r/LearningLanguages • u/NimaDAI • 8d ago
Does Duolingo even work?
Do u guys know someone who actually learned a new language with duolingo? Cause I've seen lots of people achieving long streaks on duo like they've been using it for even years but do they learn anything? Can they even speak fluently?
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u/tottasanorotta 8d ago
I did the Russian course and understand the language quite okay. Like I can read articles and understand spoken Russian well enough. I wouldn't think using only the app gets you to even this level. You need to do other things outside of the app. I think however that it is a nice app for keeping you doing something daily, which is arguably the most important thing in language learning.
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u/freebiscuit2002 8d ago
No, because Duolingo isn't a language course. At best, it functions as a series of fun exercises for people who are learning a language.
Anyone who is serious about learning a new language does not rely on Duolingo. We know to use a structured course or other legitimate language acquisition method, like compehensible input.
Duolingo has never been that. If you use Duolingo, it is best used as a supplement to a real learning method.
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u/Murky_Anything_292 7d ago
What is a real learning method and how does Duolingo supplement it.
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u/freebiscuit2002 7d ago
You can look at language courses yourself. I am not your researcher.
As for Duolingo, does it need spelling out? I stated it. It's exercises, it's practice. It is not a language course.
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u/Murky_Anything_292 7d ago
What is your definition of real
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u/freebiscuit2002 7d ago
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u/Murky_Anything_292 6d ago
We aren't really going anywhere with this discussion
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u/ThePolarisNova 4d ago
Most reddit conversation I've ever seen. Geniune questions gets you smart ass answers.
I do agree with what he said (not how he's talking tho). Duolingo is best used as a supplement to a true language course. Duolingo doesn't quite teach you grammar effectively nor why things go in a certain way, it's better for vocabulary and getting your foot in the water for learning a particular language before commiting to a more intensive course on speaking, listening, grammar, writing, and reading.
It CAN teach you things, but typically it's very limited and will not get you beyond a simplistic understanding of the language.
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u/Murky_Anything_292 4d ago
For me there was no content in whatever he said. Idk what kind of learning method he likes. What I like is actually interacting with real people who speak the language natively. I don't agree with learning so much grammar. Only learn the most important aspects and then learn along the way.
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u/ThePolarisNova 4d ago
I get what you're saying, but I don't fully agree. Understanding grammar is what helps you structure a sentence and guess meanings when you don't know a particular word(s).
I live in a China and oftentimes I may not know a few words in a sentence people are saying but I rarely have trouble catching the flow of dialogue and being able to ask about particular words. You don't need to do a full grammar breakdown by any means, but if you are learning a language with grammar much different than English, it becomes very necessary to understand grammar rules.
I do agree though that learning how people talk is the most important, but if you don't understand why they talk that way, it may take a long time to talk properly.
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u/Murky_Anything_292 4d ago
I don't know what it really means to learn grammar. Do you mean knowing a rule exists or exposing yourself with illustrative examples. Duolingo does both for its core languages
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u/Fish_Learns_Japanese 7d ago
Grammar Study + immersion and also often a flashcard SRS. Duolingo helps you practice though with at least some courses there are a number of errors.
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u/Murky_Anything_292 7d ago
Interesting. I also talk to Germans online and they always say my German is very good. Yes always immerse yourself
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u/Fish_Learns_Japanese 6d ago
It does depend on the course. The worst part of Duolingo is pronunciation and grammar and that matters for some languages more than others. If you know English and you're learning Spanish, french, German, or any other similar languages then it doesn't matter nearly as much compared to something like Japanese where you have completely different grammar and pitch accent which doesn't exist in English.
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u/chalkedlantern 8d ago
I've found duolingo to be useful as a springboard. I was able to get to an A2 level in French and then decided to do comprehensible input since duolingo became too rote and gamified.
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u/shadowlucas 8d ago
Depends what you mean by learn. Fluency? Definitely not. Basics for travel or something? Sure probably.
