Duolingo Review

Duolingo offers English speakers 37 real world languages, as well as some culturally endangered, artificial or even fantasy languages:

Arabic, Chinese, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Esperanto, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Haitian Creole, Hawaiian, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Indonesian, Irish, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Latin, Navajo, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese (Brazilian), Romanian, Russian, Scottish Gaelic, Spanish, Swahili, Swedish, Turkish, Ukrainian, Vietnamese, Welsh, Yiddish, Zulu as well as Esparanto, High Valyrian and Klingon.

Duolingo was founded in 2011 with a mission to make language learning accessible to anyone, anywhere in the world.

It’s now the most popular way to learn languages with 5 million people using it actively everyday and the mobile app having 500+ million downloads.

Duolingo combines bite sized activities with gamification to make education motivating, easy and fun. You earn rewards (such as gems and badges) for achieving different objectives and gain points to help you scale the rankings on a leaderboard of other randomly selected users. It also uses an algorithm that adapts to your learning and provides material at just the right difficulty level, as well as resurfacing content you need to revisit.

Duolingo offers a freemium model and a subscription (Super Duolingo) which provides additional features and does not show ads.

To get started, you simply select the language you want to learn, answer a few questions about your goals, then sign up for a free account using Google, Facebook or an email account.

Duolingo then presents you with a learning path divided into units such as:

• Greeting people and Introducing yourself
• Using the present tense and talking about activities
• Days of the week

• Saying what you want, etc.

  Each unit contains a series of ‘stepping stones’ that hold a series of fun bite sized lessons and challenges designed to meet the unit objective.

Some languages have a placement test meaning that you can skip the easier units. But you always have the choice to start at the beginning, skip ahead or redo units you’ve already taken.

Units follow a curriculum based on an international standard and activities are designed to make sure that new learning gets embedded in long term memory.

As you progress Duolingo’s algorithm will adjust to your learning and vary the level of challenge. To make sure learning ‘sticks’ you will revisit earlier learning at optimum times. New words are highlighted and you often need to figure out intuitively what these might mean.

You can review what you've learned by clicking on the dumbbell icon which provides a practice test.

Lessons are short and sharp - usually only about 3-5 minutes long. They mainly focus on translating - either from your native into your target language or vice versa.

To do this you might:

• Match spoken or written words with their meanings
• Type words and phrases using the keyboard/keypad
• Place words from a selection in the correct order
• Tap or type what you hear
• Provide missing words

• Identify the correct spelling of a word from a choice of four

  You will also use flashcards to learn new vocabulary, take quizzes, review content and be given the option to make things harder or easier.

For some languages there are stories with comprehension activities as well as podcasts. In the podcasts, native speakers tell stories but with simplified vocabulary and grammar and at a slower, clearer speed. These are supported with some assistance with unusual words or context.

There’s not a strong focus on speaking activities. Where they are available, AI voice recognition grades your pronunciation. During my two weeks using Duolingo, I came across a few speaking activities in French but none in Welsh, despite completing several units.

Super Duolingo membership costs $6.99 per month. There's also a family plan that's good for up to six people, which costs $119.99 per year.

Compared to other language learning apps, the individual monthly price is reasonable. But the family plan represents even better value. While the single up-front cost of a Family Plan is more than an individual subscription, by splitting the cost with plan members you can make the following savings:

The family plan also allows you to compete with other plan members for positions on the leaderboard.

Yes, you can use Duolingo for free. However there are a few limitations to the free version:

• Ads 
• Limited access to certain features such as legendary levels, mastery quizzes and test outs
• No access to the Practice Hub
• Limited hearts (or ‘lives) which you lose when you make errors. Once all your hearts are gone you can’t do any more exercises for at least 5 hours or unless you use the gems you've earned to replace them

Super Duolingo gives you:

• Unlimited hearts
• An ad-free experience
• Access to the Practice Hub which allows you to review mistakes and practice the more tricky aspects of your target language.
• Unlimited attempts at legendary levels and timed challenges without having to spend gems
• Monthly Streak Repair

• Offline mode

  On the whole, unless the ads really bother you, there is not a huge difference between the free and subscription versions apart from limited hearts (lives).

I devoted two full weeks to testing out Duolingo using the free version to learn Welsh and French.

I chose Welsh because I know nothing about the language at all and wanted to see how Duolingo fared with a complete beginner. Also, as a minority language I figured it might not be as well resourced as some of the more commonly spoken languages (which was the case).

