Hi! I was just wondering if you some of you guys use Duolingo? If yes, does it really help you?
Edit : Thanks to all the replies. You seem to all have had pretty similar experience. Thanks again. I think I am gonna focus on WK and other useful resources.
10 Likes
I don’t use Duolingo currently, mainly because I’ve used it before for other languages and similarly to WK it has it’s own pacing and structure for teaching you things. I didn’t want to get overwhelmed with lessons from WK and also seperate content from Duolingo.
As I’m past level 2 on WaniKani now (fast levels) my reviews / study has slowed down as the time between reviews has gotten longer. So I may look at other study to fill this down time between reviews, that could be Duolingo or Genki (probably Genki 
).
I used Duolingo for Dutch for a little bit and I found it quite good, but like anything you have to be motivated to learn. The only annoying thing is that the owl 
spams you with notifications / emails NON-STOP, gets very annoying.
5 Likes
tried duolingo multiple times. like at least 4 times, for japanese and chinese. It’s utterly useless, there’s no explanation on anything, so it’s not something you learn off of. it looks like it may be decent in review though.
9 Likes
Dropped my steak of 400 days+ when I started WaniKani again. It’s simply not efficient for learning.
7 Likes
I use it just to see how far I can get the streak up. It’s not really useful for learning.
7 Likes
I tried Duolingo for a few months. It was a complete waste of time. It doesn’t really explain anything, which makes it an exercise in brute memorization of the question set. Further, a lot of questions are multiple-choice. I am good enough at guessing that I was able to level up without knowing the vocab in it very well. I left it a while ago and will never use it again. It is really more of a toy than a tool for learning a language.
12 Likes
My only experience with Duolingo has been watching Japanese Vtubers use the English course, and I was not impressed. Multiple choice is the worst method of learning, but the best for cheap dopamine hits. Also some of the text-to-speech voices sound bizzare. (Even though they’re in my native accent.)
3 Likes
I’ve used Duolingo before in the past, but I personally prefer LingoDeer. (I still use it because my study buddies use it too.) Don’t think it’s worth it in the long run. Also YES, that owl can be very annoying. (╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻
10 Likes
I was about to say the same thing lol, except I don’t use duolingo anymore since I paid for the lifetime lingodeer
4 Likes
Honestly, it helps just about as much as any app or textbook. There are few explanations of grammar there, but that doesn’t bother me because I just check the comments, and if there’s nothing there (there usually is), I just search for it online. If you’re not into that and want all your content in all place, like explanations, go for Lingodeer. I heard it explains it. Pick one and stick with it, most apps are the same, if I’m being honest.
Just like with textbooks, after going through them, you’ll still look up grammar points every now and then because you forgot them. I use Duolingo, Japanese From Zero, Tae Kim, and the internet in general.
7 Likes
It helps me review but I don’t like it so much for learning new things. The app has improved a LOT over the past few years though and you can use it completely free. I wouldn’t pay for it at all but I still use it daily for reviews.
4 Likes
I used Duolingo for a little while, but it got very repetitive, very quickly and I got bored. Not the case with WK however…I’m not sure why that is.
5 Likes
Probably best to drop a 400+ day old steak. That can’t be safe to consume.
5 Likes
I used it.
I liked it, for a while.
I wouldn’t recommend it for beginners, but instead as a means to review knowledge.
It also introduces you to a bunch of sentences that aren’t standard.
12 Likes
I’m on Duolingo but currently just maintaining my streak for that last sweet achievement, and helping out on the Japanese forum. I always felt like Duo wasn’t really explaining things enough for me, and I wasn’t really remembering the kanji very well just by having new vocab crammed at me without knowing any meanings, etc.; I reset my progress there twice and purchased a lifetime LingoDeer subscription instead.
They’re supposed to be rolling out a new Japanese tree, so I’m just biding my time and hoping I get switched to it (to at least give it a try). In the meantime it’s WaniKani and, lately, Tae Kim.
2 Likes
I’m technically using Duolingo, but mostly as an auxiliary thing so I can get used to hearing and typing Japanese a bit more. Wanikani and Bunpro are my main focuses.
2 Likes
I use it for Irish because they worked really hard on the content and it shows.
I tried it for Japanese some time two years ago and I thought it was awful. I’m sure they’ve fixed it up since but I was only memorising their VERY specific patterns/answers instead of actually learning Japanese. Didn’t think it was worth it.
6 Likes
I started learning Japanese by taking lessons in an adult education centre. I took up Duolingo then and I liked it. Later on, when I began using Wanikani, I also began using lingodeer and stopped using Duolingo. A few weeks ago, I tried Duolingo again and it seemed easy to me. The upper levels are interesting for listening because they use long sentences (which you can slow down).
Yesterday however I did Level 2 in ‘Honorifics’ and it was horrible!
I don’t like that new vocabulary is presented at the beginning of each lesson, but they don’t explain the meaning. You have to wait for the first occurrence in a sentence.
I think that Duolingo alone is not suitable for learning Japanese, but it is useful for exercising your listening and kanji recognition. And you should read the tips provided with some lessons!
4 Likes
I tried Duolingo a few years ago and then I found Lingodeer which is a similar app but was designed for teaching Japanese from ground up. I actually learned my Japanese foundations from Lingodeer. I highly recommend it.
5 Likes
i’ve been using duolingo for a bit over a year, and am about half-way down the tree. i’m okay with it.
of course it has a lot of issues. the grammar explanations are very short, it just drops new vocab on you without any explanations, there’s no help for learning kanji, the multiple choice answers are rubbish, and it’s overly gameified.
however: it has a very low bar to entry. you don’t have to get a book or anything, there’s no fees, you can just start. if it weren’t for that very easy and direct access, i might still not be learning japanese.
you don’t have to use the multiple choice answers. text-input is only a click away, and i personally switched to that within a few days. on the phone, it has voice-input too. and though i can’t evaluate how good it is, it’s some of the first practice at speaking i got.
it’s quite flexible with its answers. you can play around with grammar and different vocabulary, use casual or polite forms, there’s almost never just one correct answer. and the comments to each question usually have quite a lot of explanation.
and because it’s gameified it has kept me returning.
i did supplement it with extra tools from the very beginning. i printed out sheets for writing-practice with the kana. i looked up grammar. i watched youtube videos. i tried various apps for learning kanji. and with all that combined, and duolingo making me come back and continue learning day by day, i think i got quite far.
so… is duolingo good? probably not very. does it work? i’d say that yes, it works reasonable well - if you make it work for you.
i’m looking forward to the new tree (i’m still on tree 4), and i think that with a few more years duolingo might become quite good.
…the best part about WK, btw., isn’t the kanji learning (though that is excellent). the best part about WK is this community of dedicated language learners, in this excellent forum! ^^
10 Likes