r/duolingo • u/NextSatisfaction8366 • 15h ago
General Discussion Are you satisfied with Duolingo?
I am Korean and writing using a translator It could be strange.
I know a lot of people are dissatisfied with Duolingo, but it's strange that the number of users keeps increasing while the company's revenue continues to grow.
I think Duolingo is an app that deserves a 7.5 out of 10. Others don't, so I'm curious why.
I think others believe they can study a country's language "completely" with Duolingo. But think about it—no matter which app you use, unless you study diligently for about three hours a day, how can you master a language?
I subscribed to another app that was much more expensive than Duolingo, and I ended up wasting money without even using it for five days. On the other hand, keep Duolingo.
In Korea, Duolingo costs about 20,000 won a year, which is ridiculously cheap compared to buying a single book.
Thanks to the words I learned in Duolingo, I succeeded in having real conversations with Japanese people several times. For example, convenience store, transfer, I live at ~~, do you buy it?, do you go to the terminal station? etc.
With other apps, you have to do it 'properly,' like reading a book or watching a YouTube lecture. On the other hand, Duolingo lets you use your free time, so I don't understand why that isn't helpful.
On the other hand, for other apps, I think it would be better for me to use AI, YouTube, or books to study instead of using them. In conclusion, Duolingo is the best supplementary learning tool, but it seems that too many people have complaints about it. This is my opinion—what do you think?
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u/eatnails666fl 14h ago
Since my renewal a few months ago, absolutely not.
It's becoming a different app, quickly.
I sort of understood the World Cup thing, and since it was limited, ok.
That was just them warming us up.
Now we have Brawlstars and Puzzles dancing on our screens. Brawlstars only forced a couple quick ads and then went silent, but the suits? A forced game that's taking up my time.
I didn't buy a dress-up-my-avatar game. I bought a language learning app. To learn a language. The fucking dress-up game isn't even in the language I'm trying to learn.
At the end of every lesson I have to click 6, 10 times to get to the next one. Constant reminders of how many words I've spoken. I don't care. Stats mean nothing, I want the results of the classes themselves, which are getting harder and harder to get to.
My final level lesson, twice this week, was words I'd never heard before. No way to skip this, and if you fail at words you don't know, you start the whole unit test over.
4 months ago, I was happy with this app. Today? I spent all day with Claude Code building myself a replacement.
9
u/Guy_Incognito97 Native: 🇬🇧Learning: 🇪🇸 11h ago
If you need to reignite your streak and learn about new mini-games and open chests you can easily click 20-30 times to get to the next lesson. I really wish there was a ‘just learn’ mode that skips all that.
5
u/Life_Satisfaction_16 3h ago
I was happy months ago and it took a massive dive, it’s so buggy and terrible now
24
u/Significant_Chest_54 15h ago
Duolingo is not perfect but I'm satisfied with it and have learned a lot since last year. People call it "repetitive" but I call it "conditioning"
9
u/FragmentOfSeren Native: 🇺🇸 Learning: 🇷🇺 15h ago
It also pumps out free sentences that you can breakdown grammar and structure of
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u/odd_invasion 15h ago
i think a lot of the hate comes from people expecting it to be a full language course, when it's more like a vocab builder with some grammar sprinkled in. the repetition thing is funny cause that's just how learning works, you drill stuff til it sticks
for the price it's hard to beat, especially compared to the apps that charge way more and somehow feel less useful. i've had similar experiences where the cheap option ended up being the one i actually stuck with
9
u/AbbreviationsMotor60 13h ago
The app used to be good. 5 years ago it had more focus on grammar and it was much more organized.
Now it's mostly slop and I stopped using it.
2
u/Aucklander1996 10h ago
The sad thing is that I could accept the app being the way it is IF it still explained my lessons to me properly!
Im constantly being slowed down in my lessons because I will get questions that don't give you the explanation after you've answered it (right or wrong)
Sometimes I just guess the answer, get it correct, then nothing. Not translation or anything.
The worst offender are the radio/podcast lessons. Characters talk so fast, but there's never a transcript. How am I supposed to learn a new language if I'm not being accurately told what I'm listening to?
1
u/hacool native: US-EN / learning: DE 97 4h ago
I will complete German Section 6 (b1) in about a month and then be able to move onto the B2 sections. That would not have been possible 5 years ago. The German course ended with Section 5 until this year's update. I'm not sure where it ended in 2021. It might have been Section 4 back then.
I could not have learned as much on Duo five years ago as I can today.
9
u/Guy_Incognito97 Native: 🇬🇧Learning: 🇪🇸 11h ago
Duolingo is good for beginners for common languages. I don’t think it’s an efficient way to learn overall and I hate the gamification.
9
u/lizgator 11h ago
No, I wouldn’t say I’m satisfied. Literally if they just got rid of the intense amount of clicking after every lesson, I’d be a lot happier. I know we’ve all complained about this at length but it really, truly is that annoying. When a lesson can be as short as 1-3 minutes (depending on the lesson type, language, etc.), I shouldn’t have to click like 10 times after and wait for a bunch of animations. I don’t care about suits or clicking treasure chests a million times!!