On the other hand I have some limited knowledge of French and wanted to see if I could start at an appropriately challenging level.

I also searched every corner of the Duolingo site, including the blogs, and researched what other users thought of it on forums such as Reddit.

What I liked about Duolingo

It’s free with only a few limitations 

As long as you can put up with the annoying ads, there’s not a massive difference between the paid for and free versions of Duolingo. The main one is the limited hearts (lives) that you lose if you make errors. You then either have to wait 5 hours before continuing, practice, or spend the gems you've earned to replace them.

What’s really amazing is that the free version does not restrict the number of languages you can learn (unlike other apps).

The one thing you will get with Super Duolingo is access to the Practice Hub where most of the speaking activities are placed. So if you want a greater focus on speaking, you will need to go for a subscription. That said, the price point is competitive.

Clever use of gamification 

Duolingo uses gamification extremely well to keep learners motivated and ensure you make continuous, incremental progress.

You’re encouraged to complete a daily lesson to maintain your streak, with each consecutive day increasing the streak count. The longer the streak, the more invested you become in maintaining it, which in turn makes you more likely to succeed in meeting your goals.

As well as streaks, there are leaderboards, experience points and progress bars - all of which encourage you to work harder whilst at the same time building your skills.

Lastly you can earn digital currency (gems) which you can use in the ‘shop’ such as heart refills, streak freezes and even costumes.

Uses an algorithm that adapts to your level and learning style

Duolingo is constantly learning what works for you, and what doesn’t.

When you open the app your next lesson will be calibrated for your skill level and includes a review of the words and concepts you most need to revisit.

Its clever AI systems are continuously at work to optimise your progress and personalize your learning experience.

A Practice Hub for reviewing mistakes & correcting pronunciation

Super Duolingo subscribers can access a Practice Hub to get targeted review sessions.

All of the content in the hub is based on your recent personal activity in regular Duolingo lessons. And it provides opportunities to focus on speaking and pronunciation - which is something that is not a strong focus in Duolingo’s daily exercises in my experience.

Fun to use with well structured exercises that target listening, reading and writing

Duolingo’s welcoming interface is appealing and easy to use. Lessons are fun and bit sized with a big focus on listening, reading and writing. They are also gamified and incentives for you to keep learning.

You can skip lessons and levels that are too easy

If you feel you’re not being appropriately challenged, you can jump ahead to a new unit - providing you pass a short test with less than three mistakes.

Weak focus on speaking activities

Speaking is a crucial part of language learning. After all, one of the main reasons to learn any language is to feel confident enough to converse in it.

But after two weeks of using Duolingo, I was rarely asked to speak in French. And never in Welsh.

Super Duolingo does give you unrestricted access to the Practice Hub where AI voice recognition will help to hone your pronunciation. However, in my experience, the free version offered few opportunities for speaking practice.

Pronunciation of single words was quite robotic

For many activities Duolingo ‘speaks’ one word at a time. When this happens, it sounds very robotic - especially in French. This made it harder for me to hear, and replicate, correct pronunciation.

Quantity and range of material varies by language

Having chosen to learn a widely spoken and a minority language, it was clear that the quality and range of material differed between them. Whilst French had nearly 300 units, Welsh had just over 60. And after two weeks, I was provided with no Welsh speaking activities at all.

Not brilliant for grammar or cultural insights

In common with many apps, Duolingo largely expects you to learn grammar implicitly. That is, if you see it used repeatedly, you’ll figure it out for yourself.

The 'guidebook' which appears at the beginning of each unit provides grammar tips. But without knowing that’s where they are, you could miss them. The French guide books provided grammar explanations from the off. But in Welsh, there were none at all and Welsh grammar is very different to English!

There were no cultural insights in either language.

Duolingo is an appealing, fun language learning platform that would best suit the following learners:

Anyone who’s:

• Learning a new language from scratch
• Wants to refresh or level up existing basic skills
• Appreciates short, sharp bite sized lessons
• Is strongly motivated by gamified features such as leaderboards, streaks, rewards etc
• Needing to learn flexibly on any device

• Gamification
• Personalized approach
• Practice Hub for reinforcing learned content
• Podcast series to aide language immersion
• Flexible learning with offline mode
• Speech recognition technology for pronunciation practice

Gamification

More than any other language learning app, Duolingo has successfully leveraged gamification to create an almost addictive experience for those learners motivated by competition.

It cleverly combines streaks, levels, and rewards to motivate users to stay on task with their language learning goals.

