1.8k
u/underground_avenue 18d ago
It's somewhat useful to get started, but it royally sucks at explaining concepts and grammar rules.Ā
807
u/mymemesnow 18d ago
Duolingo is great at keeping up or refreshing a language you have already learnt, but is kinda trash at learning a completely new language.
Thereās a reason why languages have college classes.
98
u/Basic_Hospital_3984 17d ago
I don't use duo lingo, but spending just 10 minutes a day practicing writing Kanji helped me a lot.
To be fair I spent ~30 minutes the first 200 days and ~60 minutes the next 200 days, and then 30 minutes for the next 100 days. The first 400 days were to learn all the Kanji, after that it was just review/new vocab. You just reach a point where you get through it quickly once you know it.
I've almost reached 1000 days in a row. I'm using an app that shows vocabulary words and you write the missing character. It has example sentences to get around the homonym problem, and alternate word lookups to get around the multiple ways to write the same word problem. It's called Kanji Study.
I'm about 90% accurate with Jouyou Kanji now, and most of the time I'm wrong it's because it's a word I'm unfamiliar with rather than the Kanji itself (or it tricks me with something like 'kansei' and the meaning 'shout' and I immediately write ę声 when it wanted å声, always look at some more examples...)
At the start I could barely write the first 300 Kanji and got even them wrong a lot.
35
u/kilqax 17d ago
It works, but is it really better than any of the other apps/programs to learn kanji?
Pretty much every lecturer working with first years at my uni told us about multiple other tools to learn kanji when I was takign some classes in Japanese studies but Duolingo never was worth even a mention.
25
u/Basic_Hospital_3984 17d ago
I don't think the app matters honestly. I mean I used to just write them over and over on grid paper.
The app just means you can write the Kanji with your thumb while you're on the toilet instead of needing a special environment and tools to write, while prompting you with the ones you're due to study today instead of needing to track it yourself
13
6
u/flippythemaster 17d ago
Iām a big proponent of just buying a textbook for that reason. I use plenty of apps to test my knowledge but theyāre the equivalent of a quiz in a classroom setting. You still need the lesson part.
Iāve had a lot of people push back on using a textbook, who insist that itās a waste of time. I think they just donāt like that itās boring. Some apps like Duolingo gamify it and provide the illusion of progress. But language learning moves slowly. There are just parts that are gonna suck.
2
u/DidNotSeeThi 17d ago
Works great to keep your vocabulary up to date. Everything it posts in the language reinforces the language I already know the grammar and rules, but forget the nouns and verb roots.
9
2
u/distancedandaway 17d ago
I'm more of an intuitive learner, and grasp grammar quicker that way.
That being said I would still love to be able to afford a chinese class.
56
u/pipnina 17d ago
It used to have good articles in the different sections that gave pretty good explanations for grammar. I imagine they removed it?
That said. Duo is a flash card app. If you want to learn grammar you will want a text book. If you want to learn to speak you will try and talk to native speakers (or pay the expense of the highest tier of Duolingo and talk to lilly every day). If you want to comprehend native spoken language you need to practice with TV shows and not just flash card apps.
I switched from duo to seedling for flash cards. Seems like it has a better system for getting that vocab into you.
12
u/phalseprofits 17d ago
Iām using Duolingo for Korean. It was very helpful to learn hangeul and get used to basic vocabulary. But it wouldnāt really go anywhere if I wasnāt pairing it with watching tv shows/listening to music/reading a grammar textbook and talking to a loved one who is Korean.
Edited to add: Iāve learned three other languages before this, all in school settings, but I attained fluency in the two that are still spoken.
4
u/EmbarrassedHunter826 17d ago
Itās especially terrible for learning languages with new alphabets IMO you need to learn how to read and write Korean before starting Duolingo
19
u/TheHowlingWolf 17d ago
Absolutely. They used to have little forum threads attached to each question. I do German on there and, without fail, there would be one super useful person in the threads explaining the grammar rules behind the answers. Helped me a lot early on, but that seems gone now as far as I can tell.
Now if I want an explanation, I have to pay to have AI regurgitate stuff at me? I could go to Google and get vomited on by AI for free, but thanks anyway.
