How badly they want to show me ads, it’s impressive. Desperate ain’t sexy guys
Why leave the app installed if you’re done using it?
Knowing how prone they are to this kind of crap, I wanted to wait and see what it’d say when my streak ran out, I wasn’t disappointed
If you use the duolingo widget you can watch duo drop down a depressive spiral until they eventually die alone in the desert. It’s my favorite part of the app.
I uninstalled the app years ago and still see this in the play store.
Damn! The more I read I about it, the creepier it gets! The fuck is wrong with them.
Alot. Which is a shame because the app used to be decent a little over a decade ago. I remember using it back in highschool before the gamification and, without paying, it would let you access community forums, review lessons, and a lot of other features now locked behind a paywall or gone entirely.
I still remember when the heart system was first introduced and getting pissed that i had to essentially get everything right to keep moving forward in the lesson or pay to refill my hearts. I uninstalled when it became 3 wrong answers and youre done for the day without payment.
I actually started using Duolingo recently and the hearts system has you either pay, start your free trial for its subscriotion, or you watch an ad, even then though, that’s just shitty.
Duolingo is a toxic ex.
never used Duolingo, but i think i can relate now, i had a toxic girlfriend that would talk to me in Portuguese, i don’t speak that language
never used Duolingo
i don’t speak that language
I believe I may have a solution
i am trying not to go back to abusive relationships
Portuguese isn’t that bad
Sounds like they’re threatening to steal your dog or something.
Come to think of it, an application threatening, shaming, and guilt tripping you into coming back might not be the healthiest thing ever.
DuoLingo replicates all the same patterns as an abusive relationship.
Kinda does wonders to develop habits when you have ADHD.
that’s why i liked duolingo when it was a good leanguage learning helper app, it really did keep me thinking about my target langauge every day at least a little
“Streaks” are shitty dark patterns IMO.
I liked it because it was a learning app and I have a tendency to fall off. But paying real money to restore my streak? Hell nah
I wish the whole streak paradigm was time weighted. Like I got over a 1 year streak on my Apple watch over Covid. That’s basically never going to happen again. I wish there was some kind of “this is your longest streak in the past <time period>” or something. It all just feels so all or nothing.
I believe you can get a users longest streak from the public API end point. IIRC it’s something like
duolingo.com/users/{username}but it’s been a few years
people calling every engagement tactic a dark pattern these days is giving me teenagers using therapy speak in wrong ways vibes
Yeah but at least the interests of the user and duolingo are somewhat aligned in this case
Fuck. I dunno what to do with this
Edit: just cancelled my subscription to super Duolingo. Fuck them
I’ve been using the free version with ad blockers (and browser only) for years. No annoying notifications, no ads, no tracking of user data via an app, and I simply press back on the occasional Super promotion page. The only thing I miss is the discussion page for every lesson/question.
One notification like this and your app immediately gets notification permission revoked on my phone (if not uninstalled).
I have notifications disabled by default, by that I mean the moment an app requests permission I deny it, unless it’s a messaging app, an app store that I want update notifications from or something I trust etc., and if it triggers more than three requests it’s off my phone.
I understand the logic of doing the streak system, keep you engaged by threatening to lose your streak if you don’t do it every day, but it’s a double edged sword.
If I’d lost my streak though… I should just go “oh well” and call it a day/quit.
I deleted the app when they said they were going to fire translators for AI. But I have adhd and forgot, several days, even with reminders, to do it some days… It never ended up mattering because they let me keep my streak anyway
Most users aren’t logical or sane like you, so this notification may actually catch their eye in their notification tray with 8k other notifications from cancer apps.
