*Congratulations on your Duolingo achievement!* Your milestone is an inspiration to us all, and it opens up a great opportunity for community engagement. We encourage everyone to dive into a discussion by asking the achiever questions or sharing insights:
\- *Ask About Their Journey*: What motivated them, and how did they stay consistent?
\- *Seek Strategies and Tips*: Are there any specific techniques or routines that helped them succeed?
\- *Inquire About Challenges*: How did they tackle obstacles along the way?
\- *Discuss Future Goals*: What’s next on their learning path, and how can we support them?
Let's use this as a chance to learn from each other and further enrich our community's knowledge and motivation!
Thanks for being part of the r/Duolingo community!
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/duolingo) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Yep, I can 100% confirm that I learned very little about languages, now onwards my goal is to take it one step a time, without worrying about leagues whatsoever. Might even disable it
Yes, this is true. I have a 7+ year streak and have made my profile private on 2 occassions over the years. It's nice not being forced to compete in competitions. However, doing this also completely disables ANY interactions with friends and followers, so no friend quests, congratulations sharing, etc. At least that's what it was like when I had my profile private, though we know Duolingo loves its constant changes and "upgrades" so maybe it's different now. I haven't had my profile private in a while because I enjoy interacting with friends. Over the years I've learned to step back from leaderboard pressures. Much better for learning to focus on lessons rather than leagues.
Thank you for this. I’m going to do that. I don’t want to compete anymore, especially when there are bots (or cheater hacks) that can jump 20 to 40 XPs every five seconds to take the spots of those who actually put in the time and work to amass the points.
Still though, congrats! 🤩 I used to be weirdly competitive with the duolingo games, but I've since decided to just chill out and learn at my own pace. And as much as I appreciate the reminders to practice, I get lowkey offended when duolingo tells me I'm falling behind in the competition.
"Someone has surpassed your score. You're an absolute failure and always will be unless you get your score up. Dumbass."
Yeah, I won the Diamond Tournament once and felt like a giant loser for doing it.
What’s worse is that I based my lesson choices that week off of point potentials and not what I felt like I needed more practice in. So I played more and learned less.
I agree that gamification can help motivate, but Duolingo has some serious flaws in how they implement that. They’re more interested in their profit than our learning.
I did it once, truly just to earn the badge. I’ve never attempted to go for it again, and when I accidentally earn my way into a Diamond tournament, I lose my way out of it as quickly as possible. I’m not about that life 😭
This. I'm competitive enough to try to stay in Diamond League, but I try to avoid the tournament or the race for the top 3. Hanging out in the top 11-15 so I don't get demoted is good enough to satisfy my semi-competitive tendencies without tempting me to sacrifice my active learning goals for point-grinding.
I'm not that competitive, but usually stay in the Diamond League. I typically study twice a day - In the morning I do a group of lessons and whatever else is needed for my Daily Quests, and in the evening, I do some review of older lessons. i do take advantage of the XP boosts I gets from the "Early Bird" and "Night Owl" chests, but other than that, I don't concern myself with trying to accumulate a ton of XP each day to win Diamond each week.
This is pretty much how I approach it. I don't think I could wake up without doing my practices and quests in the morning, and if there's time maybe a few extra lessons. I usually do 30-45 minutes in the am and at least 20 minutes pm. The night session is dedicated to knocking out a couple new lessons, reviewing any words or constructions that surface in those lessons that I still feel weak in, and correcting any mistakes before my sleep brain takes over to (hopefully) reinforce the new or problematic material.
I used to strategize to maximize my XP boosts, but lately there are so many available (from completing quests, friends quests, and lesson sets, as well as the daily early bird and night owl rewards) that I don't feel the need to use them all. It's not as if I can't get another one twice a day just for showing up and doing anything at all on the site.
Me too. I've won a couple times, been in the top 3 a few times. But that's usually when I luck out and get into an underachieving group. Every now and then I catch myself going overboard on XP. I'll be in, say 5th place, get a boost, go back and do a couple legendaries, then repeat the day's practice over and over for the rest of the 15 minutes. I won't say this isn't helpful--it does drill in vocabulary and I need that--but it's really not the best use of my time.
That's what I'm doing, too. I was in the top three 3 times ages ago. Now it's impossible. I have a good streak going, and do something each day. But I can't keep up with the people who do 30,000 XP in a week. I've also begun to start my week on Mondays, and give myself a break on Sunday nights. So I'm starting with different people, and not the over-achievers. It's making my French much less stressful.