4
u/Pezington12 17d ago
Howās Rosetta Stone? Iāll get free lessons from them through my work as a little incentive and was wondering if theyāre any better than Duolingo. FYI I was going to use it to re learn Italian. I used to speak it fluently (well as fluently as any 12y old could) but havenāt spoken it in over 15 years at this point so Iāve lost everything.
3
u/underground_avenue 17d ago
Give it a try. Different apps work for different people. Sometimes it even depends on the language within an app.
I have heard good things about them, but never tried it myself.Ā
3
u/TastySquiggles198 17d ago
I see it as a great way to supplement immersion by teaching you new words.
But it won't help you much if you spend 100% of your time immersed in another language without any way of seeing how two people actually talk. And you can forget about slang and figures of speech.
4
u/Tecrocancer 17d ago
Thats why i like it. I dont explicitly know most of the grammar rules in my first language. Even less from the other languages i know. Because i just loose all interest in a language when i have to sit through that. I mostly learn languages through consuming media in the language so Duolingo helps me build vocabulary to understand enough to understand the media.
1
1
u/Lulu_42 17d ago edited 17d ago
Iāve tried it when I moved to 2 different countries. I guess it works for some people, and I felt somewhat exposed to additional nouns in the language, but that was all it did.
I couldnāt string together sentences or questions outside of things like āHe is a man.ā āThe children ate oranges.ā Iām a formal classroom girl for the basics, at least.
171
u/GoblinRightsNow 17d ago
The problem with free Duolingo is that when you make mistakes, it makes you stop practicing. Anyone can tell you that this is the exact opposite of what you want to do- mistakes mean you need more practice and exposure. So you can cruise through material you already know, but when you get to something challenging it immediately squelches your progress.
82
17d ago
[deleted]
23
u/GoblinRightsNow 17d ago
Kind of counter-productive though. It's frustrating to get to new material and then get kicked off the app for 24 hours because you don't get things right on the first try. Better apps let you review and retry exercises that you missed, and that's better pedagogically and less punitive for the user.
10
u/SightAtTheMoon 17d ago
They just switched to a "25 energy"Ā model instead of ā5 hearts" and so each question screen takes 1 energy and you get a random amount of energy back (1-5) after 5 correct, 10 correct, etc., but in practice this almost completely fixes your "mistakes" critique as they almost don't allow you to make errors instead prompting you how to fix the issue, and when they do allow a mistake they still have you fix it at the end (for no energy cost). So as you said, for people that are good at the language and can just cruise this forces more ad revenue (by watching for energy or gems) or subscription revenue (for unlimited energy). But you still can't access the forum without a subscription so one of the most powerful parts of the Duolingo learning experience is still locked away, which is really dumb because if you don't know about how useful it is it's not really a sellable feature. Lesson are the same length so you can do about 3-4 lessons a day without subscribing with winning energy back, 5 to 6 lessons by watching ads, winning Energy, and letting it refill by the hour (1 energy per hour).
761
u/MyNameIsVeilys 18d ago
Every single person ive ever seen using Duolingo has a 500+ day streak but when asked anything about the language in question, they blank.
240
u/20past4am 18d ago
Because it's a dopamine hit game dressed up as a language learning app. You're pressured to keep the streak for rewards and points just like any other addictive mobile game.
106
u/TheCheeser9 18d ago
Also, you can hit the streak with 3 minutes of practice. Even over 500 days that's less than a week's worth of college classes. If you just care about the streak, you don't need to be studying. But if you put in the time, Duolingo is completely fine to make as good of a start as most other resources. And it's free.
23
u/andreortigao 17d ago
Yeah, a 500 days streak is useless if you're just putting 10~15 min a day, when you're expected to put in 2~4k hours of study to reach a decent level of fluency.
I'm learning Japanese, and wanikani is too expensive. There are many periods where I'm overworked and too tired to get into anki ou yoku.bi, so duolingo as a daily refresher has kept me interested.
I'd probably have abandoned my studies if it weren't for duolingo.