I stopped using duolingo a couple years ago because I noticed I was just doing the bare minimum to maintain my streak instead of actually learning something new.
that actually helped me remember that my target language exists, it was good for me to at least have a brush with some learning on the days that i just didn’t feel like doing much.
what was the final nail on the coffin for me was duolingo neutering the japanese course, they delayed introducing kanji so hard i was seeing the most basic basics like 母, 父, 語, even 何 in hiragana, which made the course deeply counterproductive as reading japanese in hiragana only, when you know the kanji already slows you down considerably. consider: ははははなをもっています vs 母は花を持っています, both mean “my mum has a flower” but one of them has a string of は you need to decipher the meaning of first before you can understand the sentence, the other’s meaning can be understood instantly
That’s a shame. Duolingo was never great for learning kana, so I guess they thought to use it more in lessons, but they should’ve just improved the dedicated kana lessons instead. I had learned kana before using duolingo so it was a smooth transition to take on sentences introducing more and more kanji. It sucks that they’re just making things worse since there were some nice things about the app before.
Same thing happened to me. Also when trying something new, failing took something like gems or hearts. That made it so I only grinded the very easy lessons to get the gems and never actually using them.
Oh yeah, that’s another thing! They made it tedious to make progress, probably in an attempt to squeeze out more money, but I ended up just losing motivation for actually learning because it became a drag.
if a non shit app would add an “import streak” feature (just make me upload a screenshot or type in the number) id switch in a heart beat.
Why is a streak so important?
Dopamine
I’ve come to realize that Dopamine is the reason for EVERYTHING.
As someone with ADHD, I feel this so hard.
bc ive been at it for over 3.5 years https://youtube.com/shorts/b4C8yeQ1NCM
Soon you can switch to Lingonaut and take your duolingo streak with you: https://lingonaut.app/
Define soon. Their progress per language is around 10%, with the highest completion percentage being Czech at 20%.
There’s no way it’ll have the language I’m learning any time soon lol. Duolingo is literally it besides traveling there and talking to locals
Rosetta? What language are you learning?
It’s a modern language with a country that speaks it as a primary language, but it’s not as widely learned so I don’t want to doxx myself. Duolingo is the only one that has more than a beginner’s level in this language. Beyond that I have to actually talk to people, like with italki. That’s going to be hard because I don’t even like talking on the language learning discord lol. I need to know it for my future plans, but that isn’t overcoming my introverted desire to not talk to people.
Does anyone use Babel? Is it any good?
I used Babel for a bit. The quality seems good. There’s little to no gamification, it feels like a digital version of a classic language learning textbook. They offer around 12-13 languages up to level B2. If you decide to purchase a lifetime subscription, it’s on sale every couple of months for 130-180 USD.
Babel is my Duolingo replacement. The lessons are better, not AI, with more actual teaching than Duolingo. I’m learning things Duolingo glazed over or didn’t fully explain most lessons. Definitely recommend. Keep and eye on stack social too, I got my lifetime subscription to all languages for $140.
My wife is fluent in the language I’m learning and noted my improvement in 2 weeks of using babel. Granted I’m still an A1 but that’s a complement I’ll gladly accept.
Interesting. Is it going to work offline?
Wife’s streak is at 1,618 days across multiple categories. Almost 4.5 years. I imagine it’s like smoking at this point.
What is the actual point of a streak?
A sense of pride and accomplishment?
At one point it was gamification to tie the reward center of your brain into continuing to train using the app. Now it seems that it’s half that or half https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_pattern to get you to pay to keep that reward system going.
To make you addicted so you keep coming back
Personally, my interest in language learning comes and goes. Doing the minimum to maintain a streak prevents me from forgetting too much before my interest returns.
Gamification including social aspects if you’re a regular app user.
Abusive ex if you aren’t a regular user.
The only way it could get worse is if they put a slot machine or roulette wheel in to give you prizes.
I fucking hate the gamification they did to Khan Academy. Just give me the knowledge map back.
Sense of achievement mainly
Does she actually speak the language she’s learning?
Not even a little
Donde, está, la biblioteca. Me llamo T-Bone La araña discoteca. Discoteca, muñeca, La biblioteca Está en bigotes grandes, el perro, manteca. Manteca, bigotes, gigante, pequeño, la cabeza es nieve, cerveza es bueno. Buenos dias, me gusta papas frías, los bigotes de la cabra Es Cameron Diaz.
