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Duolingo is just a language learning simulator, gameified to make people feel like they’re accomplishing something they’re actually not. It’s ultimately a disse
by claudeganon 7y ago
Duolingo is just a language learning simulator, gameified to make people feel like they’re accomplishing something they’re actually not. It’s ultimately a disservice to foreign language learning overall because there are legitimate self-study courses that can teach people to read various languages (speaking requires practice, back-and-forth with someone else, or lots of hours of videos).
- hombre_fatal 7y agoNonsense. One of the most important parts of learning a language is daily exposure to it. Duolingo is a great tool in that toolbox. I learned all sorts of vocab and conjugations from Duolingo at a time in my casual learning where I certainly couldn't be fucked to open a grammar book. That didn't come until years into being able to read books in Spanish. To me, it's like telling people that jumping into a programming project does a disservice to you vs studying programming books and source code. Instead you need to realize that the most important thing is to be doing anything. There is no magic roadmap to learning something. Do whatever you can to practice daily even if it's just in the form of Duolingo exercises. You'll outgrow them eventually, but most people don't even reach that point. Most people dabbling in a language don't even know if it's something they want to do for the 5+ years it takes to really learn it. Duolingo excels here. Giving someone some long term serious roadmap does not. They will probably just lose interest and give up.