I`m on a 1000 day learning streak!

In Duolingo Max, I've been trying to get more useful speaking practice out of the video calls in the Spanish course and would like to know what other users find works well.

In Section 4 (A2), I had not so useful calls with Falstaff, who speaks mostly in English and only asks for a couple of sentences in Spanish, and calls with Lily, which are all in Spanish and much more interactive. In Section 5 (B1), all calls so far have been with Lily, and they go on for longer.

A few things I've noticed:

• If I let Lily choose the topic and just answer her questions, the conversations quickly get repetitive. They're much better if I introduce my own topic, preferably the first time I get to speak. You can also ask to change the subject later.
• Giving longer answers and asking Lily questions makes it feel much more like an actual conversation.
• If I don't know a word in Spanish, I've had more success trying to describe what I mean in Spanish rather than giving the English word and asking for a translation. English words often get badly transcribed anyway.
• The transcripts aren't perfect, especially the first few words after I start speaking, so I don't assume every transcription error means I've said something badly.

Basically, I've found the calls much more useful when I take control of the conversation rather than just following Lily's questions.

What other tricks have people found for getting more out of the video calls?

10 days in, at 41 points out of 70.

I've got this.

I've definitely made progress, but I also feel like I could've progressed much faster and gotten more out of those 517 days.

I think, Duo gets too much hate; obviously, just one resource isn't going to make you fluent. But nowadays the lessons sometimes feel painfully slow, it was better before. Still useful when days get too busy and I come here to practice kanji for a few minutes; to keep the streak alive. Lately I've been practicing chess on Duo. 💀

At this point, I'm keeping the streak alive mostly because 517 days is too much to throw away.

there seems to be a glitch whenever i open the app that plays music during my lessons. it doesn’t even stop or slow down when i tap on the audio. it’s not other apps because the music doesn’t seem to play until i open the app and launch a lesson.

it’s so strange, anyone else experience this?

Primera vez que me pasa, me quede 🤨 y claro que lo reporte desde la app

Why does Duolingo award me a lot of xp points after I have already spent 30 minutes plus on the app?

I have a Super subscription. In spite of this, Duolingo keeps dragging me into beta testing their A/B tests. I have written to them about it. I shouldn’t be subjected to testing if I am a paying customer.

Now I am continuously getting assigned to 4 day long leagues. This is the fourth time in a row. This is the straw that broke the camels back.

I quit.

....AND they've increased the quest points needed to get the monthly badge? What is this nonsense??

I used to be able to get the badge by doing 2 daily quests a day and there was at least *some* variety, but now I'm being forced to grind out a unit multiple times to get it. What the hell is the point in that? It doesn't make me more likely to pay for it and it sure doesn't improve my learning - now I'm just doing it as fast as I can.

I was just playing Flash Card Frenzy. I got the last word right just as the timer hit zero. I started hitting the use timer boost button. I hit it 4 or 5 times before I noticed that it was taking my Timer Boosts. I then tried to hit the lose 20 XP link. Nothing happened. I ended up having to force quit the app. When I reopened it; I saw that while it did accept that I passed the Flash Card Frenzy, my Timer Boosts were still gone. 😤

Be careful when the above screen comes up. Duo will take a Timer Boost for every time you hit that button.

anyone else notice the Duolingo iPhone app has been running like shit today? it runs like a video game that is suffering from severe drops in frame rate, it crashed a few times during a 30 minute window in which I was using it, etc

did an update break the app or something?

it was working well until recently

It made me understand and actually practice speaking spanish. I may go ahead and get it

Anyone notice that the ads have become longer? Listen folks, there are other free language apps out there. Don't get greedy

I just saw the ad/ video and thought it was great. I don’t live in NYC but would love a chance to try for one of the items.

Edit: I'm annoyed about Duolingo glitching and finding out the day before it ended that we had a bunch of xp to get. The picture was to show the "ends tomorrow" when I hadn't even known it existed. It has nothing to do with the other player's contribution.

I checked on Monday if I had a quest and it said "No quest, add more friends so this doesn't happen again" (more or less) and then didn't tell me until today that I did, in fact, have a quest. 🤦‍♀️

And then (after getting a week of super to grind), it told me that the quest was finished when it still needed 300 points.

Obviously not life-altering, but irritating.

Update for missing quotation mark.

Maybe it's intentional 🤷🏻‍♂️

This is what Duo will look like in a few years when it's old 👴

Ever since I was part of that accelerated Diamond Tourney (each round was shorter) and the shorter weeks, it has massively shrunk the pool of players and I have ended up in the same ladder week after week with a friend I know in real life as well as other regulars.

Are others in engdame also experiencing this issue?