What results do you find you get from using Duolingo every day for 959 days? Do you find that it's working for you, in terms of gaining better language proficiency?

I ask because I personally became disillusioned with Duolingo's streaks and leaderboards. I found that I was forcing myself to use it every day but I lost the love of learning the language. Ultimately, I stopped using it because I had a lot of extrinsic motivation to hit targets in the app but little intrinsic motivation to keep learning.

It sounds like your experiences were different from mine and I'm curious to learn what made them so.

I've tried learning Spanish theee different times - a course at university, a course at an employer and now with Duolingo.

The results I've got from Duolingo have been by far the best - a little very day works way better for me than a larger commitment of time in shorter bursts.

I can now read tweets from Spanish language Twitter accounts and understand them 90% of the time (CNN and BBC News in Spanish are great).

I took some in-person lessons via video chat to practice conversational Spanish which was also useful, and I'm hoping to spend a few months fully embedded in a Spanish speaking country some time in the future - but I don't feel the need to rush things. I'll be happy getting incrementally more vocabulary and grammar in 10-15 minutes a day for a long time to come.

Duolingo is great, because learning a language (and many other skills) is a matter of doing it consistently. If you have a 4 hour class once a week but don't study or read anything in Spanish outside of the class, you will forget things before the next class.

Of course, Duolingo is not magical, but it gives you enough vocabulary and understanding that you can start following people on twitter/instagram and know what's happening. Then you start trying to reply and interact, and then at some point try a book, then a TV show..

Also, many people plan on starting something (like learning a language) later on, when they have more time. Many people I know that wanted to learn English (Im Brazilian) didn't start years ago because they `didn't have time`, so now, after a few years, they still need to start from 0

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That's really fantastic - good work. I'm glad to hear that my experiences with Duolingo aren't the only ones possible.

I'm currently on 890 day streak learning Spanish, i can read tweets getting ~90% and understand slow Spanish speech.

I think i can have a basic conversation with a Spanish speaker and understand him, if he'll make some effort for us to understand each other.

Duolingo gamification stopped working around day 150..200 but by that time spending 10-15 minutes per day with it became a habit. If I have to wait for someone or I'm drinking tea in an idle mood, i just pop up Duolingo and do a lesson.

Me too, about half that. But I'm painfully aware it's no longer getting me anywhere (I completed the 'tree' hundreds of days ago) - what I really need to do is sit down with my textbook in order to progress further with the grammar, and widen my vocabulary beyond what's in Duolingo. But that requires more time commitment, so I do it much less often, and do Duolingo instead.. fairly pointlessly - sure it probably helps stop me slipping backwards.

Depends what your goals are - but if you wanna be very capable at talking you’d be better off listening to a lot of native content intended for natives (as well as talking with live people). I recommend Language Learning with Netflix, or the more heavy duty/Anki driven Migaku family of tools (can use with Netflix, YouTube or any video with subtitle files), for studying in that form; plus language teachers through something like iTalki (encourage the teacher to not dumb down their speaking for you even if you get lost); as well as talking with random people on services like HelloTalk/immersing in the place that speaks your language/finding a native speaker to befriend and talk to in the language. Duolingo is a beginner tool in my opinion (there are far more beginners to sell to and the barrier to entry is low).

Absolutely agree it's a beginner tool, and through studying a textbook/Wiktionary, films, talking to a bilingual speaker I've surpassed it. But just as you say the barrier to entry is low, so is the barrier to practice.

Thanks for the tips though, I will give them a go. Especially the Netflix one I keep meaning to; I watch a fair bit in target language (Hindi) but always with (only) English subtitles. Keep meaning to give it a go. (I do sometimes go back and put Hindi subtitles on if there was something I was particularly interested in / wanted to check, but it's a pain to do often.)

Did you complete the first level of the three, or have you got to purple status on every lesson?

I find that getting all the way it purple on every lesson has been massively more effective for me than just doing the lower level lessons.

The three? Purple? Maybe it's different for different languages. Each lesson (as in topic badge type button) done through 5/5 crowns (1-7 stages per crown iirc), I just go through fixing the broken ones or practicing ones I know I'm rusty on now.

Yup that's what I'm talking about - the Spanish track added a concept of "purple" which is an advance on the broken ones - you can now take an additional set of lessons for one that shows up broken and it will never break for you again.

I think the Spanish track is likely one of the most advanced in terms of number of lessons and quality of teaching - though I expect the "learn English" tracks are equivalent or more advanced, I've just never looked at those.

Spanish track recently was updated... So my nearly complete to 7th milestone tree (had just 4 circles left at 3/5) turned into a tree with 9 milestones and all progress beyond milestone 5 was wiped.

I was pretty mad! It'll take a lot of time to complete it all, it hurt my achiever feelings pretty hard. Of course, more content is more learning, but with later milestones it gets very repetitive.

Oh nice. Mine (Hindi) definitely doesn't have that, it's also shorter than a lot of other older/more mature ones I think. (I've dabbled in the French one.) I'll certainly do it if it becomes available, but for now I've done all that is.

Likely what you need is an immersion experience, the best way to learn a language.

Yes.. I've wanted to for years, even before learning the language. The pandemic is a solid excuse at the moment, but I only have myself to blame really.

One day I'll go, एक दिन जाऊंँगा!