It depends on the goal. If you're going to a foreign country on vacation and want to learn a survival level of that language (enough to order in restaurants, ask for directions, do simple small talk, etc) then 5-15 minutes a day of Duolingo has you covered. If you need to become fluent, then you'll need to immerse yourself in that language, which is well beyond the capabilities of any app.
I speak French as my everyday language but have had a steep learning curve over the past few years. I’m not convinced that Duo is a good teaching programme but I think it’s great to help you to understand the theoretical backbone of the language you’re using. I learned to speak French by interacting with French speakers, I understand more about the structure of the language because of Duo.
I've been learning Norwegian since January 2022. I basically use Duolingo as a warm-up and vocabulary trainer. I study with an actual tutor once a week. We use all Norwegian language textbooks. I also listen to Norwegian music and watch Norwegian films and TV series. I wouldn't say Duolingo is a waste of time. However, I think it's more like an addition to other means of study and practice. Since I'm in Russia, I basically get premium for free. No ads cause they can't get revenue from it. Plus, I turned the sound effects off, so it's less annoying. At a certain point a person can outgrow it. I found it too boring in Portuguese and other romance languages as I know that language family well.
I’m currently on day 185. And it motivated me to get 1:1 lessons with a teacher to learn the grammar properly and I’m thinking about joining a language school in April or September. I would still start at their A1 classes but Duolingo gave me confidence I lacked for years. Learning German was on my list for 9 years!
I’m 71. I have a 1450 day streak and never missed a day or used a streak saver. I started with French to brush up my schoolboy French, but got bored with it so tried Dutch for a while (I actually would like to improve my Afrikaans but it’s not available) so I moved on to German which I’m enjoying and moved up to a paid subscription a few months ago. My reason is purely to keep my brain active. I enjoy crossword puzzles too and learning music theory and piano. I don’t think Duolingo is going to help much with “real life’ foreign language, you need full time immersion for that imo. For me it’s just another hobby.
I'm 62. John, I agree 100%. Duolingo for Seniors is great for brain practice. I use it mainly to learn French and some German. I also play online chess. Doctor said my brain is shrinking but he never saw that at someone 60+ y.o.. It starts at 80-85 y.o. he said. I have a 340+ streak and I'll continue using Duolingo. The points Evan spoke about should be taken into consideration for young people and serious learners. Thanks Evan.
P.S. Please forgive me for my English. It's not my native language. I'm Greek and I live alone, in Athens, Greece. I highly recommend Duolingo for people like me, especially in these years of the coronavirus pandemic. Duolingo is a method of learning without a teacher so I'm not sure if it is the best for young people.
Maybe you could try Qlango. I think the effect is better and it is also made for seniors to train their brains. Many people are using it together with Duolingo or after they tried or even completed duolingo and are amazed by Qlango.
Combine Duolingo with movies and podcasts. I recommend the podcast series called “Coffee Break”. They have “Coffee Break French” “Coffee Break German” etc.
Duolingo is fun. It gets a person into habit training. I think I am learning quite a bit of Spanish. I'm learning just for the fun of it. If one wants to become fluent, probably an immersion method or combination of several programs is better.
It's a great tool, and it's free. I'm on a 300 ish day streak, and it took me too long to realize that, especially for beginners (which I was when I started using it), it is important that you repeat each sentence aloud.
My goal is to replace time waster apps and activities on my phone with something useful, as well as achieve a b2 level in speaking Spanish some day. I pay for the app because I found a routine where I spend an hour in the morning doing 1 unit, and at night I go back and do the challenge lessons for each unit. I’ve asked my coworkers who are bilingual to talk exclusively in Spanish to me and THEY DO! When I do the lessons I read everything out loud, including the stories just so I can practice speaking the language. I’ve found after a month that I’ve learned so much more Spanish than I did in 2 years of high school Spanish.
I can definitely understand how many people may find the sentences in Duolingo to be rather odd and that it'd be better to learn more useful phrases, but I also think many miss the point with this. To be honest, I wouldn't be surprised if it is intentional, considering it's so common on the app. Because they are weird or rare or unconventional, I feel this will often require the learner to actually have to learn to break down the sentence themselves, and incentivises them to actually learn patterns, instead of just memorising a phrase. There is much utility in doing the latter, but anything they can do to help bolster one's ability to actually utilise the language in a free-form, native-like manner is beneficial, and I think people often look past this. Weird sentences are not useful in and of themselves, but what they teach you is indeed useful - i.e., you would never usually say a phrase like it, but you should nevertheless be able to if you choose to do so.
