Is Duolingo Effective? 

I only use Duolingo because the Owl bullies me :'(

If I’m being honest, if you don’t mind using the app, it is great for DRILLING certain words and conjugations into your head😂 like if I quit learning Spanish today, on my deathbed at 99 I would know how to say Juan come manzanas

For me Duolingo is really useful. I've been learning Dutch and now that I also use a book, I've noticed that I know a lot of vocabulary because of Duolingo. Is it a waste of time or not, I rather spend my time on Duolingo than on Instagram. At least I'm learning something

Some people may think duolingo is just repetitive and outdated, but I'd rather spend my time in Duolingo than in Social media

The Spanish course is really well done. It’s been super helpful in my day to day life. The Latin course however, it’s sounds like the audio was recorded in a refrigerator.

I don’t see how learning 2000 words in less than a year and being able to use them correctly grammatically in sentences can ever be considered a waste of time. Also, the streak feature is actually an amazing thing that helps you build a habit of learning.

I'm trying to use it to kickstart my learning process. After I figure out the basics - I'm gonna start reading stuff and watching videos in languages I want to learn.

Yes, Duolingo can be boring and repetitive at times but repetition is important for learning a new language. Taking on a new language is a workout and it’s not always going to be fun. There are going to be dull moments that are challenging but they are so worth it by the time you realize you’re becoming fluent. Nothing worth having ever comes easy!

Saying the duolingo is useless just because it won’t make you fluent is like saying that learning how to cook by recipe is useless since it doesn’t make you a master chef. These things are a step-by-step process, and duolingo can be a decent “first step”. It can set up the building blocks for learning a language, and that will make learning it much easier. Similar to how it’d be much harder to make your own recipes if you’ve never cooked anything, than if you’ve used other people’s recipes before.

Duolingo is great no one can deny that he helps a lot specialy for "writing" and "reading" and the discussion form is very helpful

After using Duolingo for Spanish for about 2 and a half years, and now using Dreaming Spanish as well for a full year, I am convinced that the 2 together are one of several excellent ways to really learn the language well. When I blend in reading next year, I am confident that I will be headed to fluency, my goal, within a year of that. For me, Duolingo is repetitious, endless, engaging, usually easy but sometimes a little hard, and truly helpful in adding useful vocabulary and verb usage capability. It is not perfect, and it is not nearly as helpful if used alone, but for me, I consider it a great tool.

My opinion on Duolingo is that it's good for the very beginning when you have no idea what the language is about, but you get diminishing returns after about the first or second level of the language. I would say the best way to use it is spend about a week or so rushing through the course before starting on a more serious learning method. You will not achieve fluency with it, but you might get to the point where you won't need to spend as much time on the basics.

I've completed a few trees in my time (Spanish, Vietnamese, and Esperanto). The only one I had any confidence after finishing was Esperanto. Esperanto is definitely an order of magnitude easier and I supplemented my language diet with Anki, Evildea, BookBox, all kinds of stuff, but in this case I thought the Esperanto tree was very useful (not to mention the huge support of the community answering questions and such). Vietnamese on the other hand, as a tonal language with very limited voice sample (which my VN wife criticized the quality of) I graduated without much to show for it. It's probably just the first idea when we wonder where to start climbing the mountain. It's the first most obvious path, not the best path perhaps, but popular and well marked. I'm definitely not a language learned charmed by new languages. Day zero is the worst day for me. It's the lost aimless phase for me. I remember being told by my bogepatroj to start learning Vietnamese with the alphabet and sounds, but that doesn't feel right, I didn't bother to learn Esperanto's vocab until waay into my journey. Sorry to message longer than the video. I guess we've all got a love-hate relationship with the app.

I dont really think it's a waste of time, but if you want to be fluent in a language, you definitely shouldn't be using ONLY duolingo. It's a great starter app to get used to the language and basic sentence patterns/grammar structures, as well as learning vocabulary along the way. The wacky sentences they force you to learn isn't just to make you memorize how to say "my owl can sing", but rather show you the positions of nouns, verbs, prepositions, etc in a sentence, as well as conjugations. They don't make it obvious, but after practicing it many times, you're supposed to understand how to construct sentences.

Thanks for crediting me! When I saw the thumbnail I was like "Oi I'm pretty sure that's much line..." haha. Good video! I feel the same way. I actually didn't mean to make my reputation as the Duolingo hater... they have so many languages they other things don't, and I appreciate them trying to make English learning for developing countries free. But when Westerners (i.e. rich people) get obsessed with it, I feel like it's as if you showed an adult Seasme Street and said "This is the greatest TV ever and you never need anything else." and everyone just buys that.

