Duolingo - Language Lessons Reviews

by Kyrag14

Duolingo has been very useful. My whole family speaks Spanish and they never taught me so I downloaded Duolingo. Everything has been going good, but I have an issue with a lesson. So I decided to try and get all the crowns for the intro levels. I’m on level/crown 3 out of 6 and lesson 2 out of 4. Remember for this question, you have to complete 2 things to submit your answer. This question is talking about how to spell leche and choosing if la or el goes with it. So you choose la or el and of course I chose la because that is correct, then you have to type la leche. So when I’m trying to type la, the text box goes blank and you have to rewrite la, but this problem continues to occur when spelling la. So I put the word leche(milk) first and then take the blue like that’s there when you are typing and I put it in the beginning of the word leche and then type la in front of it with a space in between the 2 words. I then submit my answer thinking I’m clever and it would still work. Then it says my answer is wrong and it says you spell it like la leche, which is how I spelled it. I then report the answer, I retried this a few times and it still didn’t work. So I then skipped the level and went to the next level and was doing it until the same question popped up, just with different words. I then tried to answer it and it did the same exact thing. I’m just trying to complete my levels, someone please help.

by Kidcorekk

Ive used this app for a little over 3 years now, and it’s overall a pretty good app. It does it’s job-helps you learn the language. However, I rated this 3 stars for multiple reasons-and here are those reasons:
-The heart system. Since I’ve gotten pretty far into my Japanese course, I don’t make a lot of mistakes but for beginners it would be very frustrating. To start, there’s only 5 hearts. And if you lose them all, you have to wait 4+ hours just to get a single one back. You can also practice to get them back, but still. Not everyone knows that that is a feature. It’s a really inconvenient feature and honestly I think it should be removed.
-Lesson repetition. Some lessons seem like they repeat the same topic for up to 20+ rounds. Look, I know some languages do have a lot to cover in just a 5-10 minute lesson. But sometimes it seems like I’m never gonna pass a stage.
-Streaks. Having a streak is a fun feature and there’s nothing I think is super wrong with it. But the constant mind state i, and others probably have is “I HAVE to practice, or I’ll lose my streak” shouldn’t be the mindset. You should practice because you want to and have the energy, or time, to. Also, some people are busy and could lose 500+ day streaks because they forgot to complete a lesson. I think there should be some way to help that issue.
But yes, Duolingo has helped me a lot and I’ll give props for that. Just a few things I think could be improved.

by Emma76190

This is some reasons i gave Duolingo 4 stars only. I did not want to put 5 because of some stuff so let me tell you. Duolingo is so amazing i would download it if i were you but, i am trying to learn french because of friends.. but it does not really teach me french language. All it kinda wants me to do is pick the right french word or, something else like that. It doesn’t seam to make me remember all the words. So i give Duolingo a 4. No hate to Duolingo because they are trying there BEST to help people learn new languages! Its really a great app but also, it wants you to pay a lot for a month I’m pretty sure to get no ads and level up quicker. Almost every app has a monthly subscription witch is kinda unfair. People are losing there jobs during this moment of Covid-19 so they won’t be able to pay that much for a month or however much it costs. I would say who would want to level up fast? It would not be fun because its going fast and you really learn anything and, its kinda cheating as what i think. The no ads.. well thats kinda “OK” but i don’t know about it.. the ads are kinda great although, they are about the this app subscriptions. The ads are actually short though so i would not mind the ads because i don’t want to pay a monthly subscription. So i give this a 4 i guess but it’s actually good app and i think you should download it if you like! There is so many amazing languages out there on this app. Thanks for reading my review! - Customer <3