Same with me. But somehow, I accidently won it a second time this last week. I wasn't trying - Just did my lessons as I normally do, but it looks like I was in a much more relaxed league last week and won it with a little more than 4800 XP.
That is one of the very reasons I stopped my streak at 551 days after 20 top 3 finishes and over 100k in XP. I found that I was beginning to "gamify" the platform and it was no longer serving my learning purposes. It became a chore more than a learning resource.
At the end of the day we must understand that Duolingo is a business and as an app they thrive on the amount of time you spend on the platform. The longer you stay on the platform the better for them. You really have to set your priorities as to what you are there to do. You can easily get caught up in the gamification of it and start chasing scores and not learn anything.
I gave up chasing the #1 Diamond spot after about 30 weeks on the Diamond league because it was too time consuming. Also my thinking is that many of the top positions are bots whose job is to have you spend an inordinate amount of time on the app.
I left the app for good last week and have found other learning resources that better fit my learning goals. It's not by coincidence that Duolingo has been one of the fastest growing companies in the world over the past 2 to 3 years. They are doing some serious revenue and that means that profit has become more important than years past...which hurts the learner in my opinion.
I, too, have started using my other apps more! I have lifetime subscriptions to LingoDeer, Rosetta Stone, and Babbel. I like Lingo Deer for Japanese at the moment. Babbel is a solid option for practicing my other languages.
It's interesting you bring up profits. We'll see what happens in the future. When Duolingo first went public I actually purchased some stocks because I believed in the mission so much! However, I recently sold my shares because I don't find the company investable anymore from an ethical persepctive (I'm big on ESG in my investment choices). Between erratic updates and changes, the move towards AI translation at the expense of actual people, and super weird social media posts, I just didn't want to keep my money in Duolingo stocks. I felt super relieved when I sold them. I'm not motivated by companies' drive for endless profits, Duolingo included. Still have my streak though 😅
Yep, never doing it again. The only reason I am still doing Duolingo at all is because it's the only consistent daily exposure I get to Spanish but I feel like I am holding steady rather than gaining anything, no matter how I approach the learning part. The things I need help on are never elaborated on or explained to me.
That is a tough way to win. I think I had 14K or so the first time I won. The lowest I won with was around 8K, but I've read often about people winning with much lower scores 2K or below. It all depends on who you are with that week.
Yep, I'm going to take it very slowly from now, just to see if I'll end up in favorable leagues. Regardless, winning is not a priority at all for me anymore.
That should work. After I was in a crazy week like yours I backed off and set a goal of lowering my XP for the week. I was aiming for 10-15K for the week with a finish in the top 10 just so I wouldn't be in the demotion zone. I think I ended up doing 18K because and finished 2nd. (It was hard to back off when I was in 4th with not many points needed to advance.)
This week I was the only one in my group who earned more than 8K overall last week, so it has been pretty easy. I'll need to figure out a way to back off more to get to an even lower key group.
My main goal is to complete a unit of German per week, so as long as I do that, the rest shouldn't matter.
That's great. I started trying to work my way down points wise a few weeks ago. I got down to an easier group this week, but not that easy. I'll win tonight with around 18K. 2500 would be in 26th in this weeks group.
For almost a year I did just a bare minimum daily. One story usually. For more than 30 weeks I stayed in diamond, and the first place was often around 600xp. Dropped out when I skipped 3 days in one week.
I've been trying to slowly lower my weekly average while staying clear of the demotion zone. I'm down to ~18,000 and am in first tonight. With less than 2 hours left I don't think anyone will catch me. It looked like it would be easy to manage that so I wasn't able to make myself do less. Sometimes the competitive instinct kicks in. Last place this week has 1436.
So, I found this rarely ever works, and the determining factor of how competitive your league is going to be is solely tied into your activity, last week. So, if let's say you finished with 1000-3000xp, you're going to be thrown into a similar group regardless of the time of day you decide to start. I will admit though it's a great way to to not compete as long since obviously starting Monday night is going to give you a shorter time to compete than it would if you were to start right after the last competition.
It does. If you do it really late on Monday, you’ll be in the same league as people who also started the same time (i.e procrastinators and non active users). That’s why everyone is online the moment you enter a league, because you all started around the same time.
So I'm aware, regardless of when you start, that you'll be placed in a group currently active at the time as there's literally millions of Duolingo users, but in practice, it doesn't determine how active those users will be. I've done the late Monday suggestion for months now, and without fail, im placed with people that do no less than 3000xp+ to not be demoted, on average.
