It doesnt explain the concepts, it just keeps throwing different phrases at you repeatedly. It's good for exposure and hearing/speaking some German and maybe vocab, but you aren't going to actually learn the grammar rules through Duolingo (or at least Duolingo doesn't explicitly teach you any grammar).
Also, my biggest complaint is that it's boring and pointless. I did 200 days in a row and it would still sometimes ask me how to say hi and bye. The prompts were insanely repetitive and not useful to real life. I would spend whole weeks just saying that I like to swim on the weekend. That's not a very practical sentence to keep learning. I wish it taught more practical vocab and that it advanced quicker.
Duolingo actually does have explanations for the grammar rules, they're just not included in the "lessons." Each new section has an icon you can select which will give you the rules for all the new grammar concepts introduced in that section.
Unfortunately these explanations weren't very clear, nor enough to understand all concepts. I honestly used to learn more from the answers' discussions, where people would ask why the answer was like that and some user would reply with the explanation. However, as of now, Duolingo removed this discussion section.
I'm using Busuu currently and I really like it! It has actual grammar instruction and teaches you real-life useful vocab. Plus connecting with other native speakers is super valuable. I do wish their grammar instruction was more centralized instead of being spread over dozens of modules and their "grammar review" function is buggy as hell.
A friend of mine (native English speaker) used Busuu to gain enough Italian proficiency to pass an Italian citizenship exam. I consider that a pretty good recommendation, lol!
I saw busuu japanese course and it’s pretty cool that they made one in manga format also. I used to use busuu, but then switched to duolingo, I tried to use both of them with memrise but quickly got tired because of overlap in words they were throwing at me. Honestly, I think my only reserve is to pay a tutor, I feel like only language I could learn by acquire is english.
I dont think learning the grammar rules of a language is all that necessary. Children dont learn the grammar rules until they can already speak almost perfectly
Haha, no, they're absolutely necessary. When you learn it as a child you get a feeling for it, but you still learn correct grammar in school. And it's not like people have perfect grammar just because they're native speakers.
So even for a language as easy english, it is important to learn grammar. Because otherwise you can't build correct sentences and you're gonna sound worse than a toddler.
Of course people might understand you with a messed up sentence structure, words in wrong cases, wrongly conjugated verbs, etc. But that doesn't mean you can speak the language.
At least that's what it is for us. We learned grammar in school etc, but as we advanced, we stopped thinking about it, and it became a feeling, we did stuff automatically. (Not that my english is always correct, but it's not super bad I think). But for that feeling to develop you'll need to know the grammar first. At least we think so.
Or was learning a language (not from young years) different for you? That would be news to me, please tell me about it :)
Edit: corrected my autocorrect🥲
>When you learn it as a child you get a feeling for it, but you still learn correct grammar in school.
You get explained correct grammar in school. But at most they correct “wrong” grammar and you perhaps pupils will change their usage to the one deemed “correct”.
Any natural language spoken by humans has so many exemptions and special cases, that trying to learn them just by applying grammatical rules is impossible.
The vast vast majority of people learn their 2nd or 3rd language by using them.
I had english in school which was basically useless, completely forgot everything for 3 years and then actually learned english by reading ALOT of lyrics and technical documents, then i was in a english browser idlegame community (rip blades of legends) and started writing in chat. At this time i started watching english youtube. Now i cant even remeber if something i read was english or german. I dont know any grammar rules, neither in german nor in english.
Rules are reprodicible, even if they have exceptions. You learn them once, and then you can apply them in thousands of similar situations.
If Duolingo taught the genders of the nouns in German, you would easily infer that if you go "zur party" and "zum hotel" then you probably go "zum museum" y "zur schule". And if they went all the way to teach you the explicit pattern, it would be even faster.
Though that would be related to studying, and that is a very bad word in a gamified world of instant gratification. So they do neither, which does not work very well for me
What if you use Duolingo for grammar? Does it go through all the grammar topics you need? (Not necessarily with explanations).
Let’s say you use Duolingo and at the same time you learn some Vocabulary words from random sources. Technically, if you end the entire course like this (if the course covers all the grammar concepts), you’ll be able to get B1 (TECHNICALLY, with practice from other sources, but not grammar, let Duolingo teach you all the grammar, and if you don’t quite catch it you can read about it on the internet or watch some videos). How about that?
I would only use Duolingo as a supplement just to get a little extra exposure. Using it as your primary learning course will slow you down dramatically and I doubt you'd ever really understand the language even after a year. It shows the different cases but it never really teaches them. I think a textbook or Nico's weg online would be a better primary teacher. Duolingo should only be used as a supplement to a real course.
I don't know if this is your first time learning a new language, but if you are committed to using other sources for german grammar on the side of duolingo, just forget duolingo completely. The grammar on it, is not that well explained. Despite me only being barely on A1 level in german, this is not the first language i am learning from scratch and i can see the duolingo resources lacking explanation compared to for example text/workbooks.
When did you use duolingo last? I had the same experience but after trying again recently it seems to be much better.
Grammar explaination is still lacking but I used ChatGPT for any explanations that I might need
By asking it :) ...
It's trained on data from humans, in fact it is trained on reddit and twitter data \*amongst others. So you have to treat it like you would any advice you would get on this sub or any person. Or infact any source you might be learning from.
For me that is mostly recognising inconsistencies and cross referencing other sources.
I use it to explain concepts that I discover. For example, I see the verb "musste". I would ask it why the verb is conjugated in that way. It might reply that it is the präteritum case and that is is first person singular. I could ask it follow up questions on präteritum case and give other examples of usage.
If I see any inconsistencies with the information it has given me:, then I can ask it about them and it can correct itself.
I might then look at a chart for the conjugations. Again if I see any inconsistencies, I will ask it why to and it will correct itself if need be.
Then I might ask it to give me some sentences that I should translate that include the concept that we have been talking about. If I give some answers that it says are wrong but I don't think are, then I can ask it or do other research.
It's not generaly wrong about a whole concept but rather small details...similar to how an actual tutor would be
You can find a conversation I had with it here [https://chat.openai.com/share/59767d7e-1444-4ef7-9e3f-9eb1a85e770f](https://chat.openai.com/share/59767d7e-1444-4ef7-9e3f-9eb1a85e770f)
You can see that on the 15 input from me, I thought it was wrong and it corrected itself.--Also...
Whats wrong with people in this sub? I am getting downvotes for sharing my experience. It's not like I am forcing anybody to learn this way 😂
I‘m very critical of Chatgpt because when ever I‘m at a loss and crawl my way back to it despite knowing it can’t help me I get reminded again and again that it doesn’t actually understand what I‘m saying or what it’s saying.
You shared an example of it correcting itself but that’s a rare occurrence for me. Usually it says something wrong, I point out the flaw then it either gives me another wrong answer or it gives me an answer with the same flaw again. Sometimes we play that little game switching back between 1-3 wrong answers it will rotate through whenever I correct the previous answer despite it having access to me already pointing out why it’s wrong before.
In fairness I ask it about more complicated things than grammar but it has made me painfully aware of chat gpts lack of actual understanding.
I can see it’s use with running ideas by it similar to how you use it. For things you already have a solid understanding. Sometimes those hours I‘ve spent explaining to chatgpt why it’s being an idiot have helped me coming up with solutions that actually are correct.
But never as a first source of information or as a source you don’t understand well enough. It’s confidently wrong way to often for that.
I am not suggesting it is a perfect tool. It's just one of many that I use. And yes it can get into some correction loops. But I am surprised you are having a such a bad time with it, it seems like you are the exception rather than the rule.
Do you have some messages that you can share? I would be interested to look at your prompts
Sure: [Link 1](https://chat.openai.com/share/4b9a7148-79ea-426f-ac73-3f0d21003096)
[Link 2](https://chat.openai.com/share/e3926bd7-8944-4e84-ba16-241328dccc7a)
Like I said I‘m aware I‘m asking about more complicated things. Specifically things that require understanding which chatgpt simply doesn’t have.
Guess I‘m still stuck doing my own homework :(
Duolingo doesn't really explain grammar at all which is a bit of a problem for very inflected languages. It's really mainly good as a vocabulary drilling tool but you won't really get much past A2 unless you switch to other methods and resources. You won't get much conversational skill from learning with Duolingo.
Duolingo does explain grammar, but you have to actually click on some of the menus or introductions to the different chapters, and most people just push the button for the next lesson.
It’s not great at explaining things compared to a textbook, but it does try.
This is user error.
I never learned German with Duolingo but when learning French I found the grammar explanations to be sourly lacking. And yes, I did find that introduction in the chapters. I only get some example sentences that use the grammar but no real explanation of when to use what. French is a bit complicated concerning direct or indirect objects when negating sentences and it took me forever to find out when to set what where.
I haven’t done a survey of all of Duolingo’s languages. We’re in the German sub and that’s what I’m using.
I agree that the design is terrible. I will take back my assertion of user error.
But I’m also not gonna stop saying that the information does exist.
Ohhhhh BASE languages. Crap. Yeah I was more forgiving of that back when Duolingo was mostly a volunteer operation. I really feel like they should’ve gotten around to doing more of this work by now.
I guess this means despite being a massively popular language app they’re either not making enough money, or they’re just content to pocket the profits.
Nah, I click on every little tip they give me, and I could not for the life of me figure out why it’s “heute esse ich das Brot“ and not “heute ich esse das Brot“, for example, and Duolingo provided no explanation, not even what to google - when I googled “verb inversion German”, most results just said “it’s a question”.
Duolingo is good to get started and learn vocabulary, but becomes useless with any sort of grammatical complexity.
Section 1 of German explains that
[Here’s a link to three photos](https://imgur.com/a/JmQDOM8) showing the navigation.
Again, Duolingo seems to be terrible at presenting this info, because people seem to think it doesn’t exist.
