For refugees check out Anki
Like most FOSS it's a little diy but the features that would allow one to create a 90% the-same language learning experience are all there. There also may already be decks that powerful on ankiweb.
this post was submitted on 05 May 2025
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Yup, left Duolingo at the start of this year and broke my 1500+ day streak. Because the AI slop was terrible. From nonsensical language to math questions that were flat-out wrong, I just saw zero benefit to continuing to give them money.
Huh. Interesting. What kind of math were you learning where you noticed the errors?
Ratios, I think? Was pretty early. Math thing was way to easy and I stopped pretty fast. Probably be fine for an 8 year old, but for an adult it was way too simple. And ya, occasionally it was flat out wrong. Like 2+2=5 wrong.
You can tell all of the new content is written by AI. It suuuuuuucks.
Welp...
Bye Bye Duolingo...
There goes my French practice...
No way shall I support your use of so-called AI to theoretically reduce your costs while enshittifying my experience and enshittifying the planet's ecosystem.
FFS.
🤷♂️ 🤡 🖕 🖕
Also, how do I know I'm learning (language) anymore and not just unknowingly learning some completely incorrect halucinated version of (language)
Come to Memrise, it’s where I’ve been learning awhile now and I quite like it.
I'm on Day 189 of Spanish. RIP duo.
1955 here
My brother in owl, I'm on 3249.
I’m on day 2562. Been a paying user for more than a decade. Told them to get fucked in my cancellation.
The bird really did die
Join francophone Lemmy communities
Just requested a partial refund and a download of Al information they have of us. In an official customer service reply from Duolingo granted me a full refund and instructions towards downloading the data. Interesting g enough the customer service reply was named Oscar AI Support. Interesting
Duolingo sucks for language learning
Slow input method with the word bank which really doesn’t matter early on but becomes a chore that slows progress later on
Doesn’t really do much in the way of correcting errors unless you pay money for the highest level subscription and even then the error correction is weak. A platform like Duolingo has the potential to do really cool error correction; to literally point out the exact error you made and tie it to an explanation. Obviously that’s difficult especially as things become more challenging but duo has had a decade and millions in development funds, which they’ve spent making the courses actively worse to drive up subscription costs and iaps
The lessons are so focused on the whole “gameification” thing that unless you specifically go back to constantly practice vocabulary (and if applicable characters) you will never retain anything. If you merely pound through a Duolingo course from a-b on the prescribed “path” you will struggle immensely and forget tons of early vocabulary and grammar concepts that are introduced and then never brought back unless you seek them out. There are “weak skills” lessons but they are relatively uncommon so you can feel like you’re constantly progressing
The word banks similarly don’t necessarily test retention and just test your ability to do a quick game of matching
You’ll learn something but if you truly want to learn a language there are far more efficient ways. Duolingo is a practice tool at best
You’ll learn something but if you truly want to learn a language there are far more efficient ways. Duolingo is a practice tool at best
What are some better ways?
It’s really hard to beat flash cards. I like Anki a lot because it codifies them and makes the process of “have I mastered this” a bit more streamlined. Though I feel like a lot of people just download premade decks and while that’s fine you learn a lot making the deck. You can’t get around hours of studying vocab and grammar, especially if you’re after the critical period (which I would hope everyone posting here is)
The gameification that Duolingo brings is valuable and very motivating for a lot of people. The problem is that over the years like many capitalist ventures Duolingo made language learning secondary to earning income. So the primary goal of the app suffers at the expense of keeping you constantly engaged so that you’re far more likely to buy shit even if that means ultimately dont learn all that much
The best language learning system I've found is Language Transfer .
It's free, but it easily beats Duolingo and anything else I have tried (short of total immersion).
I still donate $10/month even though I haven't used it for a while, because I want it to succeed!
I've seen a few posts recommending language transfer, but when I've checked out their website, all it seems to be is a bunch of recordings on soundcloud of some guy talking about how great his course is.. Is there is no interactivity or feedback, or scoring ? Is there more to it than I'm seeing on the website ?
