Are you using Duolingo? ...If you said yes, or if you're thinking about it... you NEED to read this first. Learn from my experience to work smarter, not harder.
Initial Excitement and Download
In 8th grade, I was about 15 years old, and it was the first year that I formally learned Spanish at school. I didn't have a lot of background either, so, of course, I went on the App Store to download Duolingo... seemed like a pretty smart idea to do. I really wanted to be ahead of the rest of my class, to prove that I'm really good at Spanish, and I could reach my goal of being able to chat with my family quickly.
An Unexpected Reaction
I randomly wanted to show off what I learned to my mom, and I said,
"Yo quiero un emparedado," 🥪
(which means I want a sandwich...)🥪
and you just see my mom turn her head, look at me, kind of confused, and say,
"What?"...
and then my brain hesitates. I’m asking myself, ..."I said it right, didn't I?" ...So I repeated it to her, and she says,
"Oh no, Hanna, you sound like my grandparents. No one really uses that anymore. What kind of Spanish are you learning?"…
The Realization
What kind of Spanish am I learning???... How can there be more than one Spanish???
She explained to me saying,
"That kind of old style is what they use in Spain, so these words and phrases that you’re showing me... This is not how we talk here in Latin America and with my Spanish-speaking friends here in the US."
That moment, I just felt my face go from excited to disappointed... I wasted like 60 days learning words and sentences that aren’t useful?…
Adapting to the Reality
OK, no problem, I won’t use Duolingo for Spanish,...
(Actually, I just decided to use it less because I did see that it was helping me in class -- yeah, they were teaching Spain-style Spanish in my school. )
I always checked in with my mom
which is more commonly used
which one sounds more polite
which one sounds friendlier
because I couldn’t get any of that from Duolingo.
Just to really paint the picture for you,...
This embarrassing moment happened a LOT.
I say something in Spanish | --> | the person getting confused |
It happened with
my mom
my mom's friends
my grandparents
my cousins in Mexico
Learning Beyond Duolingo
That really let me see OK, Duolingo isn’t really fully preparing me for a Spanish-speaking environment. I completely abandoned the app after I realized:
It wasn’t at the pace I wanted to learn
It wasn’t teaching me how to express my ideas or concepts freely.
That’s when I was like OK, let’s just rely on asking my mom all the questions because I know she will tell me the real thing. My mom is not a teacher, so she can’t give me the structured lessons for complete progress and fluency, so that’s why I still took those school classes for four years.
I really loved learning Spanish from music. I loved being able to interact with my mom’s friends more, and it was so much more satisfying even though it was still a bumpy road, but at least I knew that I didn't have to unlearn something that I had already learned.
A New Chapter: Learning Asian Languages
Zoom forward to 2021. I join the Taiwan-based English teaching platform called Amazing Talker. My mentor suggested that I learn some Chinese, Japanese, and Korean so that I could attract more students. She said if you wanna earn more money, you can definitely learn some basics from each language.
I followed immediately and downloaded Duolingo once AGAIN, because I definitely don’t have any friends who are from China, Taiwan, Japan, or Korea. I also don’t have money for actual lessons. That’s actually why I got this job, so I need that cost-efficient way to learn those basics.
What a crazy decision...
I was getting so confused among the three languages and losing motivation. I had no energy to learn.
All right let's just go with the most widespread language: Chinese.
I had a different trust in this experience learning Chinese on Duolingo...
Probably because I was going in blind. I couldn’t really ask anyone for verification, if a word was really the correct way, so that thought appeared in my head like...
I wonder if I’m learning the correct way…
I’m going on like a 40 day streak and I’m like oh my goodness this is my moment!
Let me see if I can use something with my student to show off and surprise them a little bit so I say I’ve been learning some Chinese can I share that with you? Of course they enthusiastically say oh my gosh of course...
So I say
你的電話號碼是多少？
(Which means what is your phone number)
… there is a brief pause.
I look at them with an excited smile to see what their reaction is and that silence tells me THERE IS SOMETHING WRONG HERE
and I said
did I say it OK?
I tested this phrase out with several people all of them said the same thing,...
Well we don’t really say it like that. I understand what you wanna say but that’s not really the natural way that sounds very formal and like a textbook. No one actually talks like that.
OH NO!...
we’re going through the same process that I did with Spanish??? Come on. This is ridiculous. I’ve been wasting 40 something days of learning so aggressively and you’re telling me that it’s not what I should’ve learned. Oh my goodness.
CONFUSED AGAIN AND AGAIN ...I didn’t realize that I was learning simplified characters. I should’ve been learning traditional Chinese characters, and also my accent sounded like a Beijing accent, which is WAY different than a Taiwan accent. After learning the differences between the two, I definitely wanted to change my whole trajectory. |
Facing Financial Limitations
I still didn’t have enough money to pay for tutoring. I’m only just beginning my career I have to make money for my family. What do I do? I just have to settle for Duolingo for now, so I keep it up with the Duolingo. I’m learning some random words and once I become financially stable, I will pay for classes because I do not want to go in circles And so the time comes search for a good tutor. I find a decent one and in the class I cannot speak anything it’s just like I’m starting from day zero one in the world have I been spending hours and hours every single day learning feel so lost I cannot structure a sentence on my own. I don’t understand how to do that. I don’t know how to respond to this question he’s asking me I don’t even understand what he saying.
Reflections on Duolingo
As you can tell, I’m not really a big fan of Duolingo. But if you’re not convinced yet, I still have two more cases to prove that you shouldn’t use this if you want fluency.
My mom started learning French Duolingo as a hobby about five years ago. I’m very happy that she found this hobby because I can really tell that she genuinely enjoys it. That is wonderful and if that is the case you go for it, the thing is after five years of proper learning a language learner should be able to have an interaction with the person of that language and my mom is good at translating, but she still cannot express herself freely she still struggles with daily vocabulary because she still hesitates. Those old units are not getting refreshed.
Let me just highlight that she had like a 1000 day streak which would be even bigger now if it weren’t for the fact that her phone got hacked. so she put in an incredible amount of consistency, but the result was not at that level that you would think.
Case number two is my mom’s friend who is an American, who wanted to learn Spanish to be able to have conversation with my mom and her friend, she was also really obsessed with trying to learn languages as fast as possible and probably had a bigger streak than my mom did not she was someone who earned so many thousands of XP every single day. When I go to parties where my mom and her friend are chatting in Spanish, she constantly asks them. Despacio por favor. Which means slow please. What does that mean? That means she cannot understand natural speaking. She can express herself slowly while taking time she has some grammar errors but after I believe what has been four years of learning, she still cannot communicate with fluency
All in all, here are my takeaways about the weaknesses of Duolingo
It may not fully prepare you for real-life conversations and understanding the nuances of a language.
It can be difficult to unlearn inaccuracies or outdated phrases learned through the app.
The app's focus on gamification might not translate to practical language skills outside of its ecosystem.
But don’t get me wrong, Duolingo still has its strengths. Here is what I like about Duolingo:
- It’s accessible and user-friendly, providing a good introduction to language learning.
- The gamified elements can make learning a new language fun and engaging.
- It offers a wide range of languages, making it a versatile tool for beginners.
HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT IT?
Has your opinion of Duolingo changed? Have you used the app before? I would love to hear about your experience with it.
LET'S CONNECT!
If you're aiming for real fluency and real results, so you don’t waste your time, go ahead and take a trial lesson. Let's work together, and I will provide a strong plan for you, so you can avoid making the mistakes that I did. I learned the hard way, and I’d love to show you my proven strategies to get you started the smart way.
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@SpeakOnWithHanna
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