Totally agree with you, think it’s definitely an intentional tool. I feel the weird sentences have 3 main purposes : 1. Like you said, make people actually learn it. Otherwise someone could just learn a few words and guess the rest using the bubbles. 2. It not only gives you variety of things that typically wouldn’t come up, but also because they’re different they’re more likely to stick in your head and remember them. 3. And finally they’re 100% a super useful marketing tool, the amount of people posting about them and sharing them. Mixed in with the whole evil Duolingo owl meme, helps give them a better and more recognisable brand identity
It is confirmed to be intentional, for the reasons mentioned. For those who only use the app for 15 minutes (or less) per day, it's important to make the vocab as memorable as possible in such a short time.
If you're learning most common phrases like babies or little children do and then you start forming your own phrases with the help of them, it's a much better method than learning stupid examples from duolingo, which might be funny and therefor they might stick (we remember the best vulgarity, then humor, then stories, etc.), but from my experience with duolingo, which I was using for half a year to learn French from German, you actually don't learn anything and you can't say anything in the language. You improve your source language because you're answering too much in it (in my case German), but you don't start writing, talking or thinking in your target language.
Thanks! The algorithm is a blessing and a curse. I'm not sure what languages you know or are learning but I have ideas for more videos for the future in a couple languages.
Execelente análisis compañero de idiomas. 💪🏽.. todas las aplicaciones son piezas importantes que nos ayudan a formar este hermoso rompecabezas, que se llama idiomas.
I totally agree with you. A couple of years ago I reached my three years anniversary of Duolingo, studying mostly Russian, having a look at Spanish, refreshing my French. I started with the free mode, went nuts being frequently interrupted by commercials and other stuff, chose to pay for it. Duolingo was a nice way learning words, sentences and basic grammar and building a decent streak I got the impression I was learning things. Later I got a chance speaking Russian with a native speaker and, well, I didn't do so well. Duolingo is a nice, quite expensive means of learning words, but I realised you really won't learn a new language just using an app, it does require communicating with people IRL.
Duolingo doesn't teach words and this is already the problem. If you'd know words, you could express yourself. Not with the correct grammar, but it would be possible to understand you. And that's the beginning. If you then add another source, like reading articles, comics, watching tv shows or similar and you try to read aloud and if you're listening to it, try to repeat what you hear, you learn it very quickly. Of course to some degree. Then it's up to you if you want to continue or not. We teach words at the beginning and then we teach most frequent phrases with these words. Our method is basically the method of a new born baby who learns with an improved flash cards system mixed with space repetition.
Depending on the language. Some are very complete while others are bare introductions. I've found its improved listening comprehension a lot. It's quite good at teaching reading skills. If you want, it's OK at teaching writing. It's possible to avoid that part of the learning. It is not good at teaching speaking. Some languages test your pronunciation but not all. And there only feed back is whether you're pronouncing the entire sentence correctly or not. A live teacher can tell you what you're doing wrong. And it's not possible to learn how to speak at a conversational level without speaking at a conversational level a lot.
I got to a 600 day streak focusing primarily on Finnish and German. I purposefully chose to end my streak in protest to the interface change as it negatively impacts my learning and practice needs... and overall infantilizes what was once a great learning language tool. I had already finished the Finnish teaser course (it's very small) and I was still right at the beginning of the German course, so not much was lost except the habit of opening the app each day. My focus is on other apps now, which unfortunately are really only good for gaining some vocabulary. I'm glad I was able to finish the Finnish TREE and have some review/practice before the update, as experiencing some grammar concepts is better than none at all.
I have been using Duolingo to learn Spanish for a couple months now and it really is very effective on terms of vocabulary and small conversations though I think there needs to be more speaking and more listening to long conversations and replying. Since I am serious about learning this language I have a Spanish teacher at school now and also my grandma who speaks fluent Spanish teaches me weekly Spanish. I think it's a good side hustle but if you really want to learn a language I'd recommend a teacher or anyone who is fluent to teach you that language and to have day to day conversations is also really important to keep your brain fresh in that area.
I'm studying Deutsch in Uni and I use duolingo to help get the basics, to learn new words, especially at the beginning of studying. It helps me to remember the basics like "ich bin" "du bist" etc, some professions, articles in front of the words. It is just an additional thing if you are some kind of linguist or polyglot or whoever you want to call yourself. Also its just fun and definitely better than social media
It helps me at least to work on Spanish every day, but like lots of people I'm often frustrated having to learn nonsensical or impractical phrases. I'm currently on day 385.