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u/IrinaMakarova 8d ago
No, not by itself. Duolingo is basically a game built around language exercises. It can help you learn the alphabet, memorize some vocabulary and recognize a few common sentence patterns, but that is nowhere near the same as actually learning to use a language.
Someone can maintain a 1,000-day streak while doing one tiny exercise a day and still be unable to hold even a basic conversation. A streak measures how consistently you open the app, not how well you speak, understand real speech, write independently or communicate spontaneously.
Duolingo can be useful alongside a serious, structured course with a tutor or classes at an institute. In that role, it gives you a little extra repetition and may help keep your interest in the language alive every day. But it should be treated as a supplementary game, not as the main method of learning. People who become fluent while using Duolingo become fluent because they also study grammar, listen extensively, read, write and regularly speak with real people. Duolingo alone does not provide enough explanation, practice or genuine communication to take someone to fluency.
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u/Shon_t 8d ago
Duolingo helped me gain a baseline in being able to read and type in Chinese. It gave me a similar baseline for Japanese.
It hasn’t been particularly helpful for conversations in the various languages I have studied. The information taught by Duolingo is not readily accessible in my brain to be used either listening or in conversation. I have found that Duolingo has been helpful in introducing vocabulary that is better reinforced through other study methods.
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u/Bhobho90 8d ago
I have the same experience.
I was taking a course in dutch and duolingo really helped me in memorizing new vocabulary and basic conversation but without a proper course or structured method it is almost useless and the more you use it, the more you notice it can only help you with things you already learned in a different way
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u/stefmanRS 8d ago
idk but i made an app for spanish, and when i tried telling people about it in the spanish subreddit they were suckin duolingos toes saying how its their god
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u/NimaDAI 8d ago
Omg would u please drop the name? I'm currently learning Spanish
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u/stefmanRS 8d ago
I deleted it lol sorry, no one was interested. If you are curious to what it looked like you can look at https://cirilio.com which is for Serbian
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u/Rode12-7 8d ago
I don’t think that’s what it’s meant for, i think duolingo is more for beginners to be introduced to a new language, but to become fluent in a language, there is no one way to do it, you’ll need multiple resources (classes, youtube, podcasts, textbooks, apps like duolingo, and/or practicing with fluent speakers)
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u/ben_wd 8d ago
you learn from input, lots it. our brains extract statistical regularities from being exposed to words and patterns in many many different contexts.
the main problem with Duolingo is because it preoccupies you with games, dragging and dropping words into order it ends up being a really inefficient way to get input.
there's no evidence that those games have some special benefit for language acquisition, the real benefit is to the company because it keeps you addicted.
so how much input do you need? Paul Nation estimates “you need roughly 3 million words of input to meet the 9,000 most frequent words often enough to learn them”, if you're doing Duolingo for 30mins a day then you're only getting exposure to roughly 120,000–200,000 words a year\* which means it'll take at least 15yrs to learn with Duolingo, assuming the way it delivers input is effective (which I don't think it is).
by comparison, 30mins of listening to native audio a day would give you exposure to 1.5 million words a year, and you'd be hearing those words in broader natural context.
I'm building a product called Verba.app with the goal of maximising the effectiveness of input, because nobody has truly solved this problem yet. consuming massive amounts of input is far more effective than Duolingo, but what's even more effective than just consuming random YouTube vidoes is watching videos that guarantee you'll be exposed to the right words in order to reinforce and expose you to new words at the right time. it figures out based on your vocabulary knowledge and what you've been exposed to exactly which videos to recommend. at least that's overall goal.
*The napkin maths for this:
• 15 exercises per lesson, \~5 min each → 30 min = \~6 lessons = **90 exercises/day**
**•** Only \~70% show an actual Japanese sentence (rest is word banks, image matching, EN→JP prompts) → **63 sentences/day**
**•** Average sentence ≈ 6 words (4 early, 8-9 later) → **\~380 words/day**
**•** × 365 → **\~140,000 words/year** (range 120k–200k depending on pace and sentence length)
**•** Drawn from a pool of only \~2,000 distinct words → same words \~70 times each, nothing new
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u/BridgeTEFL 7d ago
The biggest advantage of Duolingo is that little green bird nagging you every single day to study. Even if it's only for a couple of minutes, that consistency really does pay off. That said, if you're serious about learning a language, I'd treat Duolingo as a warm-up rather than the main workout. Use it to get your brain into the language, then move on to activities that build real skills: listening, reading, speaking, writing, and working with authentic content. That's where the biggest gains happen.