I'm gonna say this... While I'm far from fluent in the 2 languages I am learning I wouldn't be where I am without it. The Streak System gave me the necessary push to build a daily studying habbit, and it structures and portions everything about a language's grammar for you, which put an end to the question "Where do I even start?" for me. I don't understand how anyone can think that they could become fluent with Duolingo as their only resource though. It has obvious short comings, like the lack of a vocabulary practice function for example. The Stories they're adding are neat tho.

I think that's pros cons happen on every language learning apps, so it's not about Duolingo. For example, using AnkiDroid for vocabulary training, but you miss lesson about grammar (unless somebody make flashcard deck about that). Or Babble, which is too complex for total beginner. Moreover, I don't believe if there's person who depend on only Duolingo if they're serious about learning language. That's why in the end every apps are supplementary to the others. Thanks to Duolingo, I can say this sentences: 你是加拿大人，对吗？😂😂😂

As a substitute teacher, I have noticed some language teachers supplement their teaching by having students practice on Duolingo during down time. That’s how I use it. I had varying degrees of fluency from nearly fluent to the most basic before starting it. Now my languages are evening out so that my weaker languages are catching up to my two stronger ones.

I gave up on Duolingo perhaps a year ago. In the abstract it seems a reasonable approach, but I didn't find that it worked for me. Possibly it was the annoyance of having one's responses judged by a not-terribly-bright algorithm (an artificial stupidity?). By the way, a very simple and quick way to improve your sound would be to move your microphone closer.

what should i use instead?

Completely agree Fingtam! I think that duolingo is something that can help you with SOME things learning a language; however, duolingo is definitely not ideal to learn languages. I have always found that it has helped me with vocabulary, but that's pretty much all. Thanks for the informative video!

I don't mind Duo, but I do wish they had some other kind of exercises. It gets so tedious. I know the words I want, but hunting for them takes up more time than it should, imo.

I think Duolingo is good for grammar, also some courses are better than others. But yes, when people are just aiming for the streak, that really is a waste of time.

Isnt it ironic that i got a Duolingo ad while entering this video 💀

Now there is books and podcasts to listen in it. I found it effective.

For me it's good for vocabulary AND for use it only as a complement but not More ..

What free courses/methods of learning would be good in conjunction with duolingo a beginner? Any advice is appreciated

I have never been able to 7 strike a single time in duolingo...

I love Duolingo. I’m learning Norwegian rn and after that I will probably start Korean. I plan on listening to podcasts and reading books in these languages to do better with my fluency and grammar.

So quick story to give my thoughts on the app. I've had a couple Spanish classes in highschool but I sorta slacked off and did the bare minimum to pass, but I did know the very basics, especially with grammar. I started using Duolingo a few months ago when I was reaching the end of highschool b/c I suddenly wanted to know the language more. And I started out slow but now I try to do 5-7 lessons a day which takes like half hour. And I gotta say, pros are that's it's fun, easy, and the repetition is handled well, app is free and not too many ads. Cons are that it moves pretry slowly even when doing half hour a day, and it teaches stuff at random instead of dividing things into sections like for example, sentence structure, grammar, common nouns, verb tenses, structures, phrases, etc. I'll give credit to their alphabet learning system, I'm also doing Japanese a little, and I did learn Hiragana before progressing through those lessons. But instead of having distinct sections, it just picks random subjects and practices some phrases or words within that subiect. Also, too much translating exercises, they should have more question and response exercises and more variations of that And fyi, my 2nd language is Korean(mother is korean), and I consider myself around the same level as a elementary student. And I tried the duolingo there, the test jumped me up to Unit 3, and it's basically a slightly harder version of the previous 2 units, I basically learned nothing, maybe refresh my memory on certain terms, but if you're already intermediate at a language, Duo is a waste of time, when I try to improve my korean, I try to watch some movies without subtitles, practice speaking to people, and learn within the language, not have english as a basis. So for my Spanish I make sure to do other things on top of duolingo, like practice vocab with quizlet, listen to audio podcasts of basic conversations, and watch kids shows dubbed in Spanish, and once I hopefully reach intermediate like my korean, I'll practice without having english to help me. So conclusion: Duolingo is fun and helps you stay consistent since it's easy to do daily, but it shouldn't be the only thing of you're serious about learning the language

All I can say is, last year all I knew of Spanish was "Hola" and "Sí", and now I can understand most of what my Spanish-speaking cousin is saying I believe Duolingo can definitely be a nice stepping stone

I do think Duolingo should be tried when learning a new language, however if Duolingo's the only source your using to learn a new language, then you need to reconsider. I'm currently learning Hebrew, and I do use Duolingo. However, I also go to other sources and it has helped a TON.

