I would say that Duolingo does the distinctly American thing of optimizing for making you “feel good” about your progress, even if that progress has no correlat

I would say that Duolingo does the distinctly American thing of optimizing for making you “feel good” about your progress, even if that progress has no correlation with actual language ability. It’s more of a self-esteem simulator by way of language-learning than it is a useful tool for foreign language instruction.