LANGUAGE LEARNING
900-Day Streak on Duolingo
Is this free app enough to learn a new language?
I have been using this app every day for two and a half years, from a few minutes per day to keep the streak going to a few hours to win trophies and rewards. Am I fluent now?
For those who don’t know it, Duolingo is a language learning app, whose mission is to make learning fun and free.
There is a paid subscription, which I don’t have and never felt the need for.
Each language is taught through different topics which increase in complexity as you go, from “greetings” to “politics”.
A Slow Start
The beginning can quickly get boring. “You are a man.” and “A girl eats bread.” aren’t the sentences you are eager to know. But starting from scratch, these sentences are necessary building blocks to move towards more interesting subjects.
If you already have some knowledge in the language you’re studying, you can take a test that’ll send you to a level more suited for you.
You progressively accumulate vocabulary, however, the app sometimes comes up with original sentences to introduce new words, for example: “it is raining bacon”.
I find the first few units of each language a tad dull as you don’t have any use for them in real life.
A Happy Next Stage
Past this frustrating start comes an interesting phase. Duolingo starts teaching you sentences that actually make sense.
It’s still in the early units, everything is in the present tense but you begin to have fun.
Plus at that point, you become slightly familiar with the language and its basic sentence structure.
You keep on learning useful vocabulary like food or furniture that you can play with when walking around your house or when hanging out with friends if they happen to speak the language you’re learning.
Well That Escalated Quickly
After this happy place, it gets trickier.
Duolingo starts introducing past and future tense, subordinate clauses, and more and more vocabulary.
I always hit a wall when I reach this stage. I don’t make much sense of what’s going on anymore.
Slowly you can begin to assimilate some grammar rules when you notice repetitive patterns. But to me, this is Duolingo’s biggest flaw.
Pros and Cons
I love this app, the fact that it’s free and accessible to anyone. I find it a great place to get a first introduction to any language and to learn the first few hundreds of keywords.
Plus it truly is fun. I was mocking their odd sentences earlier but as weird as they are, they make me laugh and therefore create an enjoyable experience out of learning.
However, when longer sentences and other tenses arrive, it’s a pity the app doesn’t explain grammar rules.
I guess it’s due to grammar rules not being appealing to people and therefore coming in complete opposition to their mission statement to make learning “free and fun”.
It’s almost as if their teaching strategy was the same as with children. In the sense that children learn grammar rules long after being able to speak their mother tongue.
My experience is personal and it probably depends on the user, some people might enjoy this more liberal approach to language learning.
On the other hand, I feel like I would progress much quicker if I had the chance to understand the rules of a language. The process might not be as fun but at least you don’t have to go through confusing trials and errors.
I will keep using Duolingo. Partly because I find it useful to frequently work on my memory and to increase my vocabulary, and partly to keep my streak going.
They’ve done a great job of making a game out of language learning.
Nevertheless, I don’t believe Duolingo alone can fully teach you a language. I would seek complementary information elsewhere and a more diversified media to work with, such as movies, series, YouTube videos, podcasts, articles, Instagram posts. The possibilities are endless on the internet.
A few useful links:
If you’re interested in learning German, I would 100% start with “DW Learn German”. They have high-quality content with a series of videos following a story, grammar rules explained, vocabulary, and even cultural insights, all for free:
If you’d like to learn Norwegian, I would recommend the NTNU free course. It’s a bit older looking and not as inviting as the DW Learn German, but I find it truly helpful.
And of course a link to Duolingo:
