Have a friend, who is on his 7th or 8th year of every day using DuoLingo (DL) "learning" German. His German is still terrible. Phrase structure goes all overboard, verbs are not adapted to time, person and whatever else. It is a bit painful to see. People also say that some languages just have terrible lessons on DL. Maybe German is one of those.
I tried using it for Chinese/Mandarin, but apparently classified myself too modestly in the beginning. I feel like the lessons did not teach me much at all and it became a game of quickly pressing things, while suffering through silly ads. It also never makes you actually write characters. Eventually I stopped using it. I think anything other than the most basic Chinese is better learned elsewhere.
An even basic Chinese is better learned from a Chinese-specific app like Lingodeer or HelloChinese.
I tried all three when I was first getting started. I didn't end up going with any of them (I bought a textbook instead - gamification just isn't my jam), but I was at least fairly impressed with Lingodeer and HelloChinese. Both were clearly made with love. And I've met several more advanced learners who got started with them. By contrast, for all its users, I've yet to meet a single person who went with Duolingo and subsequently made it to an intermediate level in Chinese. I'm sure there's someone out there somewhere, but overall it seems that people's success rate with that app is bleak.
The gamification is what made it work for me. I had 2 months to learn some Turkish before a trip and once I realized it was a game I beat everyone else in my cohort every day. When someone would come up on my heels I'd make sure to spend 30-60 extra minutes that day. I still know Turkish better than any other language and I've been immersed in Spanish for 3 years.
I actually really like this take. Despite the fact that most language learners hate on it, Duolingo has great product market fit, and I think it's for this reason. It's in the toilet time distraction/edutainment market as much as it is in the language market
Agreed, and the sad part is the gamification - while helpful for motivation - actively works against learning in other ways. Duolingo clearly doesn't want their lessons to be actually challenging because that would get in the way of the cycle of "just smash out a quick lesson to continue your streak, then get on with your day". Learners need to embrace failure and be encouraged to spend more time with the material, but the company has been steadily and purposely moving away from that over time.
Duolingo is not a language teaching platform at its core. It’s a gaming platform with language as its gaming skill.
Duolingo at some point became so focused on gamification that it just became a game (I believe they hired their lead PM from Zynga).
If you’re on free version, just look at the ads you’re getting. Vast majority of the ads are for other games.
I think you can learn a language if you use Duolingo’s streak gamification as a daily motivator but use supplemental materials to actually learn.