by MoonbirbieWasHereÙwÚ

This is a pretty good app, but don’t expect to be fluent in a language from just an app. It teaches some basics, but in order to be fluent in a language, you need to do much more (like buy some books in the language you want to learn, listen to people talk and sing in that language so you can hear how they speak casually, surround yourself with people who are familiar with that language, and practice that language frequently for years, etc.). However, I’m not a big fan of the hearts system. It limits you to only being able to make 5 mistakes, and pressures you into not making mistakes, and that’s not a good way to learn. Ask anyone who is great at something like drawing, singing, or playing an instrument. Of course, before being great, they’ve still all made several mistakes, and it’s extremely rare for someone to be great at something before lots of practicing and mistakes. Making mistakes is a part of learning. It’s similar how before babies learn how to talk. They of course make a lot of mistakes. They mispronounce words and they use incorrect grammar very frequently, and that’s okay. I’d rather have more ads than have to stress about losing hearts, but that’s just my opinion. All in all, this would be a good app for learning a new language, just keep in mind that learning a new language is much more complex, and you’ll have to put in a lot more time, effort, money, and determination.

by Brandon Boiiiii24

I just started to use Duolingo again even though I’ve had an account since 2016. I’ve taken some courses in high school and college for Spanish which helps in the language learning process; most is just refreshing with the language of Spanish. I can’t provide to much input as to whether it will help you become fluent or not because I’m still on the beginning stages of the lessons. However I am enjoying my time with it and hopefully it does help me get to where I would like to be which is a fluent Spanish speaker. I rated four stars because going through the activities I’ve noticed that when it tells you to repeat the sentence the audio seems to lag on the last word and take a little while to register that you got it correct. Everything else is great, I like that if you get something wrong you can go to the discussion section where other users have had the same issues as yourself which has helped me understand errors so I don’t make the same mistake next time. Even after viewing the comment sections this app itself gives its own tip by using an example to help you remember and avoid the mistake you made for the future. I would highly recommend Duolingo for learning a language but like I said previously I’m not sure if it will help you become fluent or not. Fix the audio issues of it lagging for a few seconds and I’d gladly rate five stars!!!

by Minhmornings

I have to say that this app has taken me to a new world of languages. I can spend my whole days practicing with Duo and increase my ability of using languages. However, there're still things that I'm not satisfied with this version for IOS:
- the discussions after answers: I've wait for them since a long long time ago. I believe that this app is not only a software for learning languages, but also a special environment for everyone to enhance their skills together. Using Duo on IOS is quite convenient, but if I want to check my answer with the other's, I have to login my account again on the version for web browser, go to that skill, do it and seek for the question. That's not good at all!
- The report: Nothing happens when I press the button to report the errors (most of them are translation errors). My and other's reports are the very efficient tools to help Duo better, and we want to see that in the near future.
- The club should be added to web version and the currency systems - gems - needs need to be synced. Anyway, the life point is awesome, but we want more games, or tournaments, or challenges, or... something like that, just to increase the competitiveness between leaners.
I know that to solve with the problems I've listed above will take a lot of time and money and labor power, but we can believe with our effort and strength, the future of this app is brighter than ever! this app is the sweet home for everyone!

by OnthBeach54

Since the recent update (late April 2018), on my iPad Pro this app app, the word boxes and the type within them, which one taps to put together a translated sentence, are frequently appearing much smaller than the helpful size they consistently were before. Sometimes they appear in the original size, but more often now, even with a short sentence where there is no problem fitting them on the page, they are very small. Harder to read, and harder to accurately select. And I have small hands/fingers.
I lost several “health” bars and had to stop my lesson sooner than in the past, because I was selecting at the speed I always have, and realized I could not have the confidence I had grown accustomed to, that when I think I have touched a word box, it is selected. So my learning process is slowed not because I am selecting the incorrect word and losing health, but that I have to stop and check more diligently to make sure the box I tapped (or tried to, but apparently did not hit the now very small “sweet spot” on it which selects it), actually shows up in the answer box. This was NEVER an issue before the change in word-box size.
Please make them, if not as large as they have been previously, larger than they are after this recent “upgrade”. Very annoying in an otherwise wonderful app...you folks say you want to make learning easy, and my feedback is that this tiny type in close-together boxes, is an impediment to learning. Thank you.

