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Duolingo sucks for language learning
Slow input method with the word bank which really doesn’t matter early on but becomes a chore that slows progress later on
Doesn’t really do much in the way of correcting errors unless you pay money for the highest level subscription and even then the error correction is weak. A platform like Duolingo has the potential to do really cool error correction; to literally point out the exact error you made and tie it to an explanation. Obviously that’s difficult especially as things become more challenging but duo has had a decade and millions in development funds, which they’ve spent making the courses actively worse to drive up subscription costs and iaps
The lessons are so focused on the whole “gameification” thing that unless you specifically go back to constantly practice vocabulary (and if applicable characters) you will never retain anything. If you merely pound through a Duolingo course from a-b on the prescribed “path” you will struggle immensely and forget tons of early vocabulary and grammar concepts that are introduced and then never brought back unless you seek them out. There are “weak skills” lessons but they are relatively uncommon so you can feel like you’re constantly progressing
The word banks similarly don’t necessarily test retention and just test your ability to do a quick game of matching
You’ll learn something but if you truly want to learn a language there are far more efficient ways. Duolingo is a practice tool at best
What are some better ways?
It’s really hard to beat flash cards. I like Anki a lot because it codifies them and makes the process of “have I mastered this” a bit more streamlined. Though I feel like a lot of people just download premade decks and while that’s fine you learn a lot making the deck. You can’t get around hours of studying vocab and grammar, especially if you’re after the critical period (which I would hope everyone posting here is)
The gameification that Duolingo brings is valuable and very motivating for a lot of people. The problem is that over the years like many capitalist ventures Duolingo made language learning secondary to earning income. So the primary goal of the app suffers at the expense of keeping you constantly engaged so that you’re far more likely to buy shit even if that means ultimately dont learn all that much