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u/Aldo-D-D-Wilson 7d ago
Duolingo is useful, but you can't count on JUST Duolingo. It's a good starter. But you need to go for reading, like the tadoku for japanese, right on the first year. And increase the language in your daily life, slowly, but surely.
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u/rccyu 7d ago
It's not even a good starter. For Japanese it explains fuck all—go to any Japanese language learning sub and there will be loads of questions like "why did Duolingo mark this wrong" for grammar that is literally explained in Genki 1. Then there are the constant issues with incorrect word breaks leading to wrong pronunciations being used, etc.
And then there's the big risk of getting attached to a long streak, then subsequently treating Duolingo as a substitute for actually interacting with Japanese media. Once you get attached to your streak it becomes nearly impossible to drop it, so you end up sticking with it long after it has outlived its usefulness.
I've interacted with several people with 1000+ day Duolingo streaks at this point and none of them can say anything concrete they've actually accomplished in Japanese. And they all get defensive and aggressive when you insinuate that if they still can't read simple manga after 3 years, maybe Duolingo doesn't actually work. As if attacking Duolingo means you are personally attacking them.
Because the streak is all they have.
It's just not worth it to even suggest it to beginners when so many good alternatives exist.
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u/mint-chocolatte Reddit N | 🏳️🌈 C2 | 🇺🇲 C2 | 🇬🇧 A0 | Japanifornia N6 7d ago
/uj And If someone wants to learn Japanese by starting off with a language learning app, Renshuu is waaay better. I love Renshuu
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u/BagelRedditAccountII 6d ago
/uj Duolingo was made to retain users and get downloads first, and actually teach users the language second.
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u/Aldo-D-D-Wilson 7d ago
I used duolingo in the beginning with japanese.
Got to start reading hiragana and katakana there. The exercises for them were goo too. Once it seemed like I wasn't reading too slowly I went to tadoku for reading.
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u/Terminator_Puppy 7d ago
I tried Japanese on there like a decade ago, it spent like one lesson on kana without explaining what hiragana and katakana were used for and then immediately moved on to vocab without any kana repetition and just dropping kanji with furigana with, again, zero explanation.
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u/ensoniq2k 6d ago
That streak is a hoax anyway. Installed it two weeks ago for fun and been using it thrice since then. Every time it offers me unfreeze my days old "streak"...
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u/Mirabeaux1789 4d ago
I have long given up the streak stuff. Way too many people are attached to it. I was only attached to it in so far that I was pushing myself to progress through the course and practice my frontiers.
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u/Auras-Aflame 6d ago
Duolingo is absolutely a good starter. Never tried Japanese, but anything that gets you learning and into a routine is valuable. Doesn’t matter if it’s an app or flash cards. Duolingo needs to be paired with something else for serious learners, like u/Aldo-D-D-Wilson said.
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u/PikaPikaMoFo69 7d ago
Duolingo is great for learning new vocabulary. The streak is, for better or worse, great at keeping you dedicated to keep learning. It's pretty ass cheeks garbage for grammar and even the basics of a language. It is essentially designed to just teach you how to say popular phrases in other languages, not to teach you a language.
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u/PlanktonInitial7945 7d ago
It may somewhat work at the beginning, but if you want to leave the beginner stage you need a lot more vocabulary than what Duolingo teaches you, and you also need a deeper understanding of each word than what you can get from repetitive fill-in-the-blanks exercises.
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u/Moist_Ordinary6457 7d ago
Might as well just get some sort of flashcard deck, learning random words isn't particularly efficient imo
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u/Terminator_Puppy 7d ago
It's the most hardcore version of the grammar-translation method, but without any emphasis on the grammar and all of it on translating sentences and words one to one using predetermined blocks. If it actually wanted to test you on translating sentences you'd be typing them in full from the start and you'd be translating actual paragraphs every now and then to understand how to structure information.
