Duolingo's marketing of "learn a language in 5 minutes a day" or whatever their similar slogan is, is bad. Duolingo won't teach you hardly anything at all in only 5 minutes a day, and even with considerably more time (30 minutes to an hour a day), on it's own it is unlikely to teach you a language. However, in combination with other learning tools like classes, immersions, comprehensible input, etc. It is a very valuable tool. I finished the German class in about 2 years, and I found it helpful, and wished that the Duoloingo German class continued further than it did.
Yeah, I agree, I don't like aspects of the league, and I think that the way they apportion XP encourages less-than-idea ways of spending your time. Basically, if you use Duolingo exactly the way they encourage you to use it, and only that way, you won't get much out of it. But if you are self directed, recognize the ways in which it is useful, and use it as another tool alongisde the rest of your learning, it's really helpful.
> But if you are self directed, recognize the ways in which it is useful, [...] it's really helpful.
Yes, but once you get the hang of how to learn well from each exercise, it's interesting how the app will seem purpose-built to... slow you down.
You know that exercise where you arrange words into a sentence? I learned a lot better once I stopped looking at those words for cues, and just formed a sentence in my mind and then looked.
At that point, it's a pure waste of time to assemble the sentence and tap through all the UI transitions, I'd rather see the next exercise right away!
But the app doesn't allow me to! I have to pass the minigame first! At the end, it seems 80% of my effort was spent practicing "how to visually hunt for words in a word-cloud".
Theres a persistent myth that you can just "absorb" a language; you can't, you have to understand it either intuitively or unconsciously through experience. Duolingo took so much money from people by pushing this idea.
Yeah, I agree, I don't like aspects of the league, and I think that the way they apportion XP encourages less-than-idea ways of spending your time. Basically, if you use Duolingo exactly the way they encourage you to use it, and only that way, you won't get much out of it. But if you are self directed, recognize the ways in which it is useful, and use it as another tool alongisde the rest of your learning, it's really helpful.