I've never used Duolingo with my target language, however experienced (and successful) language learners tell me that Duolingo is meant to be a 'supplement' to immersion, however many people use it as a 'substitute' for immersion. No disrespect to anyone, but I don't think I'll use Duolingo.
It depends on the goal as well. If you're vacationing in Mexico and want to know how to comfortably speak enough to get through common tourist situations or be able to order at restaurants, a month of five minute daily lessons with Duolingo will get you through fine. If you want to converse fluently, not so much.
After 180 days spending on english and french I just wanted to say that's not the way I want to master those languages, so I had a harder and toxic decision to delete my account. Thank you for the video
All i know is that before i started with duo lingo I'd "tried" to start learning German several times with audio lessons and always quit within a week. Now I'm close to a year streak and nearing the end of the course. It's one of the many things I'm doing to learn and I can reasonably comfortably watch TV/listen to podcasts. I think the only problem is that so many people think that one lesson a day is enough to say you're learning Japanese. It's a very useful way to get you using the language without embarrassing yourself in the early stages when you'd otherwise get everything wrong with every sentence. I'm honestly lightly worried about life after duo because it's that useful as one of many tools for learning.
I cancelled my duolingo. I was too focus on the streak and getting higher points than actually learning more words and the language. I am happy I removed it and found something else.
I'm only have like a 67 day streak and it's doing it's job. It's a bit repetitive but that's helping with the fundamentals. It does not explain why the grammer is the way it is, you have to seek that information out on your own. It does not teach you how to congigate the verbs, but that can also be found online, youtube, etc... It's vocabulary is a bit limited as well, but you can easily find lists of the most commonly used words online... The app itself is not going to be enough to ever become fluent, you'll need to challenge yourself to put your own thoughts to paper as well as speak them. At the point where I am at I can say it has enabled me to do this. Upon crafting my own thoughts to paper I do find that there are more appropriate ways to say some phrases however, just like a child, you must first learn the basics then you'll figure out the rest in time... I think this same logic applies to any app or even language class. I took french for 3 years in school and spanish for 2, I never used them outside of that, did very little to challenge my abilities back then and thus retained very little.
Click on the Tips link in the exercise and it tells you why the grammar is the way it is. BTW, your name makes it hard to reply using it without thinking you will be searching for me to beat me up.
Im at 3 months and i am enjoying the app. I do like 30 minutes - 2 hours a day. In addition I read easy short stories and have turned my phone language into spanish.
no one strategy will get you fluent. Foul into will help you with some, textbook study will get you some, movies and shows will get you some, but you can’t use one thing.
early on I could tell I wasn't learning much due to the ranked leagues and I turned my profile private so it was no longer an option and I won't be feeding that addiction anymore, been a lot better since then. I may be able to read some and write but speaking isn't so focused on duolingo no
Hi Evan, I know two languages at the moment. English is my native language and Spanish I am proficient at. I never learned a language from scratch this will be my first time doing so since I come from a Spanish background so there wasn't a true start point for me. I decided to learn Greek and I am clueless in how to begin. From watching your video how long would you recommend a person should use the app before leaving it to raise their skill level further? My end goal is to become really good at Greek. I would love to hear some further recommendations, if possible, thank you Evan.
I think a lot of that depends on the person but I would say as long as the app is continuing to teach you new material and you find the pace tolerable, it is still valuable. Eventually, you may think spending 10 or 15 minutes reviewing a simple concept would be better spent in some other way. I think that transition can be gradual, like using Duolingo a while, then adding other podcasts or listening resources, and then whenever you feel ready, going heavily on those secondary resources as you open up time you used to use for Duolingo (or adding online teachers or other practicing methods too). Good luck in your journey!
I never tried Duolingo, but from what I see it seems pretty useless to me. I research grammar and vocabulary myself and write Anki cards if I feel a need for drill exercises
I tried learning Italian again and again. Teachers would explain the grammar to me over and over and I would always get them confused but with Duolingo it would constantly ask me the same question over and over until the grammar naturally stuck. I was able to remember the grammar rules in my own way. I think literacy is the strong point of Duolingo. I would say that hearing and speaking would be it’s weak points. Because not all people will speak perfect Italian for example, or at least the dialect given by the app. And speaking needs to be done with a teacher.