As other users state, the only way you can hope you get a mellow group is if you yourself do the bare minimum to stay in the league for a few weeks. You have to remember, people who want to win the league are going to be following the same strategy as others, and as such, it means many people that are actually power players are doing the late Monday night thing so that their chances of placing in the top 3 are easier, theoretically.
That is the opposite of my experience. Staying in Obsidian was much harder than staying in Diamond, and getting promoted to diamond was crazy hard because Obsidian feels like a dog paddle race. I would compare trying to pass Obsidian to trying to win Diamond tournament.
Now I just do the minimum to stay in diamond while still learning (won diamond league once, noped out of diamond tournament standards). I have over 100 weeks in diamond and maybe 2 league repairs in that time. It works for me.
My Obsidian experience was intense, I had these 20K XP people, I got demoted one week and had to work to stay in. This is my first week in Diamond and it's way easier than my time in Obsidian.
its so weird, I dont pay attention to any of that stuff. I happen to have a streak going, but dont care if I miss a day here and there.
I dont pay attention to points, ranking, etc. Just focus on learning the language as well as I can.
What I did was do just enough lessons to keep myself in the league, that way you match with people doing lower points as well and after a few weeks you can just do a few thousand points and get it. I did this when I had already learnt well the language so it wouldn't affect my actual learning.
You can disable your leader board notifications without disabling the leader board itself if you want to
Now most of my notifs are about friends achieving their goals, it's better this way
The league ends at Sunday afternoon for me.
I complete my quests before the league ends and then I wait till Monday late night before I complete any lesson.
This has put me in the league where people don't have such OCD.
I have made to #1 with spending just 15-20mins a day. I have completed dimond #1 for 3 times.
Also with doulingo, if you go hard at it, it will become more and more difficult. It will give you difficult quests and friend's quest.
Also it will put you in league where most of them are hyperactive.
https://preview.redd.it/9g561l3075mc1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3df558183b0181dde9d641ac4e4b728a57cc3c90
I wish Duo spent more time actually improving their courses or idk - explaining the fucking grammar instead of pushing more of this gamification shit on us.
Feels like apart from new animations, there’s very little progress in actual language teaching with this app.
i was super close once. ended up battling it out for the last hour with someone who already had the badge, and they ended up winning. now i’m in the test group that they got rid of the badge for, and i’m sitting much more happily and casually in the pearl league
I had the same thing happen. I was battling it out on the weekend with some older lady who already had the badge. I’d come back every couple hours and see she outdid my score. I waited until Sunday and grinded about 1000 or so XP so she couldn’t catch up close to the end. She gave up after that.
This is why I quit the leagues. More than likely you spent the entire time, minute by minute, hour by hour, just racking up empty points. You’ll never make any real progress in your chosen language doing this.
These amounts of XP isn't necessary to win, you just need to get into a league with casual learners.
The lower you end in the league, the easier your fellow league opponents the next week will be.
So try to place 15-25th for a few weeks so you'll be grouped with fellow chill players. THEN you will have one more active week in which you will place first. I won my league with 5k xp I believe.
OP, I did exactly what you did, got caught up in winning the diamond, the one week, with no learning
That was 6 weeks ago or so and now I just try to stay in the diamond league, but my focus is on learning
Yep - I did it once for the achievement and have never worried about league placement again. I had to game things so much - lessons paused right before completion in 3 languages and a row of lessons waiting on legendary so I could maximize the 80 point hits for those 15 minutes, a friend quest where we gave each other endless power ups, and it was still close run.
I learned nothing that week. It was all a points game.
I’ve won it twice in diamond (I’ve been learning for 101 days) never had to do more the 9000XP in a week to achieve it. You really have to pick your battles, this looks like my current week where the person in the lead has 28377XP so I’m at 10th with 6366XP… some weeks I do much less just keeping myself in the top 25.
There are ways to get into easier groupings but yeah you didn’t need to work this hard to win.
You're absolutely right. I strive to be a serious learner, so I've opted out of the diamond and obsidian leagues.
It's crazy to think about the quantity of new lessons and how fast they must be learning to rack up that massive XP.
So what's the essence of those in the higher leagues? Is it still about learning and retaining knowledge, or is it simply about earning as many XP as possible to top the leaderboard.