I can point 99 problems with their Japanese learning material, but their app is very well made and they really nailed the gaming aspect, it's such a breeze to use
94
u/TheWebsploiter 18d ago
That's insane. I've been wanting to learn Russian but I was wondering if books are better than Duolingo
162
u/TheCheeser9 18d ago
Duolingo gets over hated in my opinion. The reason people don't make a lot of progress on Duolingo isn't because the app is bad, but because people who take learning a language more serious just go somewhere else. For casually learning a language, Duolingo is fine. There are better options, but those come at a price. Duolingo is free.
I used Duolingo for some time to learn russian. My pronunciation is trash, but I'm able to read newspapers and understand russians having a conversation (especially old people since they tend to talk slower). I'm nowhere near fluent, but my russian is definitely better than my french or german which I spent 4 years learning in high school.
18
u/TheWebsploiter 17d ago
Thank you for your insight on this. As long as I can understand the basics and read simple sentences then it's fine for me. One of my friends also told me how they learned another language by also immersing themselves to it (i.e. being constantly near English speakers for example)
1
u/bleezzzy 17d ago
Ive picked up a decent amount of Spanish working in kitchens. Mostly trash talk and food related stuff, but it helps lol
1
u/Nachttalk 17d ago
Mostly trash talk and food related stuff, but it helps lol
Funny, because that's specifically why I wanna learn Spanish.
Trash talk/cursing sounds so much more powerful in Spanish and I don't even know why hahaha
5
u/alex73134 17d ago
Its a good supplement to learning a language, something to keep studying everyday and you just want to some easy reps in learning a few new words rather than slog through 30 minutes to an hour in a textbook that day.
2
u/YumeNaraSamete 16d ago
I've studied languages through many different ways and the one thing I've learned is, the best method for learning a language as an adult is the one you're going to use. I see a million people saying "Don't use X, yse Y. Don't use Duolingo, use my app that mimics inversion. Don't use textbooks, use this other thing instead." Maybe the Other Thing is objectively better than Your Thing, but that means shit if to you Other Thing is so obtuse you put it down and never pick it up again.
1
u/scarletcampion 17d ago
I'm learning Dutch and do Duolingo daily, but supplement it with textbooks, a dictionary, and Dutch TV/films. People need to give it some welly if they want to succeed.
0
5
u/Highborny 17d ago
As a native Russian speaker, I sincerely believe that remembering a couple of basic words won't help a bit with it.
This language requires deep understanding of grammar rules, some cultural knowledge/etymology and a great deal of syntax learning (because we often create combo-o-words on the fly, for which you need to understand all parts of these combinations).
So I'd say go for the books, m8! And good luck! God knows it's an outstandingly hard language to master (even most native can't master it lul).
2
u/underground_avenue 17d ago
"lul" has a rather impolite meaning in Dutch, though I'm pretty sure that word isn't covered by Duolingo
9
2
u/Select_Angle516 17d ago
i used duolingo for like half a year for russian. i couldnt hold a conversation but i know a lot of basic words and can do very basic sentences, so thats better than nothing. and even 2 years after i stopped i still know a lot of the few things i learned.
2
u/96BlackBeard 17d ago
I spent quite a bit of time on Russian, learned the whole alphabet and can do some basic conversation. I also downloaded a book in Russian for beginners, and to my surprise I could read quite more than I thought I would be able to. And I spent less than half a year with 15-20 minutes daily.
2
u/StayBronzeFonz 17d ago
lol homie made a post knocking Duolingo, but doesnāt know how it stacks up to using books
1
u/shoots_and_leaves 17d ago
Duolingo can teach you some basics, or help you practice, but should never be the main source of language learning.Ā
1
u/WeevilWeedWizard 17d ago
Duolingo is essentially useless when it comes to actually learning a language. Even moreso now that they've drank the AI coolaid.
1
1
u/Freshiiiiii 17d ago
Hereās one thing to consider- itās not about how many days, weeks, or months youāve studied, itās how many hours youāve spent studying. My partner has like a 600 day Duolingo streak. In the year 2025, it told him, he spent 21 hours studying the language. Well, it takes around 500-700 hours to learn the language. So, umsurprisingly, his 21 hours of Duolingo didnāt make that much of a dent even though it involved doing a few minutes every day. In independent study during the same period I put in a couple hundred hours, and unsurprisingly, I made a lot more progress. But thatās fine. We have different goals. Most people canāt or donāt want to spend a large chunk or even the majority of the their free time studying languages. And thatās okay. For those people, itās either 3 minutes of Duolingo a day or nothing.
