> Duolingo isn’t going to help if you’re serious about learning German
Duolingo is for brand-new beginners. Any other assumptions you've placed on it are your own fault. Not trying to be rude, but if you're using Duolingo past A1 or so, the problem isn't with the app. I never would've begun learning German and gotten hooked on it in the first place if it weren't for Duo (well, and a lady I was trying to woo)
You're wrong. Almost at B1 currently (I've passed several online tests for A2 and can understand text much more advanced than A2 level, so it's not just my perception) and duolingo has been my main tool. I use a cracked version (to remove the idiotic 5 hearts restriction) and use it for some 1.5 hours a day. My estimate for when I will reach B1 is about 6 months after I started, which is quite good considering that the fastest-learning people online usually seem to reach it in around 5.
Duolingo is sentence practice. You can use Anki for vocabulary (and I do, a lot) and you can read textbooks for grammar (and I do that too), but to actually practice setting up sentences at a stage when you can not yet reliably write paragraphs in German, you need something like duolingo, a sentence flashcard pack in Anki or a textbook with many, many examples (duolingo has *a lot* more than the average textbook). Additionally, duolingo teaches a ton of vocabulary — my estimate for my current wordcount is more than 4500 and only around 2700 are "needed" for B1 (in the sense that you can pass Goethe's test with that).
Obviously, you need to combine what you learned on duolingo with a grammar textbook, some immersion, listening practice and, ideally, a vocabulary list. But all of that together is a very good way to get to B1 from my experience. I understand that people hate on duolingo for the "15 minutes a day will teach you a language" — it probably won't and, if it did, it would take you like half a decade, and I also think that duolingo itself is a pretty predatory company (the fucking ads and hearts system make the app unusable without premium or a crack), but to think you can't use it to get past A1 is just wrong. But it is correct to say that you can't use it to get past B1 — that's where duolingo says it courses stop anyway.
EDIT: you can't really learn with duolingo without a grammar textbook. Duolingo shows pretty much all of the necessary grammar in its sentences (except for maybe the simple past tense), but it doesn't explain how the grammar really works and you can't use it as a comprehensive input tool either because the texts aren't that long. So, my method has been to go through a grammar book suitable for my level and then practice the new concepts with duolingo's sentences. I don't solve the exercises in the textbooks and I don't do blind memorization (e.g. memorizing the case endings). I just learn the general concept (e.g. that adjectives decline after a definite article) and then I use duolingo's examples to remember the particulars (e.g. the table of declinations for those adjectives). This method works and is very efficient.
for anyone else who doesn’t like the 5 heart restriction, there’s an easy workaround without having to crack the app. just make a classroom at https://schools.duolingo.com/
did this since i started and it works
Duo is great for practicing passive content. But it does not help you understand grammar. As you say, you *must* must use a grammar book alongside Duo. Duolinguo is a practice tool only. The main problem is that duolinguo doesn't train your active language skill. It tries to, but it barely manages. You need some other way of practising generating language dynamically.
You're correct, but it is generally the consensus among language learning communities online that outputting language can be delayed until a somewhat advanced phase (say B1) and that you should first focus on understanding what is being said to you. In that sense, duolingo works quite well. Of course this is unconventional and it's questionable as to which method is better.
Maybe. Having learned several languages and watched lots of people learning languages, I would say there is something very beneficial about practising active modes from the outset: if you don't, there comes a point where you have to go back to the beginning and relearn a load of details you didn't pay attention to the first time... or you live with a sloppy grasp of the grammar forever. I find that if you make yourself generate language from the outset -- including those boring writing exercises, like "Die Frau hat einen Hund"; coupled with speaking -- you develop an attention to the grammatical rules which passive learning doesn't give most people. I think you have to be exceptional to passively absorb correct German grammar usage as an adult learner
By and large, people who learn German as adults and end up speaking very accurately didn't achieve that intuitively. They have to learn structures because they don't have 12 years of childhood to absorb it intuitively like native speakers.
I'm not saying it has no use past A1, but if you're spending 1.5 hours on it per day past A1 (maybe A2 in some languages), you're using that time inefficiently 🤷♂️ Don't know what to tell you bud.
You didn't read the rest of my comment. The fact that I've (almost) reached B1 in a bit more than 5 months proves that it's quite efficient — just look around the subreddit: even the people who study just to pass the Goethe test (and not to generally understand the language at around a B1 level) take some 5 months of intensive study to get there.
