🦉 To Duolingo or Not to Duolingo

Resisting the Urge to Duolingo

I had the idea for this post four months ago but procrastinated on it for a while. Part of the reason is because I stopped using Duolingo. Whenever I tried reusing the app, I'd get mixed feelings again.

Duolingo is fine, lots of people love it, but I couldn’t stick with it.

⌛ My 10-Year History With Duolingo

Almost a year ago I started using Duolingo to learn French outside of school. I was excited because I was finally taking my French studies into my own hands but I quickly lost interest in the app 3 levels in.

I caught the language learning bug and stumbled on Cantonese. Duolingo didn’t have that option so I went on to study elsewhere. When Mandarin caught my eye, I gave the Duolingo course a try.

Despite my long-term focus on learning Mandarin, I actively avoided using Duolingo and turned to every other resource available. Even as I saw improvement and could easily pass through levels, Duolingo still couldn’t keep me interested.

A year ago, when I made the decision to relearn French, Duolingo was among the initial apps I turned to. I figured that perhaps my initial struggle with French was due to my lack of experience in self-learning a language. Additionally, I assumed that Mandarin required a specialized app, like LingoDeer,¹ tailored made just that language.

With experience in self-learning Cantonese and Mandarin, and considering French was one of the better-supported languages on Duolingo, I thought everything would be easier this time around.

Initially, everything seemed fine, and I was eager for the latest Duolingo update. The update would transform the course layout from a tree structure to a sequential path. As I was starting fresh with French, I thought this change would help me better track my progress. However, my enthusiasm quickly waned when I discovered that stories, a feature I was excited about, were now locked behind progression on the path, rather than being easily accessible in a separate section as they were before.

Without the stories feature, my interest in the app dropped even lower.

🎮 Gamification

Many people rave about Duolingo for its gamified approach and the dopamine boosts it offers its users.

However, my own journey with Duolingo has been quite the opposite. Instead of enjoyment, I mostly felt stressed and annoyed. Completing each level seemed monotonous, and every mistake felt like a setback rather than a natural part of learning. It lacked the fun or gamified feel it claimed to have.

I've realized that the kind of gamification that resonates with me involves numbers, statistics, and a deeper level of analysis. Duolingo incorporates some of this through their weekly recaps, but it isn’t enough.

Even before I started using Toggl for tracking my language study, I was using other tools such as spreadsheets. The process of creating my spreadsheets and looking at how I spent my time has become an integral part of my language learning journey.

With these charts and spreadsheets, I have a snapshot of how my day, week or month was spent learning a certain language. Duolingo on the other hand, even with its weekly reports, feels like a chore, not a game.

📢 Marketing: Passive Aggressiveness

When I stopped using the app earlier this year I received an email titled “You made Duo sad”. The email seemed to suggest that if you aren’t using Duolingo, you’re off track. It almost implies that people who use Duolingo aren’t also using other resources. Thus, not using Duolingo means you won’t progress in the language you are learning.

What Duolingo has going for it is their marketing and how do I say it, memes? I see the appeal, even though the emails and notifications can be passive-aggressive, there is humour in some of them. The likelihood that they’ll turn into memes probably increases their users.

Despite my ramblings, I haven't covered whether the app works, mainly because I've hardly used it enough to see any benefits. I’ve always wanted Duolingo to work for me and wondered how people could maintain year-long streaks.

Even trying out Duolingo's free trials couldn't hook me into using the app consistently.

In the grand scheme, we all vary in what works best for us. Don't worry if a specific tool doesn't suit you. It doesn't mean you're falling behind.

What are your thoughts on Duolingo?

1. My experience with LingoDeer was the same as Duolingo