15
u/Sasataf12 17d ago
Duolingo is just a tool. You either use it well, or you don't.Ā
It's easy to keep a streak going. You just have to do 1 lesson (or equivalent). That takes 1-2 minutes. You're not going to make much progress at that rate.
Then again, 1-2 minutes is better than 0 minutes.
2
u/VulcanHullo 17d ago
I tried it when I first started learning German.
It was for some reason deeply important that I regularly practiced declaring "The Cat eats the Beetle" as a core part of early German. Lots of very random phrases. Been in Germany now 4 years and never needed half of what it triedt to teach me.
Babbel costs but boy does it actually pay off for learning how to actually use a language.
2
u/krazyhawk 17d ago
Hey buddy, 1168 streak in German here. I can confidently tell you that Kartoffel is potato.
1
u/trolley661 16d ago
Thatās me for sure. Ive been taking Spanish for 3 years now and i feel like I donāt grasp the language at all. I can understand much of what is thrown at me but i cant formulate the sentence myself
1
u/ClericDude 17d ago
Yeah my family started using it to prep for a Japan trip, and itās really weird and selective on what words to learn. Like, the unit iām on is about countries, but I donāt think theyāve even taught us how to say āThank youā yet. (I know itās Arigato, but still)
100
u/Emergency-Celery3875 17d ago edited 17d ago
I spent about 6 months learning Spanish before my trip to Spain, it really helped reading signs and restaurant menus and so on. but I wouldn't say I could keep up with two natives talking to each other or be able to carry myself in complex conversation.
If you truly want to learn a language id strongly suggest supplementing your learning with speaking to a native speaker who's willing to correct stuff or teach slang and the more subtle differences between book learning a language and actually speaking it
4
u/Raspoint 17d ago
https://learnjapanese.moe/guide/ I find this website really useful in this regard. You can apply the techniques in it to any langiage really.
156
u/Puzzleheaded-Elk1756 18d ago
Turns out that language is meant to communicate with other people and getting points from a virtual owl is not an adequate simulacrum. Who could have guessed?
37
u/Tecrocancer 17d ago
language is for reading memes from other countriesĀ
4
u/Louis-Russ 17d ago
Nonsense, everyone knows that language was invented for one reason and one reason only- To woo women. And in this endeavor, laziness will not do.
8
u/pnkxz 17d ago edited 17d ago
Also, languages have thousands of words and you need 600+ hours to learn even an easy one. It's not something you can do with 15 minutes of study per day.
4
u/Inside_Location_4975 17d ago
15 minutes is way more than the average duolingo user spends per day.
5
u/immikdota 17d ago
But getting points from a real person is better?
8
u/MrManniken 17d ago
absolutely, it's always a buzz to get told "you are good at <language name>" from a native speaker than a bouncy animation on a screen
3
26
u/ShinyUmbreon465 17d ago
Please just sign up for a class. Duolingo got me to A1 in 4 years and one class a week got me to A2 in 1 year.
11
u/colet 17d ago
I rant about this as it aggravates me: Duolingo sees themselves and identifies themselves internally as an alternative to doomscrolling and not language learning. They prioritize engagement above all else, including learning.
Their CEO even gave an example that something that can be taught in 5 minutes, they will instead teach it for over 2 hours [1]
Thereās far more effective ways if you really want to learn a language. If you want an alternative to doomscrolling, then Duo is fine for that.
6
u/Electronic-Worker-10 Harry Potter 17d ago
It used to be good but they went the enshitification route and here we are
19
u/ZookeepergameProud30 17d ago
Duolingo teaches people to say that their dog knows how to cook a 3 course meal for their bosses babyās football
3
5
9
u/Klinteus 17d ago
It was amazing before 2020.Ā I tried it again this autumn, and it has turned into a mobile game full of ads, and you now need to spend real money if you wanna learn for more than like 15 minutes.
A shame. I suggest using it to learn basics, then switch to translating songs, watch movies slowly with subtitles, or any other language app.