Being overrated is not a valid criticism and nobody can fully learn a language using only one thing.

don't rush when you do it and complete the entire tree in like a week, because when it comes to the test... you will either fail or cheat Also you would purposely lose your streak because if you lose it and you had a 100 day streak or such then you feel torn and you will never use the app again.

Are books the best way to learn a new language?

Tbh I just started japanese today and after about an hour or 2 I got at least 7 new words, and it also refreshed my memory a bit with the letters. And it was actually fun. So yeah given that it took me this long it’s not as effective as just learning the word alone, but it’s fun, sometimes you wouldn’t learn because it’s boring and in that case it’s better to study slowly than not at all.

Im learning japanese with the MIA approach which has been working really well for me. I want to learn chinese or korean next with literally just duolingo (just as a research expirement to see exactly how effective it is). This sounds really fun and exciting

Le "Day Steak" est très addictif. J'ai dû arrêter d'utiliser Duolingo car je suis devenu trop obsédé par le "Day Streak" et par le fait de ne pas apprendre le français. Ce n'était plus amusant. Au fait, j'adore Michael de "The Office". MDR

I'm learning Portugese in Brazil and when I watched this, I unsubscribed from Duolingo and decided to quit using it, and then I realised a few days you're totally wrong about it being a waste of time. I'm paying for group and private lessons, and trying to converse with people in Portuguese, and even if I just learn, say, the name's of the animals from Duolingo, that's significant in helping me learn the language. I don't think learners need negativity like this, you made me think it was useless when it wasn't. If you want to contribute to the language learning community, you'd take this down and put up a more positive video.

Duolingo is good for learning important words not entire language.

It gets lots of hate because it's a really great app and putting language teachers out of work.

I have been learning spanish with duo for something more than 2 months now. I speak french so its not that dificult for me. I am on the section 4 now. Definitely it helped me. Before I couldnt say more than "how are you" in spanish and it was frustrating, now I understand already big portions of the spoken or written spanish. Its definitely helpful. And of course I am lerning it to be able to speak with the native people. And I know that it wont be easy at the beginning but what is? Also I love gaming so now after so many years of not gaming because it was already a waste of time I can game and lern at the same time 😀 and repetition? How diferently you want to learn a language? Repetition is the best

I want to learn arabic but dont't have resources and a person to communicate with anyone up for it wanna learn together ???

What do you suggest to learn a new language? It is so easy to comment without providing other alternatives. Thank you

I wonder when the last time was that this man used duolingo? They have speaking exercises, speech to text exercises, listening and matching exercises... They're pretty good at breaking up the monotony if you're doing a daily little program. Also building the habit with the streak has given me the urge to learn German. If I lose it I'm gonna be upset because I can do better than that and put forth more effort, not because I want my 27 day streak to go higher and higher.

Have no idea to start learning a new language. I learned english but that was mostly because Sweden has english everywhere. games are in english, movies are in english, commersials are in english. the list goes on. I learned reading english due to games like final fantasy 7 and online games that required me to use it. it was passive learning. but Now Im want to learn Spanish. My sister showed me duolingo and its a nice start imo during my time between my technician school and when Im not gaming. I don't expect it to teach me everything and become fluent but maybe it can help me get a foot in the door. Considering getting movies in Spanish and such as a passive thing. perhaps change language in games. Im not really sure how to learn a new language at a decent pace.

Hmm, I disagree.. I’ve been using Duolingo to try and relearn Arabic - a language that I couldn’t learn by myself because I was no longer in an arabic speaking world. In like.. probably less than a week or so, I managed to be able to read and write again. If you ask me, that’s a huge step up for me.

i used doulingo to kick start and then i used doulingo conversation for basic vocabs, and then i use pippa pig to get more advanced and then i used superbook to get even more advanced. this is my best method ever that taught me a language very comfortably in more or less than a month. and i couldnt believe that's how easy to learn a language when you used the right method.