by ChillTaco

If you’re taking a language course in school, Duolingo is great supplementation to practice your skills. If you’re just learning on your own, while Duo is a good stepping stone, you’ll need some extra resources if you’re serious in trying to master a language. Personally I use this and babble because the less popular languages like Swedish and Russian don’t get tips like German and Spanish. Apparently they’re available on the website itself, which is pretty inconvenient. (Really babble is more in depth in explaining the grammar. In comparing the two, they both have their strengths. Duo gives you quick vocabulary and babble gives more grammar.)

My issue is really how strangely some of the modules are set up. I noticed that the more popular languages are set up in a way that’s a bit nonsensical and fails to set up the lesson they’re intending to teach you. The questions segment of German spent less time showing the proper set up on how questions are asked and spent more time having me translate random sentences.

The thing that irritates me the most is how Duolingo with every update tries to push you to buy premium. It used to be you’d just get a few ads for it but these days after every lesson about there’s another promotion for premium, with increasing unskippability which is even more aggravating. And they added an word save feature which is helpful for learning… except it’s for premium only!

by Redlocks78

Since I can’t send Duo Lingo an email to give them an opinion I’ll put it in a review. I’ve been using Duolingo now for probably 8 months as a plus subscriber. In general Duolingo is good. As I’ve progressed forward though there are simple things that are extremely annoying for example I was working on Spanish past tense and I spelled the name Sarah as Sara (another common English spelling of the same name). The entire sentence in Spanish was correct but my answer was considered wrong because of the missing “h”. This was a verbal/audio sentence I had to listen to then type the correct answer. Also as you progress and write English from Spanish there are perfectly correct English translations you might write that Duolingo considers wrong. I’m guessing because Duolingo is actually designed by a non native English speaker; the creator of Duo Lingo is from Central America (Guatemala I think; but listen to his story on the first season of their Spanish podcast). I like Duolingo and enjoy using it but I’m finding I’ve been seeking other ways to learn because some of the grammar isn’t quite covered or the reasoning behind certain language rules isn’t explained and I simply need more. Also a common complaint is that they send way too many emails if you stop using Duolingo for a day or two or longer and it feels like a stalker. Luckily the email I used for it was not my primary email because when I checked that account it was flooded with Duo Lingo emails.

by Cheri614

I've been using the premium version for two years, mostly on Japanese and tried some others. Some language courses are much better than others. For example the Spanish course seems pretty robust. Korean seemed pretty bad for beginners (even though it's a relatively easy language to learn).
I have the most experience with the Japanese courses. It's honestly not great if you're completely new to the language. It doesn't have much focus on teaching the basic alphabet and tries to jump into to words or phrases without much context. If you already know a bit and want to learn some kanji it is decent for that.
There are many frustrations with the courses. One of the most annoying things is when you're trying to complete courses quickly to beat a certain timer. Some sentences they want you to translate are weirdly long and unnatural. I can't help but to think there are roadblocks set in place to encourage people to buy timer boosts.
I also really don't like the amount of unnecessary animations, some which you cannot turn off that just adds time between courses. Pretty frustrating when I'm trying to finish a few quick lessons during a break or to get more xp within the boost timer.
Overall it's a fun little way to get some practice in but it's best used as a supplemental learning too. For many languages it doesn't seem to be a good way to learn from scratch.

by Havoc X Raptor

Great free app, very helpful and useful in learning new or refining old languages. However, it still needs work in my opinion.

I am learning Spanish and I have learned a lot more than I already knew in a couple days... but there are times when using a proper word is necessary to succeed and move on, but I have to restart over and over again later (after practicing, to get health to play) ...because I picked the right term but wrong specific word and no explanation is given as to why. I.E: Yo (means I) has to be followed with an o in the use of words like como (eat) or bebo (drink) instead of come/comen/comes or bebe/beben/bebes (as I learned through searching), but no explanation is given as to why. It’s frustrating and infuriating. This needs to be explained and taught for proper teaching of other languages. Also, why does the asterisk above certain Spanish words apply but not on others? Learn it all or don’t even try I say!