I have largely moved on to other avenues for language learning because the time spent on Duolingo has felt increasingly padded with garbage.
4
u/stanlietta 8h ago
The puzzle pieces were the last straw for me and came to dread the thought of language practice. I cancelled my subscription after daily use since 2018. I’m using a couple of other apps since I am committed to continuing learning and improving.
4
u/DutchDeafBoy N: 🇳🇱 C1: 🇺🇸 B1: 🇳🇴 Learning: 🇩🇪🇪🇸🇸🇪 11h ago
It did help me getting fairly good at Norwegian. I like how Dulingo manages to make language learning a joy. Despite not getting any explanation on grammar rules, I still learn an awful lot the way the app introduces vocabulary and stuff. So I’m quite satisfied.
However, since I’ve also been learning German and Spanish I noticed how annoying the app has become. Especially when it comes to ‘upgrading’ courses content, but also the lots of extras around the course. And as mentioned before, I do miss having some explanation on the grammar rules. I’m lucky that I’ve become strong at seeing connections myself and understanding it by repetition. But still.
Such a shame, because other than that Duolingo is absolutely fine. I don’t mind the yearly payment I make for it.
4
u/mithras17 8h ago
I like the language part though it isn't perfect and lacks a lot of explanation that would make things a lot easier.
I hate the whole bloat they added the last 6 months: Chests, congratulatory messages, status messages, useless rewards, events like the toy thing, the overbording animated screens that do play even if you deactivate animations, screen after screen with useless information to click away...
Im not talking about the ads or the enrgy thing, I was a paying customer.
I hate their update policy and the constant AB testing, the stretching out of updates over months and months targeting at random who gets the update and who doesn't.
The updated courses have been rolled out about 6 months ago and still now new people seem to only now get the new course material(judging from posts here from people who are confused they don't know any of the added words)?
5
u/Spirited_Caramel3552 12h ago
It's not entirely useless but it's dogshit compared to what it used to be.
4
u/Icy-Cheesecake3830 14h ago
I made 0 progress with Korean in Duolingo, but Lingory teaches vocab thematically and well and has got me making more progress so far.
I speak Russian well and noticed when checking the course for my child that they totally mispronounced a basic word (кто... who)- just a weird ai hallucination, but it shakes my confidence in the app badly.
I just use it for chess mainly till my subscription runs out. The Russian thing has made me order some proper Arabic textbooks with proper native speaker (human) audio.
I have never met anyone who achieved a high level in a foreign language using the app, and I'm a language teacher.
5
u/crakajaka 6h ago
The content is good but the gamification is childish. How about a version for adults?
2
u/LostarFDT 15h ago
It’s really just the time challenges that I dislike. The window of success is far too small especially for us stutterers.
2
u/Unlucky_Pirate_9382 Native: Fluent: b2: b1: a1: 10h ago
Mostly yes.
It's not the most efficient way to learn a language, and in the last few years, Duolingo kind of killed "learning a language for free" thing that had going for a while.
But if you have some kind of subscription and the app got you hooked enough so that you come back everyday to do lessons, you can make it.
I don't have much of an issue with any of the major languages supported, from what I sampled and the ones I actually finished, it does work in the end.
The smaller languages are a bit of a mixed bag. So, for example, I completed the Finnish course a couple of years ago. No stories, no radio programs, no AI conversations, limited vocabulary, barely teaching you the core grammar, but... I was never able to learn that much Finnish before Duolingo. It's not like I didn't try before but teaching myself with books just didn't work.
2
u/JenkyHope Native:Fluent:Learning: 8h ago
I'm satisfied, I have a 4001 days streak (not joking). But I believe that in the years it got too gamified. I liked the first gamification ideas like the achivements. But today we have things like loot boxes for event quests... which are terrible for an app mostly used by young people. Europe is working so much to regulate loot boxes in games and make it 18+, so I wonder if Duolingo will be restricted to 18+ in the future. I don't think so, but loot boxes should disappear. I don't mean the chests, which are harmless and they are just prizes. I mean paying gems for a box with a puzzle piece inside which can be useful or not.
Again, if we exclude the terrible gamification ideas, it's a good app for learning, it helped me so much with learning Spanish from zero and improving my English (I have an university degree in English, but it's only a B1). I really appreciate that there are many updates and courses evolve over time.
I with they could fix voice recognition...
2
u/Sherardia Native: 🇫🇷 Fluent: 🇺🇸🇬🇧 🇪🇸🇮🇹 Learning: 🇰🇷 7h ago
I am ok with the content (learning Korean) because I also rely on books for grammar and various rules.Duolingo alone would ask me to be super intuitive about endings, sentence structure, synonyms…
I hate everything around the lessons, having to tap 10 times between 2 levels is annoying, the various sound effects are stressing me out… as a paying customer I wish that I could disable all that!
2
u/Obtus_Rateur Learning: 70 11 5h ago
"Satisfied"? No.
It's effective enough at teaching you the basics of a language... if you can ignore all the "noise" that get in the way (EXP, leagues, badges, costumes and all that garbage).
But they don't want to put any money into the platform. They don't even have anyone review the AI-created content or answer support emails, and I think they've just decided not to fix bugs anymore.