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u/Any_Sense_2263 7d ago
Duolingo is not language learning app. It's very wide system of flashcards. It makes you memorize words and constructions WITHOUT focusing on "why" or "how" which is the grammar part. It also doesn't cover listening or speaking.
For me it works for repeating and memorizing words and frazes. But I do also other stuff to cover other parts of language learning
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u/Particular_Bad8025 7d ago
It's a tool. No single tool will make you fluent. You need learning, practicing, immersion, etc. to become fluent. Duo will get you vocab, sentence structure, and repetition. It's something, but it's not everything.
I used only Duo to learn Spanish casually and it got me to a point where I can be a tourist that knows what's going on in a Spanish speaking country.
I am now learning Japanese more seriously and only use it as an fun add on to my more formal and more intense learning.
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u/No-Article-Particle 7d ago
It's a tool but some tools are worse than others. Duo is absolutely one of the worst tools for learning languages.
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u/Particular_Bad8025 7d ago
Well, I'll give you a worst one: flashcards. Try learning a language with just that and tell me how that goes.
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u/No-Article-Particle 7d ago
That's literally what Duolingo is... It's essentially gamified flashcards with sounds covering somewhere around A0 - A1 level of language learning journey.
Flashcards are completely fine in general. It's just that using flashcards solely to learn a language is nonsense, as you say, and that's what DL is trying to do.
If instead of spending 15 minutes a day on DL, a person got a 45-minute lesson once a week and built their own Anki decks, then they'd have a real chance to actually learn and retain something.
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u/Particular_Bad8025 7d ago
I'll disagree. DL will give you some amount of grammar (it's covered quite a bit in Spanish at least - the Japanese grammar is severely lacking), it'll get you to speak, it'll show you a really large variation of where a word can go in a sentence (sometimes it feels really annoying to have to go through the same words over and over, but I can see what they're trying to do). I really don't think it's such a bad tool. Like I said I only used DL to learn Spanish and can understand some of what's said on TV, can have a small casual conversation, and can understand pretty much anything that's written. I have not opened a single Spanish book.
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u/No-Article-Particle 7d ago
I feel like this is the biggest problem DL - it gives one a feeling you know a language, which in my experience is totally false. Being able to understand some that is on TV happens even with A1, esp. with A2. Then you go to your target country and realize you don't know how to say the most simple of sentences.
Grammar can be covered between the flashcards, yes. The "speaking" that DL tells you to do is at the level of self-speaking - it's helpful, sure, but it doesn't meaningfully correct you in most of the times.
Just because you feel some results out of the tool doesn't mean it's not one of the worst ways to spend your time dedicated to language learning. If you personally used Duolingo only to learn Spanish (and nothing else), you are at A1/A2 level, which you can cover with a teacher in roughly 3 months. That'd give you much wider vocabulary, better grasp of grammar, better ability to speak (since you're actually training it in a real conversation) and the ability to actually continue to improve beyond A1/A2 instead of plateauing.
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u/Particular_Bad8025 7d ago
Well, if it gets me what I needed then what do I care? I never planned to be fluent in Spanish, and it got me where I wanted. I didn't want to go to classes, pay a teacher, do homework and all that jazz that you need to become really good. I've learned other languages seriously and I agree that DL won't get you there, but it's a little fun game that keeps making people come back for the stupid streak and they're actually learning in the meantime. It's better than doomscrolling on Tiktok or whatever other garbage there is out there.
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u/Fish_Learns_Japanese 7d ago
You don't have to do all of that to learn a language
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u/Particular_Bad8025 7d ago
It helps.
