Stop PRETENDING that Duolingo works.

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  • เผยแพร่เมื่อ 25 มิ.ย. 2024
  • You can learn a language with Duolingo, they said. I am not convinced, and I'll share why.
    Grab yourself a language course - sometimes they're on special:
    shorturl.at/abQTY
    Re: Evan's response to this video.
    I might get to it eventually. I've only watched the first 7 minutes and already there are lots of mistakes to deal with, so it could take a while. If you've come here to tell me what a douchebag I am, you should actually watch my video. You might find Evan to be, umm, shall we say... unreliable, in his version of events.
    Videos are often released up to a week early to members of the TimTam Cartel (channel members). Membership also comes with longer and alternative cuts of some videos and some other little goodies. Join here:
    / @daysandwords
    Subscribe for more awesome language learning content: / @daysandwords
    TIMESTAMPS:
    00:00 Duolingo told us that it works
    01:58 An analogy for the effectiveness of Duolingo
    04:00 How I accelerated my Spanish learning
    05:19 Evan Edinger, the Duolingo OG
    09:58 Duolingo is hopelessly slow
    13:09 Spanish Duolingo is pointless
    15:08 Why do we still use it?
    17:25 What language learning really is
    22:28 Why people are upset with Duolingo
    24:24 Don't Despair
    Duolingo... Who'd ever have thought we'd end up here?
    I know this was a rough one guys, thanks for watching.
    This part is here to show people who correct my use of "Lo quiero".
    Lo quiero is what I say at the end of every video. It's like the TH-camr who says "Hey guy" at the start of his videos, despite it not being correct. I know it's "wrong", but it's right because it's what I intend to say (and often people forget one of its meanings, which would be "I love you" but in a formal context.) It's a reference to a film that I watched in Spanish 50 times, thus essentially memorising the Spanish script for.

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  • @naofg
    @naofg 6 หลายเดือนก่อน +84

    I've been subscribed to both you and Evan for a good while. I saw this video when you posted it, thought you made some really good points and moved on. After watching Evan's response just now I was confused. Had I not noticed all the ill intent that Evan is saying you had? From my memory you hadn't criticized him directly, you were just using his experience as an example to explain your points on DL. So I came back here and, sure enough, it's as I remember it. I honestly don't see the video as an attack like Evan seems to have taken it. Most of the video is not even about him. And if all you wanted was to use him for attention, by making a response video he made sure that you get that attention 😅

    • @TheUltimateLegend7
      @TheUltimateLegend7 6 หลายเดือนก่อน +12

      Yep, exactly the same feeling as me. I was truly confused after Evan s video. Especially because I was much more familiar with his videos, but I didn't feel like he was in any way attacked. If anything, his video was the one attacking.

    • @Harrjannk
      @Harrjannk 6 หลายเดือนก่อน +4

      Same experience here, realized that only now. I moved on after Lamont's video and found it great, especially because I got the same experiences (though I have a few people at my workplace, who seem to use Duolingo as a supplement effectively). When I saw Evan's video, my initial response was, that he's kinda right, though I didn't take Lamont's video as an insult to him. There was a particular part of Evan's video though, where I thought to myself "Now, that's just getting really insulting really fast". Now I'm confused and feel like I understand both of you guys lol xD

    • @baconeta
      @baconeta 6 หลายเดือนก่อน +4

      I felt the same way - Evan continued going on about some unnecessary or even flat out wrong things regarding this video. And as someone who typically likes Evan a lot, it left a sour taste. This video however, did not. I think it was wrong for him to have responded publicly the way he did, while insinuating a lot of things that are clearly not true...

  • @eedaj
    @eedaj 7 หลายเดือนก่อน +1160

    Duolingo isn't THAT bad if you're an absolute 0 comprehension beginner, it gives you a nice easy and basic starting point as well as the confidence to move into other, perhaps more challenging forms of learning.

    • @anbheansachuisneoir9233
      @anbheansachuisneoir9233 7 หลายเดือนก่อน +134

      Yes, it was very important for me as a short first introduction to Irish about three years ago. For a language with a limited number of free beginner resources, and a very very limited amount of comprehensible input materials, Duolingo was a logical place to start.

    • @leafhoff4321
      @leafhoff4321 7 หลายเดือนก่อน +27

      How I got into learning spanish(I was also learning it at school, but school lessons in any language(obligatory ones High school and before), usually can`t teach you a language) was through duolingo and watching television shows in spanish, first with English subtitles, then later with spanish subtitles and without.

    • @coltynstone-lamontagne
      @coltynstone-lamontagne 7 หลายเดือนก่อน +14

      Duo is basically a way that I find what I should study elsewhere next lol it was my introduction and it is the only to my partner use since they are not able to put much effort into language learning and aren't in a rush

    • @adapienkowska2605
      @adapienkowska2605 7 หลายเดือนก่อน +27

      Yeah, but on the other hand, if I were to start another language I would choose something like Pimsleur or Language Transfer focused only on sounds and speaking.

    • @dani4157
      @dani4157 7 หลายเดือนก่อน +35

      It's a good start. But after being given the same small group of words for over 3 hours in the Japanese course it's just a waste of time. I've learnt far more with other apps in less time

  • @GHFear
    @GHFear 6 หลายเดือนก่อน +78

    Back in 2006 I met a German girl while on vacation in Hamburg.
    We became really close friends and started talking a lot on msn messenger.
    At some point I decided that I wanted to learn her language and the way I learned to understand and speak German really well was by
    getting a list of the 1000 most commonly used German words and then I learned 10 new German words from that list every single evening for 100days.
    Then when I knew those 1000 words I started watching German TV and I mean ONLY German TV for about 6 months to understand how people used those words to build sentences.
    Then I went back to Germany in 2007 and 2008 and spent the summer there both times.
    At the end of 2009 I spoke German really well according to the German people I met.
    Many of them were shocked when I told them that I was Swedish.
    They said my German accent and sentence structure was perfect.
    Sadly I lost all contact with that German friend of mine and I haven't spoken a word of German since then.
    Today I can still understand a lot of German, but I can't speak a word of it.
    Because the words are so far back in my memory that I don't know the words until I hear somebody else say them.

    • @shahrazade26
      @shahrazade26 4 หลายเดือนก่อน +9

      Nice story. Perhaps Duolingo can refresh your German skills.

    • @daysandwords
      @daysandwords  4 หลายเดือนก่อน +20

      @shahrazade26
      Just checking - are you joking? I am asking for real because it sounds like you're joking. This person described how they became fluent in German very quickly, and I'd believe them, because what they did was essentially the perfect methodology... and then you say "Maybe Duolingo can refresh your German skills."
      Again, I am actually asking because you could be 100% serious, or 100% joking and there are no tells as to which one it is. 😂

  • @giovannao.p.7591
    @giovannao.p.7591 6 หลายเดือนก่อน +214

    Duolingo is like a fancy flashcard that keeps me from completely losing vocabulary when I have only a few minutes per day to dedicate to the language. a "better than nothing" option

    • @kiiturii
      @kiiturii 2 หลายเดือนก่อน +7

      anki

    • @Endermania
      @Endermania หลายเดือนก่อน

      I prefer Anki for that

  • @AntonSlavik
    @AntonSlavik 7 หลายเดือนก่อน +17

    I feel like somebody just told me I don't need to feel guilty for not smoking crack for the past 5 months and not wanting to smoke crack.

  • @amerikanskdansker8771
    @amerikanskdansker8771 7 หลายเดือนก่อน +551

    Duo is what it is…a gateway drug to the world of language learning. I think it’s a good thing overall to get people interested, it’s still loads better than classic language learning in an American classroom setting which is a total joke. I have over a 1000 day streak, and I can’t let it go. The owl has me in his talons. But I look at it for what it is, language entertainment. It takes me less than 5 minutes a day to keep my steak going, and I have had many people find me on the leaderboards and ask me about it, which gives me an opportunity to explain to them how I actually learned Danish. If all Duolingo does is open the door for people who are unaware of immersion learning, then it is an overall force for good in the language learning universe. You are very good at analogy Lamont, the whole journey by foot, bike, plane thing is perfect! great video sir!

    • @SheliakDragon
      @SheliakDragon 7 หลายเดือนก่อน +40

      I agree 💯 with this. Duolingo does have its merits but it needs to be seen for what it is. The gamification aspect helps keep motivation up, it's a quick and fun way to keep different writing systems fresh in your mind, and it's an easy source of dopamine. It's definitely not something you should rely on as your sole source of language learning -- unless you really really enjoy long walks to the airport.

    • @emiliasky6117
      @emiliasky6117 7 หลายเดือนก่อน +6

      Learning Danish myself, any resources?

    • @amerikanskdansker8771
      @amerikanskdansker8771 7 หลายเดือนก่อน

      @@emiliasky6117 I have a premade deck of 8,000 sentences I found on Anki. I try to add to it with my own cards, but I have limited time to sit in front of a computer. I mainly immerse in Danish content on Netflix. Getting rid of subtitles has finally seemed to work for me, my comprehension is improving rapidly.

    • @lazydictionary
      @lazydictionary 7 หลายเดือนก่อน

      It's not a gateway drug though. It's just a drug, and the only way to satiate your habit is more DuoLingo.
      If it was a gateway drug, we'd see thousands of people saying DuoLingo helped make them fluent. Anyone who has ever learned a foreign language to fluency realizes DuoLingo did nothing for them on their journey.

    • @mayapigen6586
      @mayapigen6586 7 หลายเดือนก่อน

      @@emiliasky6117I would personally go on TH-cam and see what they have. I think there are a lot of good Danish learning TH-cam channels out there. Though, I’m not 100% sure, cuz I haven’t looked much into it ^^

  • @meatdress8111
    @meatdress8111 7 หลายเดือนก่อน +49

    I think the biggest problem except for removing the forums, which probably taught me the most of any feature of the app, is just how many times you repeat the same node before moving onto the next and never have I encountered very long sentences making use of the words I've been taught.

    • @Alltagundso
      @Alltagundso หลายเดือนก่อน +1

      I'm in a Facebook group for Duolingo, otherwise I chat with French people online.😊

  • @AZ-ty7ub
    @AZ-ty7ub 7 หลายเดือนก่อน +404

    I still cannot get over the sheer about of time one Duolingo tree takes. I can feel a marked difference in my comprehension and vocabulary if I spend one hour studying a podcast. I've recently started learning Russian, and I'm less than 20 hours in total, but I've focused it on listening and reading comprehension and I'd would hazard a guess I've got at least 500 words under my belt, if my Memrise deck is to be believed, and I'm starting to understand A1 speech without subtitles. (Thanks Russian From Afar!)
    I cannot imagine spending over 100 hours on something and have so little to show for it. Respect your time, because Duolingo doesn't.

    • @daysandwords
      @daysandwords  7 หลายเดือนก่อน +74

      That's it. I tried to finish the German tree in a month for a video a year or so ago, and I realised it was going to take like 5 hours a day. Personally, I think I COULD read Harry Potter after that (Swedish helps obviously) but still, 150 hours when you could just do an Anki deck in like 5 days of 2 hours.

    • @Riariaria-chan
      @Riariaria-chan 7 หลายเดือนก่อน +6

      Native speaker here! I'll be happy to help if you ever have any questions :)

    • @RiccardoBesegato
      @RiccardoBesegato 7 หลายเดือนก่อน +28

      With the old tree configuration it was possibile to make a speedrun, jumping as far as you could get (directly testing on units without practicing them and spending otherwise useless lingots) but this was like a mountain marathon to reach the Airport.