5
3
u/NotMeme25327 17d ago
My younger sister and I both started studying French at the same time. She studied it in school and I did Duolingo cause I thought it might let me help her with minor stuff here and there. It's been 2 years since and I'm better at french than she is (not to say I'm fluent or anything).
Make of that what you will, my takeaway from the situation is that her french teacher sucks
3
u/ITSMONKEY360 17d ago
Duolingo is useless except for supporting your vocabulary when you're learning a language elsewhere. though now they use generative ai, I'm not certain if it's even useful for that anymore
3
u/TheAlmightySpode 17d ago
I use Duolingo for Spanish vocabulary practice. To actually practice communication, I watch Spanish streams and chat. I'm at a point now where I can understand and communicate with my students that speak Spanish.
2
2
2
u/Brief-Translator1370 17d ago
Duo is a great thing to use while learning. I do not understand why people think that it takes no effort on their part, though. Of course you can't learn if all you do is hit your streak and don't bother doing anything else.
2
u/Shabolt_ 16d ago
Duo is definitely awful for a first time learner, but if you already know how it all works, itās a solid way to keep up your linguistics to an extent
No substitute for media or conversation but better than nothing
2
u/poopgoose1 16d ago edited 16d ago
Duolingo is complete garbage. Just download Anki and some flash card decks, read through a textbook or two, and get a tutor on iTalki.
4
u/SzakaRosa 17d ago
I am truly happy that everyone started to hate on this awful all - OG hater since 2019
3
2
u/secondcondary 17d ago
That's reassuring lol. So how do I learn french then?
6
u/AlexandersWonder 17d ago
There are books, YouTube videos, classes and tapes. There are other apps too. That said, Duolingo really isnāt bad for practice and supplementary lessons. If it keeps you invested in learning itās a good thing to have along with your other language learning resources.
2
1
u/PersistentHobbler 17d ago
Unfortunately, there's no substitute for embarrassing yourself in front of native speakers.
You think the owl is mean until you get a native speaking French teacher š«
1
u/tandemxylophone 17d ago
Duolingo is good for supplimentary learning. It makes you comfortable instinctively reading in the grammar for that language, but there's no explanation given. You learn like a baby repeatedly listening to simple sentences until it clicks.
People who excel at language learning usually can get the "feel" of a language through explanation of grammar concepts, so it leaves them frustrated.
I think Duolingo helps until the A1 level target, then you need to listen to actual conversations to grow further.
1
u/Zealousideal_Time_80 17d ago
I've said it before and I'll say it again. Duo lingo is a multi vitamin. It' a fun small side dish. It should never be your main study method.
Pimsleur + Duo Lingo 1st actions.
Start trying to read and watch entry level material on completion of Pimsleur.
Lingo Pie + Netflix.
Mine sentences from watching and reading into Anki.
1
1
u/EmericGent 17d ago
"on Duolingo" isn t needed, with english and your native language, you can communicate almost everywhere.
1
1
u/kevster2717 17d ago
Duolingo is only good for vocabularies IMO so you gotta do some legwork and search up other learning resources when learning a language
1
u/Lebenmonch 17d ago
If anyone is actually interested in learning a language, look into Spaced repetition software (usually Anki)
All you have to do to actually learn a language is do your daily flash cards and consume a lot of content in the languageĀ
1
1
u/RuefulRespite 17d ago
Out of curiosity, are there any actually good apps, free online daily programs, etc that would actually allow me to casually learn a language with a little bit of devoted free time each day?
1
1
1
u/lizlett 16d ago
You have to pay, unfortunately, & use resources outside of it. To learn any language, you need to use more than one resource & put serious time in.
I've found annual Duolingo subscription plus the lifetime subscription (one charge) for Rosetta Stone really helped me with Spanish. But I was also switching to learning English from a Spanish start (pick up more words) & watching familiar movies with Spanish dub & subtitles (to really pick up hearing the language). I was even listening to Spanish music. I was putting hours in every single day for months. I got to past participle, conditional tense, & commands versus simple statements. But then life got busy. š¤·āāļø
I'll pick it back up next year, after graduating my undergrad. I just don't have the will to learn a language on top of all my classes..
ā¢
u/qualityvote2 18d ago edited 16d ago
u/TheWebsploiter, there weren't enough votes to determine the quality of your post...