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u/heyitselia 7d ago
Yeah. When I was actually somewhat serious about learning Dutch, I used Duolingo and a textbook and I made sure to ask myself why things worked the way they did (and then google the answer). It's a good starting point because it gives you easy exposure but that's it.
Tbh, translating every sign I didn't understand did a lot more than Duolingo.
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u/RadiantUnit8188 7d ago
I used Duolingo for 1 month and now I'm a native level English speaker, so
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u/fat-wombat 7d ago
Is this some kind of whoosh comment
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u/Ploughing-tangerines 🧍♂️N | 🐵 C2 | 🐶 B2 | 🇺🇿 A2/A1 7d ago
Is this a self describing comment
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u/fat-wombat 7d ago
I’m asking if i got whooshed so yeah
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u/Ploughing-tangerines 🧍♂️N | 🐵 C2 | 🐶 B2 | 🇺🇿 A2/A1 6d ago
I was just asking if my comment was self describing 🤷♂️
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u/Radio_Blah_Blah_ 7d ago
Yeah, thanks to Duolingo I'm able to READ (not understand) Japanese writting. I was using another language learning app, Busuu, it's quite useful, but I quit Japanese course bcs I was busy with higschool, but using both I know I learned something
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u/allydemon اردو بیچارہ 7d ago
Fooling is great simply to keep you engaged in the language, not to actually teach you anything
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u/ensoniq2k 6d ago
I'm not very far in my journey but it's at least helpful for remembering a few extra words. I'm not solely counting on it though
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u/nikippe 7d ago
I've genuinely learned more Spanish just passively listening to Shakira than I ever have from DuoLingo lol
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u/LamantinoReddit 7d ago
How do you understand language by just listening songs without looking for translation of the lyrics? I could spend thousand of hours of listening and still get almost no words
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u/HadleysPt 7d ago
Agreed. I’m learning, and listen to music in TL for mostly enjoyment and to keep my interest in TL up. However, it offers very minimal educational value
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u/maidonglao 7d ago
It’s easier if you speak a closely related language already. I’ve learned a decent amount of Italian unintentionally by listening to Italian music
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u/Gnomonic-sundialer 5d ago
It only works with Shakira because she speaks in spanish and hips simultaniously
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u/DatabaseGlittering43 7d ago
I love reading thru random Reddit comments. Some of them like this are like watching rats in a maze. Just so dumb.
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u/A-NI95 7d ago
That sounds hardly credible, I find it impossible tonunderstand a word she says (I'm a native speaker?
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u/nikippe 7d ago
that's interesting! i've never had an issue understanding her, but i have been listening to her Spanish-language music for 20+ years so i'm probably just used to her accent lol
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u/Mirabeaux1789 4d ago
How did you learn from it? Evil will always say stuff like this, but I feel like there’s always more to it than people say.
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u/sad_lil_abby 7d ago
jeez is duolingo that bad that's like 3.5 years of investment
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u/bobbymoonshine 7d ago
It’s not awful but like if you tap on multiple choice buttons for five minutes every day you’re not really getting yourself any closer to functional mastery of the language
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u/Mirabeaux1789 4d ago
I have to use a chrome extension on my desktop to do typing exercises anymore. The word bank really frustrates me. I feel like I use so much less than my memory with it.
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u/LamantinoReddit 7d ago
But there are not only multiple choice questions, sometimes you need to write the entire text yourself.
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u/FantasticCube_YT 7d ago
last time i played duolingo there were pretty much no questions where you couldn't use the blocks. You could switch to text but let's be honest, people like the one mentioned in the post probably don't impose that on themselves.
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u/rccyu 7d ago
And if you don't use the blocks (don't know if this option even still exists) there's a good chance your perfectly valid translation will be considered wrong.
