this post was submitted on 10 Apr 2025
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Duolingo! Screw that app. Has anyone ever learned to speak a language by just using duolingo?
My streak is the only thing keeping me going
Send help, the owl has my family
So as someone who used the app daily for 5,09315068 years, do you feel you learned a new skills or has it only given you the feeling of not wasting all your time in unproductive apps?
I'm doing the Japanese course, and it's... Mixed. I definitely know more than before I started, but duo really isn't the best app for Japanese
I used lingodeer for a while and it was a lot better, but they jacked up the price massively, after which I stopped
As someone that used to use it, I feel like it lost it's utility massively after learning hiragana and katakana. After that it's much better to use things with more kanji if you actually want to be able to read. I did see they tried to add kanji though, but don't know if it's enough.
I've been using it for years, but only for ~10 minutes a day. Obviously it can't teach you to speak it, but to read and write? Absolutely. The secret is to NEVER install the app. My philosophy is that if it has a website then everything should be doable via the website, and I won't install the app.
NOTHING should urge you to install their app, unless it actually cannot function properly on a, say, desktop PC. In case of a trekking and hiking app, I understand it only works properly knowing your location (I would still be terribly paranoid about what else it does with my location info, apart from recommending paths and whatnot). But other than that, I always assume that when something could be perfectly done via a website and they still push their app, they just want to sell your data.
And believe me, using Duolingo via the website is definitely less frustrating than having the app.
I will never forgive Apple for fucking over the open web. When the iPhone launched it was web-only. You could 'install' web apps, and any device APIs - accelerated graphics, hardware sensors, location, offline storage, intents, contacts lists, push notifications - were user-selected and presented as standard JavaScript interfaces. One app, literally every platform, and iPhone was there first. It was in a period where every platform was rushing to support web applications with high-performance browser engines and Apple looked like they were going to do for websites-as-applications what they had done for USB ten years earlier: recognise it as the best way forward and push it hard, compatibility be damned.
Then the iPhone started selling well and they got fucking dollar signs in their eyes, realising how much money there was to be made forcing everyone to develop on their platform, in their language, for thier devices. Apps, distribution channels, operating system, services, devices, development, all of it on their terms and on thier platforms. The second they became mainstream they started locking everyone into their vertical ecosystem and wringing as much cash out as they could, exposing their hipocracy and showing that they were as anti-competetive and destructive as Microsoft at their 1990s worst.
In 1980, a large number of experts in business and general tech predicted that by 1990 most written communications would be fully electronic, something akin to email. What they didn't predict was the appearance of the fax machine, which was novel enough to be exciting but simple enough to be understood, and people flocked to it. As a result, electronic communication was stalled for about twenty years. I have no doubt that at some point in the future, Apps will be seen the same way but I think it will take a lot longer to get there.
Ja. Ich habe Deutsch gelernt. Kaffee mit Milch, bitte.
The content on duolingo is pretty bad, in general. There are much better apps out there like Language Drops and Rosetta Stone - but they aren't free.
Drops is free if you get the kids version. No ads and you can reset your allowance for free just by pressing the timer. It has less vocab though. Also be careful because their translations aren't always accurate (it gave the word for a stuffed animal, as in taxidermy, for cuddly toy in European Portuguese. I reported it several years ago and it's still not fixed) and they translate "how much" differently in different languages (eg in Arabic it translates to how much quantity, but in Portuguese and French, how much price). So I had a lot of fun thinking I was asking how much I need to pay for a bag of potatoes and the man kept telling me 500g.
I haven't used duolingo since they brought in that stupid crown system years ago. I got my 600 day streak and then stopped using it. I heard it's even worse now. It was a good starting point, but you'll quickly have to supplement. Pre-crowns, duolingo was pretty good. Memrise was much better, but they've overhauled that now too. Also I dislike that duolingo has time for fictional languages, but refuses to do real languages like European PT, British English, etc.
I've been using Busuu and it's really good. Its really aggressive about asking you to buy the premium version but it has all the functionality you need in the free version so you just gotta ignore it.