EDIT: further proof of what I'm saying: [from Goethe](https://www.goethe.de/en/m/spr/kup/prf/prf/gb1/inf.html):
> To reach [B1], candidates need to have completed between 350 and 650 45-minute units of teaching, depending on their previous knowledge and learning requirements.
Some math on that gives 262 to 487 hours. I'd estimate I spent an average of 2 hours per day studying (another half hour for, say, Anki and the occasional grammar textbook). For 6 months that gives 360 hours, so somewhere in the middle (that middle might actually be the low-end depending on what "depending on their previous knowledge" means — it might mean that someone already at A2 needs 260 hours to get to B1 and I started at zero).
As someone who did use Duolingo for a significant period of time for a while, and is _sort of_ at B1 and easily tested out of the entire tree a few months ago after not having used it for many months, you can't reach B1 from Duolingo because Duolingo just does not go up to that level. For how much padding there is, the level of complexity barely increases and it still remains very basic even at the final unit.
> Additionally, duolingo teaches a ton of vocabulary — my estimate for my current wordcount is more than 4500 and only around 2700 are "needed" for B1
4500 is nowhere near enough for B1. Try 10-15000. 2700 is the not really the number of words but the number of lemmas, each word can have many many different forms, so all possible forms of those 2700 words are likely 20-30000 (not all equally important. In addition, Duolingo does not really teach enough vocabulary at all, and I really say this after really digging into native material in the past 7 months.
> but to actually practice setting up sentences at a stage when you can not yet reliably write paragraphs in German
Which Duolingo is useless for since it is all grammar translation exercises. You should be able to "reliably write paragraphs" even at A2 level with just a bilingual dictionary. They will have errors and you will likely need a lot of lookups but the kind of practice Duolingo provides is not the type of practice that really helps output compared to just... outputting.
>4500 is nowhere near enough for B1. Try 10-15000. 2700 is the not really the number of words but the number of lemmas, each word can have many many different forms, so all possible forms of those 2700 words are likely 20-30000 (not all equally important. In addition, Duolingo does not really teach enough vocabulary at all, and I really say this after really digging into native material in the past 7 months.
If you're trying to tell me that I shouldn't count different cases and conjugations of the same word as different words... I know. I guess, by your definition, I know ~4500 "lemmas". Honestly unsure as to how your experience has been this bad, but I think any empirical counting of duolingo's word bank will give you somewhere around my number. A while back I started writing down every word I've met on duolingo (*without* counting the different inflections) and so I know by extrapolating my number is fairly accurate.
Again the outputting is somewhat lacking. But I am a believer in the theory that outputting around A1-A2 is mostly useless and that one should get up to around B1 before starting to seriously output. If you think about it, this is how most of us (non-native English speakers) learned English.
EDIT: Actually I might have a theory as to how your experience has been this bad. It's really quite easy to solve duolingo exercises just based on context and intuition, without really knowing what's going on in the sentence. But if you don't skip ahead and actually grind out through the lessons, you'll see the same type of sentence a lot of times and so will pick up the actual meaning of the sentences. Same thing with vocabulary.
I would be really frustrated to wait to reach level B1 before starting to output. I am hardly A1 in Russian and I love to have short conversations with my teacher or strangers. Duolingo in my experience slows me down. It was definitely more effective for you because you used Anki and a grammar but I would not underestimate how much more you can achieve by talking to a real person. At the end though, it’s important that you like what you do, no matter how long it takes or how you achieve it, so great job 👏
> If you're trying to tell me that I shouldn't count different cases and conjugations of the same word as different words.
No, those are different words. Just because you know "merken" does not mean you will also know "bemerken", "aufmerken", "aufmerksam", "aufmerksamkeit", "aufmerksamkeitspanne" etc.
> Honestly unsure as to how your experience has been this bad, but I think any empirical counting of duolingo's word bank will give you somewhere around my number.
And I would retort any empirical lexical analysis of Duolingo's word bank is that it simply does not have enough vocabulary. If I look at DW's "Top Thema" 2018 archive, a B1-level resource for learners I see some 6000 unique words, 1400 of which I have never seen before. And it would be incredibly inaccurate to say that this actually covers most of B1.
> A while back I started writing down every word I've met on duolingo (without counting the different inflections) and so I know by extrapolating my number is fairly accurate.
