose effectiveness is you stick with a particular resource or method too long.
Duolingo is fun. My most studied language is German. It is definitely complementary to my learning. I find it useful and that sometimes surprises me. I have run across many phrases that reinforce content I have learned outside of Duolingo. The best way for me to improve my German is immersive learning. It’s hard and rewarding at the same time. I also have a native-speaker tutor.
Awesome article!
Personally, I really appreciate Duolingo’s ability to get me to do some intentional daily language exposure, but it’s not much more than that.
So I’m piggybacking to mention some really useful apps that I’ve been loving:
Busuu - its unique approach is the crowd-sourced writing and speaking practices you get to do. I love the community so far.
ConjuGato - useful for Spanish learning because conjugations are the bane of my existence.
As far as augmenting my conversational French, I found the Michel Thomas series very helpful. He breaks it down and for some reason I retain what I learn listening to him. They are available through Apple’s bookstore for iPhone listening. I’m so glad I’m not the only one who had to abandon Duolingo, the streak concept was ridiculous and many of the sentences are incorrect and aren’t even spoken in daily French. The concept initially was great then it lost its way imo.
I have also given up on the Duolingo app, but their podcasts are good for getting into listening comprehension if you’re learning Spanish or French!
I think the case of the 5 min session to keep the streak is interesting- sure a little video would probably be more useful but in that scenario I think the alternative is actually not doing anything because you forgot, in which case I do think going over something you’ve already mastered is better than nothing…but yeah I did get fed up with lack of progress overall.
This was a super helpful post! Something I’ve also found helpful is reading short stories in Spanish, and baselang.
I have been learning Romanian on Duolingo for about two months. I have learned many new words and gotten way more comfortable speaking Romanian, which surprised me, because I honestly didn't expect it to help me at all.
However I live in a small Romanian village, and have done for quite a long time, (and I was looking to get better at the language - never had a chance to learn more than a few basic words) so if I did not have that constant exposure to Romanian, I don't think it would do me a bit of good.
It has helped me a lot, but there are some weird things about Duolingo I don't like. For example, as you said, strange sentences that make no sense, wrong grammar, (I can tell it's wrong because I have lived here for so long, so even if I don't completely understand it, I know it doesn't sound right,) and things like that. I'm sure the new AI integration has something to do with it, for it sounds really mechanical and strange.
But these weird sentences! Like when I was learning about animals, Duolingo was like "three cows are eating a lion" which makes no sense at all and you would never say that in real life.
So yes, Duolingo has helped me the most with confidence in speaking which I did not have before, and I have learned lots of new words that I have not heard before in daily life in Romania.
But I definitely feel that I would NEVER be fluent if I only learned from Duolingo, and if you'd only learn on there and then traveled to the country where they speak that language you were learning for the first time you would probably fall flat on your face. Only because it is so often unhelpful, not out of your own deficiency. So I don't love Duolingo, but it has been slightly useful in learning Romanian.
I’ve been learning since 2011, my streak is over 1600 days. I spent 2 years in the top league (diamond) I have every badge and I won a tournament. I was doing goodness knows how many lessons twice a day. Now I do 1 lesson a day just to keep learning. Am I any good at the language? Not really. About 15 years ago I did an Open University module in my target language. That really pushed my learning on. Unfortunately I can’t afford to do the modules any more.
Thanks for the post and recommendations. I think I do get some value from Duolingo, mainly to reinforce what I’m learning in my actual in-person (!) classes. But I also like ConjuGato and just signed on to Pimsleur, which is great for pronunciation. The passive aggressive Duo notifications used to be cute, but now I’m finding them really irritating.
I’ve been doing Duolingo’s French off and on since 2018 - more frequently in the last 3 years. When the year finishes and my renewal comes up, I’m saying, “non!” Even though I score at a B2 level in reading and comprehension according to them, I’m still no further in speaking than I was at the end of four college quarters of French. My best experiences with speaking have been: traveling and stopping in at my local L’Alliance Française for coffee and chat. I’ll put my money toward those two modalities before spending on Duolingo again.
thanks for sharing many alternative resources...yet I still see Doulingo as good for beginners and i use it right for learning the basics of german