this post was submitted on 08 Jun 2025
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was duolingo ever actually good for language learning tho...?
My understanding is that you won't get fluent but it would give you up to a middle school level understanding, depending on the language. French and Spanish were more advanced than Mandarin or Welsh.
I’ve been using Duolingo to study Mandarin for a few years now. It’s fun but the lessons are frequently frustrating. They love to teach me a bunch of new characters, then stop using them altogether for a few months, then bring them back and expect me to know them with zero review.
The lessons should be structured to include more review if you’re only doing 1/day (which I think is the normal way people use it).
Do you mean middle school level vocabulary? Because I would argue that middle schoolers are absolutely fluent in their native languages. Hell, I think maybe even 9 year olds are fluent.
Fluency in a language learning context is not the same as native speakers. The measure is can you pass a 4th grade grammar class in the given language.
Which, ironically, native speakers oftrn struggle with.