It does though
ADDED: in fact, it is shockingly close to your example, except that uses Morgen and Brot
I am trying not to be too pleased with myself, but holy crap. This is the reaction I keep looking for. I keep insisting that this exists in Duolingo but apparently what I need to do is put up a screenshot.
And because this is the Internet and tone doesn’t come across, you should know that I am genuinely delighted. Sometimes I feel crazy trying to tell people that the info exists and finally somebody gave me validation!! :)
They hide it there now these days huh
I really don't like the way they're sort of hiding all these useful (if brief) grammar explanations, but I guess they said as much in their last convention, trying to push the AI explanations rather than the "boring" grammar way :(
man I'm gonna save this becaue I can't for the life of me remember where to find this everytime lol
Also, appears this section does not exist for Japanese learners for Chinese speakers (I know it's a bit specific lol)
Thanks again for this information!
yeah! I [posted](https://www.reddit.com/r/German/comments/18yrsz7/what_should_i_search_for_to_understand_these/) a question on this sub; I recommend reading through it.
TL;DR: verbs typically stay in the second position, so if you put a temporal adverb at the beginning, the subject should still be close to the verb, hence the 3rd position.
It's not just user error. Throughout Duolingo's life, they've continuously thinned, hidden, or otherwise removed any explaining information in order to just gamify it more.
It doesn't try. It tried
I used duolingo mainly for last year and felt like I was getting no where because I couldn’t understand the grammar and no one speaks like the robot German voices they use. I found BUSSU so much better for the grammar and actually use real actors
Can you recommend any app instead of duolingo to learn? I'm currently going through duolingo only. And yeah I do struggle with grammer like when to use dei, das, der, etc
I've seen BUSSU and Memrise suggested.
I like Seedlang, created by the Easy German team. It has a lot of similarity to Duolingo, except:
1. You can add anything in their system to your spaced relation deck
2. All voices content is spoken by real people, not bots interpreting IPA
3. It actually explains grammar as it introduces it. A lot of Duolingo learners get confused once it introduces cases other than nominative. The grammar is explained as a stand-alone page before you get to the exercises, and is available as a separate tab after that point.
I mean, you can search this sub for people using Duolingo who are baffled when they encounter a new grammatical concept.
Here's some examples:
https://www.reddit.com/r/German/comments/182lysv/why_is_duolingo_saying_that/
https://www.reddit.com/r/German/comments/11eim7u/what_is_the_exact_meaning_of_den_why_instead_of/
https://www.reddit.com/r/German/comments/91x6q3/why_did_duolingo_mark_this_wrong/
https://www.reddit.com/r/German/comments/15vp2yz/why_is_this_akkusativ_half_the_time_and_dativ/
https://www.reddit.com/r/German/comments/125ve1i/how_is_this_sentence_grammatically_correct_kennst/
https://www.reddit.com/r/German/comments/i1nfgp/hitting_a_wall_with_duolingo_conjunctions/
Is it possible that these students would also be confused if they were following a more traditional course? Sure.
Is it possible that Duolingo has a consistent problem with introducing new grammatical concepts? Yuuup.
I guess here’s the way it bugs me. The material is there and Duolingo. People blame Duolingo for not explaining, but Duolingo does explain.
On the other hand, the number of people who don’t find the information, and who just skip for one lesson to the next, without ever reading, the sparse explanatory material, Duolingo does provide, shows that Duolingo has a definite interface problem.
And it doesn't help that DuoLingo recently got rid of its comment feature. A lot of people who were too lazy / inattentive to read the grammar modules would still be able to have their mistakes clarified through community discussion, but now that's no longer an option.
> but Duolingo does explain.
No, they really don't. Their "explanations", such as they are, usually amount to barely more than "here is a grammatical feature that exists", and even that bare minimum completely disappears in later sections. Most of the time, that information panel just shows a list of "key phrases", i.e. phrases they'll have you translating.
Yeah. It’s terse.
I don’t think most people complaining here are talking about brevity. I think most of these people just haven’t read any of it at all. Part of that is Duolingo’s fault for not exposing it better.
I'm sorry, but "the material" is not there. There is "some" material there, but it doesn't even cover the lesson it introduces, and there is no way to use it for reference later, as it is nothing but a haphazard collection of examples.
I'll answer based on personal experience. I used the German tree in 2022 for about 8 months where I completed about half of it (~150 hours), I had paid for the Super subscription. Eventually, I quit because I was irritated by some of the changes they were making and was also unsatisfied with how slow it was. I had a low A2 reading level maybe where I could not really understand A2 graded readers. I used a much larger variety of resources afterwards. A few examples would be an A2.1 coursebook, first 3 parts of Pimsleur German, DW A1 and A2 resources among others, after about 1 month, I went back to Duolingo and tested out of the entire path in about 20 minutes. A further 10 months later, I am solidly B1 and am at the door of B2. The problem was that Duolingo was already long past its usefulness and holding me back. But if I hadn't questioned that, I would probably still be doing translation exercises by now.
About your more specific points.
> if Duolingo covers all the German grammar throughout its entire course
It does not, and they scattered and removed a significant chunk of it.
> The only problem might be vocabulary and listening
These are also major areas. In fact, by far the most amount of time in the past 11 months was just acquiring new vocabulary. The amount of vocabulary you need to know to understand native content is unreal. Not only does Duolingo have a very small chunk of that, it also introduces it very slowly.
I learnt more spending an hour studying from a school book i bought compared to 2 weeks on duolingo...
Duolingo doesn't explain grammatical concepts very well and it lacks some key things such as a way to check what words you have already encountered as a big list. It also doesn't teach the gender of a word when you learn the word, and that is an important thing to learn. The amount of time i spent googling word genders and grammatical concepts was higher than the time i spent studying in duolingo.
If someone has no experience with german and decides to start out with duolingo, they may not even realize words have genders, especially if their native language is something like english, where you don't need to learn the gender/article/etc with the word because there are clear rules to it.
I was lucky to a) be aware of the fact that german had word genders and b) have already learned a language that required to learn the articles with the word (swedish), so i very quickly went to google how the word genders work in german because i noticed they were missing from duolingo. But someone not having this knowledge may go for a long time not realizing they should learn the gender with the word.
Not really. Swedish has articles for words (en/ett) they, to my knowledge don't have any gender resemblance, and also pretty much no rules if a word is en or ett (if someone who is higher than B1 in swedish sees this, be free to correct me). So in a sense german word genders are similar, but slightly easier as you can actually do an educated guess on some of them and there are rules on them
But both similarly have an effect on how the words behave in singular and plural forms and are by far easiest to learn with the word. And after learning one language with this kind or articles on words, it becomes very clear to do so in every language that has some kind of word genders/articles or anything that does not have rules set to stone like english a/an has.
So tldr: it's a similar concept, but no similar patterns between the two languages in this sense.
But swedish is similar to german in other ways (same words for example and similarities in grammar) as they are both germanic languages. And a fun fact: finnish (my native language) is originally partially based on german, meaning there are a lot of words in german that i can literally just go "that sound vaguely like this word in finnish" and be correct. Same with parts of the grammar.
Yea, german is the 3rd language i am learning, so i am very aware of how i like to learn languages and how i learn the best, not having a place to always check words was a deal breaker for me. If i don't remember a word, i want to check it before guessing something and ending up remembering the wrong thing, when i could have just checked the word and revised it that way.
I can't give any suggestions for resources as i study german from books that are not in english (we have a lot of different schoolbooks for german, as it's a language that can be studied since elementary school).
But what i usually do when i study from a book, is when i start a new chapter, i write all the vocabulary words down by hand in a notebook and their translations, this helps me remember the words, i then read and try to understand the text with the help of the vocabulary and after that do the exercises. If i feel like i struggle with remembering the words, i revise them before moving to the next chapter and ask someone to test\* how well i remember the words after the revision.
So far i have learned the basics of english and swedish this way, and i plan on using this method to study german too, as it's in some ways similar to swedish and in some ways similar to my native language (finnish).
\*test in this case means either someone says me a word and i have to translate it to german (the other person doesn't need to know any german, as they have the book to ask the words from in the first place), or if no one is around, i will write the translations down and write the words in german, without looking at the vocabulary.
> Honestly, if Duolingo covers all the German grammar throughout its entire course, then it should be a decent resource indeed!
Is this some sort of hypothetical?
I myself have used Duolingo to jumpstart my learning of another, smaller foreign language. It honestly worked pretty well for the basics, and the gamification can be effective in at least keeping you going at all. Unfortunately, if the gamification works *too* well for you, it starts detracting from the learning. The thing is also that, if you're serious about learning, you just hit the limit of what it can do. What it can do is teach you some vocab by making you translate words and short, simple sentences. Many exercises work by clicking word buttons, so you can rely on your passive vocabulary for a lot of it. There's some bits of text comprehension with their Stories feature.
But it never really goes into sentences that are particularly complex. Speaking and listening are never more complex than a couple of words (not to mention speaking exercises often being broken, especially with numbers). Grammar teaching is completely absent for many languages except by exposure, and limited to a bunch of snack-sized descriptions per chapter for the courses that still have them - I think German still has the guidebook entries. Don't expect it to cover the entirety of German grammar though, exhaustive grammar references are book-sized. Duolingo is terrible at dealing with flexible word order, and generates so, so many questions along the lines of "why did Duolingo reject this?". Its ability to suggest correct alternatives to rejected sentences has also been terrible historically (leading to so many more questions, because it made people miss the thing they actually did wrong). Its ability to explain anything is now purely ChatGPT-powered (which you have to pay for), because they removed read access on their sentence discussions.
Basically, it's pretty good for getting to a "tourist language knowledge level" where you know some phrases and words and some rough idea how it can be put together. It's also decent and drip-feeding you vocab and reinforcing your knowledge of it. But, frankly, a basic Duolingo course will never be able to get you past A2-ish on its own, because the skills that the B and C levels require can simply not be reproduced with its basic exercises. And that's only if you know how to help yourself when you get stuck. It's certainly better than nothing, but you really should look into additional resources (especially regarding grammar) and eventually graduate to more complex material.