Finally, turn down the need for health as often, or turn up the regeneration rate. I read it was said that they are trying to make learning free. So do it more, please. Stop making me practice over and over again just to get 1 bar of health (works on only 1 mistake before failing) and have 1 measly chance at succeeding just to have to quit, practice, and start ALL OVER AGAIN; only to fail because I don’t understand what I did wrong! The ads are bad enough and should be sufficient... but then there’s this! Please fix!

by Lasvicious

I have tried many language learning applications, but this app is by far my favorite. Why? Well first, this review is based on the subbed version. I subbed immediately so I cannot speak for the unsubbed version. Now, this is why it is my favorite app.
I am to unit 3. The lessons I have encountered have been the best I have used for memorization. I will cover pronunciation in a moment, though. Now listen, it are VERY repetitive. ALL Language apps are should be. However, other apps don’t provide as much variance as this app. I am extremely impressed that they can repeat vocabulary enough to optimize memorization, yet also provide consistent variance between the material. redundant vocabulary becomes interesting every time. I have used apps that have no variance and become boring fast, and apps that are too fast paced, lacking memorization technique and losing their learning power. this app also offers stories that you listen and interact with, and even interactive podcasts. They are my favorite. Duolingo gives you true sense of progress through achievements, monthly challenges, speed challenges, ranking, and a lot more. My critique is an app like this has more COMMUNITY potential than they realize. If I could message directly and even form groups with other learners in Duolingo, it would be fantastic.

by Djdngjozndy Skcndirif

Duolingo is really helping me to learn very quickly. I am learning Greek and brushing up on Spanish. I wish it would handle a few things differently Among them, letting me test out of Spanish levels further along the way than it does, but I understand they are testing whether that feature is more or less beneficial for learning at the moment. So, I upvoted the feature :). The other thing is that the adds are locked in portrait mode and the “practice” tab also starts out and sometimes gets stuck in portrait mode. I have tor turn my iPad to portrait and back to landscape and it usually switches to landscape then, but not always. I pretty much always use my iPad in landscape mode. Especially when I am using the keyboard, which Duolingo has plenty of. I wish that the whole thing would just be in the orientation of my screen without changing/ trying to figure out which direction it should be as I use Duolingo . Otherwise, Duolingo has been AMAZING and, while, I’d love those improvements, I’m really just being nit picky. I didn’t feel it deserved any less than 5 stars because the rest is awesome!

One note, if anyone is having trouble understanding anything in the language you’ve chosen or with Duolingo , visit the website and check out the discussions tab. There is a lot of helpful info in there and many other language learners who are very happy to help out!

by ShukaNae46

J’adore this app, I never had the confidence to learn a language before using Duolingo. I always scoffed it off as too much work. You guys really make it fun. It’s like playing a game! As you developers already know, the streak keeps many people committed to Duolingo . I’ve kept my streak alive 150 days twice! I’m not dropping the flame this time though. My only complaint is that I wish bots weren’t in the leagues so much. I assume they are there to give people a more competitive feel that perhaps isn’t quite there with all the real users on Duolingo ? I’m not sure, I’ve tried to understand the reason, but alas it is what it is. I am learning how to read and pronounce quite a bit in French! That is the main thing I really get from this though. And that is really something I am genuinely grateful for. I have even been practicing thinking in French and although I cannot understand every day French tongue out in the real world yet, I can differentiate many words that are said and that’s cool too, quite an improvement! That is all thanks to you wonderful folks. I appreciate the people behind this app because they are providing such an amazingly useful resource for free!! I do get the premium membership because I love it so much. I’m on my second year with Duolingo and can’t wait to see it evolve. 🥰Merci beaucoup, this app et au revoir !

by TheGreatMustard

I’ve been using this app for a while now to practice my French, and in the time I have had Duolingo I have tried out several other languages too (including Spanish, Russian, German, Klingon, etc.). The games make learning fun and the teaching style helps keep the terms and sentence structures ingrained in my memory very well!