    • @nissevelli
      @nissevelli 7 หลายเดือนก่อน

      This might be a hard question to answer accurately, but what would you say is the necessary vocabulary level in ones target language for a HP book? (Never read it, even in English) 1,000 words? 2,000? Thanks!@@daysandwords

    • @daysandwords
      @daysandwords  7 หลายเดือนก่อน +11

      That is indeed tough to answer, because
      a) what language are we talking about? In French it's almost possible for anyone with fluent English (not quite, but 100 words would put you close).
      b) what's your tolerance for "ambiguity", that is, for not knowing quite what's happening. Mine is very high with audiobooks, not so high with series, and most people's is very low for books. But if you pair the book WITH the audiobook, then you can do it in most languages immediately
      But honestly, I'd recommend just reading one first. Like, the first one takes about 8 hours of audiobook (and make that 5 if you listen at 1.6x which is super easy for a native speaker of English) and then that significantly increases your chances of tolerating it in a new language and actually learning something.

  • @skippergin2695
    @skippergin2695 7 หลายเดือนก่อน +60

    The thing about Duolingo is that it rewards the wrong things. It's engagement with the app, not the language. I don't like how that blasted owl seems to want so much of my freaking attention. I also think it doesn't push knowledge boundaries very well. I agree that it's very easy to see progress down the path but not make meaningful progress at all. That said, I don't have a lot of similar resources for Welsh.

    • @randomize2225
      @randomize2225 7 หลายเดือนก่อน

      another welsh learner!

    • @skippergin2695
      @skippergin2695 7 หลายเดือนก่อน

      @@randomize2225 Bore da! Could I ask what you use to learn? I've been trying to fight through Say Something in Welsh for nearly a decade.

    • @vyvienn
      @vyvienn 6 วันที่ผ่านมา

      It’s shocking how sad the selection of learning resources for Welsh is. I also got started with SSIW and felt pretty good about myself after one year. Then, I went to the get-together when they celebrated being recognized by the Senedd or something of the kind. And you know, I was the only idiot stuck at talking about stupid walls and going to the tavern because every single person there had previously learned enough Welsh somewhere else to hold an actual conversation. The most frustrating part of the evening was the singalong at the pub later. Wasn’t familiar with the songs, couldn’t read the bloody lyrics (having been told from day 1 not to try to read anything)… Duolingo is far from perfect, but I’ve finally picked up enough to read a book of short stories that I bought well over a decade ago. I’ll take that over nothing.

  • @cliveog
    @cliveog 7 หลายเดือนก่อน +347

    Sure, as a language geek I’m also ambivalent about Duolingo (but still use it) but as an educator I wouldn’t dismiss an approach to learning (anything) that people find fun, engaging and rewarding. People are very different in what drives them.

    • @daysandwords
      @daysandwords  7 หลายเดือนก่อน +76

      I also liked it at the beginning but the problem is, ANYTHING can be made to be engaging. Literally anything IF (and it's a big IF) you don't mind sacrificing what it actually is that you're doing.
      e.g. "Do you want to get thin fast, but don't want to stick to a boring diet? Well I've got a diet you CAN stick to... I call it the Lamont diet... you can eat WHATEVER YOU WANT WHENEVER YOU WANT!"
      Customer: "But then I will stay being overweight?"
      Me: "The advantage of the Lamont diet is that ANYONE can stick to it!"
      To me, that's what Duolingo has become. It has sacrificed learning for "being engaging".

    • @PainterVierax
      @PainterVierax 6 หลายเดือนก่อน +6

      @@daysandwords I agree. Any skill learning needs involvement and dedication. Duolingo came from being an quite overly praised learning tool with a gamification system to become just a game about languages. Better play Chants of Sennaar or one of the many videogames who don't pretend to be learning courses but just entertainment with a language theme. Or in the other way better use more serious learning methods not emphasizing on the obsolete and basic audiobooks/flashcards courses.
      It's just like the fact people don't play Zacktronics games to learn programming or automation. Better remove our dusty Arduino board from the drawer and start reading documentation.
      All in all, even if academic methods have their own drawbacks, we can't get away with them to learn at least the basics. On most skills, it shows in advanced levels when someone learned using shortcuts and as a learner it can be difficult to correct those habits.

    • @constanza1648
      @constanza1648 5 หลายเดือนก่อน

      @@daysandwords "It has sacrificed learning for "being engaging"."
      Totally agree on this. I used Duolingo for a long time. At the beginning, I started with French. As a Spanish speaker, it was easy to learn and the first tree I tried help me to get a simple overview of the language (about a month or so). It was a shorter version of the tree almost 5 years ago. After that, I went to the reverse tree: learning Spanish from French. I took advantage of native speakers in the Forum section, speaking about how they say things in French. And I could ask questions in French. After 3 months, all the Duolingo work was just repetitive and less meaningful. It was just to keep the numbers, to feel engaged. Not learning, but keep going on the app. I was able to read in French, I could understand some TV shows. I couldn't speak a phrase (speaking is not the strength feature in Duo). So, in the end, not so useful.
      My experience with Korean was even worse. Not having anybody to teach you grammar on Korean properly is really a demeanor for that language. And the quality of your learning depends on the person in that specific course. Mostly, languages different from English, Spanish or French are terrible: not well reviewed, lots of errors, few options for every sentence... So: without discussion, without other benefits and with a lot of disadvantages, you should better spend time in other sites or resources.
      The only good thing I see in Duo nowadays is: easy access. You can take your phone everywhere and try some sentences, it's better when you are on the bus and you want to do something but not as demanding as a podcast or when you are waiting on a line for your grocery shopping. Other than that, I don't see any benefit. And this one is really not that great to invest your time in it.

    • @marikothecheetah9342
      @marikothecheetah9342 4 หลายเดือนก่อน +2

      People want everything to be fun and engaging, and effortless, but the truth is our brains need the effort, they need to feel that they work. CI is about reading and learning what interests you, but if you don't like medicine you won't learn useful phrases about health and in case of emergency which might be incredibly useful if you intend to go to a country where your target language is spoken. You really want to know how to draw out money from ATM in Japan. How to buy basic stuff anywhere. Ask where the embassy is. And foremost: where's the toilet :P
      Not everything in learning languages is fun, some things are just plain boring but useful and for that reason worth learning. It might not be fun when you learn it, but when it comes handy - then the real fun begins. :)

    • @cruise_missile8387
      @cruise_missile8387 4 หลายเดือนก่อน

      ​@daysandwords The idea that you can't effectively learn with duolingo is provably false. The evidence is that people do it literally all the time (I'm sure the developers have their own evidence but nevermind that).
      Tools for learning exist on a spectrum and it's certainly not the worst (depending on HOW you use it). It's absolutely not all I use but I can definitely confirm that I've memorized and learned to use quite a few words and phrases in Russian using it. I'm not fluent but conversational at a basic level at least. It's a fun way to drill words and phrases.
      I'd something is working for someone they should probably ignore a random TH-cam naysayer. Your best indicator for what works is your own results (I'm pretty aggressive and broad in how I use it unlike a lot of people probably but still).

  • @jonathanmcculley3728
    @jonathanmcculley3728 7 หลายเดือนก่อน +24

    Duolingo is kinda like the island of lotus eaters from Greek myth. You take a bit of the sweet lotus and you don’t even realize you’ll be stuck there. It takes a lot to figure out that there’s a whole world of things you could be doing instead, and some people never get that far

    • @Alltagundso
      @Alltagundso หลายเดือนก่อน

      Haha. No, I realised after two weeks what Duolingo can and can not do.
      I stayed anyway for the motivational feature. ☺️
      But, and that's very important, people should get informed about what they're doing. Fortunately, there are Duolingo Facebook groups for example.

  • @elliottmcfadden6261
    @elliottmcfadden6261 7 หลายเดือนก่อน +9

    Sunk cost fallacy is a real thing.

  • @zenbrandon
    @zenbrandon 7 หลายเดือนก่อน +108

    For my Japanese learning, I mainly just used Duolingo as a means of keeping track of the days I work on the language. I spend far more time using things like Wanikani, textbooks, and immersion content. The progress I see with those other resources is far greater than the time I spent on Duolingo.

    • @genericascanbe3728
      @genericascanbe3728 7 หลายเดือนก่อน +19

      Im using Duolingo, pretty much just too get down Katakana and Hirgana. I think it actually might be helpful woth those.

    • @LoyalSage
      @LoyalSage 7 หลายเดือนก่อน

      @@genericascanbe3728 I found it helpful for getting to the point where I could read most hiragana and katakana, at least with what they had around 4 years ago, and while I'm sure there are better resources, I think it does a good enough job at that. But when it came to then perfecting my ability to read hiragana and katakana and learning to write them, I found just writing out all of them over and over from memory (and correcting after each attempt) really effective, and after months of Duolingo, I was able to finally remember the last couple hiragana I kept confusing and the several katakana I never remembered, plus I could write them almost as naturally as I could write the Latin alphabet.
      For kanji, I highly recommend starting out by using spaced repetition with an order that puts basic kanji before the more complex ones that contain those ones as components (e.g. 日 and 月 before 明), and making yourself both remember the meaning of the kanji and be able to write the kanji from the meaning. I did that to start out, and only did it for maybe a month or two, but it taught me how to break down a kanji when looking at it and understand the kinds of components I should expect to see in them. Before I did that, they were just a bunch of lines and shapes, and if I saw a new kanji and had to reproduce it, I'd have to go line-by-line, comparing mine to the original as I went. Now I can glance at a kanji and just write it down, maybe looking back once or twice if there are a lot of components in it.

    • @eternitae0_035
      @eternitae0_035 7 หลายเดือนก่อน

      @@genericascanbe3728I second that, I think the new kanji learning feature could potentially be useful too

    • @marikothecheetah9342
      @marikothecheetah9342 7 หลายเดือนก่อน +9

      I quit Japanese on Duoligo. Duolingo is good for basics, not so much for advanced stuff.

    • @misterkite
      @misterkite 7 หลายเดือนก่อน +6

      For android.. I've found Kanji Senpai is really good for learning how to write kanji.

  • @evan
    @evan 7 หลายเดือนก่อน +165

    I can’t believe I’m being used in a thumbnail for views. Gonna tell my mom I’ve finally made it
    Also my comment on reading Harry Potter after the German tree was made 6 years ago before Duolingo aligned with CEFR so it’s definitely further along now. I still preferred starting with the other books I mentioned as they were enjoyable and educational :)
    Also find it a bit weird you photoshopped my views to be nearly twice as high. Why. That video does not have 2.9m views lmao

    • @daysandwords
      @daysandwords  7 หลายเดือนก่อน +45

      Cheers for watching and replying Evan!
      Honestly I very nearly contacted you beforehand just to not be all "TH-camr drama" about it but this video had already gone through so many changes, I thought I needed to just get it done. Thanks for being (seemingly) cool with it.
      But to the issue - do you think that it's fair to say that with Duolingo, it's going to take a very long time to get to the stage that you can read your own material and learn from them? That's really my biggest gripe with it; yeah it's fun, it's free(ish)... but it started out reasonably slow and only got slower.
      As for the thumbnail - yep, guilty as charged. It's just a weird thing that certain tiny factors make people more likely to click. 2.9M seemed like the right number... not really sure why.
      As you can see from my views, I need to do everything I can, including simplifying the title of your video.
      Initially I actually used the thumbnail from your very recent video about the updates, but I thought that was a bridge too far, since that's not the main video I was talking about.
      Anyway - I hope you're well, and check out Dreaming Spanish, best thing that's ever happened to Spanish learners. 😉

    • @daysandwords
      @daysandwords  6 หลายเดือนก่อน +26

      @evan
      I appreciate that you didn't come here flaming me but I don't really see how it's any LESS deceptive to be all like "lmao" and "gonna tell mom I've finally made it" (basically acting like things are cool) if you're actually hating this and seemed to be quite annoyed by it (based on your video). I don't know why you would comment on mine at all. You accused me of pretending to like you so as to be win sympathy... But here you are pretending to be fine about this when you're obviously PO'd.
      I've got some videos on the horizon so it might be a while before I get to your response, but I feel that we both just misunderstand each other. We have different styles and the same words seem to mean different things to us, so now we're beefing. I'm sorry about that.
      Yes, I used your face to get views, and yes, it was deliberate. I am deliberate with what videos I make, because I can't afford not to be. You pointed out yourself that my older clickbait didn't work. Basically I've gotten better at it. We can talk all day about whether Duolingo made you fluent or not but to be surprised that a smaller TH-camr used your face for views... Really? Dude it's happened to ME and I haven't even cracked 100K subs. That is this platform. I wouldn't be surprised if it happens again (certainly now because you responded to it).
      I _genuinely_ hope you are well, and I hope your stay in Germany was or is going well. Lamont.

