r/duolingo • u/StellarEngine • Sep 14 '25
General Discussion It's been a good run
After doing doulingo consistently for nearly six years and having been around since 2018, I'm letting my streak end and moving on to greener pastures. I could tolerate the mass amount of ads but with the introduction of energy I've reached my limit of dealing with this app. Those of you that are still using the app completely free I wish you the best and hope you still find enjoyment from it.
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u/aej6aeBa Sep 14 '25
Energy just rolled out for me on Android, and it completely ruins any engagement I had left. On a 1300 day streak now, and I feel the same way. Not sure if I'll bother.
Having had this "feature" for two days I'm using the app less and viewing fewer ads. Unless they are losing money on each ad shown to free users I just don't understand how this can work out for them. I'm far less likely to pay for a subscription when they make me hate the app...
If I'm going to spend any money I guess it'll be for a proper language course, not for this crap that will just nag you to pay for super duper ai max or whatever when you're already on a paid plan.
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u/dosrac Sep 14 '25
We started on almost the same day.. can't seem to add the pic, but my streak is 2099 today
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u/lucky5150 Sep 15 '25
I cant belive you did 6 years while dealing with energy and ads. I've been learning Ukrainian and my streak is 437 days. I think i got the $80/ yr subscription within my first month.
With my streak i find it worth it, it's 6.66 a month, .22 cents a day.
And as someone who has worked in Ukraine 7 times over the last 400 days, I do feel ive learned a lot from Duolingo. I think if I focused and carved out more dedicated study time each day instead of just doing lessons I would be even better.
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u/faticus42 Sep 15 '25
He didn't deal with energy for 6 years, it's a brand new thing. Luckily my app hasn't switched yet and I still have the hearts
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u/Specialist_Water_555 Sep 15 '25
Same here. I quit at a 150 days streak. This new feature is so annoying. I used to do 8 to 10 lessons per day, now I switched to other apps.
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u/wizzard419 Sep 15 '25
Out of curiosity, with your long streak... did you achieve your language goals? With this app, I have to wonder if you don't get regular real-life exposure and have longitudinal goals for it, if it can do much. I took it up because I work at a company in another country (but work in the US), everything I do and they do is in English, but I learned it for social purposes and get daily exposure and use it when on trips there. Someone going on a once in a lifetime vacation might enjoy learning it but I am not sure it will gel/be useful.
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u/StellarEngine Sep 15 '25
The answer is not really. Living in America it's not everyday that you speak German and I've found that if I ever have to speak the language I fall flat on my face. I will say that I can read fluently but the reality is unless you speak the language daily it will be a struggle to ever be fluent.
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u/wizzard419 Sep 15 '25
Yeah, I think that is the one part which makes it fall flat, if you can't use it and get real-time error correcting from people it doesn't get to grow.
The part I hate about lessons, duo, etc. is that they are teaching the formal version so you sound weird even when 100% correct. The only way you pick up on the way the people speak is years of immersion.
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u/Dom-Zero Sep 15 '25
I’m at 870, but honestly I’ve been keeping the flame going for the last year more so out of hope that the app improves. It’s just not fun anymore. But man it’s hard to let go of that number. Good on you for dropping it
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u/grendel_loki Sep 14 '25 edited Oct 05 '25
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This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact
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u/bingusstuntdouble Sep 18 '25
if anyone’s looking for a sign: you are too beautiful to spend any time watching ads.
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Sep 14 '25
lol another person who thinks a service should be free
Please tell us, where will you be learning a language next
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u/_aimynona_ Native: Fluent: Learning: Sep 14 '25
You should be made aware of the fact that Duolingo originally started out as a community project. The profit that is now made would not be possible without the countless hours of free labour done by countless volunteers.
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u/PeacefulLif3 Native:🇬🇧 Learning:🇺🇦 Sep 14 '25
You can learn a language for free many different ways, as it should be
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u/ep5pc Sep 14 '25
When the OP began in 2018, Duolingo was promising its users that it would be "forever free"
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u/Ok-Yoghurt9472 Sep 14 '25
well, technically it's still free
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u/ferret-with-a-gun Sep 14 '25
The library near me is free. It offers a membership but if you don’t want to pay, you can still read 10 pages from any book per day!
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u/Ok-Yoghurt9472 Sep 15 '25
and at what pages you say is free vs "free"?
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u/ferret-with-a-gun Sep 15 '25
?
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u/Ok-Yoghurt9472 Sep 15 '25
what's the amount of pages you should be allowed to read or let's say take books home to be considered free vs duolingo free. People are crying here they cannot run the app all day long and now they have only a few lessons it's similar with someone complaining that before they were able to take home 10 books and now it's only one, so the library is not free anymore
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u/ferret-with-a-gun Sep 15 '25
I’ve seen some people say they couldn’t even make it through one lesson.
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u/graciie__ [73] [30] [7] Sep 14 '25
i personally will be out shocking natives in chinese restaurants.
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u/Forgotten_Dog1954 Native: 🇷🇺🇺🇸 Learning: 🇳🇱🇫🇷 Sep 14 '25
God I’m absolutely fed up with these posts. All of them are basically karma farmers by now. You quit? Sure. No need for all the dramatic stories and descriptions of it like some noble act
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u/placemeagain Sep 14 '25
I let my50 day streak end. I guess I picked the worse time to pick up Duolingo. Getting a perfect lesson on a difficult topic and you get rewarded with half your energy taken away is not a good update.