My only request/hope for Duolingo (not a complaint, I love Duolingo ) is that while I appreciate the inclusion of fictional languages like High Valyrian and Klingon, I would like for there to be more significant languages to be added to this app’s roster of classes as well. Widely-spoken languages like Arabic and Bengali are noticeably absent on the course list (for English-speakers, not sure about others), as well as Finnish, which is a little strange because Norwegian, Swedish, and Danish are all present. Personally, as someone whose family comes from the western Balkans, I would love to see a language course on Serbo-Croatian, since it is a difficult language that I believe this app would be an excellent tool to help me to become better at it. Recently, Hawaiian and Navajo were added to the roster, which excites me and makes me hope for these languages to be added sometime in the future as well.

Overall, I love Duolingo and will continue using it to study foreign languages! I look forward to seeing more language courses added in future updates! 👍

by Pu55yWizard

Duolingo I have had for a while. And I try to use it everyday. It can be pretty disappointing to see that you have missed a lesson and now you don’t have a true streak anymore. If you truly love language and learning it then Duolingo is all you need. Please do yourself a favor and pay for the plus services. I have used Duolingo for about 4 or 5 months and once I upgraded to the Plus option I really saw my learning time go up a lot faster. Let me stop here and say this is not an advertisement trying to sell you Duolingo , just a VERY satisfied customer. Now it’s currently December of 2020. Bobby Shmurda will be released from prison soon and if you run into el chapo you should know some Spanish. Recently there were some changes to Duolingo that exponentially improved the feel of the quality of service immediately and it was such an amazing well thought out addition that I believe it alone could very much help you to learn 90% more than anything else on Duolingo can. What I am referring to is the newly added voice recorder that lets you hear your vocal lessons so you can hear and compare your voice to what you should be hearing. And for people like me who have a very hard time hearing anything, (And I know my ducking kids inherited it 🤟🏽🙃) This new addition to Duolingo makes it so much easier to hear what you are doing.

by No4Ds

If you are just starting out on a language this is Duolingo . You learn words effectively and it is very good at encouraging to learn. The unfortunate thing was it got very repetitive and takes some time to get through to learn new words. It was very good when I first started learning Norwegian or Norsk Bokmål. I got the basics but really just basics. this app won’t make you fluent but it is a great starting place and language practice tool to have when first encountering a new language. Don’t expect yourself to learn an entire language with this app alone but it is great when wanting to practice the language you are learning or getting a few new words. Once again, it doesn’t feel like you are making super fast progress or you have grown quickly but I always enjoying going on and practicing. Another problem is that I never really understood why something was some way and this app did not really do a good job explaining the reasons behind something so I was left confused. The good thing is these questions can be answered on the forum that this app provides. Also the pronunciation does not appear to be given. All you could do was hear the word but I could never tell if the letter “d” was pronounced at the end of some words or not. I had to learn this outside of this app. To conclude this is SPECTACULAR language learning app and I recommend it for all who want to try a new language.