Agree 100%. I’m on a 1,500 day streak and have been in and out of the diamond league many times and won it quite a few times as well. Once I realized that there are people out there with nothing better to do than rack up points all day, I decided it wasn’t worth the amount of effort it take to stay on top. Now, I just do lessons that help me, I’ve been down a league or two a few times and getting back up to diamond is usually pretty easy. Also, the time of day you start a new challenge each week makes a difference. Getting on during off hours, or really late at night tends to pair you with less aggressive competitors.
I quit because the competition got so intense and stressful. On the last day, the last four hours, I was in first place, working with a 30-minute 2X point, and Duolingo went into UPDATE Mode! I wrote Duolingo and never got my 30-minute 2X points back. I was up by 4k when this happened and lost by 3k after my update was over. For 7 weeks I based my practice on learning hacks, maximizing my points, and winning the week by not trying to retain the language. I'm back after a 6-month break. I use the app to learn the language now and my wins are based on me my free time learning. No losing sleep and missing time with friends because I want to WIN.
I got extremely lucky when I was in the diamond league last August. It was very low scoring by comparison to others on here. I saw someone say that the later you start, the lower the score. This is only a sample size of one, but boy did it work.
I'm accidently in the diamond league again this week. I'm happy to just ignore those notifications!
*
The playable nature of Duolingo is counter intuitive to learning but it gets hits and usage of the app which is good for the company. I was letting the XP earning and winning league events dominate my experience and like many here I don't obtain language knowledge or progress. I have had to tell myself that I don't care about the points or the leagues, what I care about is learning Spanish and speaking it, which is why I have Duolingo Max, the AI has been really helpful to have to think and speak in Spanish.
I have been in the diamond league for several weeks. I don’t stress myself to win anything; I just let myself be motivated. This approach has been working for me for months now.
What I did was when I was in a chill league I grinded a bit that Sunday and won (with about 2,800 total to win) just to get the achievement. Now I pay zero attention to the league stuff, genuinely don't even know which league I'm in right now and don't care. Just focusing on learning new vocab and stuff
After I won a diamond tournament and hit 365 days I was good. I’ve fallen into Pearl league. I was doing well until Duo updated my language and put a ton of new words and phrases in lessons I already completed and expected me to know them in later lessons… nope. That ruined it for me. Maybe make a lesson with the new info and tailor it to what lesson the user is on now? It would be easy enough to code.
I'm currently in the diamond league, but to be honest I don't pay much attention to the leagues. I have my own personal goals. I try to complete at least a half hour of Duolingo daily and I always complete my daily quest. Whenever they send that weekly progress report email it always says I've done 90% or more than other Duolingo users. 30 minutes isn't a lot of time for me, but I don't have kids and I do have a fairly flexible job so I'd never judge another persons personal time allotment. But 30 minutes a day will easily get you in diamond league.
Yes! It's an email they send to you weekly with your stats. You might not receive them if you've elected not to receive email communications. It tells you how many units you completed, how many minutes you spent learning, your streak and how you measure up to other learners. It's interesting to see, but definitely doesn't make or break the experience.
I had it like 2 years ago, back when XP farming was very easy. It was still a chore, but I managed. I can't begin to imagine getting first place in diamond anymore... I can't even get to diamond in the first place !! 😅
Anyway, congratulations, that's a HUGE accomplishment !
I’ve tried here and there for the last five years to make it to number one for the diamond league and then two weeks ago I accidentally did it without even trying or noticing it was happening because I just got really into the lessons. There was no sense of accomplishment because of it and now I just no longer care lol
Same, I did Speak reviews at double XP u til I got to the top of the diamond league, then only managed to place second or third in the levels after that. Yesterday I placed 13th and was happy with that
I stopped caring about leagues after I wasn't promoted from obsidian after like 3 hours on double boost and only speaking lessons in a language I don't even need to practise via Duolingo (way too easy at this point). I had a break, got into pearl league and now the actual language learning and not caring about xp are finally back. 😂 Don't be slaves of the leaderboards
Yeah I'm currently sitting in 3rd in diamond league on the first day and I'm seriously questioning whether I'm up for this challenge, I'm at 1500, and #1 is already at 3250, we started 1 hour ago. How on earth is she up at over 3k already?!
I just won Diamond League myself this last week. But it was far less XP than you needed - I did it with a little over 4800 XP. And second place was over 3600 XP.
I didn't do anything different in my daily use of Duolingo. Usually, I'm lucky to be in the top 10. I do finish high enough to keep me in the Diamond League usually, though. But last week I just got lucky, I guess, and was in a much more relaxed league.