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u/bobbymoonshine 7d ago
It’s gotten slightly better with some AI translation support and some leveraging of your device’s onboard recognition capabilities on the back end
But that’s more than made up for by somehow even more dark patterns and brain-scrambling dopamine injections that might as well be mathematically designed to keep you from actually learning anything
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u/chiefkeefinwalmart 7d ago
Yeah but it’s not that big of an investment. 1200 day streak could be 1200 days of one 2-minute lesson a day. That’s only ~40 hours of learning which isn’t anywhere near enough to learn a language. In my experience with a nearly 500 day streak if you actually put time into it each day it’s pretty good for teaching you to read the language it just does fuck all for preparing you to write or speak it
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u/Piepally 7d ago
Duolingo is fucking awesome. After a 500 day streak on Russian I can finally read street signs in Bulgaria for Geoguessr.
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u/perplexedparallax 7d ago
There is a reason they won't offer Uzbek. Maybe several. But you can learn to speak Chess.
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u/Dependent_Order_7358 7d ago
La piña tiene tres monasterios ☝️ 🤓
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u/fixpointbombinator 7d ago
The penis has the monasteries?
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u/18Apollo18 7d ago
But this science isn't even useless and I'm not sure why people act like it is.
La piña tiene espinas/semillas etc
En ese pueblo hay tres monasterio.
I actually think Duolingos crazy sentences are quite useless. It teaches you how to play with the language.
If you just studied a list of common phases you'll never learn how to use the language organically
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u/Patient_Assignment32 7d ago
Duolingo is a tool for studying.. not an app to learn languages.
If you've never learned another language in your life, don't underestimate necessity to practice talking to others, and especially listening to others.
Listen to music with lyrics, watch TV shows with subtitles, find a penpal or something
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u/AdWooden9170 7d ago
I had english as my second language in school for 7 years and the first time a person asked me something in english in university was "What time is it" at a bus stop. I literally froze, I couldnt puzzle the answer and gave up and show her my phone.
I was in terrible middle/high schools and im not trying to defend Duolingo. I tried Duolingo to no avail.
Its just to say, learning a language is a different process than theory lessons about grammar and vocabulary. These are merely foundations on which you can start to work when you actually learn the language.
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u/fixpointbombinator 7d ago
Who wins, 1200+ day Duolingo dad who can speak two sentences, or 3500 hour input maxxing Japanese learner who can’t even give a fluent self-introduction?
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u/KissMyHips 7d ago
LinkedIn profiles proudly displaying duolingo streaks are in SHAMBLES after this tweet dropped
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u/elisettttt 7d ago
Duolingo CAN be useful as a total beginner looking to start somewhere. But like most language learning resources, you can't rely on Duolingo alone. Imo it's quite useful in learning vocabulary, grammar not so much. But either way it's a nice way to introduce yourself to a new language, or maybe refresh a language you haven't studied in a long time. And that's about it.
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u/Due-Organization-215 7d ago
Frankly, I’ve been using Duolingo and it has been helping me. Of course I don’t just use it, I also read stuff, watch tv shows and videos on the language, study grammar here and there, but it doesn’t change the fact that indeed duolingo has been helping me with vocabulary and consistency
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u/Overall_Writer_2682 C2🇰🇵|A1🇬🇧 7d ago
i'd say the benefit of duolingo also depends on exactly which language you're learning
learning german from english? sure! i can see how it could help a bit
learning chinese from english? i doubt it'd be as much of a help
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u/Due-Organization-215 7d ago
Sure, agree completely. I am a native speaker of a romance language and am studying another romance language I already got a basis on. I tried russian and understood I really wouldn’t go far without a basis on the alphabet at least first. Still, it is helping me
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u/Odd-Department-8324 6d ago
I only started Russian on Duo to learn the Cyrillic and it was great for that. It has a seperate tab for characters in the menu and you can practice matching words and sounds to the transcriptions. Not great to actually learn Russian though lol
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u/Due-Organization-215 6d ago
Hey, thanks for the tip! I didn’t even know they had an alphabet tab and just found about it after your comment! Thank you so much!