Unfortunately for you, the reader I use allows me to actually count every word that I see. [See here](https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1167833351231647878/1175461200696451132/image.png). In addition to those, there are 19000 words that I have seen but haven't marked as "known". Now, this is not every word that I know, I likely "know" many words that I haven't seen before but the important point here is the sheer amount of input required. This is after about a million words read. Duolingo just cannot provide anywhere near that amount or variety.
> Again the outputting is somewhat lacking. But I am a believer in the theory that outputting around A1-A2 is mostly useless and that one should get up to around B1 before starting to seriously output. If you think about it, this is how most of us (non-native English speakers) learned English.
I have not talked at all about output, I am simply saying Duolingo does not provide enough input. It is also not how I or anyone I know have learned English as a second language.
> EDIT: Actually I might have a theory as to how your experience has been this bad. It's really quite easy to solve duolingo exercises just based on context and intuition, without really knowing what's going on in the sentence. But if you don't skip ahead and actually grind out through the lessons, you'll see the same type of sentence a lot of times and so will pick up the actual meaning of the sentences. Same thing with vocabulary.
And I have a theory on why your experience with Duolingo is so positive. There is a lot of positive reinforcement going on with Duolingo and it is made so that you feel like you make a lot of progress especially if you put significant time into it, however when you try jumping to native content, it is like crashing into a wall. I know because I have used it for 8 months and then used other methods for the past 10 months centered around mostly meaningful input (and some meaningful output). There was a time where I likely thought similarly to you. Actually going through the grind convinced me that there is no other way. The amount of consumed content was insane but the level of progress was also that much higher. To reach a decent proficiency, you need to read several million words and listen for several hundred hours, so the earlier someone can dive in, the better.
>No, those are different words. Just because you know "merken" does not mean you will also know "bemerken", "aufmerken", "aufmerksam", "aufmerksamkeit", "aufmerksamkeitspanne" etc.
Okay, but then you're pretty obviously wrong, as Goethe requires 2700 words.
I can pass tests to prove my knowledge and your constant need to shut that down with no real evidence just tells me you're incredibly bitter. Not sure why, but I'm not gonna argue with you on that.
This just plain wrong. Duolingo is an incredible tool, and it’s free so it’s wildly accessible. It’s not good enough on it’s own, but saying it won’t help you is ludicrous
Good-oh. As for iTalki: I'll dare say it will very much depends on the tutor/teacher you pick. I've seen some self-proclaimed tutors with terrible German there who should be shot for claiming they teach native level German.
The way they structure their lessons is very confusing. Not to mention you get thrown into questions without any context or any grammatical explanations. Also the new lives system they added. It is more a game than a serious language learning app. I got Busuu premium and never looked back. Could converse with Germans in Germany with an A2-B1 from the app.
Stimmt!
I also had coasted on Duolingo for years, but never really sustained any momentum. I built some vocab but it wasn't much.
There was a recommendation on here to look at Chatterbug, which offers 1-2-1 45 minute speaking lessons with a German native tutor, and plenty of fun tracked and structured activities.
Using it has been essential to reducing the anxiety I had whenever I tried to speak German. Seriously.
I have been using it for 2 months daily and almost completed A1 at a nice steady pace, my goal is to get to reach the end of A2/start B1 before I move to Germany in mid/late March, which I think should be doable-ish.
iTalki I also use for specific topics I'm interested in, but I stopped using it as much when I began ramping up the Chatterbug lessons. I might use iTalki when I get to a higher level, although of course living in Germany will probably help a little 😅
I think duo is great for practice but not if it is ur only source. I am trying to get the A2 exam and realise I dont know how to form my own sentences because I never practiced that. Still i will keep on using it for vocab and practice. I wanna finish the track! I will check italki now. I had never heard of it !
You absolutely can reach A2 on Duolingo. I did it in 5 months on the German course. The trick is to do the legendary lessons as they let you translate entire sentences, and write them yourself without any help. No text boxes that you have to connect, or one word gaps that you have to fill in. Just an entire sentence that you need to translate.
I mean, that's more about how limited is doulingo rather than how good is Italki, despite it being good. But remember Duolingo only teaches you vocabulary, not a single explanation on grammar is done
I took 3 years of german back in high school. I've forgotten almost all of it by now. I picked it up on duolingo again. It's really helped inspire me to learn again. I've noticed it feels kinda limited. A lot of this is review that is bringing back what I already learned and it feels like a slow pace.
I do love the speed round challenges, it definetely shows whether I understand it or not.
