The value proposition gets even more dicey if the target language is one with a sizable online learning community. Those are churning out more tools and instruc

The value proposition gets even more dicey if the target language is one with a sizable online learning community. Those are churning out more tools and instructional content every day, most of which are made freely available, and this content has the benefit of not only being made by humans but also by people who are passionate about the language who care about the small details. These communities are much quicker to embrace experimental learning methods, too, and so generally the stuff that doesn’t work gets filtered out in short order. And as others in these comments note, if one wants to use an LLM as a language tutor, you can do that for less than what Duolingo is charging while also getting the benefit of being able to tune it to your exact needs instead of being stuck with whatever Duolingo decided is best.