this post was submitted on 11 Jun 2026
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Their lessons aint that great. They do a good job of making people feel like they're learning a language, but I've never met anyone who actually learned a decent amount of Japanese that way. Maybe it's better for people who are learning languages with similar grammar to their native tongue, like English speakers learning Spanish.
I saw some post where someone was like, "wtf? Our dad was on his sixth year of Duolingo Spanish and here we are and he can't even understand or speak anything."
I always thought it was funny how I could pick any random language like Arabic and do really well like I knew the language... Then I realized it was 90% pattern recognition and them stripping it down to two obvious answers.
It makes you feel good like gambling but it doesn't teach. In real life, if someone asks how you're doing in Japanese they don't present you with two options like "good" and "milk"
It's insane to me that this is even possible. I also don't understand the mindset of someone who does only Duolingo for years and doesn't try other learning techniques. Even good learning tools like Anki don't stand on their own; most Anki users will agree that after you've learned a bit of vocab you should try your hand at reading something to get an idea of how words are actually used instead of just a vague idea of what they mean.
You’re probably right but I do think Duo is a good place to start. I tried starting listening to podcasts & even children’s TV in Italian. It just wasn’t helpful. I started with Duo & now have been able to understand a few simple podcasts at .25 speed. I’m hoping to get better with time but Duo definitely gets more hate than it deserves. It’s simply a fun way to get started & the rest is up to the individual
There are many other options in-between Duolingo and content designed for native speakers. Of course you're going to have a hard time with trying to understand a language where you don't know any of the grammar or the vocab.