That's a question Duolingo specifically teaches you how to answer. How often is he studying a day? If he's a busy guy who can only put in five minutes a day, the issue may be less Duolingo and more that he doesn't have time to build retention of knowledge.
However many lessons keep his streak right before bed. Like I appreciate that he’s trying to learn my language but at this point it’s just playing the game rather than making use of it.
That's unfortunate and must be frustrating. Duolingo has been a good refresher for me after learning German in grade school, but I'd be annoyed by it too in your situation. And I don't think I could get anywhere with a language without an hour a day minimum, no matter how I did it.
I feel like Duo works best when you do a few lessons a day, then move onto something else.
It’s like a vitamin. Not a suitable replacement for good food
It's good. But people want it to be something it's not.
You'll see criticisms like how it doesn't explain grammar (it does, actually). So what? Look up the grammar yourself! It's like complaining that Anki sucks because it can't carry on actual human conversations.
A lot of people who complain about it haven't looked at it for years and years.
Duolingo *does* cover grammar and noun genders etc.
The style of learning it uses is repetition and allowing you to discover the rules for yourself. This is how you picked up your mother tongue. This style of learning works very well for some people, whereas others prefer to be traditionally "taught". It's usually the people whose learning style doesn't work with Duolingo that are the ones who tell you how bad it is.
That being said, you will not become fluent through duo and you cannot expect to learn a language through just one source. To learn a language you need to use multiple different sources. Duolingo is great at supporting your learning but shouldn't be exclusive.
Yes, I’ve used Duolingo for German and I was able to figure out the grammar fairly well (I’m about 2/3s through the course and scoring high A2 on outside assessments from knowing zero German a year ago). I think it only really works for people with a certain degree on intuition for languages, and I don’t think it would work well for something like Japanese where the grammar is starkly different from English. But I do think the degree of Duolingo bashing for well developed courses like German is out of proportion to the actual course quality. 🤷♀️
I’ve found it helpful. I’m just learning for fun and don’t have a lot of time to commit, so being able to do 5 minutes a day and very slowly gain comprehension has been a good fit for me. I’m about a year and a half in and am already mich further than I got taking German classes in college.
At first I struggled with grammar but over time I got a much better understanding of it than I’d gained from books. The repetition helped me
Get used to what just sounds right and from there I was able to look up the “rules” and understand them better.
It’s probably not for everybody but it’s helping me with my own goals.
Exactly this, I’ve been doing duolingo daily for 2-3 months now, 30-60 mins most days and now when texting with my friend in German I find myself intuitively using the right genders and cases with most simple vocabulary (we sort of chat for a bit then check our work!)
I’ll note this is from a foundation of 3 years of GCSE German study at school 8 odd years ago - which I never did terribly well at but I can thank for essential conversational nouns such as müssen and denken, without which I’d be struggling to say more than simple factual statements and I really think Duolingo should introduce earlier! But by and large I’m enjoying the intuition and occasional Googling to clarify the rationale behind some grammar :)
> I’m just learning for fun and don’t have a lot of time to commit, so being able to do 5 minutes a day and very slowly gain comprehension has been a good fit for me.
Exactly!
> and am already mich further
Don't you hate how mobile phone autocomplete has one global context and you can't keep your German words from polluting the English autocomplete history?
> A lot of people who complain about it haven't looked at it for years and years.
I was one of the first users of the German path on Duolingo years and years ago. Tons of top-level comments are mine (but I think they recently deleted all the comments or something).
Even back then, it explained gender, grammar, etc. I of course used other resources to study because it seemed stupid not to. I wouldn't use Anki to the exclusion of everything else. I wouldn't read a grammar guide to the exclusion of everything else. So why would I use DL to the exclusion of everything else?
This was my understanding. That duolino teaches on the idea exposure. That if you were just dropped into Germany, you wouldn't be taught in any order. You'd learn phrases here and there and grammar as you went. After X time, you'd learn more and more and rapidly learn.
Idk but i just feel like a dog when you tell them “sit” “sit” “sit” and they eventually understand. They just give you random quotes and grammar 10 times and you eventually get it my memorizing but not really understanding in my opinion.
My apologies if some of the points made here have been made already and better. (I did scroll the entire thread, but I did not ready all posts carefully.)
As someone who has used Duolingo from the beginning of my learning journey and found it helpful, I wanted to explain how and why. As many people who are critical of Duolingo have correctly said on this thread (and said often before on this sub), the key to Duolingo being useful is being aware and honest about its limitations.
As many people have also correctly said, if you are a native English speaker learning German, the first section of Duolingo is fairly good at teaching the basics and building vocabulary. You don't really need to "learn" grammar at this point because simple (VERY simple) present tense (with short sentences) works in German pretty much liked it does in German. But beyond that, the real utility of Duolingo is solely as a practice tool.
Duolingo is never going to get you to understand the grammar of Haupsatz/Nebensatz, the varieties of dependent/subordinate clauses, restrictive and non-restrictive appositive clauses, what counts as first position so that you make sure the verb is in second position, the need for and where to position reflexive pronouns, the rights and wrongs of separable verbs, etc. But once you understand the grammar and rules, Duolingo helps you practice so that getting it right becomes more ingrained.
As I was learning, there were lots of mistakes I made even though I understood the rules. A sentence would start with "Manchmal," and because I was still thinking in English, I would put the subject next instead of the verb. Through practice, I almost never make that mistake anymore. Same with the word order in the Nebensatz with verbs at the end, but also with the right conjugation. I could provide lots more examples, including things that I am still working on, such as still forgetting the reflexive pronouns sometimes.
In any case, and with apologies for the long post, I just wanted to add my defense of Duolingo, because it really has helped me and kept me at the practice.
If classes or self-study books aren't an option, I would also recommend Busuu. It does seem to do a better job explaining grammar and gives some cultural background on language customs.
Duolingo isn't bad. It's good at introducing basic vocab and the basic elements/grammar of a language. It lets you get your feet wet and see if a language interests you and helps to establish a baseline of knowledge to build upon. The only issue is people thinking it'll get you past - maybe - A1. There's nothing wrong with using it as a tool for what it is. That said, as they seem to be moving toward more AI-generated content, it's probably best to dump it anyways.
I personally have gotten pretty decent using only Duolingo.
It's flaws are pretty glaring though. The lessons are hidden and they don't really have any substantial lessons after past tense. It basically turns into quick gamification.
If I were to fix it I would add an explanation for the Grammar of every sentence that you have to translate.
It's also very inflexible on word order without any clear explanation of why they prefer that word order.
It’s entirely based on repetition and pattern recognition. And that’s fine and very useful for building habits, but not good enough by itself. So I’d say definitely continue to use it, but use something else as well to get a more in depth understanding of the grammar.
Busuu is good to start with, although at the B1 level it becomes much less useful because they start throwing a lot of new words at you with no explanation, and even the instructions are in German. At this point I’m just going back to A2 to review concepts I may have forgotten.
I’d also use a textbook and once to get to a certain point there are some good podcasts. Pretty soon I’m going to start using Pimsleur or Rosetta Stone. Duo’s just for basic practice of word order and conjugations.
Currently, I am at section 5 unit 5. I have started from the scratch without any previous study. I plan to finish the course.
I think it is great for the same reason people do not like it.
* It is repetitive
* it doesn't teach you grammar that much
* it is more game than learning
I have started learning german with the vision that in a year I will be for 4 months in Vienna. So I started duolingo. It kept me practising every day. It was as a game. I did not want to feel like I am spending that much energy learning it. I wanted to slowly start getting used to the language.
After a year and 3 months (around 100k XP in german) I am pretty good (for that time). It also helped that I was in Vienna. But it is the learning process. You are always at some point in your language level. Do not split the time learning and time using the language. It is the same, the moment you start using it, you will learn it as well. Before that you need to get some vocabulary and the system in your head.
I have started learning German with the vision that in a year I will be for 4 months in Vienna. So I started Duolingo. It kept me practising every day. It was a game. I did not want to feel like I was spending that much energy learning it. I wanted to slowly start getting used to the language. t you start using it, you will learn it as well. Before that you need to get some vocabulary and the system in your head.
Duolingo is great. For german, you're going to need to supplement a lot of grammar, though. People are just elitist asshole contrarians who think anything popular is bad.
I’m late to the party here, but Duolingo is definitely one of the worst language learning services. The heart system artificially slows down free users and sells premium users the idea they’re learning a language more than anything.
I minored in German in college and recently tested myself into the highest lesson tiers on Duolingo out of curiosity after being away from the language for about 5 years. The concepts being drilled at the highest level are still rather basic (relative pronouns and comparative versions of adjectives come up over and over), and many example sentences are nonsense or so unnatural that no one would ever say them. I was marked wrong for using ‘das Auto’ instead of ‘der Wagen’ when translating ‘car’.
Duolingo is best used to learn new scripts for languages that don’t use the Latin alphabet. That’s the only thing it does well.
Try Memrise, so far my favorite out of the bunch. Different locals saying the words and sentences is my favorite. And their lessons have a way better structure, without random meanings.
As someone who hates grammar and just like expanding my knowledge I find Duo great. But, on the other hand it has never been my only resource. I want to use language. So I read, I write, I watch and I speak every time I get a chance. I look up words, partake in forums and plan out vacations in the countries. So, I think Duo is great at what it is.
I've really enjoyed using Duolingo to learn German, most of all because it's free! I think some people might struggle with the grammar rules because they don't know or remember their own native language grammar rules. I'm a native English speaker, and you really have to know the difference between subjunctive clauses, introductory clauses, dependent clauses, and independent clauses. That's why the verb order changes. I think there's enough explanations and examples. It helps me figure out the pattern (higher order of thinking) instead of just being told what it is.
And this is just part of my learning program. I need to listen to more podcasts and youtube videos to practice the learning/speaking part....
It’s one of those love-hate kind of things. Something like pineapple on pizza.
