[Review] I finished the Duolingo japanese course

# –>[TLDR at the end 😉]<–

Warning: this review is about the former most recent version of Duolingo, between January 2021 and July 2022 (so the new path version from August is not included). I wanted to post this since august when I finished the course but I had other priorities

**My experience**

After about 1 and ½ year, I finished the entire course of Duolingo and got every single unit to gold. Upon finishing the course, I knew between 2.5 and 3k words, and grammar up to early N3 (I had just finished N4). During that time period, Duolingo has been my main study tool and I estimate I owed about 90% of my Japanese knowledge to it.

**Shortcomings**

So does it work? Short answer, yes. Duolingo does a good job covering all the very basics of Japanese. Would I recommend it? Definitely not. Let me explain. The Japanese course on Duolingo is mainly a word learning course. Each unit will introduce you to a couple new words (between 15 and 30), then it will incorporate some of those words into sentences, and finally those sentences will try to teach a couple grammar points as well. Assuming, you get each unit to max level, most words are gonna stick. But Duolingo has some serious problems:

1- The word review system is ineffective

I had to put the entire course on a separate review app (Anki) to be really able to say that I “know” the vocab. Since Duolingo relies so heavily on sentences and only rarely drill individual words, it seems like they haven’t found a way to make the user review previous words effectively and consistently.

I kinda get it since creating sentences that a) teach words and grammar, and b) review previously learned material while not being overly complex is pretty difficult. Furthermore, for a word study app, it is not very effective. I estimate that I learned about 4-5 words a day and that’s very very slow. In order to have good results in a reasonable amount of time, I feel like one should be aiming for at least 10-15 a day.

2- The grammar teaching side is really bad.

Duolingo barely provides any grammar explanation. They just throw grammar into different sentences and hope you will figure out the grammar point inside them by seeing the same pattern over and over again. The problem is, Japanese is way too different from English for that to be effective.

So in order for me to teach myself grammar, I had to abuse of the “discuss” forum. Under each question, there is a button for discussion. Inside that discussion, 90% of the time, some advanced users usually give a clear explanation about the grammar point used. This is the way I learned grammar for the vast majority of cases. While that worked, it will obviously never fair to explanations given by teachers or professionals. You will get basic explanations for grammar points, but getting in-depth explanations is rare (and there is also the small but notable risk of errors or contradictions from users).

3- It doesn’t teach kanji. At all.

Duolingo pretty much doesn’t explain anything about radicals, kanji meanings or pronunciations. They teach the words and hope you will miraculously learn the kanji inside by sheer repetition. A crazy amount of kanji looked identical to me before I started using a specialized kanji book on the side (“Remembering The Kanji” by James Heisig).

**It’s not effective … but it works**

Still, I want to make it clear: if you don’t have a dollar for language learning and aren’t interested in other methods, you should definitely consider Duolingo because it works and it’s free. Duolingo is fun, pretty and gives motivation to study. It’s also an “all-in-one” way to learn Japanese since it teaches words and grammar, and how to construct sentences from basic to reasonably complex. However, pretty much any other study method will be more efficient than Duolingo. Its biggest strength, vocab learning, is actually very weak and should be supplemented by a review system like Anki.

**TIPS**

If you still want to use Duolingo (that’s okay), I have a couple tips I think could help

*1- Use and re-use the “Discuss” section*

This is probably the most important thing to remember. When using Duolingo, you should basically spam the “Discuss” button under each question. Every time you have a doubt about what a sentence means or some weird grammar you’ve never seen before, see what others said about it on that tab. Without the “discuss” section, Duolingo would be almost unusable

*2- Make your own review system for every word and piece of grammar*

Like I said, Duolingo’s review system is atrocious. I recommend using a separate review app like “Anki” and writing down every information you understood from the app. Let’s see concrete examples for reviewing vocabulary and grammar

a) For vocab, it’s pretty easy. On the question side (the “front”), I put the word in kanji or hiragana. On the back, I put the pronunciation and up to 2 possible meanings of the word. Here is an example for the word 出る

Front:出る

Back: Pronunciation = “deru”, meaning = “to leave, to participate”

b) For grammar, it’s not as simple. On the front, I try to put the grammar pattern using general terms (like “X, Y”). On the back, I put the meaning and, if necessary, a concrete application of that grammar. Here are 2 examples

Example 1

Front: お金のかかるX

Back: meaning = “an expensive X”, application = “お金のかかるご飯-> an expensive meal »

Example 2

Front: Xに水をやる

Back:meaning = “to water up X”, application = “庭に水をやる-> to water up the garden”

I took very simple examples to be clear, but for more complicated grammar pattern, you will have to get creative and find a way to make yourself remember how to use those patterns.

*3- Double-check the meaning of every word on jisho*

I recommend not relying on the built-in dictionary on Duolingo since it contains many errors. Jisho is one of the best free Japanese dictionary.

*4- Don’t be ashamed of copying the answer when needed.*

I did that for 3 reasons:

a) I was certain that my answer was correct. Since Duolingo is based on volunteers adding all the possible answers, it’s very likely they might miss a correct translation.

b) I knew the answer but had no idea what to type in (the required answers can be either unnatural or archaic English).

c)the sentence was too complex and included notions I had never seen before.

Trust me on this: if you are too strict about typing in exactly what they want you to type, you are in for hours of frustrations. It’s okay to “”cheat”” sometimes as long as you made an effort to understand the question.

*5- Keep virtual or paper notes about harder notions*

After reading a big explanation about a complicated grammar point (like the role of the particle はin Japanese for example) on the “discuss” forum, I recommend writing it down in your own words to make sure you understood what you read. That way, you can come back to it if needed. I also liked to break down complicated sentences that I repeatedly failed and put them in my notes. That way, I would be prepared for when they appear again on the next study sessions.

**Resources I recommend over Duolingo**

Duolingo makes me believe that looking for a resource that teaches every aspect of Japanese might not be the best way to deal with a language this complex. Making a resource that is good enough at teaching vocab, grammar and kanji at the same time is extremely hard. So I recommend instead using resources that focus on one aspect of Japanese at a time.

For vocabulary, I recommend getting a large vocab pack with between 6k and 10k words. One of “Anki core 10k, Torii-srs, or Anki core 2k/6k” should do the job. You could also make your own vocab pack but I personally think it’s too time consuming.

For grammar, I recommend using a specialized grammar website like Bunpro. Bunpro (with an r, not “Bunpo”) teaches the important grammar points from N5 to N1 and features a built-in SRS system to review everything learned.

For kanji, I recommend RTK (remembering the kanji 1) or Wanikani. Those resources are going to teach you the shapes of the 2000 most important kanji as well as their basic meaning. Since Wanikani also tries to teach vocab, I would prefer to use RTK and let the vocab part to something like core 10k.

Use one resource per category and that’s it. Using too many resources at the same time is probably less efficient than just using Duolingo and focusing on it.

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**TLDR**: While Duolingo definitely works, it’s one of the worst resources you can use for learning Japanese. However if you have no other options, then there is absolutely no shame in using it! Duolingo will still get the job done: you will learn about 2.5k words and most beginner grammar points (especially if you use my tips). It’s just super slow alongside having a very weak review system.