    • @evan
      @evan 6 หลายเดือนก่อน +54

      @@daysandwords Halli hallo,
      so my initial reaction was shock and using humour as a coping mechanism as I worked out my feelings on it all. As I sat on it and thought about the video, it did cause me genuine upset and hurt. So yeah I was really trying to “be cool with it,” but then my shock wore off. Sorry for the perceived deception there.
      I will say there have been some comments from some of your viewers on my video which I’ve found incredibly nuanced and insightful. Ones that were better able to convey your history of things and better intentions except for the whole using me out of context to make a point thing. Most still agreed with my point that you could’ve done that a bit better.
      The thing is, besides the ultra low-quality “react channels” that throw one of my videos on and then pause every 5 minutes to pretend they’re adding any value to my video they’re stealing, I honestly do /not/ have anyone using my face/videos for views ever. (I will note, your video was HIGHLY transformative and incredibly well-edited featuring loads of added value so I absolutely do not place your video anywhere near those channels.) I’m not really a large enough TH-camr for that to be worthwhile for most people (I’m not really bringing them clicks), but I suppose within this one niche, maybe so!
      Also, the videos I make aren’t like… big debatable topics; most are just “here’s my experience” which is really hard to…make a video arguing against or for? Because you can’t really argue with someone else’s experience. (Though you did.) You can share your own, sure, but most everything I make (outside of say… the recent video) I strive to make them as inoffensive as possible to /avoid/ that type of response at all costs. This is what caused such intense levels of shock and upset that of all the niches I make videos in, the duolingo one felt so innocent to me, so devoid of controversy and safe. I feel like I make way less “personal” content these days out of an intense anxiety of someone using it against me in bad faith.
      So to have a video brutally going through everything I’ve uploaded and attempting to inherently discredit my personal journey through strategic cuts I found abhorrent (even if that was not your intent). There were so many points you made I felt like I could’ve agreed with or at least been able to say “well we just have different definitions of things” as I’ve never claimed to have mastery in the foreign languages I’ve learned, as I felt like in every single video I’ve made that you used, I’ve always signified the exact level of fluency I’m talking about. You even left in the bit I said as such. My concession of “soft yes” in that video 5 years ago was pretty much making the exact point you were. But you painted it as disingenuous while then basically saying the same thing? I hope you’re able to see that this along with you using that recent clip of me saying “I couldn’t speak the language” which referred to my recent 2 years of not actively learning German to mean I couldn’t speak it at all at the time of my OG video really solidified to me that you weren’t “making a mistake” but were deliberately misconstruing me for your own content. I couldn’t agree with that. Hence my response.
      Saying “that is the platform” and I should expect people to use my face and name for views I find a bit of a deflection here though. Whenever celebrities get harassed in public or private and people online say “that’s the price of being famous” I really, /really/ disagree with that sentiment and believe it shows a very large lack of empathy. If you wouldn’t like that type of behaviour then regardless you shouldn’t condone it. So to contribute to that and say “that’s just the way it is; it’s happened to me” I find that sad.
      I feel like sure, it’d be different if I was purporting myself to be a professional language coach or something like that, and let’s say I was using my position to convince others to trust in me to get them to sign up for my course, because then sure, I think you’d have grounds for… let’s say “protection of the space” from this bad actor. You’d really want to convey that we’d all need a lot more “proof” this guy is who he says he is and is in this case an absolute mastery C2 fluent guy! But in my case, in that video as well as every video since, I’ve always conveyed the reality of my personal language-learning journey and that has /never/ been someone in the C1 or C2 range.
      I think the inherent discrepancy here comes from our different niches and styles. My niche is for the average person who’s interested in learning enough of a language to be able to engage in it by using it at shops and restaurants, expressing themselves, and consuming foreign media, not necessarily mastery. I’d absolutely be a bad channel for mastery as I am not that at all and… sigh… I really feel like I’ve said as much multiple times recently and in the past. I try to be realistic about my own journey. From what I’ve learned from your insightful viewers’ comments is that your channel is more in-depth. More, let’s say, for like “well how can I learn MORE of the language, and learn more efficiently to be GOOD at this language and make locals be like DAMN OKAY WOW.” That’s cool as hell man, and definitely a very important niche for the people that would like to move from the “minimum effort to engage in a foreign language” to more serious efforts.
      On this topic though, I will say, I don’t know if you’ve considered this before, but before previewing my video, I asked a friend of mine to watch yours first to ensure they had the full context, and they told me after finishing your video, their overall feeling was demotivation. They didn’t feel motivated to continue learning a foreign language at all, not just on duolingo, but at all. I’m sure that’s not the feeling you’d want to instil in a viewer, right? I know you created a follow up video about what you use instead of duolingo which is great, but that one video of me alone was so negative that someone like my friend felt like not only was her slow growth on duolingo pointless but the growth of her language in general. Even though she knows me and has had chats with me on the topic, your inclusion of that bit of me saying “I couldn’t speak the language” while saying it was about me EVER speaking the language even made her confused until she watched my video. Your editing is very persuasive, eh?
      I personally have worked with solely 1 (at time of writing unless I’m forgetting one?) language sponsor which was featured in my recent video you used B roll from, and when chatting it out with them (and all possible (and failed)) sponsors, I stipulate that I can’t pretend I’m not using rivals too. So many sponsors require not talking about competitors in the content (makes a lot of sense), but I couldn’t do that honestly as I do and will continue to learn on duo. But I worked out with the brand (and a future one hopefully?) how I ADD these in to my routine and how they add value to what I’m already doing. Even when duo’s being a bit shite with their updates, I still do admit I’m using the app still / AND / I add in the sponsor. In your case, I guess you don’t really have to worry about that as even though you used it in the past, you’re now against the use of duolingo, so you can authentically be like “duo’s shit, but ayyyy this spon ain’t bad.” But from my perspective the optics of that isn’t great… but that’s probably because it’s my perspective as someone whose channel is NOT all about language learning. It probably makes more sense in your niche, and so my comments about it probably come from a lack of understanding of YOUR space so apologies for that.
      In completely tangential comments, otherwise you seem like an overall right chap. You’re clearly a well-rounded lad (at least by just looking at online things) in that ya know, you’re working on your fitness, you’ve got a family you’re taking care of, etc. I personally have no beef with /you/ just with your (in my opinion) dishonest use of my language-learning journey in your video. We disagree about some things in the space as is natural, but we absolutely agree with a LOT of things that could have been interesting to explore had you (as you told me in your original comment you planned on doing, but didn’t) actually messaged me prior to talk about. We could probably agree that once you clear that A1-A2 area, duolingo would be VASTLY improved if you supplement it heavily with other media. But… as you know as you’ve got my videos downloaded in your timeline, I’ve pretty much said as much too. I said it with positive intentions whereas I personally feel your video repackaged my own but things were said negatively. Does that make sense? You can disagree!
      I do apologise for my tone in my video as lord almighty is it SHARP. Sarcasm is how I write rebuttals and in this case it was just… a bit biting when if I’d focused more on say, the type of thing I’ve written here, it would’ve been less harsh.
      I talked about this in a comment I made on my own video, but I do mean it when I say I do also hope you continue to learn languages and enjoy doing so and also continue trying to help people succeed! We’re both in places where we actually can motivate and inspire people to learn a foreign language which I can assume is something both of us enjoy 🙂
      At the end of the day, you’ll always have a better english accent than me. Would kill to sound Aussie 😅

    • @ski2mi
      @ski2mi 3 หลายเดือนก่อน +1

      "so as to be win sympathy" ​ @daysandwords - a MISTAKE?! (Mock horror.) I guess you learned English with Duolingo! LOL

    • @daysandwords
      @daysandwords  3 หลายเดือนก่อน +5

      @@ski2miYeah and if I'd translated these thoughts directly from my native language, as well as making jerky and awkward mistakes for THREE HOURS STRAIGHT, then I'd admit that I wasn't fluent in English.

  • @TysonJensen
    @TysonJensen 6 หลายเดือนก่อน +28

    I tried a few of the Spanish options, let me just cut to the conclusion, the one you want is Dreaming Spanish. It's the closest to what you will be wanting to actually do -- understand native speakers. They have specific content for learning Mexican, Columbian, Argentinian, Chilean or European (Spain) Spanish to help you refine your ear for where you plan to actually be.

  • @iluvmyhusband-3-
    @iluvmyhusband-3- 6 หลายเดือนก่อน +11

    7:32 he is trying to use the vocabulary he acquired from duolingo to make a direct translation rather than one that makes sense. this actually works for more german than you’d expect but sadly this one is not an example. and this particular case is quite telling of how far duolingo can take you because because the phrase he’s trying to say (and variations of it) are quite common in everyday speech and media (sonst noch etwas).

    • @iluvmyhusband-3-
      @iluvmyhusband-3- 6 หลายเดือนก่อน +5

      talking on the not uncommon 1:1 german-english translations, i will encounter a combination of words in german that seems very odd, z.B. “laufende Nase”, it makes me take a pause and think “what…? a running🏃‍♂️ nose??? but a nose has no legs??” but then comes the “WAIT… i know what that means, thats exactly how we say it in English!!” 😂😂

  • @tomtocz7284
    @tomtocz7284 7 หลายเดือนก่อน +155

    I like Duolingo. I feel it helps me stay consistent even on lazy or busy days. I do about 15 minutes in the morning and 15 in the evening but move on to other resources after duo. I take actual language classes at local colleges too. Duolingo is more of a warm up for me and I don’t obsess over it. If I felt it was useless I have no issue with kicking it to the curb. I am high intermediate in Russian and Spanish in large part thanks to Duolingo. The streak creates a habit of daily exposure to the target language and I think that was the key for me. I have tried learning before but with the other resources I was using it was easy to miss a day, and then a week, month, and then I would say F-it and I would move on to something else. I can honestly say that if it wasn’t for Duolingo I would not be speaking my two new languages right now.

    • @jewelweed6880
      @jewelweed6880 7 หลายเดือนก่อน +33

      The best language resources are the ones you will actually use. If there's too much of a barrier to that you're not gonna use it and you're not going to get anywhere.

    • @ketchup901
      @ketchup901 6 หลายเดือนก่อน +7

      "Staying consistent" doesn't matter if you're not actually doing anything useful. You should spend those 30 minutes doing something else.

    • @tomtocz7284
      @tomtocz7284 6 หลายเดือนก่อน +34

      @@ketchup901 what makes you an authority on something being useful to me or not ? I speak four languages, two of them I would not speak if it wasn’t for duolingo. That’s pretty useful to me.

    • @ketchup901
      @ketchup901 6 หลายเดือนก่อน

      @@tomtocz7284This is a video about how Duolingo is not useful.

    • @jewelweed6880
      @jewelweed6880 6 หลายเดือนก่อน

      @@ketchup901 There is a saying that the best (insert subject) resources...are the ones you actually use. If it sits on your shelf, it isn't magically going to get in your brain.
      There are loads of programs that are more efficient at teaching, but they can be too content heavy. My memory isn't good enough and neither is my attention span, to use those exclusively. Duo is not very efficient and at the moment, that is working for me. Should anyone use it exclusively and expect the world from it? Definitely not. That is nothing new. Use other resources and maybe take breaks away, but keep up the duolingo during that time to keep the language in your life? That sounds useful. I don't know how many times in the last 20 years I have used a standard program diligently for a week, take a break, and next thing I know it has been a year. Yeah, haven't gotten very far. Still, I have been chipping away for 88 days with Duo, and in that time I have finally broached topics I had been avoiding for a long time. I have other resources and books. The plan is to go ahead and take breaks from all that like before, but keep the Duo streak so Arabic stays in my life. There are other ways to do that minimum, but this is what I am using now. My breaks in between studying a program are shorter. That's a win.

