What is your record Duolingo streak?
What is your record Duolingo streak?
I know they sometimes get a bad rap (especially recently with the lay offs https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/01/10/duolingo-ai-layoffs/), but it's still a nice app to use to get started with a language
That’s crazy. Can’t imagine to stick to a routine for 5 years consistently.
I couldn’t imagine myself doing it either tbh, but I started learning on Duolingo as a personal challenge: to prove to myself that I can still learn something new every day and allay my irrational fear that I’m getting too old to improve at anything.
And it worked. That fear is gone now, but the streak goes on. Not letting it go cause I’m that stubborn.
Very impressive indeed
Would you say you're fluent in a language as a result of this?
I think so? But it’s not like I spent more than 5 minutes a day practicing in the past 3 years or so. My sessions certainly go down depending on how busy I get.
Also fun fact: I had to practice German during my wedding. Didn’t go well with the wife but now she gets it. Hehe
It's hard to find a big tech company that hasn't been laying off like crazy lately. I just hit 200 days yesterday learning French.
Félicitations !
I know they sometimes get a bad rap
In terms of their language learning, they proudly make the decision that any time they have to choose between making the app fun and making it better at teaching, they choose fun.
Which sounds bad at first, until you realise...people who aren't enjoying what they do are more likely to quit. And people who have quit aren't learning the language at all. Quite a clever bit of thought there, really.
I have been going through Japanese lessons for 258 days (counting today). My goal is at least a full year. Got less than 100 days to go!
I can just about do what I set out to accomplish: Understand anime without subtitles. 😎
0, I quit
Before I killed it, I had 443, and easily could have kept going if I had desired
The layoffs and AI thing are only a partial reason for me leaving The whole volunteer shutdown when that happened, hiding 4 of their courses, and some other minor bad decisions made me stop Not to mention, Duolingo is very slow at times and doesn't teach any grammar unless you happen to be learning one of the 3 top languages
Makes sense. Are you aware of any open source alternative?
Librelingo is the only thing I've seen close to what Duolingo tries to be, but sadly it seems under-developed and doesn't offer anything other than very beginner Spanish so far