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Duolingo app is pretty bad... it actually crashes. It pauses for prolonged periods after ads, and sometimes never recovers, requiring a shutdown and restart. The quality is embarrasing...
All crashes happen after ads, confirming my bias
Had they offered a free set of lessons and a clean way to purchase the product I would have paid by now. But kind of glad I didn't. For free, willing to tolerate the shitty app, for now.
Aside from crashing, I found problems with with the methodology.
New words are not introduced! You encounter them in questions and have to guess the meaning.
There is a 'new word' icon at the top, but very often it lights up for words that are not new at all.
Pacing is off. I am usually ok with taking it slow, but sometimes it is like watching paint dry, with the same 3 words over and over.
If you are using the free version, ads are completely distracting; you are penalized severely for errors (not a good idea in my experience).
There is a page for lesson notes, but it is completely inadequate. I need to see at least verb conjugations in one place, etc.
I will continue using it for now as I feel I'm still getting some value out of it, but the limitations are quickly mounting.
Feb 19 · 3 months ago
Perhaps this deserves its own thread, but what ways have you guys found work in language acquisition? I’ve tried duo lingo a few years back and found it to be pretty bad.
@CitySlicker: duolingo is a lot better than it was a few years back, but I would not call it great. There are a lot of youtube segments, slow stories and even complete courses for the more popular languages (English, French, Spanish, etc). Some look pretty good...
We don't all have time for it, but taking a real class was what really helped me get somewhere. With Duolingo I made it through like two verb tenses within a year. Taking a class I did the other ten (?) in a few months. It was exhausting but it did really help. And it's nice to have teachers who will actually answer questions and have real conversations with you.
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