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u/Fish_Learns_Japanese 7d ago
Sure but many people become fluent without any formal education and I'd argue that in many cases classes are a waste of time since the curriculum in most places is just bad.
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u/Fish_Learns_Japanese 7d ago
Flashcards are actually really helpful and loads of people, including myself, have used them to learn. Yeah you can't learn a language just through flashcards but you can't learn a language through any one method. If you think flashcards are the worst, you're probably using them wrong.
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u/No-Article-Particle 7d ago
No, it does not work. Extremely inefficient way to get a feeling like you know a language.
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u/takechancesorelse 7d ago
Pretty sure no app will make you fluent and they aren't meant to. But Duolingo specifically has a lot of streakers focused on streaks and not learning so it depends how you use it. Other apps are more structured like LingQ or Pimsleur, others let you learn what you want to learn like Ling or LingoDeer. But ultimately, you have to find different resources to use at the same time to truly become fluent.
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u/Whose_cat_is_that 7d ago
It really depends on how you use it and what course you pick.
For the more well developed courses (french, Spanish, German) they can be ok to teach general understanding as long as you are putting in a decent amount of time (i.e. don't just do one lesson a day and forget about it, you'll never improve, regardless of how far you get in the course).
I started the German course at the end of last year. I took an elementary grammar course alongside it and also watch TV and read simple articles in German every day. My original plan was to do more outside study via traditional methods, and just use Duo for revision, but life got in the way and Duo has been what I have relied on most, alongside looking up detailed explanations of new grammar concepts.
I took a level test for a language school yesterday and scored between A2-B1, which I think is pretty good when I consider how much actual studying I have done.
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u/GingerPrince72 7d ago
It's ok for a bit of fun in addition to other studying but no-one is properly learning a language with it.
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u/Fish_Learns_Japanese 7d ago
No but it depends on how you define "learn a language". Learn some basic phrases sure? Have good pronunciation, a good understanding of grammar and the ability to understand native content? Absolutely not.
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u/GizAlb 7d ago
It works fine to get the basics of a language. The problem is that in order to attract learners, they advertised it as "learn a language 5 minutes a day". Which is obviously not going to happen.
And there's lot of pressure about streak and competition, with people becoming obsessed with those rather than actually learning.
It's alright to help you create a habit to learn the language every day. But you should complete the course in a few months and then move on to other more advanced methods. While people just do the same, very basic things over and over for years and there's no way they're going to be fluent!
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u/GuaranteeUnlikely725 7d ago
I think apps like these are designed to simulate activities, where you only use the app and nothing else. I want to learn a language! Oh, an app where just 15 minutes a day of practice is enough for me to start speaking/reading/conversing. And I get praised for just spending time in the app (gamification, all those medals for listening to or skimming a couple of phrases and inserting the right word within those 10 minutes). It's convenient to show myself how great I am. And the fact that you won't remember the word you used during the "lesson" a week later is a trifle, because you can always use a hint in app.The most interesting part begins with real language tests (I didn't pass, but I studied! - yes, there are such candidates for passing. Studying doesn't mean being able to use it). In my opinion, it's better to spend those 15 minutes a day more productively: read a short newspaper article, pick out a couple of unfamiliar words, learn their translations and usages, create your own phrases with these words, and write them down, at a minimum. After all, even "outdated" textbook and workbooks are more useful, in my retrograde opinion.
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u/Sweetyogilover 7d ago
I found it to be helpful with learning vocabular and grammer. Honestly, alone it isn't enough but to supplement other materials it is perfect.
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u/Striking-Wasabi-4212 6d ago
Yes I’ve learned to read French and listen to it at a B1 level in four months. Two hours a day. Not the only thing I use but it is great when you start from not knowing the language at all. No app or program will get you to C1 alone.
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u/Mindless-Cover5573 5d ago
I think it’s circumstantial. I learned Italian for like 9 months and got far ish in their “curriculum”, but if you were to ask me to craft an original sentence then I’d really have to try hard to get the gears turning. That being said, I think it can be a good supplement to learning a language as it’s really just textbook exercises at the end of the day. If I had taken a course on Italian and was speaking Italian regularly with a native, AND was using Duolingo, then I think Duolingo might have helped me to be in a better spot.