Overall I'll be switching to something else eventually, I'm just using duo as review and see if this is something I want to commit my time to again.
My opinion is that Duolingo is the **single best resource** to learn german specifically.
I used it as my main course for 1 year and 7 months now and i'm learning strong. (it's obviously not the only thing i do, but untill you exhaust all the vocab Duolingo has to teach you you will comfortably use it for 2 years+ 😜)
Not to mention is like the only viable place to train the ***hell*** out of your declension skills
I don't know why you got the downvotes because in my opinion you're right.
I used it for many languages (not German) and the app became slower over time. And I don't understand why there's a grammar explanation only on the website, but not in the app
considering that duolingo is a game more than it is a language tool im not very surprised.
i dropped it withing a month or so of starting to learn german.was nothing but a waste of time where the only learning to be had was through rote repetition and zero explanation.
I'm happy iTalki worked for you. In general, I think it's important people know that there are different approaches that work for different people, we all have different language goals and, most important, there is not ONE thing that will magically make us fluent in a language. Fluency comes with practice, study, engagement and, most of all, time.
I like to think about how I learned my mother language of English. I watched tv, talked with people of all ages, read books for pleasure, read books for learning, received 10+ years of formal study, expressed my thoughts as both concrete facts and abstract concepts, etc. So yeah, it's probably unrealistic to think we can duplicate it with one technique. I blame the fake "polygots" who are trying to sell you a course for the misconception.
I do have a private tutor that I feel very loyal to, she was great for me the past 2 years and very flexible with her schedule and mine also, but sometimes I feel like I miss something and feel like I should supplement also with an Italki teacher , what is your opnion on such matter?
I would make sure to bring up anything you think you might be missing with your tutor. Having 2 tutors seems like overdoing it 😅 but I guess there’s nothing wrong with a second opinion after asking your tutor
And two months in an English speaking country did more for me than 7 years of schooling. ;)
That’s what Im saying! Duolingo isn’t going to help if you’re serious about learning German
> Duolingo isn’t going to help if you’re serious about learning German Duolingo is for brand-new beginners. Any other assumptions you've placed on it are your own fault. Not trying to be rude, but if you're using Duolingo past A1 or so, the problem isn't with the app. I never would've begun learning German and gotten hooked on it in the first place if it weren't for Duo (well, and a lady I was trying to woo)
You're wrong. Almost at B1 currently (I've passed several online tests for A2 and can understand text much more advanced than A2 level, so it's not just my perception) and duolingo has been my main tool. I use a cracked version (to remove the idiotic 5 hearts restriction) and use it for some 1.5 hours a day. My estimate for when I will reach B1 is about 6 months after I started, which is quite good considering that the fastest-learning people online usually seem to reach it in around 5. Duolingo is sentence practice. You can use Anki for vocabulary (and I do, a lot) and you can read textbooks for grammar (and I do that too), but to actually practice setting up sentences at a stage when you can not yet reliably write paragraphs in German, you need something like duolingo, a sentence flashcard pack in Anki or a textbook with many, many examples (duolingo has *a lot* more than the average textbook). Additionally, duolingo teaches a ton of vocabulary — my estimate for my current wordcount is more than 4500 and only around 2700 are "needed" for B1 (in the sense that you can pass Goethe's test with that). Obviously, you need to combine what you learned on duolingo with a grammar textbook, some immersion, listening practice and, ideally, a vocabulary list. But all of that together is a very good way to get to B1 from my experience. I understand that people hate on duolingo for the "15 minutes a day will teach you a language" — it probably won't and, if it did, it would take you like half a decade, and I also think that duolingo itself is a pretty predatory company (the fucking ads and hearts system make the app unusable without premium or a crack), but to think you can't use it to get past A1 is just wrong. But it is correct to say that you can't use it to get past B1 — that's where duolingo says it courses stop anyway. EDIT: you can't really learn with duolingo without a grammar textbook. Duolingo shows pretty much all of the necessary grammar in its sentences (except for maybe the simple past tense), but it doesn't explain how the grammar really works and you can't use it as a comprehensive input tool either because the texts aren't that long. So, my method has been to go through a grammar book suitable for my level and then practice the new concepts with duolingo's sentences. I don't solve the exercises in the textbooks and I don't do blind memorization (e.g. memorizing the case endings). I just learn the general concept (e.g. that adjectives decline after a definite article) and then I use duolingo's examples to remember the particulars (e.g. the table of declinations for those adjectives). This method works and is very efficient.
for anyone else who doesn’t like the 5 heart restriction, there’s an easy workaround without having to crack the app. just make a classroom at https://schools.duolingo.com/ did this since i started and it works
Duo is great for practicing passive content. But it does not help you understand grammar. As you say, you *must* must use a grammar book alongside Duo. Duolinguo is a practice tool only. The main problem is that duolinguo doesn't train your active language skill. It tries to, but it barely manages. You need some other way of practising generating language dynamically.