by Aphmd

I wanted to learn Greek because, it’s in my culture and my realities and family know how to speak it. I searched for Greek learning apps and I stumbled across this app. I made an account and started learned basics ( though I had experience I wanted to start from the beginning.) I got some things done and made it to checkpoint one, which took some days to complete the lessons. I took the test and failed, I tried again, Nope! Again I tried, but no success for me. I kept trying and eventually gave up but a few months later, I decided to start practicing again. I hadn’t used Duolingo for MONTHS! And it was time to break the Non-Bilingual Wall.
So I started it again yesterday and after leveling up on some things, I decided to try the test. I failed two times and then it said it wouldn’t be graded so I could just take it without hearts and stuff since I failed so many times. I took it and I finished and guess what? I PASSED!!!!!!!! I had no faith in my self and I gave up, but a little practice made it perfect. I continued practicing today and now I can speak in detailed sentences, and I know a lot more than before. I am even learning to write in Greek by solving the questions and taking courses. If you want to learn a language I recommend this app, it has helped me come so far and I will continue to learn with this app. Thank you Duo for helping me learn! ❤️❤️

by #YAPEOPLE

So this is great! I started learning Spanish a few weeks ago and I have learned a lot from Duolingo. I thought I wasn’t going to stick with it, but I ended up doing it. It’s a really great app if you want to learn any language! Just a few tips though. A couple times, I’ve had a thing pop up when I’m trying to do my lesson. It says that something went wrong. I came back a while later and the same thing was happening. I’ve been working hard on my streak, and I really don’t want to lose it. I wonder if it is possible to not break my streak because of an error in Duolingo . It’s only happened a couple times, so its fine. Another thing: I feel like we shouldn’t be given the stories until we got all of our first lessons done. I tried to do it when I only had 10 crowns, and I didn’t understand everything. I had to use the hints, and then I felt like I wasted a story. I would recommend not Doug the stories until you are done with the first lesson. The cafe one I would wait until you have the restaurant lesson done with all five crowns. The last thing is just being able to have more than 5 hearts if we do the practice. (Or at least up to 6). I feel like then, you would practice more to get hearts (even if it’s only one more than when your hearts are refilled). Well, Duolingo is amazing even if you don’t fix those tiny things. I would definitely recommend.

by Jn1365

I love this app! Duolingo is actually really cool and kind of makes it feel like less of a chore or less of taking classes and more like your just actually playing a game! I like the look and way it works, It give you more motivation to keep learning. The competitive edge is definitely cool with the leagues too. Overall i think its an amazing app if your looking to learn some new languages. Or maybe your just bored and looking for things to do. Instead of scrolling through twitter or reddit while you wait for your hot pockets to cook in the microwave, Do a this app lesson. Its actually educational and who knows maybe itll grow on you! All though i do love Duolingo a lot theres one thing i would want change to. You get a currency of either lingots or gems. (IOS=gems-Android=Lingots) But after you spend them all buying all the outfits for duo and other things you run out of things to spend them on. Im on a 19 day streak and i have everything so it doesnt take long. I wish there was more to do. So please if a developer sees this, 1. Amazing work keep it up! 2. Put some new things to buy with gems or lingots maybe the space outfit you see in the this app plus ad would be cool for 800 or something you get the point or maybe some other things you could use to customize duo. Much love! And enjoy Duolingo to all ❤️

by SciFyDi

I used to use this when it was completely free. As in when you ran out of hearts and failed the lesson you returned to the main menu with full hearts. I understand wanting to make money with Duolingo but the price is ridiculous especially with all the other free and lower priced apps out there. I wouldn’t mind paying a one time flat fee of a lower price but I’m not making continuous payments on something that used to be free. Especially when you get all the ads that say keep education free.
My main gripes with Duolingo as others have stated is the fact that there is no explanation when you make an error. You just have to try to remember the correct answer when the question comes up again. No explanation of what you did wrong. I need a clear explanation of how to conjugate verbs and this is showing me nothing. Also when you make too many errors you fail and have to wait until your hearts are refilled. The amount of time it takes your hearts to refill is insane. Two days later when my hearts finally refill I’ve already forgotten the lesson so I’ve lost that information.
In general Duolingo has taught me a ton of Spanish and has been fun and easy to use. I just wish their were more explanations for mistakes and also wish the pricing/ hearts issue could be addressed. Maybe offer premium lessons and charge for those instead? Like I said I would pay a REASONABLE amount to be able to have unlimited hearts.