Personalized approach

Duolingo uses AI to continuously learn what works for you, and what doesn’t. Even down to the encouraging messages you see to nudge you to keep learning.

When you open the app your next lesson will be calibrated for your skill level and includes a review of the words and concepts you most need to revisit.

Its clever AI systems are continuously at work to optimise your progress and personalize your learning experience.

Practice Hub for reinforcing learned content

Super Duolingo subscribers can access a Practice Hub to get targeted review sessions that rotate. All of the content in the hub is based on your recent activity in regular Duolingo lessons.

You’ll be provided with opportunities to:

• Review your recent mistakes

• Perfect your pronunciation

• Practice listening activities

As you would expect, you gain extra points for completing each challenge and a boost for completing all three.

Podcast series to aide language immersion

For some languages, Duolingo provides podcasts to boost your listening comprehension and provide some cultural awareness of the country(ies) in which your target language is spoken.

They are easy to understand stories in which the target language is spoken slightly more slowly and clearly with straightforward grammar and vocabulary. There is also some guidance in your native language.

Speech recognition technology for pronunciation practice

Duolingo does have AI speech recognition which is used extensively in the practice hub for pronunciation practice. However, in the free version (which has no access to the Practice Hub) I did not encounter it all in Welsh, and only occasionally when learning French.

Flexible learning with offline mode

With Duolingo's mobile app, you can learn and practice anytime and anywhere, even without an internet connection.

This level of flexibility helps you make the most of any spare time during your day. So moments like waiting in line or commuting become opportunities for language practice.

The only limitation to offline mode is that only the level you are currently working on is available.

Duolingo key facts:

• Our score: 8.49/10
• Number of users: 5 milion active users
• Avg lesson length: 5 minutes
• Number of lessons: N/A
• Downloadable lessons: Yes
• Starting proficiency test: for some languages
• Provides certificate: No
• Adaptive to user: Yes
• Number of languages taught: 37
• Pricing: From $6.99 per month
• Desktop: Yes
• Mobile: Yes
• IOS: Yes
• Android: Yes

• Our Score 8.93 /10
• Trustpilot 1.6 /5 based on 3,320 reviews
• Apple App Store 4.7 /5 based on 390k reviews

• Google Play 4.6 /5 based on 16.3m reviews

  "I like that Duo is free. It's cute too. I have a 1380-day streak and have been using it even longer. I'm learning, but not quickly and not in a way to be able to hold more than a basic conversation. I'm using Pimsleur now too, and it's helping faster and with conversation better." (Trustpilot review)

I think this user addresses a shortcoming in Duolingo well. You will learn with Duolingo, but until it ups its focus on speaking and makes better use of voice recognition, you won’t learn enough to be able to hold a complex conversation.

"Duolingo is ok. It is fun at points. The five hearts aren’t that helpful though. It would be nice if, when you review mistakes and get them right, you could regain a heart instead of doing extra learning. Sometimes it is hard to hear what they are saying." (Apple app store review)

Complaints about having to stop learning once you’ve lost all your hearts (in the free version) are quite frequent. And I would agree that it is not always easy to hear what the speaking characters in Duolingo are saying, the voices are quite robotic.

In summary, I think what this Reddit commenter has to say is good advice:

"You won't get fluent with Duolingo, but you can get to a point where you can consume native media relatively fast if you use it well. It is a great starting point and a good motivator to build a daily studying habit. Add some additional resources to your routine, and you can progress really well!!"

Well, it depends on your goals.

If you want to develop a solid foundation in a language and enjoy an element of competition in your learning, Duolingo is likely to suit your purposes. It’s super fun and its extensive use of gamification makes it very habit forming - which is great for making steady progress in a language. What’s more, its algorithm learns what works for you and calibrates lessons appropriately.

I found I had committed a good range of words and phrases to memory during my trial of Duolingo and certainly got as far as being able to introduce myself and ask and respond to simple questions like, how are you? What is your name? Etc.

But if you want to become fluent or hold more complex conversations, I don’t think Duolingo will help you achieve that. At least not the free version. Speaking activities are not available in all languages. And even where they are, they do not feature prominently. The Practice Hub in Super Duolingo provides more in the way of speaking opportunities. But if you are willing to commit to a subscription you may find that other apps like Babbel or Mondly are better value.

My advice is to try the free version. If you love it, there is a 14 day free trial for Super Duolingo which gives you a decent amount of time to find out if it’s the right learning platform for you.