Usually I would say: sure, do whatever feels fun and keeps you getting back. But if we are talking about spending your limited time in the best way possible: I would ditch Duolingo immediately. I learned kana there, left after around a week because I needed more in depth information and have been studying in the classic text book and teacher way ever since.
Duolingo might be fun but in no way is it an efficient way to spend your time. I think slowly working through a textbook and supplementing it with a premade Anki deck for example is a better way. Maybe add a weekly iTalki lesson with a teacher if you have the budget.
DO NOT use Duolingo as a primary source for learning Japanese. Use it for review or extra exposure only. DL’s format works great for European languages, but not so much for Japanese, sadly.
Wait until you get access to the new Japanese tree if you haven’t already. I have it now and I like it a lot. Full release is supposed to be over the summer sometime. It’s massively expanded over the previous tree, and it’s supposed to have over 1000 kanji, several thousand vocabulary words, and N4 level grammar.
I started Duo right around a year ago. I got all the way through the tree to Level 1 then all the way through a second time to Level 2.
Doing it this way decreases the boring repetition, and it was great for taking me from basically 0 to something.
But…
The thought of doing it a third time was too much and I deleted it. I think it’s a great entry point but not good after that. I heard there was a gigantic update, and two weeks ago I checked. I started up again with the stuff that wasn’t in the first tree.
The new stuff is actually pretty good. There’s a lot more kanji, so I think I’ll get everything back to Level 1. To me, the best thing Duo offers is getting you to read full sentences every single day. If you have a better way to do that, then switch, if not, do one or two Duo lessons a day until you think you’re getting nothing from it.
In my mind, the most important thing is to do something involving context (i.e. full sentences) each day, no matter how small.
I forgot to mention one other thing that is helpful to me at the Beginner level. I always use the keyboard to type in responses instead of using the word bank. It always make me think of how to say whatever sentence they are asking for instead of giving me everything I need to build it in front of me.
Like I said before. I just do maybe 4 lessons a day so I take quite a while to move onto another area but by no means do I use it as my go to way to learn Japanese. It gives me a quick an easy way to write out sentences myself, learn a new word or be exposed to a new kanji. Anyway, whatever you decide I’m sure it will work best for you!
I completed the whole tree relatively quickly due to how simple the material was.
I personally don’t think it’s worth the time. Even if someone completely the whole tree, I’d argue that their Japanese is still borderline non-existent, as the sentences are practically conversationally useless. All the vocab are learned thorough wanikani, so that reinforces my belief that it is a waste of time. I rather spend the few minutes reading/listening to japanese news. “Easy news japanese” is a great app for beginners as you can read along with audio, which is infinitely more beneficial in my opinion.
However, to each their own of course. Best of luck with the studying !! Cheers.
Like so many, I developed a love-hate relationship with Duolingo and recently decided to cut ties with the Green Owl. It was all fun and games in the beginning before things got a bit repetitive and annoying for me. Oftentimes I felt like I was just going through mindless drills rather than actively learning.
Going down the tree instead of trying to get to level 5 before moving to the next lesson seems to be a better use of time. I also usually stop in the middle of level 2 of each lesson. By that point, you have already learned almost everything the lesson has to offer and have probably retained all the content, as there is a lot of repetition.
To me, Duo is great for doing some studying in days when I’m completely exausthed from work, as it doesn’t require so much concentration as studying grammar, for instance. I’ll probably keep using it until I finish the new tree!
One problem with using a textbook is that you need dedicated time to sit down with it and go through explanations and exercises. Right now I’m studying Japanese in short sessions on my phone and seem to be progressing despite not having time for formal textbook time. I do have Tae Kim’s grammar in an app on my phone and read it as needed and I also use a bunch of other resources. Just trying to find the best way to study while I’m time constrained.
Thanks everyone so much for your opinions and advice. For now I think I’ll stop trying to get everything to gold and try to see what other levels have in store. If there’s not much new grammar / useful vocab and I get frustrated again, I’ll ditch it for something else.