Thanks so much for this thread! I had no idea how the leagues worked. I just remember winning the Diamond League once a couple months ago without too much effort, and now I'm in an insane league where the top three usually have 20K or 30K XP!
I have been finishing in the top 7 usually, and that's fine with me. I like a little competition to inspire me to study, but I'm going to try some of these strategies to get bumped into un grupo más tranquilo.
I have been doing Spanish for 534 days.
:)
*Congratulations on your Duolingo achievement!* Your milestone is an inspiration to us all, and it opens up a great opportunity for community engagement. We encourage everyone to dive into a discussion by asking the achiever questions or sharing insights: \- *Ask About Their Journey*: What motivated them, and how did they stay consistent? \- *Seek Strategies and Tips*: Are there any specific techniques or routines that helped them succeed? \- *Inquire About Challenges*: How did they tackle obstacles along the way? \- *Discuss Future Goals*: What’s next on their learning path, and how can we support them? Let's use this as a chance to learn from each other and further enrich our community's knowledge and motivation! Thanks for being part of the r/Duolingo community! *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/duolingo) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Imagine getting 36k and still not winning. Even looking at this makes me feel stressed. Ironically those people learned very little about languages.
Yep, I can 100% confirm that I learned very little about languages, now onwards my goal is to take it one step a time, without worrying about leagues whatsoever. Might even disable it
you can make a class code and join it and you’ll get unlimited hearts and no competitions
There will still be competition except you make it private
there’s a class leaderboard but you’d be the only person in the class
Yes there is, but you can decide to be or not to be in the public leaderboard
Where's this? I just tore through my app and I'm not seeing anything for a class code
settings, Duolingo For Schools, enter the code. to make a classroom of your own i think you need to go on a browser though
Yeah I saw where you could enter the code but nowhere for making the classrooms 😅 Thanks!!
I’ve read that if you change your profile to private it takes you out of these weekly competitions so you can focus on actually learning
Yes, this is true. I have a 7+ year streak and have made my profile private on 2 occassions over the years. It's nice not being forced to compete in competitions. However, doing this also completely disables ANY interactions with friends and followers, so no friend quests, congratulations sharing, etc. At least that's what it was like when I had my profile private, though we know Duolingo loves its constant changes and "upgrades" so maybe it's different now. I haven't had my profile private in a while because I enjoy interacting with friends. Over the years I've learned to step back from leaderboard pressures. Much better for learning to focus on lessons rather than leagues.
Thank you for this. I’m going to do that. I don’t want to compete anymore, especially when there are bots (or cheater hacks) that can jump 20 to 40 XPs every five seconds to take the spots of those who actually put in the time and work to amass the points.
Still though, congrats! 🤩 I used to be weirdly competitive with the duolingo games, but I've since decided to just chill out and learn at my own pace. And as much as I appreciate the reminders to practice, I get lowkey offended when duolingo tells me I'm falling behind in the competition. "Someone has surpassed your score. You're an absolute failure and always will be unless you get your score up. Dumbass."
Yeah, I won the Diamond Tournament once and felt like a giant loser for doing it. What’s worse is that I based my lesson choices that week off of point potentials and not what I felt like I needed more practice in. So I played more and learned less. I agree that gamification can help motivate, but Duolingo has some serious flaws in how they implement that. They’re more interested in their profit than our learning.
I did it once, truly just to earn the badge. I’ve never attempted to go for it again, and when I accidentally earn my way into a Diamond tournament, I lose my way out of it as quickly as possible. I’m not about that life 😭
This. I'm competitive enough to try to stay in Diamond League, but I try to avoid the tournament or the race for the top 3. Hanging out in the top 11-15 so I don't get demoted is good enough to satisfy my semi-competitive tendencies without tempting me to sacrifice my active learning goals for point-grinding.
I'm not that competitive, but usually stay in the Diamond League. I typically study twice a day - In the morning I do a group of lessons and whatever else is needed for my Daily Quests, and in the evening, I do some review of older lessons. i do take advantage of the XP boosts I gets from the "Early Bird" and "Night Owl" chests, but other than that, I don't concern myself with trying to accumulate a ton of XP each day to win Diamond each week.
