You don’t have to look far to find strong, varying opinions of Duolingo in the online language-learning world. Whether that’s from someone with an 1800 day streak praising the app for changing their life, or a slamming critique claiming that it is the most useless way to learn — there are good points on both sides.
Over the last 4 years of my language-learning journey, I have seen countless questions from beginners that go something like: “I’m just starting to learn Spanish! I have downloaded Duolingo. If I do 5 minutes a day for a year will I be fluent?”.
Anyone that has made any meaningful progress learning a language, knows that this is a very naive question. The answer is a very clear and resounding “No”. Duolingo, or any other app you might find, is not going to teach you a language by itself — and certainly not in a year.
Learning a language requires immersion in the form of ‘input’, in a massive number of different contexts and methods which simply can not be replicated within an app. I believe this is where most negative opinions about Duolingo stem from; too many people see it as a ‘silver bullet’ and vastly underestimate the sheer amount of time that goes into learning a language.
That’s not to say, though, that it isn’t very useful.
Despite this, I think that Duolingo is an incredibly useful resource. The hardest part of learning a language is the beginning, the first 8–12 months.
At the start, you simply don’t know enough of the language to consume actual content in your target language. Content in the form of books, movies, podcasts, video games — or ultimately anything else that interests you. In my opinion, this should be the goal, to get to the point where you can understand. This allows you to unlock the next step, where it gets easier and ultimately much more fun.
Once you can follow along with native content, even if you don’t understand everything yet, you have unlocked the aforementioned ‘silver bullet’. At this point, learning no longer feels like learning. Instead, you can swap content which you would be consuming anyway into your target language, and passively learn the language without even having to think about it. But before you can do this, the first step is to be able to understand.
Duolingo can provide that first step. It makes the beginning fun. It takes the most frustrating part of learning a language, ‘gamifies’ it, and keeps you coming back for more. Duolingo holds your hand through the toughest part of learning a language: the beginning.
Duolingo gives you the opportunity to fall in love with learning a language.
That is its true value proposition.
However, there are just a few important points you need to remember:
- It should not be your only resource. You should also listen to native music or podcasts. Watch native TV shows and movies (with English subtitles to start). Anything to expose you to the language outside of the app, even if you don’t understand it yet.
- It will take a long time. Learning a language is a life long journey, so don’t expect quick results. Instead set smaller, more attainable goals along the way.
- Stay persistent. It can be hard to stay motivated. There are times when you will see little to no progress. But you’ve got to keep going; make sure you practice at least a little bit, every single day.
- Remember that it is only the first step. You can’t learn a language with Duolingo alone, you will have to move on to other things afterwards.
One of the hardest parts of learning a language is the start. Duolingo guides you through this process and can get you excited about the prospect of language learning in general. That is what Duolingo is good for.
What next?
As I said, though, it only gets you so far. The key to learning a language to a higher level is through input. And a lot of it. This means reading or watching content in your target language, every day. Luckily, Polyglot Pal is here to help. With Polyglot Pal you can read content in your target language, alongside text to speech, with an AI assistant at your side to make the process as smooth as possible.
With context aware word lookups, automatic flashcard generation and an AI assistant to answer your grammar questions, all the stress is taken out of reading in your target language. Start using it for free today.