@@guyguy7953 If I learn a language, I usually start with a traditional textbook where I learn basics of grammar and learn to read simple texts; and then I'll move on to 'real' texts (f.e. wikipedia articles have a low threshold and are always available without any research necessary). If I'm good enough I'll search for real books. Real texts seem to me much more useful to improve my reading fluency than artificially engineered stuff like Duolingo. They have the advantage that I learn the language by reading something actually real and interesting. The "ask me the same question over and over until the grammar naturally stuck"-part I will do with Anki-cards which have the advantage that I can research and write them myself - I don't like to rely on the work of other people in this regard, I don't want to copy drill mechanisms I haven't researched myself.
No it absolutely isn’t. You can only learn so much on Duolingo. It fails spectacularly on teaching grammar. After a while it’s just endless repetition and one is still nowhere near intermediate level.
I really want to pursue a career as an interpreter/translator😢. I make use of duolingo and UA-cam as learning tools, are they enough as learning tools?? As someone who is using learning language for career purpose, what extra should I be doing or adding ??
It depends on the goal. If you're going to a foreign country on vacation and want to learn a survival level of that language (enough to order in restaurants, ask for directions, do simple small talk, etc) then 5-15 minutes a day of Duolingo has you covered. If you need to become fluent, then you'll need to immerse yourself in that language, which is well beyond the capabilities of any app.
I speak French as my everyday language but have had a steep learning curve over the past few years. I’m not convinced that Duo is a good teaching programme but I think it’s great to help you to understand the theoretical backbone of the language you’re using. I learned to speak French by interacting with French speakers, I understand more about the structure of the language because of Duo.
I've been learning Norwegian since January 2022. I basically use Duolingo as a warm-up and vocabulary trainer. I study with an actual tutor once a week. We use all Norwegian language textbooks. I also listen to Norwegian music and watch Norwegian films and TV series. I wouldn't say Duolingo is a waste of time. However, I think it's more like an addition to other means of study and practice. Since I'm in Russia, I basically get premium for free. No ads cause they can't get revenue from it. Plus, I turned the sound effects off, so it's less annoying. At a certain point a person can outgrow it. I found it too boring in Portuguese and other romance languages as I know that language family well.
This is not true, because duolingo doesn't teach you phrases for this. You don't even know how to ask for way, etc. But you know that Pigs are flying.
I’m currently on day 185. And it motivated me to get 1:1 lessons with a teacher to learn the grammar properly and I’m thinking about joining a language school in April or September. I would still start at their A1 classes but Duolingo gave me confidence I lacked for years. Learning German was on my list for 9 years!
I’m 71. I have a 1450 day streak and never missed a day or used a streak saver. I started with French to brush up my schoolboy French, but got bored with it so tried Dutch for a while (I actually would like to improve my Afrikaans but it’s not available) so I moved on to German which I’m enjoying and moved up to a paid subscription a few months ago. My reason is purely to keep my brain active. I enjoy crossword puzzles too and learning music theory and piano. I don’t think Duolingo is going to help much with “real life’ foreign language, you need full time immersion for that imo. For me it’s just another hobby.
I'm 62. John, I agree 100%.
Duolingo for Seniors is great for brain practice.
I use it mainly to learn French and some German.
I also play online chess.
Doctor said my brain is shrinking but he never saw that at someone 60+ y.o..
It starts at 80-85 y.o. he said.
I have a 340+ streak and I'll continue using Duolingo.
The points Evan spoke about should be taken into consideration for young people and serious learners.
Thanks Evan.
Yes! Thats why im using it too, to keep my brain active :)
P.S. Please forgive me for my English. It's not my native language. I'm Greek and I live alone, in Athens, Greece.
I highly recommend Duolingo for people like me, especially in these years of the coronavirus pandemic.
Duolingo is a method of learning without a teacher so I'm not sure if it is the best for young people.
Maybe you could try Qlango. I think the effect is better and it is also made for seniors to train their brains. Many people are using it together with Duolingo or after they tried or even completed duolingo and are amazed by Qlango.
@@yannis43yannis You write well. Thank you for taking the time to comment!
Combine Duolingo with movies and podcasts. I recommend the podcast series called “Coffee Break”. They have “Coffee Break French” “Coffee Break German” etc.
A fantastic experience driven deep dive in less than ten minutes. Evan does great work and turns everything he touches to gold!🎉🎉
Thanks for watching. I appreciate you!