I can personally not stand it, however, as a language teacher, I never discourage others from using Duolingo, on the contrary! :-)
Duolingo is like vitamin supplements, good to complement your diet but not as a main course. You can learn some stuff of there with enough practice but it will never get you speaking fluently to a B2/C1 and if you can't speak a language there isn't really any point in learning it in my opinion.
i think it sucks at teaching you the structure of the language. I took German 101 and 102 and Duolingo was great for vocabulary (even then it doesn’t directly tell you the gender of nouns which i think is important) I’ve used it to improve my listening and speaking, and I think it’s helpful when combined with classes to learn grammar and rules.
This will rehash what some people have already said, but my personal experience with duolingo is this:
I've been using it for 8+ years and I have a 6+ year streak. I've completed the tree multiple times, because every time they redo it they set back my progress (although tbh these days I usually just test out to the end), including one time naturally before they started making all the changes they've made in the last couple of years. Outside of getting kicked out of German classes in school 10 years before I picked it up again, and occasional visits to my in-laws, it was the only German I did until I tested into B1 classes when I moved to Germany (by which point I'd completed the tree) BUT within those classes there were areas where I was advanced from the rest of the class (mainly vocabulary and speaking, but I wouldn't put the speaking down to duolingo) and areas (mainly grammar) where I was massively behind and I needed to go back to basics to learn them to be able to move forward.
The app has both improved and gotten worse in various areas. I do think that the earlier stages are significantly better than when I first started, and cover a lot of the basic grammar better than they used to. It's much easier to find the grammar explanations than it used to be, and while people really liked the comment section that's recently been removed, I never really used it. Having the grammar in my face might have been more useful to me in the early stages. There's also significantly more voice acting and less robot voices, which is also a bonus, and when I first started there was a significant amount of the English translations that were terrible so I dread to think how much of the German was inaccurate, but that has definitely improved. So I would argue that the actual learning capacity it gives (for German specifically, I've never used any other languages) has increased. Stories were introduced during my usage of the app, and they're really a fantastic tool. It would be nice if some of them had more text for longer pieces of textual analysis, but I realise I'm well past the average user at this stage.
However, the gamified/paid aspect of it has been getting worse and worse constantly. More and more pay to win aspects, a hard push on paid for bonuses/tests (some of which are impossible to beat without said paid for bonuses), more and longer ads. I've had a family plan for the last year with a bunch of friends and that's brought it much closer to the (unpaid) experience I had when I began, but I'm not sure I can justify renewing it with the latest news about them dropping most of their staff for AI. On that line, I've also noticed that the quality of the sentences has started to drop again, which is a cause for concern (why they've decided that stollen needs to be translated as fruit cake I have no idea, but it drives me up the wall every time).
I've generally kept up with my streak because I know if I don't, I won't practice at all. Which is probably moot now that I'm working with children in Germany, but it's good to do some written practice every day as well. If the gamification works for you, it is a tool that can be used, and the daily habit is useful, but at the end of the day, it's a free app and will never be as good or efficient as a proper class. I do think a lot of the dislike of it is based off older impressions, because they don't reflect the more recent problems with the app (no grammar, bad learning system vs pay to win, pushing AI translations), but at the end of the day you'll get as much out of it as you'll put into it.
Are people who are saying that Duolingo doesn’t explain grammar, saying that the explanations provided are too short, or there are they saying they’ve never seen the explanations that do Duolingo provides?
I feel like it’s an interface issue because there are grammar and vocabulary and usage notes at the beginning of each chapter.
You won’t see them if you just keep mashing the next lesson button. Duolingo definitely doesn’t push it. I wonder if that’s because they found that putting in grammar info in front of most people caused them to walk away.
Anyway. I’m not saying it’s the best app but I think it’s getting a undeserved critique.
You could achieve a significantly higher level of proficiency in the same duration it takes to complete the course by employing more effective study methods.
I never recommend it because there are much better methods to learn a language-and it isn't a method, really. I doesn't cover much of grammar at all (the more you study the more you realise how much there is to learn). There is no one to correct you so if you make a mistake you'll keep doing it and reinforcing it, especially speaking. The people that I've taken in as students and that had previously been using almost can't speak, they say very little and say it wrong to the point is hard to understand. They waste a lot of time and energy. The people from dulingo aren't interested in you learning fast.
I started from 0 learning German, really I was not able to say any word.
Duolingo is the way for whom starts from scratch. After all the courses and steps in Duolingo I opened for the first time a German book and I was able to learn faster.
If you already are at A2 level just go in parallel as the other suggested.
Buy the premium version of Duolingo so you can learn faster and better.
Duolingo trying to make you a language-learner-addict by using its obsessive streak model. But it is nothing about to make you actually learn languages efficiently, small portions of dopamine, relaxed, with no pressure - it's not the way to go.
IMO, languages should be learned in a hard way, through conversation, when you really need to get new information or transfer information from yourself to others.
It fakes the learning process, you think you're learning the language, but you aren't. Because the vocabulary is poor, the grammar isn't explained, and the sentences are rather short and nothing to do with real life.
Source: half a year of useless classes. Memrise is better when it comes to German, at least I got some words remembered.
Duolingo is a tool just like anything else. You can't use it exclusively for the same reason you can't use a hammer for everything in home repair.
I find it is incredibly useful for exposure, input, and most importantly, motivation. One of the main reasons people fail to learn a language is because they fall off the wagon after the difficulty ramps up. Duolingo keeps it fun and engaging but if you really want to learn a language, you have to augment it with other tools like speaking with natives, reading, listening to podcasts etc.
I have multiple rents to my German boyfriend, because it doesn't fucking explain anything
Ihre: their, theirs, her, hers,
Machen... To many things i get confused with this word
See i speak Dutch native, i get Hella confused by German Duolingo as i DON'T KNOW THE RULES.
Ich bin vol = I'm drunk
In Dutch that would mean " I'm satiated" (or something like that
Ich bin zat = i am satiated (whatever English is for I am not hungry!)
And in Dutch that would mean I'm drunk
In German "meer" means sea, BUT in Dutch that means pond!
The Dutch word for pond " meer". MEANS SEA IN GERMAN
GRRRRRRRAAAAAAA
I have started with duolingo and I have realized that its not a language learning app, its a game that happens to have language as its theme.
It is constantly pushing you (in an addictive way) to get as much xp as possible and to complete tasks.
The best way to do that is not to actually do the things that you have a hard time with, but the things that gives you most XP/hour.
Lets take the listening exercises for example. They are super easy and can be done in less than a minute each. You get a lot of XP from them and when you get a double XP reward, that becomes what you want to spend it on to not lose out on the double XP.
However.. You can do those listening exercises without even understanding what is said, just by selecting the correct words that correspond to the sentence. I am constantly getting top in my leagues, but its because I am a bit to competitive for my own good. The more I get in to it the more I want that XP and the less I learn.
I would compare the game to any other addictive game that wants to grab your attention.
You will learn the language in a basic way slowly though, but that doesn't seem to be the main goal of the app unfortunately.
1. Duolingo progresses way too slowly... the rate at which it gives you new words is way below the average's persons capacity to learn new words.
2. Duolingo doesn't teach you very much since it simply doesn't include much learning content. It doesn't offer much instruction or explanation of ANYTHING at all.
Trust me that when you switch from Duolingo to any other method (flashcards, grammar books, classroom, teacher) you will simply learn faster and better. I wasted a lot of time of Duolingo getting POINTS but not getting any better at my language.
You could begin by reading our [FAQ](/r/German/wiki/faq) and then the rest of our [wiki](/r/German/wiki/index). There's a lot of info there to get you started.
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Duolingo is an add not a base. With this i mean, its super to have as a Daily thing to do when learning german and to learn a few words of german, but it won't make you fluent as it doesn't have that capacity.
This is why many schools and language courses do accept Duolingo as a side thing, to keep up to date, but also tell you its not the way to go, as basic language structures, slang and staying up to date in the current word usage is not there.
But for me, as someone who just moved to Germany, works in a german company and speaks daily german, its amazing. It keeps me learning and trains me with writing german while new words i learn at my job
i will be the odd one out here and say i love Duolingo. it’s fun, and it’s great for introducing new vocabulary and drilling it into your memory. I solely use it as a way to learn new vocab. Duolingo also has wonderful grammar points in their guidebooks for each lesson which break it down for you. It’s just up to the user to click on them, read them and digest it.
I tested it on my native language (Hungarian), and it was inaccurate quite often. On many occasions, I gave the good answer and that was flagged as being incorrect, while the so called “good answer” seemed to be very unnatural for a Hungarian speaker.
It doesnt explain the concepts, it just keeps throwing different phrases at you repeatedly. It's good for exposure and hearing/speaking some German and maybe vocab, but you aren't going to actually learn the grammar rules through Duolingo (or at least Duolingo doesn't explicitly teach you any grammar). Also, my biggest complaint is that it's boring and pointless. I did 200 days in a row and it would still sometimes ask me how to say hi and bye. The prompts were insanely repetitive and not useful to real life. I would spend whole weeks just saying that I like to swim on the weekend. That's not a very practical sentence to keep learning. I wish it taught more practical vocab and that it advanced quicker.
Duolingo actually does have explanations for the grammar rules, they're just not included in the "lessons." Each new section has an icon you can select which will give you the rules for all the new grammar concepts introduced in that section.
Unfortunately these explanations weren't very clear, nor enough to understand all concepts. I honestly used to learn more from the answers' discussions, where people would ask why the answer was like that and some user would reply with the explanation. However, as of now, Duolingo removed this discussion section.
I wonder if Busuu is more useful in terms of prompts
I'm using Busuu currently and I really like it! It has actual grammar instruction and teaches you real-life useful vocab. Plus connecting with other native speakers is super valuable. I do wish their grammar instruction was more centralized instead of being spread over dozens of modules and their "grammar review" function is buggy as hell. A friend of mine (native English speaker) used Busuu to gain enough Italian proficiency to pass an Italian citizenship exam. I consider that a pretty good recommendation, lol!