by 012695

Duolingo is great and all, but I’ve found that the desktop site is even more interesting and helpful. Duolingo is very limiting. While the desktop version includes a better discussion board and quite a bit more info. HOWEVER, I have noticed some annoying changes in the desktop site. They are expanding Duolingo , and diminishing the desktop site. Which, obviously, I really don’t agree with or like. If I needed more in depth information about a lesson, as they are usually very cut and dry on Duolingo , I would sometimes go to the site and there might be extra pointers on certain things I wasn’t understanding. I keep trying to do things on the site and it keeps taking me back to the mobile version or a complete replica of Duolingo on my browser. I get that they seem to be aiming at continuity and flow, but please do not take away all the information and good of the desktop site in order to grow Duolingo . I also really miss being able to see my progress on each language. I liked being able to see how much further I had to go before leveling up. But apparently they removed that feature, while still keeping the levels???? Which is beyond me. Just seems like an added annoyance. One of my biggest pet peeves is needing the desktop site and even requesting it on my iPhone and still getting the mobile site or having to continually click Desktop Version/Full Version because every link takes me to a shortened version/aka the mobile site. Soooooo annoying.

by Jess_p330

Duolingo is nicely designed and has good variety of testing formats, but each level takes FOREVER to pass. Some have 20 rounds before you can move on - and each round is the SAME thing. Even some of the levels seem the same. This feels like a waste of time for the learner and has made me start practicing even less (therefore using Duolingo less) because I already know the material by round #5. I don’t need to review it 15 more times. Please make the progress faster, perhaps integrating some review of previous levels into later ones to ensure retention. Also, please allow us to skip levels more easily - right now it takes 400 gems to pass a level, and that takes many days of repetitive practice (of topics I already know) to accumulate. Not worth it. I even made a separate account to start over and take a placement test to hopefully bypass some of these basic levels. I did much better on this test that my first one, yet the levels they put me on seemed the exact same as on my other account - does the test actually place you anywhere other than the beginning? I get that you’re trying to make money by encouraging us to pay for more gems, but what you’re actually doing is discouraging me from using Duolingo . (Plus, with all the ads, I already feel sufficiently encouraged to pay for premium.) Perhaps just make the number of gems we’re awarded for meeting our daily goal much larger or make the number required to pass a level much smaller.

by XvFirefly17vX

I have had this app for maybe a month now and I’m level one on all of the first group of things. Now there are a few things I’d like to address. this app is really great because I’m taking French this year. However there are many huge problems with it too. One is with the practice for a heart. I have been doing it right, le restaurant. But every time I type it no matter how I tweak it it says I’m wrong and knocks me down so I can’t actually ever earn that heart because it keeps giving me the same question which has the wrong thing happening. When I get it wrong it shows me the answer- exactly what I typed. It kind of drives me nuts. Other than that, the hearts system is really stressful because it basically tells you that making mistakes is horrible and that you literally have to pay for them. Now I know that’s not the point but it sure feels like it because failing a lesson sure feels horrible, doesn’t it? I’m sure there are plenty of bugs this app has that I haven’t uncovered but I really wanted to put this out there. Other than these things, this app is great and it’s a great choice to assist in learning a language. But seriously the hearts system crushes your soul and it sure doesn’t help on a bad day. And yes I understand Duo plus is better but come on, I just want a free language app. So if you’re still reading this thanks for listening to me little this app rant. Have a great day.