El tren de la Magdela al a una
Having heard very mixed things about Duolingo’s actual usefulness, does your wife speak or write well in any of the languages she’s used the app to learn?
Not at all
My friend learn japanese and able to speak fluently after using the app. Though she does have japanese customer from time to time that she can test it with some of them.
Duolingo is not about learning a language. It’s about giving you the illusion of learning a language.
Look fuck the company but Duolingo absolutely can help learn a language
Duolingo is so stupidly annoying these days. It has gotten so much worse compared to a few years ago.
Constant bugging, too many popups that are almost as bad as Microsoft products. I want to learn a goddamn language not jump through a hundred hoops every single time.
Not to mention that it all boils down to a guessing game. Some questions have multiple answers and unless you choose that specific one that DuoLingo had in mind it counts as wrong. It also won’t tell you why you guessed wrong.
Are there better apps these days?
Duolingo isn’t in the business to teach you a a language, that would mean you won’t need the app anymore.
I’ve used Babbel, it seems more to learn a language, but it requires a paid plan to use. It does work more like an actual language course though, with more emphasis on longer sessions instead of 5 min per day.
There’s a great video from WSJ with their exec team that talks about how those notifications are hugely beneficial both to their users, and to their revenue. Even if you pay for the full thing like I do you still get those notifications. They aren’t “desperate” they’re targeted specifically to get people to come back and keep learning. They also don’t care about showing you ads as much since their majority of money comes from paying users. If anything the ads are to just get you to pay for the app.
Anyone have a good Duolingo alternative?
Quit your current life and move to a country where they speak the language you want to learn. Get a menial job in a small town, find new friends, and learn what love is. Then you’ll know what it truly means to speak a language.
This is the language equivalent of the “I have a small issue with this software.” - “Have you tried switching your OS to Linux and using a FOSS alternative?” conversation lol
Lol it’s almost even more extreme and has a common trope I love. “Hey I got this spam text…”
“Burn all your devices. Remove yourself from the grid. Scrub your identity. Purchase a single burner phone. Root it and install Graphene. Yes it’s hard. Google it. Wait, don’t google it. Search for it elsewhere. Amass money somehow without using technology. Cut off your family ties. You need to move to another country. You will need a work visa to move to most countries. But to get that you will need an accepted job in advance. And to have that you will probably need to access technology. Instead, buy a fake passport, because very few countries will just let you ‘move somewhere’ with a ‘menial job.’ Once you get there, develop passive income streams and quit your job. After you have been a landlord for two years you will finally know what it’s like to claim that being a landlord is a real job because you need to talk to tenants and file paperwork natively for an hour or two a week.”
I lost it at “root it and install Graphene.” GrapheneOS does not work with rooted devices, and rooting is considered a security risk by the Graphene dev team haha.
Or when Scout explains his date plan to Spy.
Spy: you have a dinner date for 7. What time do you arrive? Scout: 7… AM. Case the restaurant, run background checks on the staff. Can the cook be trusted? If not I’ve gotta kill him. Dispose of the body, replace him with my own guy no later than 4:30.
Anyone know how to afford moving costs?
Crime
Sound advice!
Mango Languages is available for free through many libraries and has an app.
At this point I’m thinking I’ll just take a trip to Tenerife to continue learning Spanish.
Other apps aren’t good at gamification I hear - and that was the only thing that kept me using it till a while ago. I have ADHD. The leveling up, streaks, etc, is what kept me going when the novelty of learning yet another foreign language wore off - I already had to learn two in school and I only ever really use one of them, you can guess which one.
Sounds like a good plan, I’d seriously consider a Canarian accent if I could pick mine!