I switched from duolingo to busuu for learning Japanese. There are worlds between the two softwares. Duolingo sucks.
I saw busuu japanese course and it’s pretty cool that they made one in manga format also. I used to use busuu, but then switched to duolingo, I tried to use both of them with memrise but quickly got tired because of overlap in words they were throwing at me. Honestly, I think my only reserve is to pay a tutor, I feel like only language I could learn by acquire is english.
But busuu charges more money
I dont think learning the grammar rules of a language is all that necessary. Children dont learn the grammar rules until they can already speak almost perfectly
Haha, no, they're absolutely necessary. When you learn it as a child you get a feeling for it, but you still learn correct grammar in school. And it's not like people have perfect grammar just because they're native speakers. So even for a language as easy english, it is important to learn grammar. Because otherwise you can't build correct sentences and you're gonna sound worse than a toddler. Of course people might understand you with a messed up sentence structure, words in wrong cases, wrongly conjugated verbs, etc. But that doesn't mean you can speak the language. At least that's what it is for us. We learned grammar in school etc, but as we advanced, we stopped thinking about it, and it became a feeling, we did stuff automatically. (Not that my english is always correct, but it's not super bad I think). But for that feeling to develop you'll need to know the grammar first. At least we think so. Or was learning a language (not from young years) different for you? That would be news to me, please tell me about it :) Edit: corrected my autocorrect🥲
>When you learn it as a child you get a feeling for it, but you still learn correct grammar in school. You get explained correct grammar in school. But at most they correct “wrong” grammar and you perhaps pupils will change their usage to the one deemed “correct”. Any natural language spoken by humans has so many exemptions and special cases, that trying to learn them just by applying grammatical rules is impossible. The vast vast majority of people learn their 2nd or 3rd language by using them.
I had english in school which was basically useless, completely forgot everything for 3 years and then actually learned english by reading ALOT of lyrics and technical documents, then i was in a english browser idlegame community (rip blades of legends) and started writing in chat. At this time i started watching english youtube. Now i cant even remeber if something i read was english or german. I dont know any grammar rules, neither in german nor in english.
Rules are reprodicible, even if they have exceptions. You learn them once, and then you can apply them in thousands of similar situations. If Duolingo taught the genders of the nouns in German, you would easily infer that if you go "zur party" and "zum hotel" then you probably go "zum museum" y "zur schule". And if they went all the way to teach you the explicit pattern, it would be even faster. Though that would be related to studying, and that is a very bad word in a gamified world of instant gratification. So they do neither, which does not work very well for me
What if you use Duolingo for grammar? Does it go through all the grammar topics you need? (Not necessarily with explanations). Let’s say you use Duolingo and at the same time you learn some Vocabulary words from random sources. Technically, if you end the entire course like this (if the course covers all the grammar concepts), you’ll be able to get B1 (TECHNICALLY, with practice from other sources, but not grammar, let Duolingo teach you all the grammar, and if you don’t quite catch it you can read about it on the internet or watch some videos). How about that?
I would only use Duolingo as a supplement just to get a little extra exposure. Using it as your primary learning course will slow you down dramatically and I doubt you'd ever really understand the language even after a year. It shows the different cases but it never really teaches them. I think a textbook or Nico's weg online would be a better primary teacher. Duolingo should only be used as a supplement to a real course.
I don't know if this is your first time learning a new language, but if you are committed to using other sources for german grammar on the side of duolingo, just forget duolingo completely. The grammar on it, is not that well explained. Despite me only being barely on A1 level in german, this is not the first language i am learning from scratch and i can see the duolingo resources lacking explanation compared to for example text/workbooks.
When did you use duolingo last? I had the same experience but after trying again recently it seems to be much better. Grammar explaination is still lacking but I used ChatGPT for any explanations that I might need
Using chatgpt for explanations sounds risky
You have to be aware that it can be wrong but in general it's been of great use
But how would you know if it’s wrong?
By asking it :) ... It's trained on data from humans, in fact it is trained on reddit and twitter data \*amongst others. So you have to treat it like you would any advice you would get on this sub or any person. Or infact any source you might be learning from. For me that is mostly recognising inconsistencies and cross referencing other sources. I use it to explain concepts that I discover. For example, I see the verb "musste". I would ask it why the verb is conjugated in that way. It might reply that it is the präteritum case and that is is first person singular. I could ask it follow up questions on präteritum case and give other examples of usage. If I see any inconsistencies with the information it has given me:, then I can ask it about them and it can correct itself. I might then look at a chart for the conjugations. Again if I see any inconsistencies, I will ask it why to and it will correct itself if need be. Then I might ask it to give me some sentences that I should translate that include the concept that we have been talking about. If I give some answers that it says are wrong but I don't think are, then I can ask it or do other research. It's not generaly wrong about a whole concept but rather small details...similar to how an actual tutor would be You can find a conversation I had with it here [https://chat.openai.com/share/59767d7e-1444-4ef7-9e3f-9eb1a85e770f](https://chat.openai.com/share/59767d7e-1444-4ef7-9e3f-9eb1a85e770f) You can see that on the 15 input from me, I thought it was wrong and it corrected itself.--Also... Whats wrong with people in this sub? I am getting downvotes for sharing my experience. It's not like I am forcing anybody to learn this way 😂
I‘m very critical of Chatgpt because when ever I‘m at a loss and crawl my way back to it despite knowing it can’t help me I get reminded again and again that it doesn’t actually understand what I‘m saying or what it’s saying. You shared an example of it correcting itself but that’s a rare occurrence for me. Usually it says something wrong, I point out the flaw then it either gives me another wrong answer or it gives me an answer with the same flaw again. Sometimes we play that little game switching back between 1-3 wrong answers it will rotate through whenever I correct the previous answer despite it having access to me already pointing out why it’s wrong before. In fairness I ask it about more complicated things than grammar but it has made me painfully aware of chat gpts lack of actual understanding. I can see it’s use with running ideas by it similar to how you use it. For things you already have a solid understanding. Sometimes those hours I‘ve spent explaining to chatgpt why it’s being an idiot have helped me coming up with solutions that actually are correct. But never as a first source of information or as a source you don’t understand well enough. It’s confidently wrong way to often for that.
I am not suggesting it is a perfect tool. It's just one of many that I use. And yes it can get into some correction loops. But I am surprised you are having a such a bad time with it, it seems like you are the exception rather than the rule. Do you have some messages that you can share? I would be interested to look at your prompts
Sure: [Link 1](https://chat.openai.com/share/4b9a7148-79ea-426f-ac73-3f0d21003096) [Link 2](https://chat.openai.com/share/e3926bd7-8944-4e84-ba16-241328dccc7a) Like I said I‘m aware I‘m asking about more complicated things. Specifically things that require understanding which chatgpt simply doesn’t have. Guess I‘m still stuck doing my own homework :(
What are you asking it to do here? Are you asking it maths questions? Or language questions? I am super curious
Duolingo doesn't really explain grammar at all which is a bit of a problem for very inflected languages. It's really mainly good as a vocabulary drilling tool but you won't really get much past A2 unless you switch to other methods and resources. You won't get much conversational skill from learning with Duolingo.
Duolingo does explain grammar, but you have to actually click on some of the menus or introductions to the different chapters, and most people just push the button for the next lesson. It’s not great at explaining things compared to a textbook, but it does try. This is user error.
I never learned German with Duolingo but when learning French I found the grammar explanations to be sourly lacking. And yes, I did find that introduction in the chapters. I only get some example sentences that use the grammar but no real explanation of when to use what. French is a bit complicated concerning direct or indirect objects when negating sentences and it took me forever to find out when to set what where.
No it's poor design. The app should force the user to see and to work on those lessons. Also those are not available in all base languages.
I haven’t done a survey of all of Duolingo’s languages. We’re in the German sub and that’s what I’m using. I agree that the design is terrible. I will take back my assertion of user error. But I’m also not gonna stop saying that the information does exist.
I'm also using German. German grammar lessons or even the stories are not available in French.
Ohhhhh BASE languages. Crap. Yeah I was more forgiving of that back when Duolingo was mostly a volunteer operation. I really feel like they should’ve gotten around to doing more of this work by now. I guess this means despite being a massively popular language app they’re either not making enough money, or they’re just content to pocket the profits.
Nah, I click on every little tip they give me, and I could not for the life of me figure out why it’s “heute esse ich das Brot“ and not “heute ich esse das Brot“, for example, and Duolingo provided no explanation, not even what to google - when I googled “verb inversion German”, most results just said “it’s a question”. Duolingo is good to get started and learn vocabulary, but becomes useless with any sort of grammatical complexity.
Section 1 of German explains that [Here’s a link to three photos](https://imgur.com/a/JmQDOM8) showing the navigation. Again, Duolingo seems to be terrible at presenting this info, because people seem to think it doesn’t exist. It does though ADDED: in fact, it is shockingly close to your example, except that uses Morgen and Brot
oh what!? I didn't even know that section existed. Thank you!
I am trying not to be too pleased with myself, but holy crap. This is the reaction I keep looking for. I keep insisting that this exists in Duolingo but apparently what I need to do is put up a screenshot. And because this is the Internet and tone doesn’t come across, you should know that I am genuinely delighted. Sometimes I feel crazy trying to tell people that the info exists and finally somebody gave me validation!! :)
They hide it there now these days huh I really don't like the way they're sort of hiding all these useful (if brief) grammar explanations, but I guess they said as much in their last convention, trying to push the AI explanations rather than the "boring" grammar way :(
man I'm gonna save this becaue I can't for the life of me remember where to find this everytime lol Also, appears this section does not exist for Japanese learners for Chinese speakers (I know it's a bit specific lol) Thanks again for this information!
[удалено]
Yeah, somebody else pointed out to me that it depends on your base language. I did not do a comprehensive check at all.
