Duolingo is best when you're the average American, with a few years of language courses in high school that you've half forgotten. As you go, it all kinda fills in. I tried learning Arabic from scratch and while it's fantastic for learning the alphabet and memorizing words, it became obvious fast that I'd need to do some reading outside the app.
While Duolingo is certainly better than the previous school standard of “here’s a textbook, here’s an audio tape to play on loop”, it’s nowhere near the level of a private tutor.
I’m currently nearing a 2000-day streak and have repeatedly gold-starred the German course as they add more content, and Duolingo isn’t the only app I’m using.
While my vocabulary is OK, I don’t conjugate even close to correctly, my grammar in general sucks, and I can only comprehend real-life spoken German if the speaker talks very slowly and clearly and uses a sufficiently short sentences — from experience, the sort of conversation you’d find in an interview in a general interest magazine in the waiting room of a Hausarzt.
I’m also trying to learn Arabic on Duolingo. Over a year into that course, I still can’t even read the entire Arabic alphabet.
I've found that Duolingo is very good for learning how to read another language (or at least read enough to get an idea of what a text is saying).
It's mediocre at teaching you how to write, bad at teaching you to listen, and useless at teaching you how to speak.
I've found that if you just grind through lessons without actually reading the supporting material, you don't learn much at all. If you actually read the supporting material you'll learn a lot more.
Duolingo is best used as a tool in a toolbox of language learning tools. It's good for reinforcement learning, but not great for actually developing an understanding.
As an analogy, you could learn algebra by looking at a lot of examples and working through worksheets of algebra problems, but you're not going to actually understand what you're doing, or learn very well.
Better for who, you or Duolingo? If you want to learn a language you need to run out of Duolingo exercises in a couple months and quit that app for other study.
Duolingo is basically the app equivalent of flashcards. It's a little smarter than that, but not much. If you're serious about learning a language, it absolutely has a place. But Duolingo __alone__ is not going to make you competent, much less fluent.
Personally, I'm happy with it. I took years of Spanish and started with Duolingo in French with zero prior French, and I can now recognize phrases and hold some basic conversation; for 5 minutes a day with no significant continuous time commitment that's not bad!
I have tried Duolingo (Premium user), and I can say that it is not an effective app if you're going to learn a language effectively. Instead, it is better if you're going to have a bite-sized time to have some mini quiz or something like that. It is more of memorization, and there's no immersion or anything that makes you feel you're making significant progress
What if you don't need listening or speaking skills, only reading? In your opinion is Duolingo a good fit for someone who only needs to learn to read the language?
Personally, I never found Duolingo to be a great app for learning a language. By far the best combo I’ve ever found is following along with Language Transfer [0] lessons and reviewing flash cards using Anki. Adding in-person classes to the mix greatly boosts that.
I’ve learned more Greek in 2 years now with that combo as an adult than I did in a decade learning Spanish as a child by only taking classes. The only thing more effective was living in a city that only spoke the language I was learning after I had achieved a certain level of proficiency.
Duolingo made me feel like I was learning a language and having fun while doing it, but every time I looked back on using it, I observed I really wasn’t learning very effectively with it. It’s far too robotic and impractical in my experience.
Duolingo is great, because learning a language (and many other skills) is a matter of doing it consistently. If you have a 4 hour class once a week but don't study or read anything in Spanish outside of the class, you will forget things before the next class.
Of course, Duolingo is not magical, but it gives you enough vocabulary and understanding that you can start following people on twitter/instagram and know what's happening. Then you start trying to reply and interact, and then at some point try a book, then a TV show..
Also, many people plan on starting something (like learning a language) later on, when they have more time. Many people I know that wanted to learn English (Im Brazilian) didn't start years ago because they `didn't have time`, so now, after a few years, they still need to start from 0
I've enjoyed Duolingo and paid for a while. One takeaway I have is that it's not really a good way to learn languages. It's too formulaic. People complain that they can't understand actual conversation despite years of consistent duo practice. It is fun and addicting though.
I'll add my (32/M/USA) perspective as someone who subscribed to duolingo plus last month. I'm learning Arabic ahead of a _potential_ move with my spouse to an Arabic speaking country.
First Duolingo is fun to use. I didn't enjoy classroom based learning in high school. Duo gamifies the process really well, it's on my schedule, and I have a concrete reason to want to learn. Duo has been reducing my time on social media as well, always a bonus when picking up a good habit.
The $7/month premium subscription was worth it. I'm investing 30 minutes a day in the app, and ad-free means I can get through more lessons. I have unlimited lives so my learning isn't interrupted if I struggle on a hard lesson.
I'm not expecting to become fluent on Duo alone. But I think I'll get a great handle on some basics. My wife is already fluent, so that's helped me speak and figure out some things I struggled with.
I also tried the Rosetta Stone app. I didn't think that one was fun, it throws you into hard content quickly, so I haven't been using it. If our move happens, I'll enroll in a more traditional environment, and I may take a second look at the Rosetta Stone app. For now I'm happy that I have something that's making me increasingly comfortable with the idea of speaking Arabic.
do you really feel like you learn a language with duolingo though? everytime ive tried to learn a language i got much further doing it by studying a book.
Duolingo has worked great for me. I had learned Spanish a decade ago and completely forgotten it. In a few months of consistent practice, I learned enough to get around. And after 6-9 months, I could have basic conversations.
I was never good at learning languages and Duolingo has been the best system for me. I like the paced repetition it does. Also, that it has you practice reading, writing, saying, and listening.
I know of some people who have learned languages through Duolingo. I also know some people who took classroom courses and accompanied those with Duolingo – and they believe Duolingo was helpful in that sense. I know people who learned foreign language by a combination of Duolingo + staying in a foreign country at the same time.
I myself have used Duolingo to learn some rudimentary basics of a foreign language and I haven't forgotten those.
I doubt Duolingo is the most efficient, but that doesn't mean it's useless.
Duolingo isn't actually good for anything past the introductory levels of language learning.
Honestly, when it comes to learning languages and you're already past the first stage of learning (things like understanding basic sentence structure, basic vocabulary, and important verbs....where Duolingo IS actually very useful especially for visual learners), speaking to a human is the only way to learn. A computer is no substitute for another human, especially when it comes to learning a language that you'll primarily use to interact with other humans.
I agree that using Duolingo alone is probably not the most effective way to learn a language, but I find its quick drills work well in tandem with other methods. I'm currently using Babbel (free 3 month trial) with Duolingo and the combo seems to work well. Is there some other app that you would recommend?
I live in a country and I'm trying to learn the language. I also take weekly classes and occasionally use private tutoring when I have time. I still get a ton of value out of duolingo, its exercises are easy to do in spare moments and it's a great way to work on vocabulary and passive grammar understanding, I love it.
It's not nearly enough on it's own to learn a language though, it's very very good as a supplement though, ime
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 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.
reply