  • @remote24
    @remote24 7 หลายเดือนก่อน +22

    If duolingo would not be such a fkn grind it would be actually helpful. But translating "this student is seven years old" 57times doesnt make you fluid

  • @bbyball16
    @bbyball16 7 หลายเดือนก่อน +746

    That walking to the airport analogy was absolutely genius! I found your page years ago for “exposing” things that were exaggerated in the language learning community. And I’m glad you’re still doing it.

    • @daysandwords
      @daysandwords  7 หลายเดือนก่อน +60

      I never went after Evan because I don't think he's doing it deliberately.
      I think he acknowledges that his German wasn't good... but then I'm thinking "Ok so, "conversationally fluent using JUST Duolingo..."...Something here doesn't fit."

    • @bbyball16
      @bbyball16 7 หลายเดือนก่อน +16

      @@daysandwords I wholeheartedly agree. In the years I’ve been following you, you’ve never been malicious to another content creator or language learner. I feel your approach is always, “there’s better options to achieve your goal.”

    • @KatSchlitz
      @KatSchlitz 7 หลายเดือนก่อน +15

      Completely agree. After getting to decent proficiency in French I realize that the fastest flight to a new language is 1) absorb basics of the grammar to some level, 2) stuff a few hundred vocabulary in my head, and then 3) immerse immerse immerse, via reading galore and videos fully in that language and audio and repeating plots in the new language and so on… complete immersion is not given by apps at all. And it’s the only way there.

    • @ratoh1710
      @ratoh1710 7 หลายเดือนก่อน +3

      @@daysandwords I think a lot of the reason why Evan uses Duolingo is the sunk cost fallacy. He has spent so much time and he has seen some results so surely it must work, else was he just wasting his time? And it's clear that Duolingo fosters that sunk cost mentality with the streak

    • @daysandwords
      @daysandwords  7 หลายเดือนก่อน +1

      @ratoh1710 - Possibly!

  • @Jotun184
    @Jotun184 7 หลายเดือนก่อน +98

    Great video, the plane analogy especially is very useful. A serious language learner needs to realize that there will always be a level of frustration that comes with language learning which is normal and even desirable... reading native materials, regularly looking things up, the endless cycle of learning something, forgetting it and learning it again might not always be *fun* but that process is the entire point, that is the process you're looking for. And the satisfaction you get after grinding at that and finally being able to comprehend *actual* native content you like is something the tiny daily dopamine hits you get from tapping the lever of the skinner box of Duolingo can't compare to. But you have to be serious about it and want to actually comprehend the language.

    • @AA-lz4wq
      @AA-lz4wq 7 หลายเดือนก่อน +1

      How's that incompatible with duolingo or any other language app though?

    • @Jotun184
      @Jotun184 7 หลายเดือนก่อน +4

      @@AA-lz4wq It isn't incompatible you use it as a supplement to engagement with actual text and audio and an SRS but the question then is why bother with an app that is inferior to those things? If you like doing it anyway ofc you should do it but it just isn't very effective if you're serious about learning the language. Also esp for non-European languages (though I can only speak for Japanese) the sentences are really not very native like and the robot pronunciation frankly sucks. Though I haven't used it in years so maybe it got better, idk.

    • @jewelweed6880
      @jewelweed6880 7 หลายเดือนก่อน +2

      Normal, yes. Not sure how the frustration is desirable, though.

    • @lightyear3429
      @lightyear3429 5 หลายเดือนก่อน

      ​@@AA-lz4wqmore time spent in Duolingo means less time spent really learning the language AND fostering an addiction

    • @lightyear3429
      @lightyear3429 5 หลายเดือนก่อน

      ​@@jewelweed6880everything good comes with a struggle. Frustration is a sign of growth. If you aren't tired after gym you aren't progressing

  • @jacey261
    @jacey261 7 หลายเดือนก่อน +125

    Agree 100%. What frustrates me is Duolingo's false promises. Their catchphrase is literally "The world's best way to learn a language". Then you get people every day posting on Reddit, wondering why they can't understand native speakers after having a 900+ day streak. It's sad, really, knowing that they could have been fluent in that same amount of time if they had used more effective resources.
    My Spanish skyrocketed when I gave up on Duolingo and started focusing on comprehensible input (God bless Dreaming Spanish). Now I'm at B2 and I can read or watch almost anything I want. I'm starting Polish and looking forward to using the same process. 80% input, 10% output, 10% focused vocab/grammar study has been very effective for me.

    • @BeSk9991
      @BeSk9991 7 หลายเดือนก่อน +9

      900 day streak doesn't mean much.
      It could be doing like 50 lessons and practice (repeating)...
      What is """important""" (or was before they completely fucked up the XP system) was XP amount.
      I had like 25k in Spanish by the time I went to university (so equivalanet of 2500 lessons, finished the tree, repeated a lot, used other sources) - and I was at B1 level.
      Some people might use Duo every day for 5 minutes - 900 days = 4500 minutes = 75 hours? Basically A1-A2 level.
      If they spent 1 hour per day for 900 days, they would definitely be B1 (in combination with other resources, when duolingo tree ends :D )

    • @tovarishcheleonora8542
      @tovarishcheleonora8542 7 หลายเดือนก่อน +9

      People can't understand a language because they are just doing tasks for keeping a streak instead of actually learning, practicing and repeating things. And to be honest, after a while you can solve the tasks from feeling without any knowledge of the language if you get used to what the duolingo expects from you in every course equally.
      Like as, i literally could just go to any random language course and get a 30-50% accuracy on the highest check point without knowing anything about the language at all. And it's only because duolingo teaches you how to satisfy the website's tasks instead of teaching you the language.

    • @tovarishcheleonora8542
      @tovarishcheleonora8542 7 หลายเดือนก่อน

      @@BeSk9991 You definitelly need other sources for any level. Duolingo is only good for being a practice tool that you use as an addition to a real learning method.

    • @Alltagundso
      @Alltagundso หลายเดือนก่อน

      Powodzenia ☺️

  • @blackpilledfemboi6270
    @blackpilledfemboi6270 5 หลายเดือนก่อน +6

    Duolingo is like a golden paved road to the airport. You know exactly what steps to take to the airport, but at the end of the day your still walking when you could be driving

  • @georgiewalker5826
    @georgiewalker5826 7 หลายเดือนก่อน +6

    That Duolingo owl is going to be coming for you like Michael Myers at this point

  • @Blind_Hawk
    @Blind_Hawk 6 หลายเดือนก่อน +22

    As someone who used Duolingo to learn Finnish, I can agree with the whole video and will keep using it. Not as my only way to do it, but as complementary material that gives me a broad view of the language. But for learning, I actually need to do more. As my English and Spanish teachers taught me. To learn a language you need to write in it, read in it, and especially TALK and SPEAK it. Just using Duolingo will not be able to give you the learning experience you NEED. And I was aware that Duolingo wouldn't be my only resource for learning Finnish.
    For the Evan part, as a German native speaker, I am NOT attacking or trying to slander him, I just want to be honest, the part where he tried to speak German was a tough watch. And he thought he got the right word, but he didn't. "Anything else" is "irgendwas anderes"/"irgendwas -" not "irgendwas übrigens".

    • @daysandwords
      @daysandwords  6 หลายเดือนก่อน +7

      Exactly.
      And there is lots of nuance that this video is missing, for example, I only touch on Hawaiian vs Spanish, but Finnish sits somewhere in the middle. I assume you're using FinnishPod101?
      As for Evan's German, yeah, he accused me of "combing through the three hours to find the one part where I was lost for words". Well, umm, no actually. Had I have wanted to embarrass him, I could have shown 20 bits EXACTLY like that. Trying to think of the German word for an English word in your head and then saying it, EVEN IF it were the right word, is just not fluency. Anyone who's ever gotten anywhere near fluency knows that thinking IN the language is only one step towards that, but it's a necessary step.

    • @aiocafea
      @aiocafea 6 หลายเดือนก่อน +3

      same, i will not stop using duolingo i'll just stop wondering 'maybe the paid plan has something planned who knows'
      i had never heard anyone says that you can *concentrate* on duolingo for languge-learning before evan, and in any case nobody that actually did, so a qualitative review of his progress seems like a good idea
      i am glad other people can approximate his level of german as i really don't know german and had never heard him speak it as i don't watch his livestreams
      i genuinely watched his videos though and took what he said mostly at face value
      it's a shame he took it personally with his reply, and i'll try to understand his side of the story but bottom-line is still that the premise of this video seems right, and the arguments and evidence still stand

    • @Komatik_
      @Komatik_ 6 หลายเดือนก่อน +1

      Someone has a good taste in target languages!

    • @FakeXyxy
      @FakeXyxy 6 หลายเดือนก่อน

      Me Suomalaiset Arvostamme ulkomaalaisia, jotka opiskelevät kieltämme. Ulkomaalaiset valittaa sitä etteivät saa työtä, vaikka he eivät edes usein osaa kieltämme.
      ♥️Rakkaudella Tampereelta.

  • @JP-ok2qd
    @JP-ok2qd 7 หลายเดือนก่อน +3

    Excellent video! You are absolutely correct. Have been using it for almost a year now. The lessons just keep repeating like going on a merry go round! Thanks for the enlightenment!

  • @kallelaur1762
    @kallelaur1762 4 หลายเดือนก่อน +10

    I started with a language course because I felt bored, and duolingo supplementing it. But then, always being worse than some other students in each class that I joined and not speaking as well when visiting Spain motivated me to turn it into an obsession. So one day I found that I could skip 10 units at a time in duolingo, then I dropped it altogether. It was just a chore that didn't help me. I stopped taking courses as well, having skipped five during it.
    And now, some two years later since I started, I speak it rather well, I can also read Monte Cristo and I only have to look up between 1..5 words per page, if I feel that they're important to the context. I don't really need to know what 'mesana' means (it's 'mizzenmast' in English).
    More importantly, I found that I could just travel five stops by public transport to partake in language exchanges. Way better. I also started with my own :D:D
    On to Portuguese then, this time without Duolingo.

  • @muffinland
    @muffinland 7 หลายเดือนก่อน +22

    I have been using Duo for beginner Japanese. I find it's format is fantastic for the writing system -- spaced repetition with a combination of listening, pattern matching, and tracing. I imagine it would be similar useful for other alphabets/abjabs/syllabaries.
    The actual language lessons though are useless. I've been drilling "She's a cool lawyer" for like 5 days with no end in sight.

    • @prplt
      @prplt 6 หลายเดือนก่อน

      its format not it's (=it is)

    • @muffinland
      @muffinland 6 หลายเดือนก่อน +3

      @@prplt You will please excuse my phone's overzealous and not AI autocorrect.

    • @Siegfried5846
      @Siegfried5846 13 วันที่ผ่านมา

      I also did not understand why it kept giving me the same questions over and over again. I think it would have been better if I had paid and got endless lives. That way, I would have played more since there wouldn't be negative leverage.

    • @daysandwords
      @daysandwords  2 วันที่ผ่านมา

      @@Siegfried5846 Yep. Perverse incentives. Anything with preverse incentives will be ineffective; economics has shown this time and time again.

  • @shaunhunterit342
    @shaunhunterit342 3 หลายเดือนก่อน +2

    Your videos aren't garbled. They're exceptionally well-structured and I appreciate that.
    I have had absolutely no experience with Duolingo. I avoid social media as much as possible and the interactivity of notifications alone would put me off, never mind the cutesy game aspect and it dishing out dopamine hits that will get you addicted.

