Yes and mine say things like "why pay 500 for a language course when I can do this?" Of course they ignore me when I say language meetups are free, because "im not at that level yet." It's usually anxiety.
Well that's all well and good, but the ignorant masses who called EA the most evil company did so for basically the same reasons that you'd critique those other companies. Big corporations that put out productions designed to do nothing but take money from (often poor) people at the expense of their health.
To me, the constant criticism of gamers over the issue reads like shilling for that pathetic open letter EA put out in response. Classic deflection from a toxic entity.
See, that's my issue. If Duo is only a good way to "get started," then it isn't a good way to LEARN a language, as in learn how to actually use it to a level approaching fluency. The whole thing is false advertising, not because of the specifics, but because of the advertising which makes people think (and yes, millions believe(d) it) that you can become fluent by using Duolingo.
It's all false advertising. Rosetta Stone was the pinnacle of false language program advertising, but the rest just take their cue from that.
A part of what I was saying, which didn't come across, is that I think Duo lacks a way to get people to move on. Being "free", there is less incentive to give it up when it stops having a benefit. Eventually it becomes a daily accomplishment, like doing the Wordle, that doesn't really improve anyone. That doesn't make it bad, but it hinders progress at learning a language.
I teach languages and teaching people how to functionally craft things with a language works much better in the medium to long term. By the time you get some basics down, you can actually have a conversation beyond "comment ca va, comment t'appelle tu?" because you know how to use the language, not just parrot phrases.
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.
It sucks balls. I learned more in one month of studying from a textbook and attending conversation classes than I did in two years using Duolingo. And its so much worse now than its ever been!
The bigger problem for Canadian universities is that they have never had their funding restored to pre-austerity levels by the various levels of government.
