It works surprisingly well for me. My wife is Spanish and i have been duolingoing for 4 years now and every year we go to Spain i do understand and speak more

It works surprisingly well for me. My wife is Spanish and i have been duolingoing for 4 years now and every year we go to Spain i do understand and speak more than i would normally. I tried other apps like Busu but really they dont fit into my day to day as much and i would skip days much more often. I can understand that it is not very useful for people who don't have a broad understanding of languages, but everyone who already speaks more than one language will have success with it. The problem is that people give up way to early. Yes its designed to be easy in the beginning because its supposed to form a habit with you. Every night, before i go to bed i will do at least one exercise to keep my streak up. Obviously its artificial, but do you guys remember how learning a second and third language in school is? Just like this. The best way to learn a language is of course immersion into the country and not an app. My Mum and my Mother in law are both respectively learning the other language the same way and the progress they make by investing 5 minutes each day is still astonishing. Furthermore having all of us in that app means we regularly challenge each other, which leads to each of us making hundreds of points that week and progressing much quicker than you would alone.