Have you actually tried this app for any meaningful amount of time? I’m level B1 in German and still struggling with forming correct sentences while speaking. Duolingo improved my skill immensely, let alone I learned many new words and also learned how to use them correctly in a sentence.

Great video!

I prefer it because it's different from when I learnt language in school. I would have to sit there for an hour learning something I didn't care about to them be forced to learn more of it at home. With Duolingo I can learn whenever wherever for as long as I want , I could do it in my own time and I prefer that to being stressed and forced into it

A lot of the stuff you told us to try are expecting you to know something about the language you wanna learn, I am Romanian and learned english on the internet,I might not be fluent, but I do good enough, now I am trying to learn Greek and between the new letters and some of the grammar I find it impossible to learn just by repeating sentences frok tutorial videos or just reading ,so duolingo feels like a decent start

It's a game for language learners which can be a fun way to spend some time, a useful aid to language learning (if used correctly), but can also be addictive and inefficient use of time. I would say don't get addicted to the points system, play with it sparsely through the day, rather than binging on it. If you don't see it as the primarily source of learning, you may even enjoy its quirks! That way you benefit from it without really depending on it.

Duolingo takes you from Zero to B1 (Wich is great). Then you are on your own !

It got me started into Spanish. It's the reason I can speak Spanish now because of it. But I agree with you on the exercises. I like the stories better.

watching video is kinda 100% waste of time but ok

I learn German with Duolingo. I think it's a good app to build daily habit to use/read it. Of course it's not ONLY way we need to be fluent in one language. I've learned German twice (from BBC free course when i was in college) and free course with my friends that study German (only for few weeks), but still can't manage to talk fluently in German because i don't use it daily. So, Duolingo reminds me about basic stuff that i learned from those courses.

I learn Spanish besides English, for English I take a course and memorize vocabulary and practice, etc but for Spanish I just use Duolingo it's like a game to build kinda a good base of language and gain the basics of Spanish until I finish with English

Basically, if your Duolingo streak is the only thing holding you to learn your target language, don't expect to shock natives.

Newsflash; learning a new language from scratch NEEDS to be repetitive and yes, IT IS boring at times but you can't really expect to learn a new language in a short amount of time and without repeating a lot

I feel like using Doulingo is not about how many lessons you do...but how many lessons your Remember... I can say Doulingo definitely helped me more than spanish class in high school

I am a native French speaker and fluent English speaker. I took the final unit of the French course and didn't even pass. 😂 It seems a lot of the time they don't take context in consideration and want a perfect direct translation rahter than something that means the same thing. It also sometimes forces you to say something in a unnatural manner or else they'll say it's wrong. I would say Duolingo is great to get started or if you're bored but definitely not the best way to learn a language and it should be paired with other language learning resources at the very least.

Bro i had a duolingo ad in a duolingo roast video

Started Spanish a couple of days ago (I am a native Norwegian speaker) and I have already learned alot! Super fast and easy. Gonna finish the tree and see where I go on from there.

I am learning to form sentences finally because of it so dont hate on it please

The streak feature in Duolingo is a good beartrap...without it I would have given up on learning German in a week for sure. Atleast this keeps me glued in for the long haul.

My biggest problem is the mentality that everyone with a flag on their profile is a polyglot. No one using Duolingo becomes a polyglot. My second biggest problem is that no serious language app teaches Klingon.

Duolingo is absolutely NOT a waste of time. But it is important to understand that Duolingo alone will not make you fluent in a language, no matter how many years you sink into it. The best feature of Duolingo is the streak system that helps you build a habit of learning, and through this you can acquire some pretty solid basic knowledge of a language in order to dive in deeper thanks to other methods. I'm learning italian right now and I've gone onto more advanced methods but if it weren't for Duolingo, I don't think I would've gathered the patience to practice everyday with books.

It helped me

Idk man, been using it for my mother's tongue language or whatever you call it, and it seems pretty effective to me. I just wished they added a brazilian/portuguese option so it's even more accurate. Same with spanish and mexican spanish. It certainly isn’t a waste of time if you pair it with other tools.

For my Duolingo is more lika a game app then something to use for learning a new languages. Still using it for entertainment then Im bored.

I self learned english and spanish, my mother tongue is portuguese. I gotta say that even tho duolingo is not the best, its a cool, free and fast way to improve. Is it gonna make u fluent? No, but it can help with some basics. The thing that made me learn english was to put it in my everyday life, especialy from video games and youtube videos, same with spanish. Just do ur 30 min, and try to get the lenguage ur are trying to learn in you routine.