It’s closer to me than Latin America and gets less hot than mainland Spain. That’s why it sounds so awesome to me
Busuu is a lot like Duolingo but you also get to trade corrections with real people learning your native language
Yes I love Busuu! I switched about a years ago and I feel like it’s actually been teaching me Dutch instead of just brute force vocabulary memorization.
My only complaint is that it’s really aggressive about asking for you to subscribe. I just close the popups and I haven’t ran into anything that I cant do.
Lingodeer for more languages
Renshuu for Japanese
I switched to using CBC’s Mauril from Duolingo, and it’s been good for me. However, it’s only available to Canadian residents (or VPN users) and it’s only for French. So it worked for me but obviously that covers a small subset of Duolingo users.
HelloChinese if you want to learn that
Look up ALG language learning. That’s the best way to learn languages.
WITH AIRLEARN SEÑOR WHITE!
https://bsky.app/profile/liambox.bsky.social/post/3lgq7zqh2ok2s
I remember a while back, I was too busy for a little while to use Duo and came back to the widget trying to guilt trip me into using it. Because I missed like half a week. It’s so toxic and honestly isn’t even that useful for learning. So I uninstalled that shit immediately.
I can ask for an apple in so many languages.
Has anyone actually learned any language with duo lingo ?
I learned probably 90% of my Spanish through Duolingo. My reading is good enough that I can usually follow along with Spanish news articles and Spanish spoken at a moderate pace. (So almost none of it, haha) I have hearing comprehension problems with English as well though, so that’s not Duolingo’s fault.
I’m definitely not fluent, but it’s not like I wouldn’t know what to do if someone handed me a form in Spanish, either.
Overall it’s just the repetition that matters. I don’t think I would know any less Spanish if I’d spent 20-30 minutes every day for the past 2+ years using a different app to learn.
Thanks. That’s quite a good result I think. Did you practice outside the app (I mean at the beginning) ? How long would you say it takes to be able to read a newspaper article without too much difficulty?
This is just for the English speaker learning Spanish Duolingo course, which I’m told is one of the best ones, so it may not apply to other courses. But IMO it was easier to pick up the majority of the beginner vocabulary in Duolingo (they’ve got the drill aspect of language learning down pat) and then spread out to other sources. I especially needed outside help with grammar because (at least when I was doing the early parts) Duolingo didn’t explain grammar very much, so there was a bit of ramming my head against a brick wall.
How long an article takes me to read depends on how many colloquial phrases it has that Duolingo hasn’t introduced me to, if uncommon words or jargon are used, etc. The dictionary app I use is pretty good and includes slang, so when I do run into unknowns it only takes a few seconds to look it up. But overall I’d say I read maybe 1/2 to 2/3 the speed I read English, depending on all the above factors. It does fatigue me a lot faster than reading English, but I think that’s a normal thing for second languages you’re still learning.
Edit: oh oops I misunderstood your last question, it took me maybe a year to start on news articles and maybe another 6 months to get comfortable with them. Totally YMMV depending on how much and how seriously you study, this wasn’t anything like full time study for me.
I’d be surprised if anyone has. You need to actually use a language to learn it properly. But an app is a good start and supplement.
I’d say it’s good for vocab, and hearing maybe ? Some things really sound unnatural.
The only course I can speak of is Japanese (no premium) and it’s imho complete ass if it’s your only source of knowledge. Only gimmicky sentences and speech elements
Exclusively with Duolingo? Could be a little too hard depending on the language. I used it to learn French, also had actual classes and some other resources, but used Duolingo for a while as main resource. It’s not optimal as it sucks to learn actually speaking, but it’s fine for reading/writing, and sometimes a little to easy for listening.
The quality depends on the individual(s) developing the training content as well. I don’t know if it’s changed, but the Korean course used to be quite bad/lazy and had a lot of Konglish and English loanwords, even for words that had an actual Korean equivalent. I think official courses and textbooks, as well as videos and podcasts, are all much better ways of learning than through these flash card apps. A better use case is retention of existing language skills, I think.
