> Honestly, the app does not seem significantly better than when I first used it in 2013/2014.
I disagree with this. I have also been using it since this time frame and believe it is significantly better than it used to be, at least in Spanish and French. I do agree however that I think they should have covered more ground in ten years than what they have done and that they should have better coverage for other languages.
> I think there's very good reasons why apps like Hello Chinese are more well loved than Duolingo. In comparison, look at Scritter[0]. This is the go to app for Chinese and Japanese, costs $100/yr ($14/mo; frequent discounts of 50% fwiw) and has significantly better learning outcomes while having under 10 employees.
Do you have resources to back these claims up because they’re pretty bold. I imagine that if they are dedicated solely to Japanese and Chinese then they probably are more successful than Duolingo’s Chinese and Japanese courses but I think you’d still need to provide data to both confirm and you definitely need data if you’re going to say they’re more “well loved”.
> I cannot understand how any rational person would continue to give Duolingo money as everything just screams extra fat to me.
Well as someone who has given Duolingo money for two consecutive years, I am doing it because I have been seeing results, it has proven to be a sustainable long term practice (nearly 1000 day streak) and I enjoy the content. None of this seems particularly irrational to me.
I 100% agree that the podcast should be in the app along with dual language subtitles and it’s absurd that it isn’t. It used to be in the app although it didn’t have the transcriptions which are available online.
I travel to Latin America as often as I can manage, so I have been studying Spanish. The approach learned from Duolingo does not train your ear to listen to spoken language well. If you want to actually speak a language with other language speakers, listening comprehension is crucial. I moved to using immersive language learning, listening to Spanish media (mostly on Youtube, but also listening to es localizations of movies/TV). The language basics Duolingo teaches are still useful, and I have a 1100+ day streak, but just doing Duolingo still left me flat-footed on the ground trying to use the language.
I disagree with this. I have also been using it since this time frame and believe it is significantly better than it used to be, at least in Spanish and French. I do agree however that I think they should have covered more ground in ten years than what they have done and that they should have better coverage for other languages.
> I think there's very good reasons why apps like Hello Chinese are more well loved than Duolingo. In comparison, look at Scritter[0]. This is the go to app for Chinese and Japanese, costs $100/yr ($14/mo; frequent discounts of 50% fwiw) and has significantly better learning outcomes while having under 10 employees.
Do you have resources to back these claims up because they’re pretty bold. I imagine that if they are dedicated solely to Japanese and Chinese then they probably are more successful than Duolingo’s Chinese and Japanese courses but I think you’d still need to provide data to both confirm and you definitely need data if you’re going to say they’re more “well loved”.
> I cannot understand how any rational person would continue to give Duolingo money as everything just screams extra fat to me.
Well as someone who has given Duolingo money for two consecutive years, I am doing it because I have been seeing results, it has proven to be a sustainable long term practice (nearly 1000 day streak) and I enjoy the content. None of this seems particularly irrational to me.
I 100% agree that the podcast should be in the app along with dual language subtitles and it’s absurd that it isn’t. It used to be in the app although it didn’t have the transcriptions which are available online.