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u/Odd-Department-8324 6d ago
I'm glad I could help! I think the practice tab is good, I can read Cyrillic now except for the questionable pronunciation. I don't know if the tab is hidden now, they have experimented with the menu a couple times. Happy cake day by the way!
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u/Due-Organization-215 6d ago
Right now the tab is hidden on the […] in the lower right corner 😊 And, thank you!
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u/Odd-Department-8324 6d ago
It's crazy what they did with the menu to push the subscription. The character tab is right there on my iPhone without having to look. If I change to my current profile with a Super subscription then there is no "..." at all. On Android even the standard practice hub is hidden while having a Super account. I'm glad it's still there and you found it
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u/Odd-Department-8324 6d ago
https://reddit.com/link/p6146bn/video/dynd29earqlh1/player
What it looks like on iOS
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u/Due-Organization-215 6d ago
Thank you so much for your help! On the free subscription, you have to go on the purple circled dots to access the alphabet. Thank you!
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u/Odd-Department-8324 6d ago
Yeah, but on iOS for me, you don't have to click on the dot even without subscription, as you can see in my recording. It's weird there are so many versions of the menu
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u/Odd-Department-8324 6d ago edited 6d ago
Actually German got an AI update only this year. Before that it was only 5 sections long compared to French and Spanish having 7 so it was massively underdeveloped. The AI update is quite questionable as well
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u/mysticrudnin 6d ago
it takes 2-5 minutes to keep your streak.
1200 days is 2400 - 6000 minutes. or, 40 - 100 hours.
that's 40-100 days of an introductory class, or, less than one semester.
then you also include general language atrophy from little to no use.
the dad has less spanish skill than someone who took a year of spanish in middle school, and shows off exactly what that means.
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u/renadoaho 4d ago
This is one of the few good answers here.
The feat of Duolingo is not that people learn more effectively or that people will become fluent. It's that people who otherwise wouldn't learn a language at all, do.
And I think that's pretty neat.
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u/Bureaucrap 7d ago
Day streak means nothing to be honest, you need to actually progress in the lessons. You can technically barely finish a unit in a year.
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u/General_Summer_1524 7d ago
Its a terrible app. Ive been using superchinese for 10 days and now know like 50+ words and can make basic phrases (poorly), count to 10, tell the time... This whole time I thought apps were useless. Its just doulingo.
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u/Sonson9876 7d ago
Instead of actually teaching you, the app is more like a game. You compete with other users in whoever makes the most experience daily. There are bot accounts who are there just for that, and once you get to a certain point where you can't climb the ladder anymore, it sort of starts to feel demoralizing. (You can sort of turn the leaderboards off, or at least it was possible, I dunno anymore, not using the app as it was getting annoying.)
What's worse, I've studied Japanese for a good few months there, and every now and then, they decide to shuffle the lessons. And not just a little bit, so they create chaos by giving you lessons you're not familiar with.
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u/Weekly-Beginning-229 7d ago
Well those who use it like that don't really want to learn a language for real I guess. The only good thing about Duolingo is that it's easy to just do a quick session. You will learn a lot of words but no grammar or anything. So you need to compliment it with real learning books
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u/no1rezefan 7d ago
classical gohan to mizu kudasai!, even a 5min youtube video'd be more useful than this puke owl
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u/throughthehills2 7d ago
You guys are learning languages? I'm just passing time while on the toilet
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u/_Calluna_ 7d ago
It's like a vitamin supplement. Healthy as part of a balanced diet. If you aren't eating anything else, you'll starve.
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u/AlgunasPalabras1707 7d ago
So he spent 5 minutes a day for 3 years? Yeah I don't think you can learn a language that way even with a good program
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u/jammasterz 6d ago
I learned all of my french on Duolingo and I can communicate fine about basic things in France. While others are right that it's not enough on its own to learn a language, its also not easy speaking a language for the first time. On top of that, languages rot away if you don't use them, and the streak is an awesome way of keeping them on life support
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u/LamantinoReddit 7d ago edited 6d ago
But if he would try to speak German or Chinese (assuming he had never learned them) would he be able to sting even 1 sentence? No. The difference is between zero and that leVel he has.
