Do you like Duolingo?

[javier_getafe]

YouTube is a bit rubbish.

... and despite begin rubish you used to watch and enjoy and amazing computer gaming channel for free. And I can imagine, dozens of other channels, true? Let You Tube be You Tube. I love it, but it is only my opinion, of course.

Let's try to get back to Duolingo

Yep, sorry for the last one.

In fact, I have trying Duolingo for the last 3 weeks with my new hobby, français. I know, too little experience to have a quality opinion. But, as far as I'm concerned, and being français completely new for me, it is working perfectly by far and I'm totally delighted with the first results.

[Tucuruvi-Jabaquara]

I prefer Mango and 50Languages to Duolingo.
Dulingo seems amateurish.

[MacGyver]

Continuing on from my previous comments, and keeping in mind its more fun to focus on the negatives....

Most of their courses are put together by volunteers. Naturally the quality varies a lot from course to course. I have to say, the Korean course is on the whole... crap. Compare it to Lingodeer, its day and night. I think my Korean is above the level used throughout Duolingo, I mainly use it to review and learn some random vocab. I cannot imagine trying to learn Korean with Duolingo. Its like a brain dumb of information, and not in any logical order.

Their staff seem to be almost all computer programmers. Wheres the linguists, the teachers, the experts? If they hired some teacher type people and go the courses up to the level of Spanish (I am assuming the original in house courses are of good quality), added native speakers voices instead of TTS and supported stories in more languages, maybe it would be worth paying for (and making the paid version worth it compared the free version).

As I was reviewing a lesson last night, I realised I was wasting my time. The handful of words I didn't know I could learn quicker using memrise/anki/quizlet.

I do like the gamification, and my streak keeps me coming back daily. But they need to sort out XP. The leaderboards they have now on android are mental. People game the system amassing 10,000s of XP in minutes. They aren't learning much, I am sure.

For East Asian languages at least, Lingodeer is head and shoulders and knees and toes, above Duolingo.

[javier_getafe]

I prefer Mango and 50Languages to Duolingo.
Dulingo seems amateurish.

50 Languages seems to have good material but it really doesn't keep your progress, and it doesn't analize where you are falling behind, thinks that Duolingo work out, despite to have more basics lessons.

Mango is more alike than Duoling and helps you to save up your progress, and the way you are able to record your own voice and compare it with recorded voice actually like me. I didn't know about it, but I think that I am going to try a mix of Duoling and Mango. After all I am an amateur , so things amateurish could work nice.
Thank you so much.

[Fortheo]

I have a few questions and instead of making a whole new topic for Duolingo I decided to ask them here.

Does Duolingo not allow people to take a placement test and thus skip units in order to go straight to a unit that is more at the learner's level? I remember with french I could take a placement test that placed me like 50 percent into the course, but now it only lets me tests out of levels, of which there are around 5 in each unit.

So now I need to take like 60 tests just to skip 12 units and get to a level that is more fitting for me ? Is that how the app is set up now?

The problem is that now they're charging 20 lingots per test, or making you get Duolingo plus? Is this real? It hasn't been a problem yet because I have lingots saved up, but they'll dwindle soon and I still haven't managed to test out of enough levels in order to get to a more difficult unit that matches my level.





Is this a new thing for Duolingo?

[Lianne]

I have a few questions and instead of making a whole new topic for Duolingo I decided to ask them here.

Does Duolingo not allow people to take a placement test and thus skip units in order to go straight to a unit that is more at the learner's level? I remember with french I could take a placement test that placed me like 50 percent into the course, but now it only lets me tests out of levels, of which there are around 5 in each unit.

So now I need to take like 60 tests just to skip 12 units and get to a level that is more fitting for me ? Is that how the app is set up now?

The problem is that now they're charging 20 lingots per test, or making you get Duolingo plus? Is this real? It hasn't been a problem yet because I have lingots saved up, but they'll dwindle soon and I still haven't managed to test out of enough levels in order to get to a more difficult unit that matches my level.

Is this a new thing for Duolingo?

Maybe this is specific to the app. I just checked the website, and went to a language that I haven't done much in. I was able to click "Test out of 97 skills" (that's the furthest one; there are earlier tests), and it took me straight to a test without asking for lingots or anything. And it looked like just one big test would let me skip a whole bunch.

I never use the app anymore but I hear bad things. They seem to experiment a lot on it.

[Fortheo]

Maybe this is specific to the app. I just checked the website, and went to a language that I haven't done much in. I was able to click "Test out of 97 skills" (that's the furthest one; there are earlier tests), and it took me straight to a test without asking for lingots or anything. And it looked like just one big test would let me skip a whole bunch.

I never use the app anymore but I hear bad things. They seem to experiment a lot on it.

Oh wow. I guess I'll need to get on my computer more often because I find it ridiculous that they'd make you use lingots or get Duolingo plus just to test out of levels. Thanks for the quick reply.

[Cainntear]

So now I need to take like 60 tests just to skip 12 units and get to a level that is more fitting for me ? Is that how the app is set up now?

The problem is that now they're charging 20 lingots per test, or making you get Duolingo plus?

Wait... so the people who have least need of DuoLingo end up paying the most????

[Fortheo]

So now I need to take like 60 tests just to skip 12 units and get to a level that is more fitting for me ? Is that how the app is set up now?

The problem is that now they're charging 20 lingots per test, or making you get Duolingo plus?

Wait... so the people who have least need of DuoLingo end up paying the most????

When you put it that way, it's even more ridiculous. Although, obviously I'm not forced to pay, but it does seem like a feature that would deter a good amount of future users. Anyways, it's only a feature on the app for some reason-- I just checked on the website version and it let me test out of levels for nothing. I'll be sticking with the website version for now.