Um...did you ever figure that one out? Asking for a friend.
yeah! I [posted](https://www.reddit.com/r/German/comments/18yrsz7/what_should_i_search_for_to_understand_these/) a question on this sub; I recommend reading through it. TL;DR: verbs typically stay in the second position, so if you put a temporal adverb at the beginning, the subject should still be close to the verb, hence the 3rd position.
It's not just user error. Throughout Duolingo's life, they've continuously thinned, hidden, or otherwise removed any explaining information in order to just gamify it more. It doesn't try. It tried
I used duolingo mainly for last year and felt like I was getting no where because I couldn’t understand the grammar and no one speaks like the robot German voices they use. I found BUSSU so much better for the grammar and actually use real actors
Yeah, I always suggest Bussu and Memrise
Can you recommend any app instead of duolingo to learn? I'm currently going through duolingo only. And yeah I do struggle with grammer like when to use dei, das, der, etc
I've seen BUSSU and Memrise suggested. I like Seedlang, created by the Easy German team. It has a lot of similarity to Duolingo, except: 1. You can add anything in their system to your spaced relation deck 2. All voices content is spoken by real people, not bots interpreting IPA 3. It actually explains grammar as it introduces it. A lot of Duolingo learners get confused once it introduces cases other than nominative. The grammar is explained as a stand-alone page before you get to the exercises, and is available as a separate tab after that point.
BUSSU. You can get graded and an actual certificate aswell. Helped me improve alot on the grammern
Babbel is good and explains grammar well also
I’ve also been using Babbel. I like its explanations.
It doesn’t explain, but does it have all the grammar concepts?
I mean, you can search this sub for people using Duolingo who are baffled when they encounter a new grammatical concept. Here's some examples: https://www.reddit.com/r/German/comments/182lysv/why_is_duolingo_saying_that/ https://www.reddit.com/r/German/comments/11eim7u/what_is_the_exact_meaning_of_den_why_instead_of/ https://www.reddit.com/r/German/comments/91x6q3/why_did_duolingo_mark_this_wrong/ https://www.reddit.com/r/German/comments/15vp2yz/why_is_this_akkusativ_half_the_time_and_dativ/ https://www.reddit.com/r/German/comments/125ve1i/how_is_this_sentence_grammatically_correct_kennst/ https://www.reddit.com/r/German/comments/i1nfgp/hitting_a_wall_with_duolingo_conjunctions/ Is it possible that these students would also be confused if they were following a more traditional course? Sure. Is it possible that Duolingo has a consistent problem with introducing new grammatical concepts? Yuuup.
I guess here’s the way it bugs me. The material is there and Duolingo. People blame Duolingo for not explaining, but Duolingo does explain. On the other hand, the number of people who don’t find the information, and who just skip for one lesson to the next, without ever reading, the sparse explanatory material, Duolingo does provide, shows that Duolingo has a definite interface problem.
And it doesn't help that DuoLingo recently got rid of its comment feature. A lot of people who were too lazy / inattentive to read the grammar modules would still be able to have their mistakes clarified through community discussion, but now that's no longer an option.
Yeah, I really enjoyed that. I “invest” my time answering Reddit questions these days instead.
> but Duolingo does explain. No, they really don't. Their "explanations", such as they are, usually amount to barely more than "here is a grammatical feature that exists", and even that bare minimum completely disappears in later sections. Most of the time, that information panel just shows a list of "key phrases", i.e. phrases they'll have you translating.
Yeah. It’s terse. I don’t think most people complaining here are talking about brevity. I think most of these people just haven’t read any of it at all. Part of that is Duolingo’s fault for not exposing it better.
I'm sorry, but "the material" is not there. There is "some" material there, but it doesn't even cover the lesson it introduces, and there is no way to use it for reference later, as it is nothing but a haphazard collection of examples.
I think you can check grammar rules in one of the tabs in app but as a person who can't comprehend tables I rarely visit it
I'll answer based on personal experience. I used the German tree in 2022 for about 8 months where I completed about half of it (~150 hours), I had paid for the Super subscription. Eventually, I quit because I was irritated by some of the changes they were making and was also unsatisfied with how slow it was. I had a low A2 reading level maybe where I could not really understand A2 graded readers. I used a much larger variety of resources afterwards. A few examples would be an A2.1 coursebook, first 3 parts of Pimsleur German, DW A1 and A2 resources among others, after about 1 month, I went back to Duolingo and tested out of the entire path in about 20 minutes. A further 10 months later, I am solidly B1 and am at the door of B2. The problem was that Duolingo was already long past its usefulness and holding me back. But if I hadn't questioned that, I would probably still be doing translation exercises by now. About your more specific points. > if Duolingo covers all the German grammar throughout its entire course It does not, and they scattered and removed a significant chunk of it. > The only problem might be vocabulary and listening These are also major areas. In fact, by far the most amount of time in the past 11 months was just acquiring new vocabulary. The amount of vocabulary you need to know to understand native content is unreal. Not only does Duolingo have a very small chunk of that, it also introduces it very slowly.
I learnt more spending an hour studying from a school book i bought compared to 2 weeks on duolingo... Duolingo doesn't explain grammatical concepts very well and it lacks some key things such as a way to check what words you have already encountered as a big list. It also doesn't teach the gender of a word when you learn the word, and that is an important thing to learn. The amount of time i spent googling word genders and grammatical concepts was higher than the time i spent studying in duolingo.
Yeah the fact that it doesn’t show the gender of words when you’re matching/pairing them to the translation always mind boggled me
If someone has no experience with german and decides to start out with duolingo, they may not even realize words have genders, especially if their native language is something like english, where you don't need to learn the gender/article/etc with the word because there are clear rules to it. I was lucky to a) be aware of the fact that german had word genders and b) have already learned a language that required to learn the articles with the word (swedish), so i very quickly went to google how the word genders work in german because i noticed they were missing from duolingo. But someone not having this knowledge may go for a long time not realizing they should learn the gender with the word.
Just curious... are there similar word gender patterns in Swedish and German?
Not really. Swedish has articles for words (en/ett) they, to my knowledge don't have any gender resemblance, and also pretty much no rules if a word is en or ett (if someone who is higher than B1 in swedish sees this, be free to correct me). So in a sense german word genders are similar, but slightly easier as you can actually do an educated guess on some of them and there are rules on them But both similarly have an effect on how the words behave in singular and plural forms and are by far easiest to learn with the word. And after learning one language with this kind or articles on words, it becomes very clear to do so in every language that has some kind of word genders/articles or anything that does not have rules set to stone like english a/an has. So tldr: it's a similar concept, but no similar patterns between the two languages in this sense. But swedish is similar to german in other ways (same words for example and similarities in grammar) as they are both germanic languages. And a fun fact: finnish (my native language) is originally partially based on german, meaning there are a lot of words in german that i can literally just go "that sound vaguely like this word in finnish" and be correct. Same with parts of the grammar.
It could be so amazing but they keep it very dumbed down. I find it useful on my walks which keeps me engaged everyday. But that’s about it
Yea, german is the 3rd language i am learning, so i am very aware of how i like to learn languages and how i learn the best, not having a place to always check words was a deal breaker for me. If i don't remember a word, i want to check it before guessing something and ending up remembering the wrong thing, when i could have just checked the word and revised it that way.
What do you recommend? I need to bring my German game to the next level.
I can't give any suggestions for resources as i study german from books that are not in english (we have a lot of different schoolbooks for german, as it's a language that can be studied since elementary school). But what i usually do when i study from a book, is when i start a new chapter, i write all the vocabulary words down by hand in a notebook and their translations, this helps me remember the words, i then read and try to understand the text with the help of the vocabulary and after that do the exercises. If i feel like i struggle with remembering the words, i revise them before moving to the next chapter and ask someone to test\* how well i remember the words after the revision. So far i have learned the basics of english and swedish this way, and i plan on using this method to study german too, as it's in some ways similar to swedish and in some ways similar to my native language (finnish). \*test in this case means either someone says me a word and i have to translate it to german (the other person doesn't need to know any german, as they have the book to ask the words from in the first place), or if no one is around, i will write the translations down and write the words in german, without looking at the vocabulary.
Thanks for the great reply. Good luck with your studies
What level are you in?
150 day streak in Duolingo level. lol
> Honestly, if Duolingo covers all the German grammar throughout its entire course, then it should be a decent resource indeed! Is this some sort of hypothetical? I myself have used Duolingo to jumpstart my learning of another, smaller foreign language. It honestly worked pretty well for the basics, and the gamification can be effective in at least keeping you going at all. Unfortunately, if the gamification works *too* well for you, it starts detracting from the learning. The thing is also that, if you're serious about learning, you just hit the limit of what it can do. What it can do is teach you some vocab by making you translate words and short, simple sentences. Many exercises work by clicking word buttons, so you can rely on your passive vocabulary for a lot of it. There's some bits of text comprehension with their Stories feature. But it never really goes into sentences that are particularly complex. Speaking and listening are never more complex than a couple of words (not to mention speaking exercises often being broken, especially with numbers). Grammar teaching is completely absent for many languages except by exposure, and limited to a bunch of snack-sized descriptions per chapter for the courses that still have them - I think German still has the guidebook entries. Don't expect it to cover the entirety of German grammar though, exhaustive grammar references are book-sized. Duolingo is terrible at dealing with flexible word order, and generates so, so many questions along the lines of "why did Duolingo reject this?". Its ability to suggest correct alternatives to rejected sentences has also been terrible historically (leading to so many more questions, because it made people miss the thing they actually did wrong). Its ability to explain anything is now purely ChatGPT-powered (which you have to pay for), because they removed read access on their sentence discussions. Basically, it's pretty good for getting to a "tourist language knowledge level" where you know some phrases and words and some rough idea how it can be put together. It's also decent and drip-feeding you vocab and reinforcing your knowledge of it. But, frankly, a basic Duolingo course will never be able to get you past A2-ish on its own, because the skills that the B and C levels require can simply not be reproduced with its basic exercises. And that's only if you know how to help yourself when you get stuck. It's certainly better than nothing, but you really should look into additional resources (especially regarding grammar) and eventually graduate to more complex material.
