> Today it’s essentially Candy Crush for people who think they’re too smart for Candy Crush.
That's overly harsh. I use Duolingo for Japanese because
- I thought it would be fun to learn a little about Japanese. And I do learn some, and it is fun.
- I wanted to "understand" a bit of what was being said during subtitled anime I watch. This was _partially_ successful. I understand some words, and I notice some things like "oh, that was a question", and sometimes notice when what was said doesn't match the text. I get enough out of it that it adds to my enjoyment
So, clearly there's a group of people out there that are there to gain some knowledge out of it, and _not_ to rack up some kind of score (and feel superior).
Sorry, that came out as unnecessarily harsh on users when it was intended for Duolingo’s product department. I don’t mean to suggest that the amount of language learning is literally zero, just that whenever language learning is in tension with legible metrics, the latter tends to win out internally.
That's overly harsh. I use Duolingo for Japanese because
- I thought it would be fun to learn a little about Japanese. And I do learn some, and it is fun.
- I wanted to "understand" a bit of what was being said during subtitled anime I watch. This was _partially_ successful. I understand some words, and I notice some things like "oh, that was a question", and sometimes notice when what was said doesn't match the text. I get enough out of it that it adds to my enjoyment
So, clearly there's a group of people out there that are there to gain some knowledge out of it, and _not_ to rack up some kind of score (and feel superior).