Duolingo! Screw that app. Has anyone ever learned to speak a language by just using duolingo?
this post was submitted on 10 Apr 2025
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I've been using it for years, but only for ~10 minutes a day. Obviously it can't teach you to speak it, but to read and write? Absolutely. The secret is to NEVER install the app. My philosophy is that if it has a website then everything should be doable via the website, and I won't install the app.
NOTHING should urge you to install their app, unless it actually cannot function properly on a, say, desktop PC. In case of a trekking and hiking app, I understand it only works properly knowing your location (I would still be terribly paranoid about what else it does with my location info, apart from recommending paths and whatnot). But other than that, I always assume that when something could be perfectly done via a website and they still push their app, they just want to sell your data.
And believe me, using Duolingo via the website is definitely less frustrating than having the app.
The content on duolingo is pretty bad, in general. There are much better apps out there like Language Drops and Rosetta Stone - but they aren't free.
Drops is free if you get the kids version. No ads and you can reset your allowance for free just by pressing the timer. It has less vocab though. Also be careful because their translations aren't always accurate (it gave the word for a stuffed animal, as in taxidermy, for cuddly toy in European Portuguese. I reported it several years ago and it's still not fixed) and they translate "how much" differently in different languages (eg in Arabic it translates to how much quantity, but in Portuguese and French, how much price). So I had a lot of fun thinking I was asking how much I need to pay for a bag of potatoes and the man kept telling me 500g.
I haven't used duolingo since they brought in that stupid crown system years ago. I got my 600 day streak and then stopped using it. I heard it's even worse now. It was a good starting point, but you'll quickly have to supplement. Pre-crowns, duolingo was pretty good. Memrise was much better, but they've overhauled that now too. Also I dislike that duolingo has time for fictional languages, but refuses to do real languages like European PT, British English, etc.
I've been using Busuu and it's really good. Its really aggressive about asking you to buy the premium version but it has all the functionality you need in the free version so you just gotta ignore it.
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psycho emoji?
You are a really nice lemmy user and I am really grateful I get to send you this emoji ๐.
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