My cousin has been using Duolingo for about 5 years and she learns French and Japanese on it. I’m not an expert on both language so I can’t say if what she’s saying is correct or not but she seems to be able to hold conversation in both language pretty well, also she can translate things pretty well as well. I asked her if she only used Duolingo as her resource and she said yes most of the things she learnt is from Duolingo but nowadays she uses some other resources too when she gets bored. This prompted to ask here if using Duolingo is really that bad ?
17 comments
I think Duolingo is pretty good to start, but there is only so much you can learn
Duolingo for Japanese is okay if you want to speak a few phrases, ask basic questions, or impress a few people. You might learn a few things. But if you want to seriously study the language, then it’s just plain bad. It’s like asking if you can learn Spanish by watching Dora the Explorer.
>I’m not an expert on both languages
>she *seems*
Just let her take a mock exam of JLPT or something instead of unreliable subjective assessment, compare how well she does on them to amount of time and effort spent. If she’s still happy, then I mean, sure, that’s her choice.
It’s okay as additional practice, but doesn’t work at all being a main source for studying
I started with duolingo and did it for 6 months or so, before i rly started to deep dive into learning japanese.
It gives some good basic vocabs and Phrases if you want to have vacation in Japan, but if you rly want to speak and read then its Not so great
I liked it for learning hiragana and katakana, and for repetition, but that’s about it.
There is no way you’d do 1500 days of Duolingo, drop into a conversation and have a good time of it. At the very least, conversation practice is important.
I’m currently experimenting with Duolingo – I skipped over it as a beginner because I really just wanted to watch anime and read manga – and
– The exercise sentences tend to feel *quite weird,* like a translation of a Western textbook. Japanese without context feels weird anyway, but these sentences are worse than you’d find in a decent beginner textbook
– The stories are alright. They’re culturally US-American (“a town with taxi service but only one train station” and “kids riding a bus to school everyday” are things that *can* happen in Japan but they’re far more likely in the US) but the language flows well and the characters are funny
– Review scheduling is just bad. For some dumb reason it gives you reviews from an entire unit or lesson at once; it’s *so* much better to use Anki or even Bunpro/WaniKani (which I’m not a fan of) because you practice a sample of everything.
It might be okay for what I’m using it for: it gives me something to talk about to myself in Japanese. But I suspect that *other* beginner material such as a graded-reader, podcast, or textbook would in fact be better.
I have *no* idea how anyone could use Duo to graduate from the beginner stage (being guided by a curriculum) to early-intermediate (easy native material with optional curriculum-guided learning). The vocabulary is too small, the language usage is *too* weird, the voices are pretty good for synthesized voice but you really do need to listen to *real* people with real accents.
The best recommendation I can give of Duo is that it’s an easy way to sample a language before you decide to commit to it.
Duolingo is basically an app for tourists who want to learn basic stuff. As somebody who speaks French and is learning Japanese, Duolingo is the one thing you shouldn’t waste your time with unless you don’t actually care about learning the language.
I used it for 2 years along with several other resources, Tofugu articles and Cure Dolly videos, Japanese Ammo. I’m an extremely casual learner with a low attention span and very little space in my day to practice (not looking to argue with anyone about the hours in a day as an excuse, this is more about my wife hates the sound of Japanese and I spend most of my free time hanging out with her)
What I can say positively is it’s very encouraging. Making a game of learning the language is great when you’re starting out, and the streak system adds a level of guilt to NOT practicing, which is unfortunately the kind of motivation I run on. It is fun and simple, so if Japanese seems intimidating it gives you a comfortable entry into the language, and if you want to feel like you’re learning organically, it will motivate you.
I quit it a couple weeks ago because of the updates. They used to introduce kanji earlier, with the option of having the pronunciation displayed above it in romaji or hiragana, but now they made it so there are only the earliest of kanji displayed up to a certain level, and they redid the level structure so I was set back further for some reason and I’m seeing hiragana spellings of words I already know. I should have quit earlier when I realized I was the one doing all the work learning grammar and sentence copulas and explanations of context for the different pronouns, and Duo was just feeding me new sentences with no further explanation
It depends on the language you are studying on Duolingo, what level are you, and which is your native language.
Each language on Duolingo is developed apart from the others ( but i’m seeing an effort to level the content of each language to have a smooth transition from one to another).
I find Duolingo useful for the people who are new to learning a foreign language and need to build a consistency in their daily practice, but only for languages like spanish, german, ecc.
From my experience Duolingo Japanese is something you would use when you already have a basic knowledge of the language itself and of the grammar. I tried to start japanese on duolingo when i had 0 knowledge and i found it a different and harder experience than when i started german the same way from zero, and very confusing. But then again, if you already have the knowledge of the basics and developed the consistency of learning a language on your own, then avoid Duolingo, or just use it to refresh what you already know in times of busy days.
But i find Duolingo perfect to start a new easier language with 0 effort to acquire a basic understanding of it.
I’m Italian Native and tried on Duolingo German (from zero) , Polish (from basic understanding of 50% of what i hear), Japanese (from zero) and put a week or 2 in other languages like spanish, and french.
It’s better than nothing but it’s limited in scope and inefficient in methodology. It’s over-marketed and is worse relative to other Japanese-specific offerings that exist. So if you use only Duolingo, you will take more time to make less progress than had you chosen other things.
If you use Duolingo alongside other tools, I still honestly think you’d be making poor use of your time. I used it for a little over 100 days, but eventually realized that any amount of time I put into Duolingo would be much better spent just doing something like learning more new words or grammar or even just reading some graded readers.
Ultimately it came down to the fact that there was nothing I needed that Duolingo was the best at.
I found that it taught Kana very well, but you can learn that pretty much anywhere. Beyond that, as others have said it isn’t necessarily teaching you wrong things, but your time could be spent MUCH better. I only really noticed improvements after moving on from it, and I used it for a year.
Feels like looking for a needle in a haystack with tweezers. Just not efficient enough.
I don’t think it should be considered good or bad. Tools need to exist so people can try them. I credit Duolingo for getting me started on the difficult journey. It helped me get my habits together so I can use more traditional methods. There is no way that I could have gotten as far as I have now if I started with Genki. Duolingo is the reason I got started and motivated. For that alone, it is invaluable.
My advice for anyone here is to think of it as an option that you can use until the moment you know better. Knowing what is better does not come immediately. Learning Japanese is like stumbling around in the dark — up until the moment I touched something (Duo), then I touch something else (Tae Kim/Anki) and then finally another (Genki)… I can always trace my steps backwards if I want and I continue to move forward as well (my goals).
Duolingo is a time sink
It’s not THAT bad. The sentences are random but they still get you used to the structure of the language. Which is still good
I think duolingo is good in the beginning.
I does the job for Kana and it help build some rudimentary vocabulary.
But you will outgrow it before you get to fluent level for sure.