This is the coldest take in the universe by now but please just don't use duolingo to learn a language, no matter how convenient or motivating it might feel! Using it as a supplementary tool is better than nothing, but so many people only use duolingo. And I'm not even going into the bullshit in the post above. And don't get me wrong, spending some time on duolingo is still better than like, scrolling social media or getting a doomery addiction to news apps. But your goal is to learn a language, right? Or get to some level of comprehensibility? So let's upgrade, and learn faster and better.
Disclaimer: This post will be more aimed at anyone learning a second language, especially native English speakers (which is my experience). For everyone else this will all be pretty obvious so apologies. Duolingo glosses over elements what makes a language actually stick in your mind: recall, immersion and intrinsic motivation. Also, I'm neither a linguist nor a teacher. I'm just some foxgirl on the internet who's learned to say some stuff in a couple other languages.
Recall
Duolingo's Problem
Duolingo presents you with a prompt and multiple choice answers, so all you need to do is see the matching word or phrasing you've been taught to memorise, and get all the nice positive feedback for remembering it! You did such a great job (pleasing sound effect)! But that's not recall, it's just recognition. It's crucial to be able to form the word from *nothing*, rather than choosing it from a prompt and duolingo will test you on this periodically, which is something, but not at the point of learning and only covers a fraction of the learning course. Really, there should be no multiple choice at all (imo). But people get on with it because it's easy, convenient, and make you *think* you're learning well and getting rewarded as such.You'll learn a ton of stuff on DL, but as soon as the app closes, and you get off the wagon for a week or two, it'll just slip right back out your mind again. You can learn for months and then someone can ask an incredibly basic question and end up completely stumped because you're not properly or organically forming sentences, but rather repeating answers to the same questions you've done over and over via tapping on words.
And this goes both ways: seeing a word in your study language and translating into your fluent language; seeing a word in your fluent language and translating that into your study language. Once you've done this a handful of times, it'll get stored in your long-term memory and you'll just be able to say the word without thinking about it. And that's the endgame of language comprehension.
Some Suggestions
Look for tools, books and apps for your study language that make you write your answer in full. Make sure both directions of recall are covered. Write a lil diary! Find a language exchange friend - there are SO MANY cool people wanting to make native English speaking pen pals and lots of apps to find them! Or, when you're just pacing about the house, cooking, tidying, or doing any kind of idle work, just start talking to yourself! If you struggle to recall a word, look it up on your dictionary (language-to-language dictionary apps are a godsend, keep one on your homescreen at all times). Sometimes I randomly speak in German or Japanese to (or rather, at) my partner who doesn't understand it, but it finds it endearing and charming which makes it extra fun."Hmmm.... what was that word again...?" (click to read on!)
Immersion
Duolingo's Problem
Unless you're an academic linguist, the reason for learning a language is, presumably, to be able to do some combination of read, listen, write, or talk in that language, with other humans communicating in that language.This can also be applied to many dry textbooks used in classrooms, but DL especially hampers your language acquisition speed by providing no real-life interaction with the language. Which is kind of the entire point, right? People meme on the nonsensical questions it asks and the sentences/questions are stiff and not really useable in the real world. Being given little bite-sized, out of context sentences one at a time won't prepare you for being able to take in dialogue, or lengthier texts.
Some Suggestions
Any of the following! - Find a pen pal, as suggested above. You can't really get much better than having to communicate with someone in that language, right? And that will always push your reading and writing ability. As well as listening and speaking if you get into video calls too! - Listen to podcasts - Watch TV and movies without English subtitles - Listen to music and be mindful of the vocals - Play games in that language - Go on holiday to a country speaking that language for a week or two and avoid places where speakers of your native language congregate - Watch a streamer play a game you likeNeed some background noise? Put on something in that language rather than something in English! The nice thing is you don't even really need to engage your brain with this compared to studying. Your pattern-seeking brain will just slowly put things together of its own accord.
The important key to any of the above is the most effective language input for leaning is material that is slightly above your skill level, rather than full, no-holds-barred fluency. However, there's absolutely nothing wrong with just listening to fluent dialogue. It'll just be slow, hard and painful and you won't understand much but it will prepare you for the rhythm, tonality and nuances of the language over time.
Immersion, in the long term, will really help you sound natural when you speak to people.
"But your pronunciation is so good though??"
Intrinsic motivation
Duolingo's Problem
Anyone who uses DL will recognise this. The app is absolutely filthy with manipulative hooks to keep you using. Leaderboards, app notifications that shame and guilt-trip you, and hollow competition. I don't really need to go into why these strategies are bad, do I?What do any of those things have to do with learning a language? Fucking nothing! You decided to learn a language so you can understand the language, right? Being able to communicate in another codex is an incredibly rewarding and satisfying feat, especially for native English speakers who did not get a second language drilled into them and almost assumed to never need or want to learn another language.
It just means that if you ever get tired of Duolingo, you're even more likely to drop learning the language altogether because when you're in the owl mines for long enough, you can get so poisoned by its hooks that you forget why you wanted to learn in the first place.
Some Suggestions
Think back to why you wanted to learn the language in the first place. There are countless reasons like work, extended family, media you love, or you just think it's neat.Write a post, journal, google doc, whatever, detailing this. Write down your long-term goals with the language. Then, split that up into broad mid-term goals and specific, easily achievable short-term goals. Your motivations might even shift over time - it's a years-long process, after all.
Make sure you stay conscious and mindful of these motivations as you spend more and more hours studying. Remind yourself from time to time, and check in with yourself about it.
Also: motivation via friendly competition is good! But don't compete against randos to achieve arbitrary numbers. Instead, find or make a friend who is also learning the language, and become accountable for each other. See who's learning more and get into a friendly rivalry, test each other and use that to keep you going in your daily short-term study loop.
"absolutely wild to me that a couple of years ago this was all just incomprehensible syllables"
So yeah fuck duolingo for their dishonest approach to learning languages and also fuck them for cheaping out by replacing human labour with LLMs in a language learning tool of all things. Obviously.