  • @sanguineel
    @sanguineel 5 หลายเดือนก่อน +2

    Seems like the streaks encourage sunk-cost fallacy

  • @Grimmona
    @Grimmona 7 หลายเดือนก่อน +11

    Hi I'm from Germany. I'm learning Japanese on Duolingo and I have ADHD.
    My goal is it to understand enough Japanese so I can listen to Podcasts and stories in Japanese( because that is how I learned English). Duolingo kept me learning while other apps did not. duolingo is not perfect I'm missing so much (like grammar and vocabulary) on duolingo, but I have other apps to. But Duolingo really important for me, it's keeping my learning day after day after day. And the biggest achievement is that i deleted all other games on my phone and the only game I'm playing now is duolingo😁.
    After not even one year Japanese learning on duolingo I started looking for short stories for language beginners and Podcast in Japanese.

  • @davesenglish
    @davesenglish 7 หลายเดือนก่อน +19

    I guess that I can say that I've been "lucky" to study two languages that aren't on Duolingo (Slovak and Ho-Chunk). However, just for shits and giggles, I decided to do a speed run on Duolingo in Greek, a language I didn't know a damn thing about. After the first six hours, I just noticed that everything was a constant loop. Yes, some words were sticking in my head, but many of those words weren't useful, such as teaching nouns and verbs that would rarely be used, while never mentioning commonly-used words. And this is the problem, that Duolingo on purposely leave common words later in the tree so that you are stuck to it. In addition, I think that Duolingo's "plug and play" approach helps someone memorize certain phrases, with the idea of "plugging in" words, but it doesn't do anything to help you form your own sentences.

    • @claudiabenak
      @claudiabenak 6 หลายเดือนก่อน

      what resources did you use to learn slovak? i am trying to learn czech but i can’t find anything except duolingo

    • @igorbondarev5226
      @igorbondarev5226 5 หลายเดือนก่อน

      ​@@claudiabenak Is slovake eu website still online? In 2017 it helped me tremendously

  • @Theguyunderyourbed22
    @Theguyunderyourbed22 7 หลายเดือนก่อน +2

    Literally got a Duolingo ad at the end of the video which I've never gotten before

  • @littlered6340
    @littlered6340 6 หลายเดือนก่อน +10

    Commenting since I commented on the other one and this deserves the comment boost.
    This makes sense to me, because by the time Duolingo came out I was already beyond anything it could teach me in my target language. Since then, I've seen friends who have a streak literally twice as long as I've been studying who are still at the beginner level of the language whereas I am much further. They haven't used anything else, though, because (and I think this is where the disconnect is) a lot of people using duolingo have a different definition of 'fluency' and of 'learning a language', and I *think* that's the point the other guy was making in his response to this video.
    I wanted to learn my language to have conversations with friends and to read books, which I think is a different use case than what you should use Duo for, at least according to people with high streaks, which seems to be more about 'being exposed to a language in time they would have otherwise spent doomscrolling' than something like reading complex books.

    • @daysandwords
      @daysandwords  6 หลายเดือนก่อน +7

      Yeah, and I MAY (probably not) but may, make a response to Evan's response... but just quickly, MY whole point in this video is that you can't just be like "Oh making ONE mistake doesn't mean you're not fluent"... He doesn't make one mistake. He can barely string three words together, and he's clearly thinking in English (because he says "I mean" when he accidentally says the wrong German word). NO ONE has THAT definition of fluency. Literally no one. And the fact that this was 5 years ago makes no difference since he's seemingly still claiming NOW that he was fluent THEN.
      Like I am a slow runner now... I was faster 6 years ago. So I don't say I can run a 21 minute 5K now, but I'll challenge anyone who says I couldn't do it BACK THEN. But Evan is doing the opposite, he's like "I am, and was, fluent, and I did it through Duolingo."
      I'm prepared to admit that Duolingo did SOMETHING, but not MOST of it. And it took so long that I would wonder why anyone would bother.

    • @rpstneureis
      @rpstneureis 6 หลายเดือนก่อน +12

      ​​@@daysandwords​At some point in that livestream, someone asks him if he thinks in German and he flat out states that he's thinking in English and translating. It's so bizarre to see him get so defensive about the fact that this probably wouldn't be considered "conversationally fluent" to most people and that his Duolingo video probably mislead people into having higher expectations than reasonable.
      The thing that really annoyed me though about Evan's response was that the entire argument relied on the retroactive weakening of his previous position from "I got fluent with Duolingo in 2 years" to "I'm just a hobbyist who does this for fun and I ultimately don't care about whether this method can get you to a high level" to make it look like you're just too stuck-up to respect his casual approach. All while implicitly maintaining that his fluency claims were still true all along. That was either dishonest or extremely sloppy of Evan. That video was just a complete strawman.
      He also completely misunderstood your airport analogy.
      I think your video was infinitely more fair and objective than his.

    • @littlered6340
      @littlered6340 6 หลายเดือนก่อน +11

      @@rpstneureis yeah he completely misunderstood the airport analogy, which I personally thought was brilliant. He also spent a lot more time doing more personal attacks. I'm not going to lie, I went into that video expecting something like 'hi, maybe you have an off expectation of duolingo, here are some ways it's actually really great and here is why I use it the way I do" and instead it was jokes about this youtuber' acting like a reddit moderator and using him for clout for his comparatively lower subscriber count' 😬. I don't know, I didn't expect that from him 😩. Either way, I don't think any points were really made since his argument was strawman, there's very little point in responding unless they can actually have a conversation to discuss the merits of each, but it doesn't sound like that other guy would even be willing to do that.
      I do think when a lot of people say fluent, they actually mean "someone of my target language can figure out what I meant eventually" like if you need help in the grocery store and you say "alcohol... Liquid... Cleaning... Please... Where?" instead of "where's the hand sanitiser?" (I have done this. This is me. I just never would have called myself fluent because I achieved sanitisation.)

  • @DanValentineFilms
    @DanValentineFilms 7 หลายเดือนก่อน +91

    I've practiced Spanish on Duolingo for years and now I'm in Colombia meeting tons of folks and comfortably having hours long conversations & teaching English classes to folks that don't know any English yet.
    Yes, Duolingo works, and it was 80% responsible for my knowledge in Spanish, supplemented by TH-cam, books, podcasts, songs, movies, and practicing with native speakers making up the other 20%.

    • @daysandwords
      @daysandwords  7 หลายเดือนก่อน +50

      "and it was 80% responsible for my knowledge in Spanish, supplemented by TH-cam, books, podcasts, songs, movies."
      But how could you possibly know that DL was 80% responsible for your knowledge? All the other stuff you described there, by sheer volume of words, contains orders of magnitude more.
      The DL just helps you to actually squeeze the juice out of those things. But the juice still came from those things.
      I think this comment has put the misunderstanding so succinctly as to inspire a second video in me about why people FEEL that Duolingo works even though it doesn't.

    • @AkujiTheRestless
      @AkujiTheRestless 6 หลายเดือนก่อน

      @@gradient5319 yes

    • @TysonJensen
      @TysonJensen 6 หลายเดือนก่อน +5

      @@daysandwords right? I would love to say that my current level in Spanish is due to my diligent daily study. but let's be honest. It's because I moved to Mexico a couple years back. The study is great, and I know people who move to Mexico and learn no Spanish largely because they aren't studying to prepare themselves for interacting with the people who live here, but can I really say that 80% or even 50% of what I actually know comes from apps and study courses? Probably not.

    • @ExpirisYT
      @ExpirisYT 6 หลายเดือนก่อน +1

      @@daysandwordsI think the video is 'great right? Yes I do, but I gotta say I've started using duolingo for the past 10 months ago, for free. I get the pay to win aspect. But I've actually learned so much German in these past months to year. This does not apply to everyone, but I can speak it FLUENTLY by just keeping up around a 80 day streak, I can easily have conversations with my German friends and family now because I grew up in america and I speak english, so I decided I would learn german. I made that promise, sure the updates are bad but I've learned so much, it's a great learning app but the paywalls are horrible.

    • @flubnub266
      @flubnub266 6 หลายเดือนก่อน +3

      @@daysandwords I remember in the 2000s there were equivalent "Rosetta Stone works" people. Many people learned languages with those tools, but it's presented to you in this neat little package that gives the impression that this is what language learning should be like. If you're a beginner, you just slog your way through it and accept that language learning really is this confusing and slow, when in reality it doesn't have to be.

  • @norabalogh5910
    @norabalogh5910 6 หลายเดือนก่อน +11

    I was using Duolingo as one resource to learn Hungarian (among others), but I am proud to say that I was one of the rare folks who did quit when they removed sentence explanations. It pushed me over the frustration tipping point and I said to myself, “this is no longer sufficiently valuable, I’m not going to allow it to rob me of any more of my valuable language learning time”! My annoyance allowed me to resist till I got over it!
    I was actually already frustrated by the fact that even before the change removing sentence explanations (and therefore severely reducing the value of the app) Duolingo was not helping me very much with one if the most difficult aspects of Hungarian: sentence order. In Hungarian there is one sentence order that is considered “neutral” and correct, various other sentence orders that are correct but put the emphasis on one particular element of the sentence and of course many wrong possible sentence orders too. Duolingo doesn’t of course include the concept of neutral sentence order and can’t identify if the order you’ve specified would be the neutral one or not. So it was already frustrating and inadequate for Hungarian.

  • @maskedanimatronic147
    @maskedanimatronic147 6 หลายเดือนก่อน +10

    I was already fluent in two languages when I started learning Spanish on Duolingo. I did it for 1-2 years on a daily basis but when I spent one year in Spain and visited a Spanish school, I realized how little difference it made. Duolingo is good if you wanna pick up some words for a holiday so you're not completely lost in a foreign country.
    That one year in Spain was way more effective although I barely practiced speaking.
    Interestingly I became fluent in English without the intention to do so. I was and am obsessed with English songs and video games, that's why I listened to content surrounding those topics until I understood.
    For Japanese I looked up many different methods of learning but in conclusion I think understanding it is the first step. Though I have to admit that I'm also practicing writing and reading at the same time since it's so different from the languages I can speak.

  • @explainous
    @explainous 4 หลายเดือนก่อน +4

    I can tell you why even if duolingo is lengthy and there are better options for language learning, it is worth it. It is because how easy it is to build a daily habit especially for people who are learning a new language casually. 'casually' is the key word here. Most of the people who are learning languages using this app are otherwise busy people who just want to learn a language as a hobby. Now, it is a great gateway to language learning. Those who find language learning fun after using this app, they will automatically seek for better, faster ways to learn that language.

    • @daysandwords
      @daysandwords  4 หลายเดือนก่อน +3

      "Those who find language learning fun after using this app, they will automatically seek for better, faster ways to learn that language."
      Will they though? I mean what if I could find an example of someone who learned German for 4-5 years before still completely sucking at German, only to then take up Spanish using exactly the same app, despite their OWN ADMISSION that the app is significantly worse than a few years back? If I could produce such an example, surely we'd have to admit that not all people (and I would argue, not even MOST people) will seek for a real language learning method?

  • @tinywest
    @tinywest 7 หลายเดือนก่อน +207

    This really put into perspective the meaninglessness of just doing duolingo. I gotta start taking language learning more seriously 😅 Great video

    • @daysandwords
      @daysandwords  7 หลายเดือนก่อน +15

      Thank you!

    • @MichellesdesignsEtc
      @MichellesdesignsEtc 7 หลายเดือนก่อน +3

      I don't understand why people are so down on duo lingo 💔 jag älskar duo lingo

    • @jasonmorris350
      @jasonmorris350 7 หลายเดือนก่อน +43

      @@MichellesdesignsEtcconveniently @daysandwords posted a 26 minute video to help you understand.

    • @hisky.
      @hisky. 7 หลายเดือนก่อน +8

      ​@@MichellesdesignsEtcdid you watch the video?

    • @yummydragon8533
      @yummydragon8533 7 หลายเดือนก่อน +1

      @@MichellesdesignsEtchave fun walking across the ocean

  • @DoughBrain
    @DoughBrain 7 หลายเดือนก่อน +181

    It's always incredibly sad to see people around me try to learn a new language and then give up completely after learning worse than nothing from Duolingo.

