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I worked as a language teacher for a while. You see products like Duolingo come along all the time. They're always accompanied by hype in how they will help you

I worked as a language teacher for a while. You see products like Duolingo come along all the time. They're always accompanied by hype in how they will help you become fluent. It's simply not the case. The products are not necessarily useless, but they only help some people make some progress some of the time. They never live up to the hype around them. Language acquisition is a multifaceted endeavor which takes time and effort. Anyone who tells you otherwise is either misinformed or lying. (There are some outliers who can learn/acquire languages with great speed, but they're very rare.)

charlesism 7y ago
> Anyone who tells you otherwise is either misinformed or lying. Duolingo's "Goal" settings: > Basic 1XP | Casual 10XP | Regular 20XP | Serious 30XP | Insane 50XP per day 50XP requires no more than 25 minutes of work. So, according to Duolingo, it is "Insane" to devote 25 minutes per day on learning a language. To learn a language typically requires 50,000 minutes. And that's just to reach a basic level. I wonder if Duolingo's "Casual" learners realize that that setting implies a 30 year commitment.