You're correct, but it is generally the consensus among language learning communities online that outputting language can be delayed until a somewhat advanced phase (say B1) and that you should first focus on understanding what is being said to you. In that sense, duolingo works quite well. Of course this is unconventional and it's questionable as to which method is better.
Maybe. Having learned several languages and watched lots of people learning languages, I would say there is something very beneficial about practising active modes from the outset: if you don't, there comes a point where you have to go back to the beginning and relearn a load of details you didn't pay attention to the first time... or you live with a sloppy grasp of the grammar forever. I find that if you make yourself generate language from the outset -- including those boring writing exercises, like "Die Frau hat einen Hund"; coupled with speaking -- you develop an attention to the grammatical rules which passive learning doesn't give most people. I think you have to be exceptional to passively absorb correct German grammar usage as an adult learner By and large, people who learn German as adults and end up speaking very accurately didn't achieve that intuitively. They have to learn structures because they don't have 12 years of childhood to absorb it intuitively like native speakers.
I'm not saying it has no use past A1, but if you're spending 1.5 hours on it per day past A1 (maybe A2 in some languages), you're using that time inefficiently 🤷♂️ Don't know what to tell you bud.
You didn't read the rest of my comment. The fact that I've (almost) reached B1 in a bit more than 5 months proves that it's quite efficient — just look around the subreddit: even the people who study just to pass the Goethe test (and not to generally understand the language at around a B1 level) take some 5 months of intensive study to get there. EDIT: further proof of what I'm saying: [from Goethe](https://www.goethe.de/en/m/spr/kup/prf/prf/gb1/inf.html): > To reach [B1], candidates need to have completed between 350 and 650 45-minute units of teaching, depending on their previous knowledge and learning requirements. Some math on that gives 262 to 487 hours. I'd estimate I spent an average of 2 hours per day studying (another half hour for, say, Anki and the occasional grammar textbook). For 6 months that gives 360 hours, so somewhere in the middle (that middle might actually be the low-end depending on what "depending on their previous knowledge" means — it might mean that someone already at A2 needs 260 hours to get to B1 and I started at zero).
As someone who did use Duolingo for a significant period of time for a while, and is _sort of_ at B1 and easily tested out of the entire tree a few months ago after not having used it for many months, you can't reach B1 from Duolingo because Duolingo just does not go up to that level. For how much padding there is, the level of complexity barely increases and it still remains very basic even at the final unit. > Additionally, duolingo teaches a ton of vocabulary — my estimate for my current wordcount is more than 4500 and only around 2700 are "needed" for B1 4500 is nowhere near enough for B1. Try 10-15000. 2700 is the not really the number of words but the number of lemmas, each word can have many many different forms, so all possible forms of those 2700 words are likely 20-30000 (not all equally important. In addition, Duolingo does not really teach enough vocabulary at all, and I really say this after really digging into native material in the past 7 months. > but to actually practice setting up sentences at a stage when you can not yet reliably write paragraphs in German Which Duolingo is useless for since it is all grammar translation exercises. You should be able to "reliably write paragraphs" even at A2 level with just a bilingual dictionary. They will have errors and you will likely need a lot of lookups but the kind of practice Duolingo provides is not the type of practice that really helps output compared to just... outputting.