Duolingo is fun. It gets a person into habit training. I think I am learning quite a bit of Spanish. I'm learning just for the fun of it. If one wants to become fluent, probably an immersion method or combination of several programs is better.
Duolingo is fun because it's easy. It's terribly inefficient because it's easy. Simple dependence.
It's a great tool, and it's free. I'm on a 300 ish day streak, and it took me too long to realize that, especially for beginners (which I was when I started using it), it is important that you repeat each sentence aloud.
yep indeed, it stucks faster in our mind
My goal is to replace time waster apps and activities on my phone with something useful, as well as achieve a b2 level in speaking Spanish some day. I pay for the app because I found a routine where I spend an hour in the morning doing 1 unit, and at night I go back and do the challenge lessons for each unit. I’ve asked my coworkers who are bilingual to talk exclusively in Spanish to me and THEY DO! When I do the lessons I read everything out loud, including the stories just so I can practice speaking the language. I’ve found after a month that I’ve learned so much more Spanish than I did in 2 years of high school Spanish.
I can definitely understand how many people may find the sentences in Duolingo to be rather odd and that it'd be better to learn more useful phrases, but I also think many miss the point with this. To be honest, I wouldn't be surprised if it is intentional, considering it's so common on the app. Because they are weird or rare or unconventional, I feel this will often require the learner to actually have to learn to break down the sentence themselves, and incentivises them to actually learn patterns, instead of just memorising a phrase. There is much utility in doing the latter, but anything they can do to help bolster one's ability to actually utilise the language in a free-form, native-like manner is beneficial, and I think people often look past this. Weird sentences are not useful in and of themselves, but what they teach you is indeed useful - i.e., you would never usually say a phrase like it, but you should nevertheless be able to if you choose to do so.
Fair point. Thanks for taking the time to comment!
Totally agree with you, think it’s definitely an intentional tool. I feel the weird sentences have 3 main purposes :
1. Like you said, make people actually learn it. Otherwise someone could just learn a few words and guess the rest using the bubbles.
2. It not only gives you variety of things that typically wouldn’t come up, but also because they’re different they’re more likely to stick in your head and remember them.
3. And finally they’re 100% a super useful marketing tool, the amount of people posting about them and sharing them. Mixed in with the whole evil Duolingo owl meme, helps give them a better and more recognisable brand identity
It is confirmed to be intentional, for the reasons mentioned. For those who only use the app for 15 minutes (or less) per day, it's important to make the vocab as memorable as possible in such a short time.
If you're learning most common phrases like babies or little children do and then you start forming your own phrases with the help of them, it's a much better method than learning stupid examples from duolingo, which might be funny and therefor they might stick (we remember the best vulgarity, then humor, then stories, etc.), but from my experience with duolingo, which I was using for half a year to learn French from German, you actually don't learn anything and you can't say anything in the language. You improve your source language because you're answering too much in it (in my case German), but you don't start writing, talking or thinking in your target language.
im only 3 minutes in, but wow, the quality of your videos is amazing. i looked down and saw this only had 62 views???
keep up the good work!
Thanks! The algorithm is a blessing and a curse. I'm not sure what languages you know or are learning but I have ideas for more videos for the future in a couple languages.
Execelente análisis compañero de idiomas. 💪🏽.. todas las aplicaciones son piezas importantes que nos ayudan a formar este hermoso rompecabezas, que se llama idiomas.
Estoy de acuerdo. ¡Adelante todos los días!
Wow, that’s so professional Evan! It even got soothing background music 🤩
I’m at day 30. Seems like I’m learning a lot. I’m also learning with UA-cam and podcasts.
I totally agree with you. A couple of years ago I reached my three years anniversary of Duolingo, studying mostly Russian, having a look at Spanish, refreshing my French. I started with the free mode, went nuts being frequently interrupted by commercials and other stuff, chose to pay for it. Duolingo was a nice way learning words, sentences and basic grammar and building a decent streak I got the impression I was learning things. Later I got a chance speaking Russian with a native speaker and, well, I didn't do so well. Duolingo is a nice, quite expensive means of learning words, but I realised you really won't learn a new language just using an app, it does require communicating with people IRL.
