I understand the premise of simulating a “real world” situation but you usually only speak two basic enough sentences to complete the lesson and most of it is spent watching the character waddle around the shop.
Context: I've wanted to end my streak for a while now, but my followers on Duo keep dragging out this pain in my chest every day (laughs).
I want to call it quits on my streak right here because I feel like I've already reached my goal on Duo, and it's just not bringing any new knowledge to the table anymore. It went from being something motivating to simply a burden or an obligation.
Why do you guys keep your streaks going? Don't you ever feel like it's turned into a phantom habit (hábito fantasma) at some point?
Ok well don't get over excited. I am anything, but fluent. 日本語はとても難しいですでもがんばります I also got a free Great Course on Japanese on Prime from book points. Which means going back to the basics and working up again. From English to Japanese that's what it takes, mindful complete repetition. I don't expect to be anywhere soon, but I'm planning on sticking with it. Since they added new content there are now several new levels before the refresh. If you want to know why I am learning it is because I practice Soto Zen Buddhism. I also like JRock 😅. ✧◝(⁰▿⁰)◜✧
A few years ago, when you lost your streak you actually lost it. It was devastating. If you had a streak freeze, great. If not, it was time to start from zero.
But now, with my 500+ day streak, I only go into the app when I remember which is like every odd day or so and my streak still remains. “Duolingo will be like “watch this to regain your streak” or “we gave you a few streak freezes.” I also have notifications turned off and do not check daily.
“Isn’t that great?” Well, kind of. But it speaks to the general theme of their business model. Duolingo would rather you feel like your streak is still solid when in fact it’s not to drive engagement for their app. They need these numbers to show active users every quarter. Pair that with their use of AI and constant subscription model — don’t even get me started on their energy model (bring back the hearts — they are clearly doing everything they can to stay relevant with AI looming over.
I kind of missed when it was just a learning app. Now it’s a tech company that needs ferocious profits — not just regular profit — and it’s unfortunate. Anyway, I still plan to use the app but wanted to share my concerns for the direction of this app.
I’m just excited to get my life back at this point 🤷♀️
Can I avoid having to touch my screen 20 or more times after a lesson? I just went to spend my time learning, not pressing buttons and opening chests.
When this first came out, I was actually quite excited. I liked this idea of just repeating the words after every unit in a flash-card kind of style, with a few of the older words sprinkled in to keep them in memory.
But, oh boy, what a disappointment. If this could maybe someday give me a new set of words I would already be so happy. I can guarantee you, that by having had the nearly exact same set of cards for 20+ units, I know what 'completely', 'terrible', 'correctly', 'just in case' and a handful more mean in Spanish.. And no, I don't make frequent mistakes with these, because by now I can even more or less predict in which order they come..
Flashcard frenzy is also no viable alternative in my opinion. I don't want this time-pressured, gamified BS but being able to concentrate on the actual words in front of me.
Sorry for the rant, but this is driving me crazy.
I've found since the update a lot of the audio is spoken incorrectly, usually either because the は character is incorrectly pronounced as わ such as in words like hana (nose) , or when used as a particle pronounced as 'ha'.
or because the cadence is splitting words in two, e.g: 'sono heya ni ooki ne, ko ga yonhiki imasu.'
It's messing with my listening comprehension speed
Anyone else?
This is like using the most faulty versions of early AI to generate exercise, and on French course, which is among the most popular courses.
Seriously, if there was a mechanism to punish Duolingo for these kind of slops, would this be repeated again?
Duolingo is not just a friendly startup, it must have standards.
Even in free version it consumes user's time and internet for its ads.
Btw, the correct answer was the first option 😂
This word has been on my unit recap for like a month - I use the English word lentils maybe once a year when I want to try something different for dinner. It is used in no stories, grammar examples...
Why do these unit flash card recaps not use high value/words phrases. Why is it obsessed with me knowing that this is ‘lentejas’ in Spanish.
‘Por cierto’ meaning ‘by the way’ and other linking words would be MUCH more useful.
/rant
I think the dulingo team need to do more of the maths courses as thats 20% of not 80% off
This was my third Duo account in a span of 10-ish and one I kept up with the most. Over 2 years, but I’m terrible at keeping streaks, so my days aren’t as high as they could have been.
Signed up for Super last year and honestly just waited until it expires for a few months. Duo isn’t the same anymore. The courses are poorly designed now, the AI takeover is awful, the amount of unnecessary character build/ chit chat during the audio lessons, weird sentences, honing in on skills you mastered (and yes I could skip lessons, but what if I skip something I haven’t actually learned?), it because so uninteresting and more of a chore than a good resource for learning.
4 languages, math and chess courses later, I deleted my account.
Peace out ✌🏻
After a 2329 day streak (a little above 6 years) on Duolingo learning 6 different languages, I have managed to speak 30200 French words.
Enough to order a croissant.
Enough to call my Monday une catastrophe.
Enough to admit that I'd pick fromage over some people I know any day.
But certainly not enough to survive an actual conversation with a native speaker.
Is that even fair?