    • @jasonbfhfj8132
      @jasonbfhfj8132 7 หลายเดือนก่อน +21

      I did that with spanish for 2 years before I realized that my skills were still awful. I decided to get a Spanish teacher and focus more on communication and listening, rather than mindlessly learning vocab

    • @aiocafea
      @aiocafea 6 หลายเดือนก่อน

      holy shit yeah!
      i am not complaining about the self-reporting people that say they would do 0 progress in language-learning but thank god for duolingo it helped them get out of the house and walk towards the airport
      but there are so many people that i know that have been walking for hours and hours with duolingo and have internalised the conclusion that the issue is with them
      i think this includes Evan for a bit because in his video reply he clearly sees Lamont's video as a personal attack on his language-learning ability
      just because it is the easiest thing for you to do does not mean this is what 'clicks' with you and you must be bad at learning languages other ways and us 'actual language-learners' shit on you
      it's easy because it is a game but after basic sentences, it will be more and more game and less and less language acquisition
      honestly it is just baffling how after a period of external study your perceived level in the duolingo-space skyrockets
      even only for memorisation (which is basically what duolingo is mainly) you can blow duolingo out of the water
      with language comprehension you can also reach a level where you understand alternative translations for duolingo's one + a few hidden options

    • @DoughBrain
      @DoughBrain 5 หลายเดือนก่อน

      @@rickynoodles2816
      Personally? I do vocabulary reviews and immersion for at least an hour everyday. (I occasionally study grammar, but I don’t stress out about it too much.)
      This year I plan on doing a language challenge every month on top of that.
      I’ve simplified this quite a bit since I don’t think writing a paragraph is going to help anyone.
      This channel has a ton of videos with great advice when it comes to language learning. So you’re in a good place if you need more help.
      Good luck on your language journey!

  • @ProjectArclite
    @ProjectArclite 7 หลายเดือนก่อน +2

    Airplane analogy is perfect.

  • @AZ-ty7ub
    @AZ-ty7ub 7 หลายเดือนก่อน +7

    Thank you for this. I always try to point new language learners in the direction of better materials and study methods, sometimes they listen, sometimes they don't. I live in Norway currently and I've been studying Norwegian for about two years using primarily native material. Am I fluent? Gosh no, but I can listen to native content with about a 70-80% comprehension rate and it goes higher with subtitles, and I can function more or less fine in Norwegian society as long as people don't speak too fast or use obscure vocabulary. My goal for next year is to reach C1, ambitious but we'll see.
    Meanwhile though, another American I know here has solely been trying to learn with Duolingo. He's been here longer than I have I can see his frustration. I try to tell him there are better ways to learn, but he seems to think if he sticks with Duolingo he'll finally become fluent, meanwhile he can barely order a coffee in Norwegian. I feel bad for him, he's a smart guy, but I think he's bought into the Duolingo hype. Maybe I'll show this to him.

  • @pilapila183
    @pilapila183 6 หลายเดือนก่อน +4

    I saw the title and came here in defense of duolingo. After the video I guess I'm breaking my 450 day streak. I bought a book in spanish today and I think I'll focus on that for now instead

  • @lucasdeyton8842
    @lucasdeyton8842 2 หลายเดือนก่อน +3

    One aspect I don't think is discussed enough about Duolingo is how it's literally designed to be addictive. Duolingo isn't a language learning method that's been gamified. Its a game with some language elements.
    Just having a streak is an incredibly powerful psychological pressure to continue using the app. The entire experience is designed around keeping users in the app, not teaching them their target language.
    For what it's worth I do think Duo can be a good introduction to a language you might be interested in, however it's very poor at actually helping you learn that language. And as covered in your video, it can be very hard to walk away from Duo down the line even when you know it isn't working for you, due to the reasons listed above and all the other ways the app has been designed.

  • @Tenafotena
    @Tenafotena 2 หลายเดือนก่อน +2

    Watching this video out of spite while my hearts refill

  • @Consum98
    @Consum98 7 หลายเดือนก่อน +71

    There are 2 situations I have found Duolingo to be useful:
    1: Learning the script to a new language (such as Japanese) and then binning the app after 1 month.
    2: Encouraging the kids at my workplace to start learning languages! (I've managed to get 3 kids to learn with me which is cool as hell)
    It is almost useless in every other situation, lol.

    • @daysandwords
      @daysandwords  7 หลายเดือนก่อน +17

      Yep, learning scripts is fair enough. I have said that (but many years ago).

    • @philipdavis7521
      @philipdavis7521 7 หลายเดือนก่อน +8

      I found it only moderately useful for learning Japanese script (well, kana, not kanji). It is, however, very good for Korean script. But Korean speakers i know say the Korean course itself is horrible, even by Duo standards.

    • @Warmongerer469
      @Warmongerer469 7 หลายเดือนก่อน +3

      I found it useful to learn the beginning stages of a language. Duolingo is very good material when you're at a point where you can't read basic sentences

    • @nissevelli
      @nissevelli 7 หลายเดือนก่อน

      Yeah, I learned cyrillic from DuoLingo. Probably took longer than it would've through other methods, but what else am I gonna do on the train for 10 minutes? 😅

    • @RhapsodyinLingo
      @RhapsodyinLingo 7 หลายเดือนก่อน +2

      And learning small languages, like Lamont said. But then again, Duolingo is fucking those languages over as well.

  • @ydonnay3145
    @ydonnay3145 6 หลายเดือนก่อน +4

    Duolingo is the scientology of learning apps. There is always another level to complete.

    • @daysandwords
      @daysandwords  6 หลายเดือนก่อน

      From their fan-base, it looks pretty true too.

  • @Refold
    @Refold 7 หลายเดือนก่อน +4

    Great video! Really enjoyed the plane/flight analogy. I'll probably be stealing that one...
    - Ben

    • @daysandwords
      @daysandwords  7 หลายเดือนก่อน +2

      I just trademarked it. 😆

  • @apexfractals2555
    @apexfractals2555 5 หลายเดือนก่อน +1

    that's a great summary and amazing clarification. thanks

  • @l8terivy
    @l8terivy 7 หลายเดือนก่อน

    ive watch a dozen of ur videos this year, and i finally subscribed today! thanks for this in depth video❤

  • @8thdayadventist911
    @8thdayadventist911 7 หลายเดือนก่อน +3

    I'm glad I saw this video. My yearly family plan for DuoLingo was going to renew next month, but now it isn't.

  • @kyleclarke4845
    @kyleclarke4845 6 หลายเดือนก่อน +6

    I think it can be summed up pretty easily - Duolingo works really well up to a point (around A2 in my experience if you're familiar with CEFR) but then it's quite useless at actually teaching you anything particularly useful past that. In your analogy it's like walking to your car that's parked a street or two away to then drive to the airport. But it's still a good tool for other things past that point such as reminding you to keep practicing, filling gaps in grammar and vocabulary knowledge, etc. Plus it can be hard to know where to start without it sometimes, and if you can't afford/justify spending a lot of money on something better such as storylearning then it's a genuinely useful tool.

    • @daysandwords
      @daysandwords  6 หลายเดือนก่อน +4

      "In your analogy it's like walking to your car that's parked a street or two away to then drive to the airport."
      Yeah if you walk at like 100 metres an hour.
      It COULD be useful for what you're describing, if it didn't stupidly throttle the speed at which you can go through the lessons. Do you want to move beyond "The boy has an apple."? No worries! Duolingo will get you beyond that... in 6 weeks.

  • @chicha400
    @chicha400 7 หลายเดือนก่อน +24

    Hey, thanks for this video I found it interesting and really like the flight analogy. I think the idea of “fluency” in the online language learning community is always a tricky one. It is a very subjective thing that some people believe to mean a near-native kind of level, whereas for others it is a lower B1 level. For me it’s a level where the speaker can express themselves relatively comfortably in a range of scenarios, even if they have an accent and make some mistakes, something around a B2 level I guess.
    I feel like some people use the term “conversationally fluent” to pepper the fact that they are not really that confident or proficient in the language, in fact Evan even says “for the most part conversationally fluent”. Regardless of that, the notion that Duo alone could bring you to fluency is quite ridiculous. I imagine, though, that it leads to more people, who would otherwise be uninterested, into language learning, which is definitely a positive thing.

    • @daysandwords
      @daysandwords  7 หลายเดือนก่อน +10

      Yeah, he was saying "conversationally fluent" to temper that... and that's fine... but that's my Swedish haha. I can't explain what my Honours thesis was about in Swedish, but I can tell you how I learned Swedish. Evan couldn't remember the word for "else", and when he did, it wasn't actually the term he was looking for. He was more like... conversationally "emergency" helpful, that is, if NO ONE had spoken English and someone was bleeding out, then Evan's German might have been slightly useful.
      My point isn't that he wasn't good or that he was lying or exaggerating. Simply that Duo wasn't working, because it doesn't work.

    • @chicha400
      @chicha400 7 หลายเดือนก่อน +2

      ​@daysandwords I just think the term “fluent” is generally problematic, as it’s hard to quantify. I know you weren’t trying to make it out as if his German wasn’t good, unfortunately it was more just the result of the fact he had mainly been using Duolingo and also for him it was a hobby. All things considered he is verg good and has probably inspired countless others to dip their toe in the boundless ocean that is language-learning. Just imagine if he had a streak of hundreds of days through immersion learning and been in the air all that time instead of on his feet.. the only thing with that though is that often people who learn through immersion and get crazy results “no-lifed” it and spent hours each day consuming content. So, even if input-based methods are far more effective it’s hard to compare since sometimes people will only spend like 5 minutes on Duolingo.

    • @chicha400
      @chicha400 7 หลายเดือนก่อน +2

      @@daysandwords also haha yeah, I get you. I’m at a point where I could probably describe myself as fluent in Spanish, yet have struggled in the past with complicated political discussions.

    • @daysandwords
      @daysandwords  7 หลายเดือนก่อน +8

      Yeah but Evan did actually say that it was more like an hour a day.
      The other thing is, a lot of people think that I only want to talk about things that take up 2-3 hours of your day. But I have two kids, of very different ages (which takes even longer than when they are of similar age). My Swedish learning at 33 years old was definitely unusual but I had a job and two kids... it's certainly not impossible.

    • @chicha400
      @chicha400 7 หลายเดือนก่อน +3

      @@daysandwords it’s great that you managed to find time for language learning despite those things! I imagine things like listening to audio passively would be helpful in such situations

  • @whoreforjaneausten
    @whoreforjaneausten 2 หลายเดือนก่อน +2

    My mom just hit a 700 days strike about a week ago and she still can't keep a simple conversation in English. If that doesn't show how ineffective the app is I don't know what will

  • @ADHDlanguages
    @ADHDlanguages 7 หลายเดือนก่อน +4

    Lamont this is an absolute banger. I almost never post anything on social media but I'm gonna HAVE to share this one.

    • @daysandwords
      @daysandwords  7 หลายเดือนก่อน +2

      Thank you!
      Honestly it went through three iterations, each of which were unrecognisable from the other two, so it ended up being maybe a bit "too much video" in one video.

  • @sarahwritehere
    @sarahwritehere 6 หลายเดือนก่อน +11

    I think the focus with Duolingo should just be maintaining a habit. I don't think it's effective if it's the only tool you're using to try to learn a language, but it does help initially with creating a daily habit. I still maintain my Duolingo streak for fun, but there's no doubt I've learned much more German from reading books, listening to music, watching movies and taking more comprehensive courses.

    • @ketchup901
      @ketchup901 6 หลายเดือนก่อน +2

      Where is the value in maintaining a habit that has no positive effect. You may as well maintain the habit of smoking weed every day.

    • @daysandwords
      @daysandwords  6 หลายเดือนก่อน +6

      @ketchup901 - exactly. That's why I quit my substantial streak. I was like "This does nothing."