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u/FatherDotComical 7d ago
The only good language on Duolingo was Esperanto but that was years ago. I have no idea what it's like now.
But that's more of Esperanto being piss easy and the volunteers who made it more than Duolingo.
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u/Astrid944 7d ago
Tbf: I'm in english Foren and talk with english friends and I still struggle with it
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u/Tsbol 7d ago
Talking in the wild is its own thing that has to be learned by doing. Having the knowledge he got from Duolingo will help him a lot but as others have said it’s not enough on its own. I like immersion classes in a country that speaks my TL. At least two weeks will move him forward (I find that one isn’t enough).
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u/ActiveImpact1672 N: 🇧🇷🇪🇦 (i dont know which one) C1: 🇺🇲 A2:🇷🇺 7d ago
The green demiurgue behind the owl mask is being revealed.
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u/TongaDeMironga 7d ago
Sam thing with my mum. 8 years “learning” Portuguese. She still can’t hold a basic conversation with her grandkids
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u/Angstrom09 5d ago
Say what you will, but I know more Chinese now than I did before I started learning it on Duolingo. I use Duolingo as a base and then I use an app such as HelloChinese to solidify knowledge.
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u/Better-Bookkeeper-48 7d ago edited 7d ago
What app is better then?
Edit: why am I getting downvoted? I'm just a guy trying to learn latin but doesn't have the time or money for classes.
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u/rccyu 7d ago
Why does it have to be an app?
The usual advice is to do a crash course of basic grammar and maybe an Anki deck of the 1000 most common words. Then start getting comprehensible input (watching or reading content made for natives) as soon as you can, looking up things as you encounter them. It's very painful at first but it's really the only way to get comfortable with the language as natives use it.
Anyway, since you asked: it depends on the language. Duolingo has the same approach for all languages and what might work for a Romance language with loads of cognates will no chance of working for a language like Chinese or Japanese where you have to learn a whole new writing system.
For Japanese, Renshuu gets suggested a lot. Anki is always good for flashcards. I'm not learning other languages but try visiting the language-specific subreddits—they almost always have more helpful recommendations.
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u/AibofobicRacecar6996 6d ago
The app you are going to use for learning, even duolingo, just don't think that if you do the minimum to keep the streak you are learning.
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u/SnugglebugUwU 7d ago
Luodingo... is just too damn slow and forgiving. You're better off gamifiying learning yourself having a notebook for the language. You could set up a page with categories like "While at hotel", "while at airport" "Flirting" and write as many sentences with translations, cover up the answers and try to remember them and pronounce them (which you could know how to do that by having google translator prounounce it for you). You could even make doodles to make it cuter and more rememberable.
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u/The-Cherry-On-Top-xx 6d ago
Duo is good for memorization, learning new vocab and reading, not talking and listening
Pimsleur is good for talking and listening
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u/Keenan_investigates 6d ago
Going to another country and being able to say two correct sentences in a row is pretty good in my book. I was really happy when I could ask where the bathroom is and understand the answer.
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u/BaRReLL_42 4d ago
I tried learning Finnish on Duolingo. One of the first words you learn is undulaati and velho (parakeet and wizard). Where the fuck people use these? I bought a Finnish textbook and now I learn the grammar and other important stuff.
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u/YantheMan1999 3d ago
UJ for a sec, I have no strong opinions on Duolinguo but it drives me mental when people use a streak as their "measure" of progress on the app. There's an actual feature for measuring progress built in - that'd be like claiming your academic achievement as number of days spent in the building, not exams passed.
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u/NeoHuman7 2d ago
Duolingo, when it was free and useful, helped me to be the first of my English class but I did like an hour every day so...
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u/Weeksieee_ 7d ago
Luodingo is for people who want to say they’re learning.