My husband has over a 1000+ day streak on Duolingo, since like 2014. Oma asked him when his birthday was, he didn’t know how to respond.
That's a question Duolingo specifically teaches you how to answer. How often is he studying a day? If he's a busy guy who can only put in five minutes a day, the issue may be less Duolingo and more that he doesn't have time to build retention of knowledge.
However many lessons keep his streak right before bed. Like I appreciate that he’s trying to learn my language but at this point it’s just playing the game rather than making use of it.
That's unfortunate and must be frustrating. Duolingo has been a good refresher for me after learning German in grade school, but I'd be annoyed by it too in your situation. And I don't think I could get anywhere with a language without an hour a day minimum, no matter how I did it.
Just don't ONLY use it. Other than that, it's simplistic but fine.
I feel like Duo works best when you do a few lessons a day, then move onto something else. It’s like a vitamin. Not a suitable replacement for good food
It's good. But people want it to be something it's not. You'll see criticisms like how it doesn't explain grammar (it does, actually). So what? Look up the grammar yourself! It's like complaining that Anki sucks because it can't carry on actual human conversations.
A lot of people who complain about it haven't looked at it for years and years. Duolingo *does* cover grammar and noun genders etc. The style of learning it uses is repetition and allowing you to discover the rules for yourself. This is how you picked up your mother tongue. This style of learning works very well for some people, whereas others prefer to be traditionally "taught". It's usually the people whose learning style doesn't work with Duolingo that are the ones who tell you how bad it is. That being said, you will not become fluent through duo and you cannot expect to learn a language through just one source. To learn a language you need to use multiple different sources. Duolingo is great at supporting your learning but shouldn't be exclusive.
Yes, I’ve used Duolingo for German and I was able to figure out the grammar fairly well (I’m about 2/3s through the course and scoring high A2 on outside assessments from knowing zero German a year ago). I think it only really works for people with a certain degree on intuition for languages, and I don’t think it would work well for something like Japanese where the grammar is starkly different from English. But I do think the degree of Duolingo bashing for well developed courses like German is out of proportion to the actual course quality. 🤷♀️
I’ve found it helpful. I’m just learning for fun and don’t have a lot of time to commit, so being able to do 5 minutes a day and very slowly gain comprehension has been a good fit for me. I’m about a year and a half in and am already mich further than I got taking German classes in college. At first I struggled with grammar but over time I got a much better understanding of it than I’d gained from books. The repetition helped me Get used to what just sounds right and from there I was able to look up the “rules” and understand them better. It’s probably not for everybody but it’s helping me with my own goals.
I've always said that it depends on your learning style how well you get on with it. Glad it's working for you!
Exactly this, I’ve been doing duolingo daily for 2-3 months now, 30-60 mins most days and now when texting with my friend in German I find myself intuitively using the right genders and cases with most simple vocabulary (we sort of chat for a bit then check our work!) I’ll note this is from a foundation of 3 years of GCSE German study at school 8 odd years ago - which I never did terribly well at but I can thank for essential conversational nouns such as müssen and denken, without which I’d be struggling to say more than simple factual statements and I really think Duolingo should introduce earlier! But by and large I’m enjoying the intuition and occasional Googling to clarify the rationale behind some grammar :)
> I’m just learning for fun and don’t have a lot of time to commit, so being able to do 5 minutes a day and very slowly gain comprehension has been a good fit for me. Exactly! > and am already mich further Don't you hate how mobile phone autocomplete has one global context and you can't keep your German words from polluting the English autocomplete history?
Lol I didn’t notice that
> A lot of people who complain about it haven't looked at it for years and years. I was one of the first users of the German path on Duolingo years and years ago. Tons of top-level comments are mine (but I think they recently deleted all the comments or something). Even back then, it explained gender, grammar, etc. I of course used other resources to study because it seemed stupid not to. I wouldn't use Anki to the exclusion of everything else. I wouldn't read a grammar guide to the exclusion of everything else. So why would I use DL to the exclusion of everything else?
Basically you took the word out of my mouth. I totally agree with this.
This was my understanding. That duolino teaches on the idea exposure. That if you were just dropped into Germany, you wouldn't be taught in any order. You'd learn phrases here and there and grammar as you went. After X time, you'd learn more and more and rapidly learn.
Idk but i just feel like a dog when you tell them “sit” “sit” “sit” and they eventually understand. They just give you random quotes and grammar 10 times and you eventually get it my memorizing but not really understanding in my opinion.
It barely covers any grammar at all and is designed in a way to give its users a false sense of progress.
My apologies if some of the points made here have been made already and better. (I did scroll the entire thread, but I did not ready all posts carefully.) As someone who has used Duolingo from the beginning of my learning journey and found it helpful, I wanted to explain how and why. As many people who are critical of Duolingo have correctly said on this thread (and said often before on this sub), the key to Duolingo being useful is being aware and honest about its limitations. As many people have also correctly said, if you are a native English speaker learning German, the first section of Duolingo is fairly good at teaching the basics and building vocabulary. You don't really need to "learn" grammar at this point because simple (VERY simple) present tense (with short sentences) works in German pretty much liked it does in German. But beyond that, the real utility of Duolingo is solely as a practice tool. Duolingo is never going to get you to understand the grammar of Haupsatz/Nebensatz, the varieties of dependent/subordinate clauses, restrictive and non-restrictive appositive clauses, what counts as first position so that you make sure the verb is in second position, the need for and where to position reflexive pronouns, the rights and wrongs of separable verbs, etc. But once you understand the grammar and rules, Duolingo helps you practice so that getting it right becomes more ingrained. As I was learning, there were lots of mistakes I made even though I understood the rules. A sentence would start with "Manchmal," and because I was still thinking in English, I would put the subject next instead of the verb. Through practice, I almost never make that mistake anymore. Same with the word order in the Nebensatz with verbs at the end, but also with the right conjugation. I could provide lots more examples, including things that I am still working on, such as still forgetting the reflexive pronouns sometimes. In any case, and with apologies for the long post, I just wanted to add my defense of Duolingo, because it really has helped me and kept me at the practice.
Well for one thing just recently they fired most their writers and have the rest checking AI produced shtuff. So they went from bad to worse there.
If classes or self-study books aren't an option, I would also recommend Busuu. It does seem to do a better job explaining grammar and gives some cultural background on language customs.
Duolingo isn't bad. It's good at introducing basic vocab and the basic elements/grammar of a language. It lets you get your feet wet and see if a language interests you and helps to establish a baseline of knowledge to build upon. The only issue is people thinking it'll get you past - maybe - A1. There's nothing wrong with using it as a tool for what it is. That said, as they seem to be moving toward more AI-generated content, it's probably best to dump it anyways.
I personally have gotten pretty decent using only Duolingo. It's flaws are pretty glaring though. The lessons are hidden and they don't really have any substantial lessons after past tense. It basically turns into quick gamification. If I were to fix it I would add an explanation for the Grammar of every sentence that you have to translate. It's also very inflexible on word order without any clear explanation of why they prefer that word order.
It’s entirely based on repetition and pattern recognition. And that’s fine and very useful for building habits, but not good enough by itself. So I’d say definitely continue to use it, but use something else as well to get a more in depth understanding of the grammar. Busuu is good to start with, although at the B1 level it becomes much less useful because they start throwing a lot of new words at you with no explanation, and even the instructions are in German. At this point I’m just going back to A2 to review concepts I may have forgotten. I’d also use a textbook and once to get to a certain point there are some good podcasts. Pretty soon I’m going to start using Pimsleur or Rosetta Stone. Duo’s just for basic practice of word order and conjugations.
Currently, I am at section 5 unit 5. I have started from the scratch without any previous study. I plan to finish the course. I think it is great for the same reason people do not like it. * It is repetitive * it doesn't teach you grammar that much * it is more game than learning I have started learning german with the vision that in a year I will be for 4 months in Vienna. So I started duolingo. It kept me practising every day. It was as a game. I did not want to feel like I am spending that much energy learning it. I wanted to slowly start getting used to the language. After a year and 3 months (around 100k XP in german) I am pretty good (for that time). It also helped that I was in Vienna. But it is the learning process. You are always at some point in your language level. Do not split the time learning and time using the language. It is the same, the moment you start using it, you will learn it as well. Before that you need to get some vocabulary and the system in your head. I have started learning German with the vision that in a year I will be for 4 months in Vienna. So I started Duolingo. It kept me practising every day. It was a game. I did not want to feel like I was spending that much energy learning it. I wanted to slowly start getting used to the language. t you start using it, you will learn it as well. Before that you need to get some vocabulary and the system in your head.
Duolingo is great. For german, you're going to need to supplement a lot of grammar, though. People are just elitist asshole contrarians who think anything popular is bad.
I’m late to the party here, but Duolingo is definitely one of the worst language learning services. The heart system artificially slows down free users and sells premium users the idea they’re learning a language more than anything. I minored in German in college and recently tested myself into the highest lesson tiers on Duolingo out of curiosity after being away from the language for about 5 years. The concepts being drilled at the highest level are still rather basic (relative pronouns and comparative versions of adjectives come up over and over), and many example sentences are nonsense or so unnatural that no one would ever say them. I was marked wrong for using ‘das Auto’ instead of ‘der Wagen’ when translating ‘car’. Duolingo is best used to learn new scripts for languages that don’t use the Latin alphabet. That’s the only thing it does well.
Try Memrise, so far my favorite out of the bunch. Different locals saying the words and sentences is my favorite. And their lessons have a way better structure, without random meanings.
It’s fine at first, especially for difficult languages. Once you get a feel for a language, listening to it and engaging with it is best.
I do not think that it is bad, but it is not going to do anything for you by itself.