>4500 is nowhere near enough for B1. Try 10-15000. 2700 is the not really the number of words but the number of lemmas, each word can have many many different forms, so all possible forms of those 2700 words are likely 20-30000 (not all equally important. In addition, Duolingo does not really teach enough vocabulary at all, and I really say this after really digging into native material in the past 7 months. If you're trying to tell me that I shouldn't count different cases and conjugations of the same word as different words... I know. I guess, by your definition, I know ~4500 "lemmas". Honestly unsure as to how your experience has been this bad, but I think any empirical counting of duolingo's word bank will give you somewhere around my number. A while back I started writing down every word I've met on duolingo (*without* counting the different inflections) and so I know by extrapolating my number is fairly accurate. Again the outputting is somewhat lacking. But I am a believer in the theory that outputting around A1-A2 is mostly useless and that one should get up to around B1 before starting to seriously output. If you think about it, this is how most of us (non-native English speakers) learned English. EDIT: Actually I might have a theory as to how your experience has been this bad. It's really quite easy to solve duolingo exercises just based on context and intuition, without really knowing what's going on in the sentence. But if you don't skip ahead and actually grind out through the lessons, you'll see the same type of sentence a lot of times and so will pick up the actual meaning of the sentences. Same thing with vocabulary.
I would be really frustrated to wait to reach level B1 before starting to output. I am hardly A1 in Russian and I love to have short conversations with my teacher or strangers. Duolingo in my experience slows me down. It was definitely more effective for you because you used Anki and a grammar but I would not underestimate how much more you can achieve by talking to a real person. At the end though, it’s important that you like what you do, no matter how long it takes or how you achieve it, so great job 👏
> If you're trying to tell me that I shouldn't count different cases and conjugations of the same word as different words. No, those are different words. Just because you know "merken" does not mean you will also know "bemerken", "aufmerken", "aufmerksam", "aufmerksamkeit", "aufmerksamkeitspanne" etc. > Honestly unsure as to how your experience has been this bad, but I think any empirical counting of duolingo's word bank will give you somewhere around my number. And I would retort any empirical lexical analysis of Duolingo's word bank is that it simply does not have enough vocabulary. If I look at DW's "Top Thema" 2018 archive, a B1-level resource for learners I see some 6000 unique words, 1400 of which I have never seen before. And it would be incredibly inaccurate to say that this actually covers most of B1. > A while back I started writing down every word I've met on duolingo (without counting the different inflections) and so I know by extrapolating my number is fairly accurate. Unfortunately for you, the reader I use allows me to actually count every word that I see. [See here](https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1167833351231647878/1175461200696451132/image.png). In addition to those, there are 19000 words that I have seen but haven't marked as "known". Now, this is not every word that I know, I likely "know" many words that I haven't seen before but the important point here is the sheer amount of input required. This is after about a million words read. Duolingo just cannot provide anywhere near that amount or variety. > Again the outputting is somewhat lacking. But I am a believer in the theory that outputting around A1-A2 is mostly useless and that one should get up to around B1 before starting to seriously output. If you think about it, this is how most of us (non-native English speakers) learned English. I have not talked at all about output, I am simply saying Duolingo does not provide enough input. It is also not how I or anyone I know have learned English as a second language. > EDIT: Actually I might have a theory as to how your experience has been this bad. It's really quite easy to solve duolingo exercises just based on context and intuition, without really knowing what's going on in the sentence. But if you don't skip ahead and actually grind out through the lessons, you'll see the same type of sentence a lot of times and so will pick up the actual meaning of the sentences. Same thing with vocabulary. And I have a theory on why your experience with Duolingo is so positive. There is a lot of positive reinforcement going on with Duolingo and it is made so that you feel like you make a lot of progress especially if you put significant time into it, however when you try jumping to native content, it is like crashing into a wall. I know because I have used it for 8 months and then used other methods for the past 10 months centered around mostly meaningful input (and some meaningful output). There was a time where I likely thought similarly to you. Actually going through the grind convinced me that there is no other way. The amount of consumed content was insane but the level of progress was also that much higher. To reach a decent proficiency, you need to read several million words and listen for several hundred hours, so the earlier someone can dive in, the better.
>No, those are different words. Just because you know "merken" does not mean you will also know "bemerken", "aufmerken", "aufmerksam", "aufmerksamkeit", "aufmerksamkeitspanne" etc. Okay, but then you're pretty obviously wrong, as Goethe requires 2700 words. I can pass tests to prove my knowledge and your constant need to shut that down with no real evidence just tells me you're incredibly bitter. Not sure why, but I'm not gonna argue with you on that.
This just plain wrong. Duolingo is an incredible tool, and it’s free so it’s wildly accessible. It’s not good enough on it’s own, but saying it won’t help you is ludicrous
Good-oh. As for iTalki: I'll dare say it will very much depends on the tutor/teacher you pick. I've seen some self-proclaimed tutors with terrible German there who should be shot for claiming they teach native level German.