by Pugvilla

I have been using this app to learn French for a little while now. If you really want to be good at it I suggest working over and over on the basics 1 and mastering it, and continuing to work on it even after mastering it until you know the basics 1 words 100%, which is what I did. It’s a lot better to know the words than to rush through and not actually be able to remember them. One thing is, I have started the “phrases” section. Usually when you start a new section and it gives you words you haven’t seen yet, they will put a dotted line under it where you can see what it means and then eventually remember it. However on some new words it doesn’t give me the meaning and asks me to translate anyway. Since I don’t know the meaning of the word because I’ve never seen it I get it wrong and lose my health. I have used Duolingo a long time ago to learn Italian (which I’ve since stopped) and it would always give me the meaning of the word, multiple times even. It’s just annoying to me that I have to lose my health because I don’t know the meaning of a new word. It’s not too much of a problem that I will delete Duolingo , but something that could be fixed. I recommend using the computer version of this app for learning new words and phrases, and just using Duolingo for strengthening your skills. Overall though Duolingo is great!

by TheSenseiTao

After having used Babel, Busuu, and Rosetta Stone I’m surprised to say that this app is absurdly better made than I used to think. I’ve been using this app on and off for years (half-heartily for awhile and only seriously in the recent past) and I’ve found that the flaws which once seemed glaring are actually not as bad as some other language learning apps. The voice work is an order of magnitude better than Busuu and the lesson structure ,despite seeming somewhat obtuse, is actually incredibly helpful. The pseudo game structure of lessons also helps to keep practice from becoming too much of a chore. I’m probably not saying anything new here but I feel like the only thing that keeps this app from being vastly superior to other language apps is the lack of grammatical instruction in some of the languages. Languages like French have more recently had grammar lessons added even from the start of the course, but Korean has none. From my use of other apps that do a better job explaining grammar I’ve found that this app works really well as a companion app to build vocabulary and just practice hearing/using the language, and is possibly more useful once you have the basics of a language down. The only other language app I’ve used that comes close to rivaling the versatility of this app that I’ve used thus far is Lingodeer which is much better for learning Korean than any other app I’ve encountered.

by Jsa11

this app is helping me to successfully master a foreign language. I studied Spanish for 4yrs in high school. (That was 30 yrs ago) Ever since then I’ve tried to continue that learning, with the goal of becoming fully fluent. The challenge is to get from a learning stage to an actual immersion and usage of the language. I have used this app free version at times, and it’s fun and helpful, but... there are limits to how much I learn that way. 3 months ago I signed up for this app Plus. Wow! Wow! Wow! In 3 months time I have learned so much more! I am more motivated to return for lessons daily. And there seems to be a lot more content. I finished all the levels of the free version, and then was stuck with no more increased learning. But with Plus, not only have I increased my Spanish vocabulary. I am mastering more verb conjugation, and gaining a better understanding of phrases and sentence structure. My listening/ understanding of Spanish has multiplied so much, and speaking is improving, too. Understanding native Spanish speakers has always been a big struggle for me. (“Más despacio, por favor” is a fave phrase of mine) I see so much growth in my skills, it blows my mind! I can’t wait for an opportunity to immerse myself in a live setting where I can try my skills again. this app Plus is worth every penny in order for me to reach my fluency goal. I think that by the end of one year , or maybe two, I will achieve this life long goal.

by Faithgabs

Duolingo is SSSOOO effective! When you start out you sign in with your email. If you want to, Duolingo will give you a daily reminder to practice or start a new lesson. It will also email you if you get behind in your lessons, which is great for me bc I always forget to practice!😂 You choose the language that you want to learn and then your all set!! No bugs and it works great. And after learning the basics and finishing the first three lessons than you can actually have a conversation with automated people in that language!! You have to try to understand their questions and answer them and if you haven't learn a word yet that they say or you forget what it means then you can just click the word and it shows you the translation. It is AWESOME!! You HAVE to get Duolingo!!!!😄😄. You can also join a club with actual people learning the same language as you! You can encourage each other and post your latest progress and you can also make friends and follow people you know and make a profile picture so that your friends can find you!! You can also make your own club if you want to!!! It is absolutely amazing!!!! If I could I would just tap that download button for you so that you be able to try out Duolingo!!😜 you have to get Duolingo! I hope you take my word for it. PEACE OUT!!!!✌️😂✌