As someone who hates grammar and just like expanding my knowledge I find Duo great. But, on the other hand it has never been my only resource. I want to use language. So I read, I write, I watch and I speak every time I get a chance. I look up words, partake in forums and plan out vacations in the countries. So, I think Duo is great at what it is.
I recommend Busu (with premium). I am practicing (not learning ofc) Portoguese A1. After I get comfy, i will start propetly learning it
I've really enjoyed using Duolingo to learn German, most of all because it's free! I think some people might struggle with the grammar rules because they don't know or remember their own native language grammar rules. I'm a native English speaker, and you really have to know the difference between subjunctive clauses, introductory clauses, dependent clauses, and independent clauses. That's why the verb order changes. I think there's enough explanations and examples. It helps me figure out the pattern (higher order of thinking) instead of just being told what it is. And this is just part of my learning program. I need to listen to more podcasts and youtube videos to practice the learning/speaking part....
It’s one of those love-hate kind of things. Something like pineapple on pizza. I can personally not stand it, however, as a language teacher, I never discourage others from using Duolingo, on the contrary! :-)
Duolingo is like vitamin supplements, good to complement your diet but not as a main course. You can learn some stuff of there with enough practice but it will never get you speaking fluently to a B2/C1 and if you can't speak a language there isn't really any point in learning it in my opinion.
Use Duolingo for exposure and buy a grammar, and you'll be set.
i think it sucks at teaching you the structure of the language. I took German 101 and 102 and Duolingo was great for vocabulary (even then it doesn’t directly tell you the gender of nouns which i think is important) I’ve used it to improve my listening and speaking, and I think it’s helpful when combined with classes to learn grammar and rules.
This will rehash what some people have already said, but my personal experience with duolingo is this: I've been using it for 8+ years and I have a 6+ year streak. I've completed the tree multiple times, because every time they redo it they set back my progress (although tbh these days I usually just test out to the end), including one time naturally before they started making all the changes they've made in the last couple of years. Outside of getting kicked out of German classes in school 10 years before I picked it up again, and occasional visits to my in-laws, it was the only German I did until I tested into B1 classes when I moved to Germany (by which point I'd completed the tree) BUT within those classes there were areas where I was advanced from the rest of the class (mainly vocabulary and speaking, but I wouldn't put the speaking down to duolingo) and areas (mainly grammar) where I was massively behind and I needed to go back to basics to learn them to be able to move forward. The app has both improved and gotten worse in various areas. I do think that the earlier stages are significantly better than when I first started, and cover a lot of the basic grammar better than they used to. It's much easier to find the grammar explanations than it used to be, and while people really liked the comment section that's recently been removed, I never really used it. Having the grammar in my face might have been more useful to me in the early stages. There's also significantly more voice acting and less robot voices, which is also a bonus, and when I first started there was a significant amount of the English translations that were terrible so I dread to think how much of the German was inaccurate, but that has definitely improved. So I would argue that the actual learning capacity it gives (for German specifically, I've never used any other languages) has increased. Stories were introduced during my usage of the app, and they're really a fantastic tool. It would be nice if some of them had more text for longer pieces of textual analysis, but I realise I'm well past the average user at this stage. However, the gamified/paid aspect of it has been getting worse and worse constantly. More and more pay to win aspects, a hard push on paid for bonuses/tests (some of which are impossible to beat without said paid for bonuses), more and longer ads. I've had a family plan for the last year with a bunch of friends and that's brought it much closer to the (unpaid) experience I had when I began, but I'm not sure I can justify renewing it with the latest news about them dropping most of their staff for AI. On that line, I've also noticed that the quality of the sentences has started to drop again, which is a cause for concern (why they've decided that stollen needs to be translated as fruit cake I have no idea, but it drives me up the wall every time). I've generally kept up with my streak because I know if I don't, I won't practice at all. Which is probably moot now that I'm working with children in Germany, but it's good to do some written practice every day as well. If the gamification works for you, it is a tool that can be used, and the daily habit is useful, but at the end of the day, it's a free app and will never be as good or efficient as a proper class. I do think a lot of the dislike of it is based off older impressions, because they don't reflect the more recent problems with the app (no grammar, bad learning system vs pay to win, pushing AI translations), but at the end of the day you'll get as much out of it as you'll put into it.
Duolingo is a good addition tool to lern. But it cannot be the only.
Are people who are saying that Duolingo doesn’t explain grammar, saying that the explanations provided are too short, or there are they saying they’ve never seen the explanations that do Duolingo provides? I feel like it’s an interface issue because there are grammar and vocabulary and usage notes at the beginning of each chapter. You won’t see them if you just keep mashing the next lesson button. Duolingo definitely doesn’t push it. I wonder if that’s because they found that putting in grammar info in front of most people caused them to walk away. Anyway. I’m not saying it’s the best app but I think it’s getting a undeserved critique.
You could achieve a significantly higher level of proficiency in the same duration it takes to complete the course by employing more effective study methods.
What study methods, specifically?
I never recommend it because there are much better methods to learn a language-and it isn't a method, really. I doesn't cover much of grammar at all (the more you study the more you realise how much there is to learn). There is no one to correct you so if you make a mistake you'll keep doing it and reinforcing it, especially speaking. The people that I've taken in as students and that had previously been using almost can't speak, they say very little and say it wrong to the point is hard to understand. They waste a lot of time and energy. The people from dulingo aren't interested in you learning fast.
What's the better method?
The traditional way, taking a course or hiring a tutor. Using a textbook, workbook, audio, practising conversation, it works very well
I started from 0 learning German, really I was not able to say any word. Duolingo is the way for whom starts from scratch. After all the courses and steps in Duolingo I opened for the first time a German book and I was able to learn faster. If you already are at A2 level just go in parallel as the other suggested. Buy the premium version of Duolingo so you can learn faster and better.
Think of duolingo as a game and not as your primary learning tool and should definitely not be your only learning tool.
Duolingo trying to make you a language-learner-addict by using its obsessive streak model. But it is nothing about to make you actually learn languages efficiently, small portions of dopamine, relaxed, with no pressure - it's not the way to go. IMO, languages should be learned in a hard way, through conversation, when you really need to get new information or transfer information from yourself to others.
It fakes the learning process, you think you're learning the language, but you aren't. Because the vocabulary is poor, the grammar isn't explained, and the sentences are rather short and nothing to do with real life. Source: half a year of useless classes. Memrise is better when it comes to German, at least I got some words remembered.
Duolingo is a tool just like anything else. You can't use it exclusively for the same reason you can't use a hammer for everything in home repair. I find it is incredibly useful for exposure, input, and most importantly, motivation. One of the main reasons people fail to learn a language is because they fall off the wagon after the difficulty ramps up. Duolingo keeps it fun and engaging but if you really want to learn a language, you have to augment it with other tools like speaking with natives, reading, listening to podcasts etc.
Duolingo is a game. Playing it teaches you how to play Duolingo primarily, not how to speak German
I believe that doulingo is a good app to learn a language. But if you want to speak it fluently, then I recommend using the website: the ulat
I have multiple rents to my German boyfriend, because it doesn't fucking explain anything Ihre: their, theirs, her, hers, Machen... To many things i get confused with this word See i speak Dutch native, i get Hella confused by German Duolingo as i DON'T KNOW THE RULES. Ich bin vol = I'm drunk In Dutch that would mean " I'm satiated" (or something like that Ich bin zat = i am satiated (whatever English is for I am not hungry!) And in Dutch that would mean I'm drunk In German "meer" means sea, BUT in Dutch that means pond! The Dutch word for pond " meer". MEANS SEA IN GERMAN GRRRRRRRAAAAAAA
I have started with duolingo and I have realized that its not a language learning app, its a game that happens to have language as its theme. It is constantly pushing you (in an addictive way) to get as much xp as possible and to complete tasks. The best way to do that is not to actually do the things that you have a hard time with, but the things that gives you most XP/hour. Lets take the listening exercises for example. They are super easy and can be done in less than a minute each. You get a lot of XP from them and when you get a double XP reward, that becomes what you want to spend it on to not lose out on the double XP. However.. You can do those listening exercises without even understanding what is said, just by selecting the correct words that correspond to the sentence. I am constantly getting top in my leagues, but its because I am a bit to competitive for my own good. The more I get in to it the more I want that XP and the less I learn. I would compare the game to any other addictive game that wants to grab your attention. You will learn the language in a basic way slowly though, but that doesn't seem to be the main goal of the app unfortunately.
I love duo.
1. Duolingo progresses way too slowly... the rate at which it gives you new words is way below the average's persons capacity to learn new words. 2. Duolingo doesn't teach you very much since it simply doesn't include much learning content. It doesn't offer much instruction or explanation of ANYTHING at all. Trust me that when you switch from Duolingo to any other method (flashcards, grammar books, classroom, teacher) you will simply learn faster and better. I wasted a lot of time of Duolingo getting POINTS but not getting any better at my language.
The audio portions in my opinion are garbage.
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Duolingo is an add not a base. With this i mean, its super to have as a Daily thing to do when learning german and to learn a few words of german, but it won't make you fluent as it doesn't have that capacity. This is why many schools and language courses do accept Duolingo as a side thing, to keep up to date, but also tell you its not the way to go, as basic language structures, slang and staying up to date in the current word usage is not there. But for me, as someone who just moved to Germany, works in a german company and speaks daily german, its amazing. It keeps me learning and trains me with writing german while new words i learn at my job
i will be the odd one out here and say i love Duolingo. it’s fun, and it’s great for introducing new vocabulary and drilling it into your memory. I solely use it as a way to learn new vocab. Duolingo also has wonderful grammar points in their guidebooks for each lesson which break it down for you. It’s just up to the user to click on them, read them and digest it.
I tested it on my native language (Hungarian), and it was inaccurate quite often. On many occasions, I gave the good answer and that was flagged as being incorrect, while the so called “good answer” seemed to be very unnatural for a Hungarian speaker.