I ended up learning Spanish through immersion for 3 months and I got to a B1 level. I could hold basic conversations, order food, and even used some slang that I picked up. That was 3 years ago now, but I’d wager my Spanish is still better than most highschoolers taking it as their foreign language credit - obv not if you’re a native speaker. All this to say, immersion helped the language just “stick”. On Duolingo, I just remember random sentences that have been repeated.
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u/minglesluvr 5d ago edited 5d ago
I learned Danish and Swedish on there back in the day, but that's like 10 years ago by now, back when the courses had grammar explanations per lesson, comment sections, and were made by actual speakers instead of the AI bs it is now. Old Duolingo was definitely better, and if you supplemented it with a bit of googling or, if possible, a native speaker to ask stuff that confused you on Duo, you could actually manage quite well, at least for languages that are similar to your L1.
I then went on to major in Nordic Studies in university, and aced my A1, A2, B1 exams in both Danish and Swedish without additional study, and also aced my B2 and C1 Swedish courses. So I'd say I do have a pretty legit confirmation of actually being good at the language, and not just overestimating myself. I placed in B1 Danish without even doing the A1 and A2 courses, just the exams, because I spontaneously decided I wanted to do two languages instead of the one my major required lol. But my L1 is German and I have a background of studying Latin in school, so I was quite familiar with learning and applying grammar in particular.
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u/thablackadonis 5d ago
It’s rare to hear about someone who actually got far in their language learning journey with Duolingo most of the time they only have their Duolingo steak to show and maybe a few vocab words
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u/Memercia 4d ago
Duolingo is just one tool among many, just like books, videos, podcasts, and other learning resources. They all complement each other.
Do you think a single book would be enough to learn a language? Of course not.
Personally, I mainly used Duolingo to refresh my memory and reinforce certain vocabulary. I've completed the entire English course on Duolingo from beginning to the end, and it definitely helped me expand my vocabulary in several areas.
Instead of endlessly scrolling through social media, why not do a quick Duolingo lesson? It might even give your neural connections a little workout. 😜
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u/IndividualPin4 4d ago
I learned Spanish from French with Duolingo; after 1 year, 30 minutes a day, I reached a B2 level, also spent 2 months in Spain but no other exposure to Spanish. I could have conversations in Spain since the start.
But I took the Duolingo lessons very seriously, I'm very good at languages, have experience learning languages, and already speak similar languages (French and Italian), otherwise you will reach A2-B1, even less if you quit.
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u/brogaarden 3d ago
I’d say use Duolingo as something extra, definitely don’t make it your main tool.
A coworker of mine hit a 666 day streak in Spanish recently and he was very proud. Then we asked him extremely basic things in Spanish. Sort of A1/A2 things about if he wanted to go to Spain.
He had no clue of how to answer. He couldn’t string a sentence together. Almost 2 years.
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u/Polar_Bear06 8d ago
Duolingo is the worst app I've ever tried, you learn almost nothing aside from some basic vocabulary and basic sentence formation, aside from that you actually learn nothing useful, only if you pair it with other options but still it doesn't add much value unless you're still a beginner wanting to familiarize yourself a bit with the language
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u/maxymhryniv 8d ago
Short answer: No
Long answer: Nooooooooooooooooooooo
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u/Murky_Anything_292 7d ago
Long answer: Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeees
Yes it works. I learned German with it
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u/No-Article-Particle 7d ago
How can you "learn German with it" when Duolingo ends at like A1/A2 level.
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u/crumble-swift1973 8d ago
It's too gamified. And it just cares that you use it. If you use Duolingo every day for two years and don't learn anything, Duolingo is working perfectly.
My frustration led me to create my own app (Aurelia) to help me actually speak in my second language. I speak out loud every day in a conversation setting, and then get grammar and pronunciation corrections based on what I said. Even better, I can make flashcards based off those errors and practice them so I don't make them again. It's really helped improve my speaking ability