The courses are all just audio files. You don't need anything else, and I think they work very well. The app is very convenient, simple but without unnecessary bills and whistles and it works fine. This also means that you can download them, put them into your favorite music or podcasting app, or whatever else you want. I consider it a feature, not a bug.
The first episode is an introduction to the teaching method. For the language part, you should start with the second episode.
He is not a native speaker for all the languages, of course. His accent is very English, and from his name I would guess that he speaks Greek natively. But he is also fluent in at least Spanish, the course that I have used, having lived in Spanish-speaking countries.
Okay, so what value does that have over listening to Spanish podcasts ..how do you know if you're speaking it correctly or even understanding the recording ?
It's an interactive lesson. You listen to the teacher explaining something to the student, then you pause the audio and try to answer your self, then you continue and listen to the student's response. If you try it, you'll find that it's very natural and effective.
This is interesting, thanks
Edit: I take it back. I had some time after work and the app appears to be a collection of lectures from the founder who does not actually speak each language, but feels their teaching method is so unique that it overcomes this. Looking at the website there is no actual description of what makes their method different or better, just a lot of fluff and boasting about how it’s so great. I didn’t speak any of the languages to review content but I do have a background in music so I listened to the 12 minute music theory lesson 1 and it was just him gushing about how great his method is, 0 theory covered. Maybe it is revolutionary but this reeks of pseudoscience
The problem is that the introduction for each of the courses is simply a description of his teaching method. go to the second lesson, and you all find the meat of the course starting.
The problem is that the description of the teaching method, at least in the theory course, was completely devoid of any rationale for how it is different from any other method of teaching (same as the website)
I have no reason to believe his app and courses don’t provide instruction. My issue is with his grandiosity without substance. An educator of all people should recognize the need to substantiate their claims. This, coupled with the fact that the first thing I am hit with on his site being:
“ABSOLUTELY MAGICAL"
"PURE GENIUS"
"TRULY A MASTERPIECE"
"SERIOUSLY THE BEST LANGUAGE COURSES EVER"
"INSANELY CRAZY GOOD" "LITERALLY CHANGED MY LIFE"
"BLOWN AWAY"
"A TOTAL GAME CHANGER"
"PHENOMENAL"
"WORLD-CLASS"
(None of which are attributed to anyone, of course) makes me really skeptical.
One of those superlatives may well have been mine. I speak English natively, and have learned French, German, Sesotho, and Japanese (with a combination of classroom and immersion). Learning Spanish with Language Transfer immediately felt right and natural, and I wish I had it for those other languages. I really have never found a better system.
It's not a miracle, and the teacher emphasizes the need for practicing the newfound skills (conversations with native speakers, watching TV or videos, etc.) in order to truly embed it in your brain. But this course really does give you the tools to understand grammar and the connections between the different languages.
Well like I said I’m not outright denying its efficacy, but based on initial reactions the guy is marketing it like pseudoscience and should maybe work on clarifying what his method actually is
He actually wrote a manual on his method, where it came from, and how it works. I'm not sure if it is still available for download. I got a copy a couple of years ago.
Are you have to do is get past the first lesson, and then it's all language training.
Check out Mango. I was able to get a free subscription through my library.
this is the way. My counties online library system offers tons of language sources free to me (the county pays for a license I assume)
They have less than 1000 employees. Previous cuts were of 10% of employees. Are they really being replaced with AI or is the curriculum just finished? I have a feeling AI isn't expanding very much of the curriculum. Duolingo is probably just spouting "we have AI" nonsense like every technology company to sound like they are cutting edge.
Are they really being replaced with AI or is the curriculum just finished?
It was not stellar before (lots of mistake, broken sound samples, nonsensical sentences, all never getting fixed despite reporting a lot), and it got measurably worse recently (all of the above in greater amount), so, no, it was not "finished".
I doubt they've completely covered every important language. And from what I've seen, their speech recognition quality is terrible. So obviously there's still room for improvement.
And language changes over time, though maybe not much on these timescales. But even if the curriculum officially covers 100% of a language at one point in time, the language is still going to drift from that snapshot.
Are they really being replaced with AI or is the curriculum just finished?
Nah, they add new AI slop constantly.
I don't see any.
Maybe you aren't far enough along in the lessons.