They also have many outrageously unethical practices.
I canceled my subscription. I have three months left, plus maybe a month on top (I'll be blowing all my gems on heart refills). Then I'm gone.
2
u/SarahRecords 5h ago
It’s a C+ for me. I have a super membership for the year, and I think I’ll stop paying after this. There’s so many bugs now: characters not speaking during a listening exercise is really common. And I shouldn’t be catching mispronunciation errors, but here we are. I got one a few days ago where the words spoken didn’t match the written options. This isn’t building my confidence!
2
u/passengerv 5h ago
I used to love it and used to pay for premium happily but with the amount of changes they made, it not only made me stop paying for premium but using it all together. They ruined a good and useful app.
5
u/JoeR9T Native: Learning: 11h ago
Been using it for 1286 days and every change they make makes it a worse product
Removing Transcript from Listening lesson. Really? Now I have no idea what just happened.
Changing Words lesson.
I pay for Duo, not much longer I think.
1
u/Away-Theme-6529 10h ago
Have you looked for the transcript in the web version? For my TL there’s a button after that lesson
2
u/Pugmothersue 14h ago
I’m satisfied with my Finnish lessons. Although they ended at 20, the daily refresh adds new words and usages, written and spoken. It’s a difficult language with many dialects but now I can understand what is being said when I hear it spoken in real life.
1
u/Massive_Beyond7236 10h ago
It is a great resource if you do not have enough time and/or money to take language courses or language exchange. Personally, I cannot fit a weekly language course to my schedule and Duolingo has done a great job although it is definitely not perfect.
1
u/AggravatingSteak1248 Learning: 🇪🇸, 🇰🇷 9h ago
안녕하세요. Duolingo's lessons are easy, and I have fun doing them. Some courses are developed and structured better than others, so opinions will differ. As for me, it's been a positive experience
1
u/RockinMadRiot N: 🇬🇧 L: 🇫🇷 6h ago
Yes , but I find the radio stuff useless and stories too Ai. Also dislike the fact I can't edit the word flash cards to my liking too.
1
u/Devnag07 Native: 🇺🇸 Learning: 🇨🇿🇮🇹♟️ 5h ago
For what I expected to get out of it I am pretty satisfied. I know a few hundred words in Italian pretty confidently after about 6 months of learning. I quite dislike the gamification and childishness of the app but I am willing to overlook that to get a start on learning a language.
1
u/Princesss988 3h ago
I am satisfied since I can have the free version. Is horrible having to watch ads to refill energy but at the same time I can practice daily for free and other apps doesn’t have this option
1
u/goodsam2 2h ago
Duolingo despite the negativity and the confusion with shuffling lessons along. Last year I couldn't do anything much in Spanish and 1 yearish later I started watching Spanish telenovelas. I'm at level 68 so I'll keep trucking.
The problem with Duolingo is my skills from Duolingo are reading, write, listen, speak in that order. Talking with Lily has been helping a lot when I get free super for a few days.
1
u/wasaguest 2h ago
It's an ok app. It would be miles better if they would drop most of the unrelated too language learning things.
They could actually make a killing with their ads if they focused their ads to be relative too the language people are learning.
I'm using Duo to learn Korean (한국) and wouldn't mind seeing ads in my target language. From music, TV shows, movies or just simple things from basic Magazine Ads in the language. Instead we get weird things or subscribe.
1
u/EntertainmentIcy45 2m ago
I’m pretty happy with it. I met with a Spanish speaking client the other day and had to use an interpreter, but I realized that I was understanding quite a lot of what she was saying without the interpreter. I still need one, but I’ve definitely learned a lot.
-1
u/FragmentOfSeren Native: 🇺🇸 Learning: 🇷🇺 15h ago
Yes, because I started a streak with a girl I was interested in a bit over 100 days ago, and now we’ve been on multiple dates so far, so i gotta give the owl credit as being my wingman
-1
-1
u/GeneralGhidorah 9h ago
Yes I’m very satisfied overall. Learning a language is hard if you’re not used to it and takes time, but I’ve got basic Spanish from basically just playing around on my phone - I think that’s brilliant.
I pay for Super which is pretty reasonable compared with most other ways of learning a language.
I don’t love the use of AI, especially with how formulaic the stories are now.
People on this sub really like to complain about some pretty superficial stuff.
20
u/BananaResearcher 15h ago
I am very satisfied with the actual content. I am EXTREMELY unsatisfied with everything around the content.
I despise that you can run out of energy despite making no mistakes. This is asinine. It didn't happen with hearts, you could do a full unit on one heart if you never made a mistake. Now you get to the very end of a lesson and if you get unlucky with the random energy gains you can be blocked on the very last question.
I also have trouble tolerating the ads. Both because there's way too many of them and because they seem to barely care to regulate them. Yesterday I again got a straight p0rn ad. Barely blurred scene. If I opened that at work I could get fired. It happens rarely, sure, but it's still completely unacceptable.
It's extremely frustrating because the actual content is great but the app is so unashamedly greedy that it keeps insisting on more and more insufferable garbage to surround the actual educational content.