  • @luishenriquealmeidarocha7007
    @luishenriquealmeidarocha7007 หลายเดือนก่อน +2

    For me, Duolingo is perfect, I've been learning English there for 964 days and I'll never stop, thank you Duolingo 🙏🏽🙏🏽🙏🏽

  • @Barquevious_Jackson
    @Barquevious_Jackson 5 หลายเดือนก่อน +1

    It's the videos that make you feel like a fool that are truly some of the most important ones to watch.
    You've provided an invaluable perspective. Thank you.
    For a while I've wondered what the 1 out of 10 who wouldn't recommend DuoLingo thought about it.
    I'll probably go back to line translation where I watch something in another language and try to deduce what's going on by writing down the subtitles, translating them , and writing an interpretation. Then check to see how close mine was to the real plot.
    Despite it being the slowest way to watch I vividly remember enjoying the episodes I watched of some Anime or Breaking Bad in Spanish.

  • @SvengelskaBlondie
    @SvengelskaBlondie 5 หลายเดือนก่อน +3

    11:17 not even a certain carpenter would walk over the pacific ocean, not when he has a buddy that can call down burning chariots from the sky and give people a ride 🤣

  • @donttalkcrap
    @donttalkcrap 6 หลายเดือนก่อน +4

    I just finished 2 years subscribed to the Family plan. I won't be renewing because my 4 family members (who don't know each other) all recently quit DL within weeks of each other after 2 years piggybacking on my account. Why? Because they all thought it was a complete waste of their time. Each had travelled overseas to a country where the language they were learning is primarily spoken, and they were so disappointed in just how little they could converse with the locals (speaking and listening)
    Me however, I treat DL as one of those mindless apps you spend time on each day when you're bored.
    I think if I get to the end of the courses, (I am learning 5 languages simultaneously) I will still not be able to speak any of the languages. But I won't have felt like I'd wasted as much time as if I played Angry Birds every day for 4 years straight.

  • @tedwardbooth
    @tedwardbooth 7 หลายเดือนก่อน +4

    Even with the smaller languages, you'd be surprised how many good free resources are out there. Scottish Gaelic for example, there's whole playlists from Gaelic with Jason that can take you from beginner to upper intermediate, the BBC have a tonne of free resources, SpeakGaelic, LearnGaelic, not to mention more and more creators from Scotland that have started making content in Scottish Gaelic. Duolingo might be good for establishing an interest in a language but like you say it is incredibly bad for getting results in a timeframe that isn't stupidly long.

  • @eduardoortegagonzalez1161
    @eduardoortegagonzalez1161 7 หลายเดือนก่อน

    This is one of the best videos I've ever seen on YT. Thank you so much.

  • @FNLNFNLN
    @FNLNFNLN 6 หลายเดือนก่อน +5

    People who are resolved to quit don't announce it. People talking and complaining are those who are still using and care about the thing. It's when they stop talking and complaining that they just quit.
    I would like to thank duolingo for their continued enshitification though, if they didn't go around removing decent features, I probably wouldn't have dropped it.

  • @mustangg_art
    @mustangg_art 7 หลายเดือนก่อน +4

    in the back of my head i knew duolingo wasn't really working, but i didn't want to accept it. this got me to finally delete that green bird that's been living on my phone screen for years.

  • @khamiszcze
    @khamiszcze 7 หลายเดือนก่อน +10

    - Hey man, what do you do in your free time?
    - You see, I learn to drive
    - Cool! Like, for racing or something?
    - No, just for a casual ride. Every day I play this free driving simulator that teaches me how to do various manoeuvres.
    - Oh... so... you learn about rules, Highway Code and such?
    - Not really, it is a natural technique, where I'm acquiring intuitive understanding of the rules without having to learn them!
    - Oh... so you must be a really good driver then!
    - No, no, I haven't actually driven any real car yet. But when I finish every exercise in this simulator, I'm going to study for the exam for driving license.
    - And... how long have you been doing this?...
    - 6 years. But I also dabble with a flight simulator.
    - ...
    - Did I mention it's free?

  • @polymathsmart3361
    @polymathsmart3361 6 หลายเดือนก่อน +38

    What Duolingo fundamentally does for me is keep me interested in learning the language.
    There are days when I am just not motivated to learn anything from anywhere. However, because I do not want to lose my streak, I reluctantly get in at least 5mins that day to keep my streak going. And these could happen for a few consecutive days.
    And I believe this sustains my interest in learning the language (If I do not engage in learning for days, I could totally lose Interest). Then within a day or a few, I would get really curious again and continue learning from other resources as well.

  • @stevencarr4002
    @stevencarr4002 5 หลายเดือนก่อน +4

    Duolingo is like walking to the airport ...... on a treadmill. You feel as if you are walking , but you aren't getting very far, even if the machine says you have done 6 miles today and are on a 90 day streak.

  • @rayoflight6204
    @rayoflight6204 6 หลายเดือนก่อน +5

    I'm a JLPT N2 holder here, who, coming from a non-Duolingo user background who hold the certificate (and I don't really think it's that good of a benchmark test anyway, just ask Bunsuke about this) I was introduced to this app two or three years ago by my brother. Anyway, I noticed that at most it will be somewhere around N4 to N3-ish level of proficiency. Maybe N2, but that's debatable. At most, it will help to reach N3, but I doubt it would be possible at all without reading practices, some hints about the word patterns (what's usually called "grammar" or 文法 ) etc. I'm so beyond Duolingo that practically I was just skimming the materials and play it for the points when I was thinking "what the f am I doing? This is pointless!" Yeah, it's really as you said in the analogy of crossing the ocean. I would say it's *at most* would only cover one-fourth of the distance.

  • @roblonsote
    @roblonsote 5 หลายเดือนก่อน +1

    Keep preaching brother, you are absolutely right, especially when you described comprehensible input, that's exactly how it feels, to me it felt like a ship in the mist going nowhere xD, but it is actually the safest way to get somewhere

  • @johnsch8634
    @johnsch8634 6 หลายเดือนก่อน +5

    All TH-cam polyglots should do livestreams.

    • @daysandwords
      @daysandwords  6 หลายเดือนก่อน +1

      To be fair, neither Evan or I claim to be "polyglots" but yeah, I should probably stream in Swedish sometime soon.

    • @johnsch8634
      @johnsch8634 6 หลายเดือนก่อน +1

      ​@@daysandwords Well it wouldn't hurt if the ones who do claim to be polyglots would livestream on occasion, it'd put to rest any controversy over whether they are profficient in a language or just sound that way when making videos. 😎

  • @Yipper64
    @Yipper64 6 หลายเดือนก่อน +3

    I heard there was a study that if you want to remember something it is better to take a break before you dive into the contents again. The longer the break the longer you retain the information.
    So I would think a daily streak would be counter-productive to this.

  • @hillmanntoby
    @hillmanntoby 7 หลายเดือนก่อน +54

    I have a degree that says I know German, and after school spent 30+ minutes a day on German Duolingo for 2, maybe even 3 years. I had the Golden Owl.
    I then watched a video about comprehensible input (and a video you made about 10? things you can do better than Duolingo) and bought the first Harry Potter book in German and signed up for italki.
    Not only did I do it in German, but Swedish and Norwegian at the same time, and I made more progress in a few short months than all that time in school and on Duolingo. I learned how to learn and that made a world of difference.

    • @analogpark8059
      @analogpark8059 7 หลายเดือนก่อน +6

      Relatable. I never got far with DuoLingo, but I did do a French degree. When I moved to France for a half-year, I quickly realized I knew almost nothing.
      Many years later I learned about comprehensible input, and started aggressively using podcasts and shows, and doing much more *repeated listening*. This produced major improvements. Studying language like it's math gets you basically nowhere.

    • @hillmanntoby
      @hillmanntoby 7 หลายเดือนก่อน

      @@analogpark8059 I was absolutely not proud of my ability. The handful of times I had the opportunity to speak to Germans, it went nowhere except embarrassment. The killer was I'd see videos like Evan's with claims of how they got "fluent" using Duolingo and I didn't understand what I was doing wrong.

    • @berkanathurisa
      @berkanathurisa 7 หลายเดือนก่อน +4

      "I learned how to learn and that made a world of difference."
      Exactly!! I've fallen in love with the process of learning how to learn, and frequently fall down deep rabbit holes that take me away from actually learning my TL for a few days (or more), but I always come back to it with renewed interest and new skills that I can apply. I'm continually adding tools to my language-learning toolbox, some that I can use right now, some that I'm not quite ready to employ - yet.

    • @thereal_vertixx2964
      @thereal_vertixx2964 7 หลายเดือนก่อน +1

      @@berkanathurisaso for a complete beginner what techniques what would you recommend

    • @berkanathurisa
      @berkanathurisa 7 หลายเดือนก่อน

      @@thereal_vertixx2964 Honestly, it would depend on their situation. What language are they trying to learn? What resources do they have easy access to? How much time and effort do they have (or are they willing) to devote to learning the language? WHY are they learning that particular language?
      There's no magic one-size fits all language learning approach. I think that it's important to take the time to look at different approaches and different tools and assess how you might use them, not just how they're 'meant' to be used by the person selling them.
      I am most definitely NOT an expert in this area. I look for things that work for me and the way my brain works. Realistically, what works for me may drive someone else absolutely bonkers.

  • @itsQUASARRR
    @itsQUASARRR 7 หลายเดือนก่อน

    Informative vid enjoyed it a lot tbh cheers man.

  • @tyleryoungofficial
    @tyleryoungofficial 6 หลายเดือนก่อน +19

    Watching Evan's response video made me realize how dumb and biased he actually is - I am amazed that his response to your well thought out video was to childishly make personal attacks and misrepresentations of everything you said. Love your video and so glad you made it, I hate the idea of new learners watching Evan and thinking his approach is good. He really doesn't realize how much he is harming other learners language journeys!

    • @mwangi10
      @mwangi10 6 หลายเดือนก่อน +3

      Harming ppl? Lmao . y'all are so full of it. You are an ADULT!!!

    • @daysandwords
      @daysandwords  6 หลายเดือนก่อน +3

      Ì wouldn't agree that Evan's videos are particularly harmful, really, BUT... on the topic of being an adult... that response... wow... my 12 year old is actually more mature than that.

    • @daysandwords
      @daysandwords  6 หลายเดือนก่อน +4

      I'm not at all saying that people are not allowed to use Duolingo for 5 minutes a day, or even learn a language for 5 minutes a day.
      But Evan used it for nearly an HOUR a day (average) for four years and then couldn't make a basic sentence. Using Speakly and GermanPod101 for that long, you'd be nearing C1 in German.

    • @Harrjannk
      @Harrjannk 6 หลายเดือนก่อน +2

      I'm kinda conflicted on that. I came around watching Evan's response only now and he does have a point. Though I agree regarding the personal attacks. I noticed that as well. I guess he was offended, which he has every right to be. His goal is very much different from Lamont's and I can understand why he doesn't agree with him. And I understand, it probably doesn't feel good seeing your face on another guy's thumbnail, with some claims you just don't agree with. No need for personal attacks of course. But tbh, I understand why he felt, you were being harsh on him, Lamont. Looking forward to your response :)
      Regarding Duolingo: I have used it in the past, especially with languages where there just aren't any other resources. But I can ascertain it really is slow, so if efficiency is your goal, you probably need to find something else. As a german, I have to say, Evan's German really is good. Especially when his goal is learning just for fun, as he says. It's far from perfect, but it's good. I understand why he doesn't feel the need to be judged by people with different goals, though, tbh. He has a point there.

    • @daysandwords
      @daysandwords  6 หลายเดือนก่อน +2

      I do think Evan has some good points, or at least, points that I can see how he would think are right, given what he's seen.
      My video is far from perfect, even in terms of what I wanted to make. There were mulitple bits re-written, and even the whole video was actually re-shot because the initial video just wasn't really... anything at all. It's a flawed piece of content, as basically every piece of content is, at least if it's not by James Jani.
      So some parts of it give the wrong idea, and since Evan is the central theme of the video, I can see why he was upset. But many many videos have been made about me, calling me far worse than anything I called Evan. And I just ignore them, because they are garbage. So I'm surprised that Evan went out of his way to make this long video that only brings more attention to my own.
      A TH-camr of his experience should know better. But anyway... I am learning about 60% towards a response now, still not certain that I'll do one.