At first, learning on Duolingo excites me, that I even subscribed for two months now. But lately, I’ve been feeling bored with its repetitiveness, and it felt more like a “chore” to me. I’m just using it once a day to maintain my streak, but nothing goes inside my head, with regards to the content.
I know it’s not working for me anymore, and chanced up this thread with people feeling the same way as I do towards the app. That made it more clear to me that I should not spend more time with it as it will not be really helpful and effective.
Luckily, I still got time to cancel the upcoming 1-year subscription I selected. And today, I decided to drop it and look for alternatives.
I used lingodeer and duolingo awhile ago (two years now, I guess) and Lingodeer was by far the better tool. It structure, vocab introduction, customization of language display (romanji, kanji, furigana options), the vocab it introduces and how it stacks grammar points was way better. I chose not to subscribe for the Japanese 2 with lingodeer, and chose to go other methods at that point- bunpro mostly and a once a week tutor through Italki. Obviously the second is more expensive, but its been way more helpful for my progression.
I used to do my lessons daily on Duo just to keep me in the Japanese spirit. But when I lost my streak last year due to being utterly sick, I kind of did not want to go back… I think that backfired a bit. Lately I had a look and I was indeed switched to the new tree. So yes, there are more kanji now, but the audio really lacks a lot. The new lessons are interesting though. And even though yes I agree, the vocabulary is just repeating what is learnt here, and I would always turn to WaniKani when it comes to vocabulary, I am kind of proud when I hit a new word on Duolingo and already know the meaning from here. So I see it as some kind of exercise.
The audio is bothersome right now (especially at the pc, the smartphone is doing better), and I have often switched it off completely. So there are definitely some downsides currently. Also reporting does not help at all… for months the users complain and nothing gets done. I think that’s a real shame, because especially the listening comprehensions were really good. I kind of panic when I have to rely on my ears, so it was a good exercise for me.
But on the other hand I think the repeating the same sentence again and again is not that bad. It’s annoying if you know it, but sometimes I struggle with the grammar and then it does help me just to get the right flow. And it’s free, so it’s not a question of wealth. It’s better than nothing. So even though it will not teach you the best grammar - if all, I think it gives you a kind of feeling for the Japanese language.
Long answer, Duolingo does a piss poor job at teaching you how japanese works,
I would even go as far as to call it a scam because it feeds off a sense of accomplishment that doesnt really provide you any value back. Yes you may pick up some words and some very simple grammar points but in the time wasted on that useless app you could have learned 10 times more from various other ressources
(I also completed the whole japanese tree but i might aswell not have done it. It should be evident by now how deep my hatred is for Duolingo being the ineffective junk it is)
Your time is better spent on watching cure dolly (Very much recommended by the way, because it turns japanese into a super logical construct, Tae kim did a good job but cure dolly takes my prize as the absolute best explanation for how japanese actually works),
reading grammar ressources, doing your reviews, immersion in japanese litterature etc.
There are a handful of things that are a hundred times more productive than duolingo.
Learning japanese is a long journey, its a shame to make it longer by doing unhelpful things.
Yes, I also find the audio quite grating especially as I started studying with Jalup and an anki deck with native audio. I think audio and somewhat unnatural phrases are the worst parts of Duolingo to be honest.
Duolingo was handy for getting used to typing in Japanese but the further you get down the tree the less helpful it seems to get. I would say it’s almost detrimental at a point as there’s some really weird sentences (weird as in, grammatically). And with no explanations about pretty much anything you have to rely on the comments to try and make sense of things.
Before I started on here I did a bit of Duolingo and I’ve had to unlearn a lot what I thought I had learnt on there.
Mostly grammar words and not knowing how to use them properly as Duo just throws them at you and I ended up just learning the stock sentences rather than the rules behind them. Sorry, didn’t want to make you worry
But don’t worry too much about sounding unnatural, we’re going to get stuff wrong learning but getting stuff wrong just helps you learn it better.
