Long time Duolingo users

[Mr. G]

Please explain to me how you use the app to get the most benefit from it.

What role does Duolingo play in your foreign language studies?

 

How much time do you/your kid spend with the app each day? How do you monitor and measure progress in the language?

 

If you've tried other language learning website or apps then why did you choose Duolingo over them?

 

Do you feel that having high intensity days mixed with low intensity days is beneficial and if so what is the sweet-spot you have found through trial and error?

 

What do you feel is the greatest weakness of the program, and how do you compensate for that weakness​?

 

Which areas of language have you found Duolingo to be most helpful for?

 

What advice do you have for a person considering​ the program?

[Monica_in_Switzerland]

We use duolingo as a supplement.  My two oldest each do 2 practice lessons and 1 new lesson a day (approx 15 minutes).  You can measure progress with duolingo simply by using the built-in progress tracking stuff, but I don't think it reflects on actual language acquisition.  

 

Downsides to the app:

- many activities are matching activities, which require significantly less memory-strain than fill-in-the-blank (flashcard) style work.  Memrise is probably better for pure vocab acquisition.  

- very, very weak in both listening and speaking exercises

- very little/no explicit grammar

 

I wouldn't necessarily say we compensate for the weakness of duiolingo in other ways, because duolingo is not the main vehicle for language acquisition.  My kids do:

- German tutor 2x/week for 45 minutes each

- German lesson with dad at least 5x/week 20-30 minutes

- Review workbook daily

- duolingo

 

This summer, I hope to change that up slightly and move to watching some "learn German" tv programs daily, plus reading a book written for German-learners.  It may be that duolingo is cut to make room for these other activities, which I think will be more beneficial now that they have some basics in place.  

 

Duolingo is supposedly as effective as rosetta stone, but free.  But in all honesty, I think unless you are willing to shell out money for an actual language tutor, all "teach yourself" programs are probably similarly effective/ineffective.  There are some hacks language learning- my favorite book on the subject is Fluent Forever, but there are also tons of blogs out there by polyglots who DO manage to mostly teach themselves multiple languages.  It's worth seeing the amount of time and effort those people put into language to learn how to go about self-learning in a way that isn't just a big waste of time.  

 

 

[Jackie]

Please explain to me how you use the app to get the most benefit from it.

What role does Duolingo play in your foreign language studies?

Fast acquisition of conversational language.

 

How much time do you/your kid spend with the app each day? How do you monitor and measure progress in the language?

My kid uses it at will. I've gilded the Spanish tree and moved on to the reverse tree - meaning I've turned the whole Spanish tree gold, then told DuoLingo that I was a native Spanish speaker looking to learn English.

 

If you've tried other language learning website or apps then why did you choose Duolingo over them?

I tried Rosetta Stone and hated it. The pictures were super-vague (lunch? food? meal? eat? meeting with friends? what is this trying to say?) and after quite a bit of use, I still couldn't manage even a basic conversation. Other than that, I took a semester of college Spanish, but the time commitment didn't work for continuing. My daughter used Homeschool Spanish Academy as her primary learning and it worked wonders; DuoLingo is a small piece of her overall learning.

 

Do you feel that having high intensity days mixed with low intensity days is beneficial and if so what is the sweet-spot you have found through trial and error?

I found that I needed to do at least two things per day to keep up at all, three if I wanted to work on maintaining a gold tree. I could binge whenever I wanted on reviewing concepts, but binging on new material bombed for me because I wouldn't remember large volumes of new info well enough to work with it again later.

 

What do you feel is the greatest weakness of the program, and how do you compensate for that weakness​? Which areas of language have you found Duolingo to be most helpful for?

What advice do you have for a person considering​ the program?

I do not consider DuoLingo to be a full-fledged language program. It's great for those looking to get up and running in a language fast. I traveled in Central America after my semester-and-a-half of college Spanish and struggled a lot. After the DuoLingo tree, I was quite comfortable with basic day-to-day conversation on trips to Central America, and primed for much faster learning while there. There is almost no grammar in DuoLingo. With present tense and preterite tense, I found enough practice in DuoLingo to become comfortable. With all other tenses, it throws a small amount at you and then expects you to use it; I only managed those sections by finding verb tables online.

 

I believe DuoLingo works best as a practice component to complement a more standard, structured program. For both my daughter and I, that has meant travel to Central America to attend language immersion schools there. My daughter has also used Homeschool Spanish Academy while at home.

[...................]

Duolingo is amazing for review. I used it to brush up on Spanish and Portuguese before visiting family.

 

I've heard of one lady whose daughter did the entire tree, then did the entire Duolingo tree again and then tested into 3rd semester college lanague. Duolingo makes you review and review and review constantly, so IMO it's much better than Rosetta Stone. (Aside from being free)

 

But we never tried it to learn from scratch, and use as a high school credit