Excuse me can you tell me how to get rid of that stupid scoreboard on my phone? Just really trying to spend less time on this app by learning n not want to feel like I am in a race. Just sad whoever made this

This app is the foundation for my English fluency to grow, it also helps to create a consistent learning habit.

2 years ago I would disagree with you but trying to learn it nowadays really did feel like a waste of time. Monotization features they added with constant hearts really didn't inspire me to learn more but only hindered me as I was always getting stuck and had to wait for them to refresh or pay up(which really isn't ideal when I usually have like 20 minutes dedicated to specificly for learning on duolingo)

Very well said and funny too!! Thank you taking the time to create this.

Does anyone else agree I think they make Duolingo to be addictive? Just when you've done loads and want to quit they drop a x.p. boost. But the match games to gain X.P. are not poss to win without paying for time boosts after level 5!

Say what you will but.. cany deny it is a great starting poing. Even more than that if you ask me..i'm romanian i know english on an advanced level i would say and im learning italian. I can train both of them, and my italian vocabulary increases lesson by lesson. Maybe it is so overrated because of its simplicity. Anyway, my opinion is that if you enjoy using the app, go through as much lessons as possible and if you get bored maybe find other sources. You will already have a good basis. Good luck

I see Duolingo as brain training and it makes sure I’m at least doing SOMETHING towards language learning every day. I agree it won’t get me to fluency on its own, but I’m keeping it as part of my plan for now.

What i am bothered by is that they have no grammar bits or optional conjugation options. Like yeah i understand basic learners don't want to know all the perfect conjugaisons in french. But i fucking do. They sprinkle it here and there, but never name a lesson accordingly, so if you try it as an advanced learner, you are lost. I study in a bilingual city and my speaking is c2-. But i know that due to me having learned a lot orally without much effort, i get some tenses wrong. So id like to practice that. I successfully did all the skipping lessons which were quite idiotic. No advanced learner should be tested on simple words like nose. I just started italian with it and while it is very motivating, here again they completely disregard grammar and tenses. I know around 4 verbs, but all of them only in the fist 3 persons! Instead they teach me dumb vocab i will never use like stufato (a kind of roast). But i can't say "we have or we are". But i can say that the rabbit eats a blu crayon. 😆

I want to learn dutch but don't have anyone to practice it

I think duolingo is good if youve moved to a new country but its not a primary source of learning even in that case

Duolingo kinda states that their course will only take you to a B2 language proficiency level. After that you'll have to hone your skills on your own.

Studying French for a year now, and yesterday I was able to read and understand a french email from my company. So yes, it works, but not alone, you need to listen songs reading lyrics, listen songs and try guessing lyrics, as well watch children movies in french. And I know that that more ahead, I will need a official course to polish grammar rules, but in no way Duolingo is a lost of time. No way at all.

If you do Duolingo, write a blog (in that language) and have a conversation with someone at least once a week, you’re pretty much set.

It won't even work on my phone

You should look up the word Fingtam in Duolingo in the hungarian section.

I really like duolingo for learning different writings like arabic or hiragana

Duolingo is a good start to learning a language, but it's not enough. Effective for people who are starting to learn a new language, I would definitely say yes

I grew up in Mexico were we speak Spanish, since we are close to the border with USA I learned english. With duolingo I started learning brazialin portuguese and now I can understand most of song lyrics. It helps and I am not done ye with the course.

The extent of translation exercises in duolingo is just vocabulary learning. No one launches the app when they already know alot of vocabulary and want to improve fluency. Duh.

To me it’s gonna be like what school did me for the english language (I’m italian): Learning words and then I’ll find some RU-vid channel that only speak english… but it’s gonna be spanish

I think that Duolingo could half its repetitive content and there would be no drop in efficacy in the language. This would save a ton of time that could be used for more productive things.

Its very useful to me

Duolingo is a great tool for beginners... The further along you get, the bigger the waste of time it is. One of the main exercises where you form pre-made sentences is a timesink...

DuoLingo is GREAT for beginners. I just with they hadn't shut down forums.

With Duolingo I’m learning to read and write in Spanish a lot better than I can speak and listen. That’s just weird.

Using it now and I'm getting annoyed with the app. It starts off decent but they took out the ability to question anything they put as an answer. That speaks volumes on their oversight.

Anything that takes more than 1 second is a "waste of time".

Streak does kinda matter. If u wanna learn dont give up. But that silly streak system? Whatever