  • @Big-Tork-Large-Gass
    @Big-Tork-Large-Gass 7 หลายเดือนก่อน +4

    Thanks for making this video, I’m new to language learning and was sucked into duo lingo because I’m a man child who needs bright cartoons and video game esk sound effects to keep me engaged, Im still gonna use duo despite all this but I’ll look into new options if I feel as though it becomes a waste of my time

  • @dedhart
    @dedhart 7 หลายเดือนก่อน +3

    I finally quit when they wanted me to complete 50 quests to get my monthly badge, it seemed like I was just running on a hamster wheel and they wanted me to spend more and more time on the wheel to get a digital medal which has no real value and doesn't help me speak in portuguese.

  • @atomixspeaks
    @atomixspeaks 7 หลายเดือนก่อน

    By far someone of the best LL content on TH-cam.. Thank you!

  • @ozzy265
    @ozzy265 6 หลายเดือนก่อน +1

    walking vs flying analogy was beautiful

  • @Pipes570
    @Pipes570 4 หลายเดือนก่อน +5

    For learning German, the Berlitz German Self-Teacher is a good choice, in short it was originally developed for English speaking troops being stationed in post-WW2 Germany, it's a one-time payment for the book, it's German immersion in proper order written by an actual linguistics school, tests are only in German, don't have to worry about being punished for making mistakes, there's also a phrasebook and dictionary that you get buy in conjunction, and things you learn will actually stick. The number of times I've said something like "neither" and pronounced it as "Neder" (Neither = Weder), or wrote the German word when I would be writing in English, it literally trains you to think in the language, and learn it the same way a native speaker learned it, the same way you learn your native language in general, because that's how language is actually learned. Also, German isn't the only language they have.

  • @hopegate9620
    @hopegate9620 7 หลายเดือนก่อน +8

    I've had a streak on Korean Duolingo for almost 500 days now. But that's the thing, I never expected to actually learn Korean through it. It's more of a motivational thing for me, and 2-5 minutes a day isn't going to take up much of my time anyway. And especially not considering I usually have 10-20h of a variety of input/output during the week without including Duolingo.
    The only other thing I'd say Duolingo has been helpful for is shadowing, because I absolutely hate siting down and shadowing, but somehow doing that with Duolingo doesn't bother me as much. So at least my accent in Korean isn't horrendous (not good either, by any means, but I'll take what I can get).

  • @zUkrainak47
    @zUkrainak47 7 หลายเดือนก่อน +2

    wow this was a heads-up i did not realize i needed. i think ill still keep using duolingo because it gamifies a big task and helps with being consistent but ill definitely start looking for other options.
    today i hit my 200 day streak learning japanese, for context. huge thanks for making this!

  • @beatleplayer1011
    @beatleplayer1011 7 หลายเดือนก่อน +4

    Also high key, Duolingo’s marketing is absurdly good - like idk who runs their Twitter but even in my somewhat niche jjk manga reading community, duo steps in and posts memes that only we relate to - and ofc related to the idea that duo is trying to make sure you’re on top of language learning

  • @AndrisGameDev
    @AndrisGameDev 6 หลายเดือนก่อน +13

    I'm totally with you on this. One thing I think you haven't covered tho is what I see with my sisters. Namely that even tho I talked with them about the fact how ineffective and slow Duolingo is and what other way better options they have - they still stay with it - because... well... because duolingo is cute and what they desire is not learning a language but finding an excuse why they are not learning a language, something so that they can say "but I am learning so much" while not really learning... and not really getting there. Stupid, but totally human. :( I gave up after realizing that. Duo is their proof for them that language learning is an impossible task and it is NOT their fault that they cannot succeed.

    • @microcolonel
      @microcolonel 5 หลายเดือนก่อน

      Yes, I'm trying to work this out with somebody who I really care about, and it is a sad realization.

  • @Pedro-bk1ic
    @Pedro-bk1ic 7 หลายเดือนก่อน +15

    Duolingo was enormously helpful to me in learning German, Spanish, and Portuguese. Mainly it got me to a place where I was able to sit through classes entirely or almost entirely in those languages. After roughly A2 or an early B1, the usefulness tails off a lot. But in terms of going from 0 to A2, Duolingo is really good imo.
    I think the inability to bounce forward through their levels at my own pace has noticeably reduced how useful Duolingo is. The removal of the comments has also reduced the value. But in terms of basic drills, Duolingo still does it the best.

  • @Jeremy_Fisher
    @Jeremy_Fisher 25 วันที่ผ่านมา

    I agree 1000%, and what you said reflects my own experiences with language learning. I spent 2 years trying to learn Japanese with that app. Once I took a second to think about it, I realized I wasn't progressing at all, but I was just convincing myself that I was. Once I started learning Japanese with comprehensible input, then I was finally able to actually make progress in learning it. I'm actually pretty miffed that I wasted so much time and effort spinning my gears and getting nowhere.

  • @vytah
    @vytah 7 หลายเดือนก่อน +4

    Duolingo was fine, even if not very effective, before they forced reviews with the path update, gated stories behind part progress, added back hearts, removed grammar explanations and removed sentence discussions. Now it's a mindless slog that teaches you how to say "I'm an apple" and nothing more. Before those changes, you could just speedrun the entire tree without doing reviews and quickly move on to more advanced stuff with some basic vocab under your belt. Now it's way too slow, and padded with useless content.

  • @miluna94
    @miluna94 7 หลายเดือนก่อน +6

    I have about 1100 days of streak and I completed the whole italian tree and about half of the portuguese. I'm spanish, so it should be kind of easy to learn these two. I can only understand when an italian or a portuguese talk but I don't feel confident at all to talk, so I decided to try different methods for next year. Hopefully I can stay as consistent

  • @gabijoanna1110
    @gabijoanna1110 6 หลายเดือนก่อน +5

    I find Duolingo super helpful for beginners! If it’s a foreign alphabet that you are studying, Duolingo definitely helps to get a better understanding of it. Duolingo also helps with structure!
    Tho it’s not useful long term!

  • @matejsuchan5733
    @matejsuchan5733 หลายเดือนก่อน

    Thanks for the tip. Hopefully I´ll find something more worth my time

  • @baby.yogurt
    @baby.yogurt 6 หลายเดือนก่อน +14

    Just wanted to say before/if you end up doing a response to Evans video, I’m looking forward to what you’ll have to say bc Evans response was, well, very strange, to put it simply. Looked to me like he was accusing you of saying things you didn’t say, being insulting, making false equivalencies, and using “everyone has a different definition of fluency” as a shield. I don’t agree with every single thing about your video but I do appreciate it and it rly made me think, bc I resonated with a lot of what you said.

  • @ankavoskuilen1725
    @ankavoskuilen1725 7 หลายเดือนก่อน +6

    I agree with you about DuoLingo.
    During covid, I used the app to redo a few of the languages I already knew: German, Italian and Latin. But I didn't get much out of it.
    I also did a bit of Welsh, because a few years before I had learnt a bit of it with "Say something in Welsh".
    Problem with that was that it was only spoken language and while the Welsh think their language is completely logical when you write it, I as a Dutch woman found that not to be the case 😂.
    I liked 'Say something....' though, because it builds up the language very nicely: you learn a few words and verbs and make sentences with it and they give you lots of different combinations with those words. So right from the start you can expres a lot of different things and then it builds from there.
    Now I am searching for a good online course in Welsh which includes writing.
    I learnt nothing new by using DuoLingo. So I stopped very soon. I also didn't like the game element.

  • @John-qf9nr
    @John-qf9nr 7 หลายเดือนก่อน

    Thank you for the insane amount of time I'm about to save, great video 👍

  • @lamMeTV
    @lamMeTV 6 หลายเดือนก่อน +4

    I am in really poor health so I am not sure what to do apart from the bite sizes chunks in duolingo.

    • @daysandwords
      @daysandwords  6 หลายเดือนก่อน +5

      In that case I'd say keep up the Duolingo. Also I hope you get well soon!

  • @mikeedson
    @mikeedson 7 หลายเดือนก่อน +14

    You just made me quit for good!
    I was kinda afraid of losing my streaks, but I knew all along that it wasn't helping me for real.

    • @shugei782
      @shugei782 7 หลายเดือนก่อน +3

      I also think I'm gonna quit it. It has only gotten me "XP"

  • @BaskingInObscurity
    @BaskingInObscurity 6 หลายเดือนก่อน +5

    Reminds me how after taking four years of American high school French, I still only tested into third quarter university French. In the US, most foreign language teaching in high school is complete crap. They teach it too slowly.
    I read most of Harry Potter in French and Italian! It helped me brush up on my French, barely used in a decade. And it made Italian I and II at the local community college really effective. Another decade later, I often surprise myself with how much Italian I still understand and can spontaneously speak, better than Spanish, in fact, which is a widely spoken language where I live. Yes, that says how much my effort to master Spanish has sucked.
    Young adult books seem a great way to learn. Has anybody some suggestions for reading other than Harry Potter? I'm HPed to death. I've considered Tolkien, which I enjoy enough to reread yet again. It would be cool to find some YA books quite popular elsewhere-not sparkly vampires, though. X-D

    • @daysandwords
      @daysandwords  6 หลายเดือนก่อน +1

      Maybe Hunger Games? They're in lots of languages.

  • @Felixxxxxxxxx
    @Felixxxxxxxxx 7 หลายเดือนก่อน +1

    I see apps like trying to tip my toes into a language. Im not a fan of Duolingo but if I ever try out a language , especially if I only want to learn (and forget) 10 phrases then I would use the Mondly app or something similar. However I usually don't find apps overall to be time efficient and I think you hit the nail of the head with this one. Riktigt bra formulerat!

  • @abiiss4763
    @abiiss4763 3 หลายเดือนก่อน +2

    I used to be a fan of duolingo until I decided to do the entrance test for german for fun since I am German. I found multiple grammatical errors and vocabulary that is not wrong but wouldn't be used in that context. That kind of broke my trust in Duolingo since I now know that I can't trust it to teach me the correct language.

  • @beatleplayer1011
    @beatleplayer1011 7 หลายเดือนก่อน +3

    Duolingo was good for me to just get reacquainted with Spanish for a few weeks. For context, I already learned Spanish as a young child, but never properly learned it and stopped speaking it once my non-English speaking grandmother passed. After leaving behind Duolingo, I very quickly went to meet ups here in NYC and found some people looking to learn English. We exchanged audios and that’s been the most helpful thing hands down
    I’m lucky there are people like that though, I’d imagine there aren’t a lot of Swedish people looking to learn English in Sydney…

  • @jeffreybarker357
    @jeffreybarker357 7 หลายเดือนก่อน +63

    Woof. Lamont out here killing it again.
    I’m almost at 750 hours in Dreaming Spanish and can confirm Spanish learners ARE spoiled for choice and comprehensible input is where it’s at. I hope people get there sooner rather than later so they don’t look back with regret like I did when I reflected on time I wasted in Duolingo.

  • @user-xv6ii4wu4q
    @user-xv6ii4wu4q 7 หลายเดือนก่อน

    You are correct! I am not walking away because i am looking for something else and haven't found it yet. I have worked really hard to get where i am and I don't want to loose that. I love getting up early every morning and spending an hour learning Spanish. Duolingo didn't just get rid of the conversation which helped me so often figure out what and why i was doing something, it has dumbed the entire program down. 100's all the time but i have no clue what i am doing

  • @alina.cherry
    @alina.cherry 6 หลายเดือนก่อน +1

    I'm glad I found this video!!! I was learning Spanish for 2 years on and off and until recently had like 100+ days streak on Duolingo. Well, I wanted to start learning Korean and concentrate on it for a while and thought I should switch my language on Duolingo so I can keep my streak. I didn't like the lessons at all and wanted to use other resources but it took me 2 weeks to actually let Duolingo go just because of a 100 days streak 💀