Duolingo doesn't teach words and this is already the problem. If you'd know words, you could express yourself. Not with the correct grammar, but it would be possible to understand you. And that's the beginning. If you then add another source, like reading articles, comics, watching tv shows or similar and you try to read aloud and if you're listening to it, try to repeat what you hear, you learn it very quickly. Of course to some degree. Then it's up to you if you want to continue or not. We teach words at the beginning and then we teach most frequent phrases with these words. Our method is basically the method of a new born baby who learns with an improved flash cards system mixed with space repetition.
Depending on the language. Some are very complete while others are bare introductions.
I've found its improved listening comprehension a lot.
It's quite good at teaching reading skills.
If you want, it's OK at teaching writing. It's possible to avoid that part of the learning.
It is not good at teaching speaking. Some languages test your pronunciation but not all. And there only feed back is whether you're pronouncing the entire sentence correctly or not. A live teacher can tell you what you're doing wrong. And it's not possible to learn how to speak at a conversational level without speaking at a conversational level a lot.
I got to a 600 day streak focusing primarily on Finnish and German. I purposefully chose to end my streak in protest to the interface change as it negatively impacts my learning and practice needs... and overall infantilizes what was once a great learning language tool. I had already finished the Finnish teaser course (it's very small) and I was still right at the beginning of the German course, so not much was lost except the habit of opening the app each day. My focus is on other apps now, which unfortunately are really only good for gaining some vocabulary. I'm glad I was able to finish the Finnish TREE and have some review/practice before the update, as experiencing some grammar concepts is better than none at all.
What apps have to turned to instead?
@@herknorth8691 Try Qlango :) You might like it.
@@qlango Thanks!
I have been using Duolingo to learn Spanish for a couple months now and it really is very effective on terms of vocabulary and small conversations though I think there needs to be more speaking and more listening to long conversations and replying. Since I am serious about learning this language I have a Spanish teacher at school now and also my grandma who speaks fluent Spanish teaches me weekly Spanish. I think it's a good side hustle but if you really want to learn a language I'd recommend a teacher or anyone who is fluent to teach you that language and to have day to day conversations is also really important to keep your brain fresh in that area.
I'm studying Deutsch in Uni and I use duolingo to help get the basics, to learn new words, especially at the beginning of studying. It helps me to remember the basics like "ich bin" "du bist" etc, some professions, articles in front of the words. It is just an additional thing if you are some kind of linguist or polyglot or whoever you want to call yourself. Also its just fun and definitely better than social media
It helps me at least to work on Spanish every day, but like lots of people I'm often frustrated having to learn nonsensical or impractical phrases. I'm currently on day 385.
I've never used Duolingo with my target language, however experienced (and successful) language learners tell me that Duolingo is meant to be a 'supplement' to immersion, however many people use it as a 'substitute' for immersion. No disrespect to anyone, but I don't think I'll use Duolingo.
I agree. I generally think it is a tool but should not be the only tool.
It depends on the goal as well. If you're vacationing in Mexico and want to know how to comfortably speak enough to get through common tourist situations or be able to order at restaurants, a month of five minute daily lessons with Duolingo will get you through fine. If you want to converse fluently, not so much.
After 180 days spending on english and french I just wanted to say that's not the way I want to master those languages, so I had a harder and toxic decision to delete my account. Thank you for the video
I think it's important to recognize what works for you and what doesn't. Good luck in your journey!
Totaly agree with you. 720 days and counting mostly french. Its OK to brush up a language that you already learned.
All i know is that before i started with duo lingo I'd "tried" to start learning German several times with audio lessons and always quit within a week. Now I'm close to a year streak and nearing the end of the course. It's one of the many things I'm doing to learn and I can reasonably comfortably watch TV/listen to podcasts. I think the only problem is that so many people think that one lesson a day is enough to say you're learning Japanese. It's a very useful way to get you using the language without embarrassing yourself in the early stages when you'd otherwise get everything wrong with every sentence. I'm honestly lightly worried about life after duo because it's that useful as one of many tools for learning.
Yes, it is worth it
Thank you so much for your insights //Carl-Fredrik from Sweden
I cancelled my duolingo. I was too focus on the streak and getting higher points than actually learning more words and the language. I am happy I removed it and found something else.
Everyone learns in different ways so that's good you found something that works better for you.
