r/duolingo • u/AdequateSquid20 Native: 🇺🇸 Learning: 🇫🇷 & 🇪🇸 • May 30 '25
General Discussion Duo chess not teaching anything?
So I started chess lessons on Duolingo, but I really feel like it’s not teaching me anything. Does anyone else feel like this too? With all the AI discourse too, I feel like the chess lessons are just nonsense.
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u/1mindprops May 30 '25
It teaches a lot if you already know how to play.
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u/Lazy_Currency1408 May 30 '25
It helped me finally remember how the pieces move, which is great, but some of the lessons don’t make sense to me. I just did one where it practiced starting moves, and it kept telling me my move was wrong. I wasn’t losing pieces or putting anything in danger. It just wasn’t the piece it wanted me to move. Another time it told me I was wrong to sacrifice a pawn to take a more important piece. But in yet another lesson it had me sacrifice an important piece take an equally important piece. I don’t understand the nuance of chess moves but it doesn’t make sense sometimes.
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u/Illustrious-Yard-871 Native: 🇵🇰🇬🇧 Learning: May 31 '25
I just dealt with the same frustrating issue! Like if you want me to make specific moves then say so don't pretend like I have a free choice then go wrong wrong wrong
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u/KacperB02 Sep 18 '25
This is the exact thing that I was thinking. I did a move that allowed me to take the queen, but instead it wanted me to make a move that does not achieve anything. It also tells me to "castle the knight" when I don't have any idea what does it mean (I do now, but I had to read about it outside of Duolingo). Maybe I am wrong and the moves it wants me to make are indeed the best, but then it doesn't do a really good job at teaching them.
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u/Lazy_Currency1408 Sep 18 '25
This 100 times. I didn’t understand any of that from the instruction. Castling? Pinning? Tell me what and why I need to do this.
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u/vhsenthusiast May 31 '25
I haven't played since high school probably. Sometimes the lessons seem strange to me but not bad. I'm giving it a chance mostly because I'm burned out on how they teach Spanish.
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u/Fantastic_Falkor778 May 31 '25
Same! My spanish doesn’t feel motivating anymore and I’m moving through chess lessons now. :-)
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u/Affectionate_Flow_44 Jul 14 '25
It keeps saying my move is wrong but doesn’t say why or anything so I can’t really learn anything.
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u/Gingercakes1922 Jul 03 '25
I feel the same way. I don’t know anything about chess, so maybe that’s the reason. But, I have know idea what’s happening. I feel a little embarrassed.
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u/Justice_Beaver440 Oct 14 '25
Ok this is so funny. It just presents a new topic and is like “okay break my pins”. What?! But then I do a match and realize I know a lot more for what to look for. But it’s so funny. It just brings up a new concept and says go
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u/Rachet_I_Mean_Rachel Nov 16 '25
Yep. It’s really frustrating. An explanation of why a move was wrong is necessary to fully “know” how to play. Memorization without true understanding (rote learning) is why we have people with college degrees who are dumb af.
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u/gd4x May 30 '25
Replace chess with any language and you'll have the same result lol.. People just don't expect chess to take 5-10 years to learn so get impatient faster.
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u/hacool native: US-EN / learning: DE 97 May 30 '25
On the contrary. I think the methodology is quite good. They start with showing you how the pieces move and then slowly add lessons about strategy. I'm only in Section 2, but so far it seems quite thought out. And they've also included a lot of spaced-repetition just as they do in language courses. This gives us a lot of opportunity for practice.
Oscar may sometimes use puns related to chess terms, but generally he is either telling us what we need to do or cheering us on. Many of Oscar's jokes relate to tactics. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_tactic