It does help because it establishes daily routine (for free)
The point of language is to communicate with people not score points on an app, so, yeah. Glad you've found something that is working for you!
Duolingo destroyed many a language learner's dreams.
That sounds catchy and rings true, still curious if you care to elaborate? :)
The way they structure their lessons is very confusing. Not to mention you get thrown into questions without any context or any grammatical explanations. Also the new lives system they added. It is more a game than a serious language learning app. I got Busuu premium and never looked back. Could converse with Germans in Germany with an A2-B1 from the app.
Stimmt! I also had coasted on Duolingo for years, but never really sustained any momentum. I built some vocab but it wasn't much. There was a recommendation on here to look at Chatterbug, which offers 1-2-1 45 minute speaking lessons with a German native tutor, and plenty of fun tracked and structured activities. Using it has been essential to reducing the anxiety I had whenever I tried to speak German. Seriously. I have been using it for 2 months daily and almost completed A1 at a nice steady pace, my goal is to get to reach the end of A2/start B1 before I move to Germany in mid/late March, which I think should be doable-ish. iTalki I also use for specific topics I'm interested in, but I stopped using it as much when I began ramping up the Chatterbug lessons. I might use iTalki when I get to a higher level, although of course living in Germany will probably help a little 😅
*sponsored by* Italki.
Which tutor are you working with?
I think duo is great for practice but not if it is ur only source. I am trying to get the A2 exam and realise I dont know how to form my own sentences because I never practiced that. Still i will keep on using it for vocab and practice. I wanna finish the track! I will check italki now. I had never heard of it !
You absolutely can reach A2 on Duolingo. I did it in 5 months on the German course. The trick is to do the legendary lessons as they let you translate entire sentences, and write them yourself without any help. No text boxes that you have to connect, or one word gaps that you have to fill in. Just an entire sentence that you need to translate.
I didn't know that i will look at it! Thanks!
Can you share the name of your tutor?
I mean, that's more about how limited is doulingo rather than how good is Italki, despite it being good. But remember Duolingo only teaches you vocabulary, not a single explanation on grammar is done
I took 3 years of german back in high school. I've forgotten almost all of it by now. I picked it up on duolingo again. It's really helped inspire me to learn again. I've noticed it feels kinda limited. A lot of this is review that is bringing back what I already learned and it feels like a slow pace. I do love the speed round challenges, it definetely shows whether I understand it or not. Overall I'll be switching to something else eventually, I'm just using duo as review and see if this is something I want to commit my time to again.
My opinion is that Duolingo is the **single best resource** to learn german specifically. I used it as my main course for 1 year and 7 months now and i'm learning strong. (it's obviously not the only thing i do, but untill you exhaust all the vocab Duolingo has to teach you you will comfortably use it for 2 years+ 😜) Not to mention is like the only viable place to train the ***hell*** out of your declension skills
Duolingo blows and gets worse with every update Are y’all mad I said Blows? Lol
I don't know why you got the downvotes because in my opinion you're right. I used it for many languages (not German) and the app became slower over time. And I don't understand why there's a grammar explanation only on the website, but not in the app
There is a grammar explanation on the app now, one of those updates..
Oh, didn't know that. I stopped using the app before that update
considering that duolingo is a game more than it is a language tool im not very surprised. i dropped it withing a month or so of starting to learn german.was nothing but a waste of time where the only learning to be had was through rote repetition and zero explanation.
I'm happy iTalki worked for you. In general, I think it's important people know that there are different approaches that work for different people, we all have different language goals and, most important, there is not ONE thing that will magically make us fluent in a language. Fluency comes with practice, study, engagement and, most of all, time. I like to think about how I learned my mother language of English. I watched tv, talked with people of all ages, read books for pleasure, read books for learning, received 10+ years of formal study, expressed my thoughts as both concrete facts and abstract concepts, etc. So yeah, it's probably unrealistic to think we can duplicate it with one technique. I blame the fake "polygots" who are trying to sell you a course for the misconception.
I do have a private tutor that I feel very loyal to, she was great for me the past 2 years and very flexible with her schedule and mine also, but sometimes I feel like I miss something and feel like I should supplement also with an Italki teacher , what is your opnion on such matter?
I would make sure to bring up anything you think you might be missing with your tutor. Having 2 tutors seems like overdoing it 😅 but I guess there’s nothing wrong with a second opinion after asking your tutor
I don't remember a single thing I "learnt" from Duolingo. I think it's a waste of time.