I'm loving that background music. ❤️❤️❤️
🎵🎶🎵
I'm only have like a 67 day streak and it's doing it's job. It's a bit repetitive but that's helping with the fundamentals. It does not explain why the grammer is the way it is, you have to seek that information out on your own. It does not teach you how to congigate the verbs, but that can also be found online, youtube, etc... It's vocabulary is a bit limited as well, but you can easily find lists of the most commonly used words online... The app itself is not going to be enough to ever become fluent, you'll need to challenge yourself to put your own thoughts to paper as well as speak them. At the point where I am at I can say it has enabled me to do this. Upon crafting my own thoughts to paper I do find that there are more appropriate ways to say some phrases however, just like a child, you must first learn the basics then you'll figure out the rest in time... I think this same logic applies to any app or even language class. I took french for 3 years in school and spanish for 2, I never used them outside of that, did very little to challenge my abilities back then and thus retained very little.
Click on the Tips link in the exercise and it tells you why the grammar is the way it is. BTW, your name makes it hard to reply using it without thinking you will be searching for me to beat me up.
I got a duolingo ad at the start of this video
Im at 3 months and i am enjoying the app.
I do like 30 minutes - 2 hours a day.
In addition I read easy short stories and have turned my phone language into spanish.
no one strategy will get you fluent. Foul into will help you with some, textbook study will get you some, movies and shows will get you some, but you can’t use one thing.
early on I could tell I wasn't learning much due to the ranked leagues and I turned my profile private so it was no longer an option and I won't be feeding that addiction anymore, been a lot better since then. I may be able to read some and write but speaking isn't so focused on duolingo no
Hi Evan, I know two languages at the moment. English is my native language and Spanish I am proficient at. I never learned a language from scratch this will be my first time doing so since I come from a Spanish background so there wasn't a true start point for me. I decided to learn Greek and I am clueless in how to begin. From watching your video how long would you recommend a person should use the app before leaving it to raise their skill level further? My end goal is to become really good at Greek. I would love to hear some further recommendations, if possible, thank you Evan.
I think a lot of that depends on the person but I would say as long as the app is continuing to teach you new material and you find the pace tolerable, it is still valuable. Eventually, you may think spending 10 or 15 minutes reviewing a simple concept would be better spent in some other way. I think that transition can be gradual, like using Duolingo a while, then adding other podcasts or listening resources, and then whenever you feel ready, going heavily on those secondary resources as you open up time you used to use for Duolingo (or adding online teachers or other practicing methods too). Good luck in your journey!
@@languageswithevan thanks Evan for getting back to me
I never tried Duolingo, but from what I see it seems pretty useless to me. I research grammar and vocabulary myself and write Anki cards if I feel a need for drill exercises
There’s nothing like somebody with no experience telling everybody else that something is no good. Try before you comment.
@@davidmatthews3093 I know how the exercises look like and I'm definitely sure I don't want to waste my time with this
I tried learning Italian again and again. Teachers would explain the grammar to me over and over and I would always get them confused but with Duolingo it would constantly ask me the same question over and over until the grammar naturally stuck. I was able to remember the grammar rules in my own way. I think literacy is the strong point of Duolingo. I would say that hearing and speaking would be it’s weak points. Because not all people will speak perfect Italian for example, or at least the dialect given by the app. And speaking needs to be done with a teacher.
@@guyguy7953 If I learn a language, I usually start with a traditional textbook where I learn basics of grammar and learn to read simple texts; and then I'll move on to 'real' texts (f.e. wikipedia articles have a low threshold and are always available without any research necessary). If I'm good enough I'll search for real books.
Real texts seem to me much more useful to improve my reading fluency than artificially engineered stuff like Duolingo. They have the advantage that I learn the language by reading something actually real and interesting.
The "ask me the same question over and over until the grammar naturally stuck"-part I will do with Anki-cards which have the advantage that I can research and write them myself - I don't like to rely on the work of other people in this regard, I don't want to copy drill mechanisms I haven't researched myself.
Thanks Evan!
Problem is you don’t know what categories you are going to learn the necessary phrases in.
Why did you leave out-How many minutes/hours per day did you study?
Duolingo is the worst thing that happened to language learners
No it absolutely isn’t. You can only learn so much on Duolingo. It fails spectacularly on teaching grammar. After a while it’s just endless repetition and one is still nowhere near intermediate level.
Its still good for vocab, especially seeing the words in different structured sentences. Constant exposure is a good thing.
I really want to pursue a career as an interpreter/translator😢. I make use of duolingo and UA-cam as learning tools, are they enough as learning tools??
As someone who is using learning language for career purpose, what extra should I be doing or adding ??
Have you ever heard of google translate?
spanish or vanish