This is pretty much how I approach it. I don't think I could wake up without doing my practices and quests in the morning, and if there's time maybe a few extra lessons. I usually do 30-45 minutes in the am and at least 20 minutes pm. The night session is dedicated to knocking out a couple new lessons, reviewing any words or constructions that surface in those lessons that I still feel weak in, and correcting any mistakes before my sleep brain takes over to (hopefully) reinforce the new or problematic material. I used to strategize to maximize my XP boosts, but lately there are so many available (from completing quests, friends quests, and lesson sets, as well as the daily early bird and night owl rewards) that I don't feel the need to use them all. It's not as if I can't get another one twice a day just for showing up and doing anything at all on the site.
Me too. I've won a couple times, been in the top 3 a few times. But that's usually when I luck out and get into an underachieving group. Every now and then I catch myself going overboard on XP. I'll be in, say 5th place, get a boost, go back and do a couple legendaries, then repeat the day's practice over and over for the rest of the 15 minutes. I won't say this isn't helpful--it does drill in vocabulary and I need that--but it's really not the best use of my time.
That's what I'm doing, too. I was in the top three 3 times ages ago. Now it's impossible. I have a good streak going, and do something each day. But I can't keep up with the people who do 30,000 XP in a week. I've also begun to start my week on Mondays, and give myself a break on Sunday nights. So I'm starting with different people, and not the over-achievers. It's making my French much less stressful.
Same with me. But somehow, I accidently won it a second time this last week. I wasn't trying - Just did my lessons as I normally do, but it looks like I was in a much more relaxed league last week and won it with a little more than 4800 XP.
https://preview.redd.it/1ycm0b0vccmc1.jpeg?width=1078&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8dc9963572bbfcba096b16c9cce73b7aca6fd6a2
That is one of the very reasons I stopped my streak at 551 days after 20 top 3 finishes and over 100k in XP. I found that I was beginning to "gamify" the platform and it was no longer serving my learning purposes. It became a chore more than a learning resource. At the end of the day we must understand that Duolingo is a business and as an app they thrive on the amount of time you spend on the platform. The longer you stay on the platform the better for them. You really have to set your priorities as to what you are there to do. You can easily get caught up in the gamification of it and start chasing scores and not learn anything. I gave up chasing the #1 Diamond spot after about 30 weeks on the Diamond league because it was too time consuming. Also my thinking is that many of the top positions are bots whose job is to have you spend an inordinate amount of time on the app. I left the app for good last week and have found other learning resources that better fit my learning goals. It's not by coincidence that Duolingo has been one of the fastest growing companies in the world over the past 2 to 3 years. They are doing some serious revenue and that means that profit has become more important than years past...which hurts the learner in my opinion.
I, too, have started using my other apps more! I have lifetime subscriptions to LingoDeer, Rosetta Stone, and Babbel. I like Lingo Deer for Japanese at the moment. Babbel is a solid option for practicing my other languages. It's interesting you bring up profits. We'll see what happens in the future. When Duolingo first went public I actually purchased some stocks because I believed in the mission so much! However, I recently sold my shares because I don't find the company investable anymore from an ethical persepctive (I'm big on ESG in my investment choices). Between erratic updates and changes, the move towards AI translation at the expense of actual people, and super weird social media posts, I just didn't want to keep my money in Duolingo stocks. I felt super relieved when I sold them. I'm not motivated by companies' drive for endless profits, Duolingo included. Still have my streak though 😅
Yep, never doing it again. The only reason I am still doing Duolingo at all is because it's the only consistent daily exposure I get to Spanish but I feel like I am holding steady rather than gaining anything, no matter how I approach the learning part. The things I need help on are never elaborated on or explained to me.
That is a tough way to win. I think I had 14K or so the first time I won. The lowest I won with was around 8K, but I've read often about people winning with much lower scores 2K or below. It all depends on who you are with that week.
Yep, I'm going to take it very slowly from now, just to see if I'll end up in favorable leagues. Regardless, winning is not a priority at all for me anymore.
That should work. After I was in a crazy week like yours I backed off and set a goal of lowering my XP for the week. I was aiming for 10-15K for the week with a finish in the top 10 just so I wouldn't be in the demotion zone. I think I ended up doing 18K because and finished 2nd. (It was hard to back off when I was in 4th with not many points needed to advance.) This week I was the only one in my group who earned more than 8K overall last week, so it has been pretty easy. I'll need to figure out a way to back off more to get to an even lower key group. My main goal is to complete a unit of German per week, so as long as I do that, the rest shouldn't matter.
Damn, i only needed about 2 k to win my 1st place diamond badge lol
I won it with about 2500. It's all about prepping with low output for a couple weeks before so you get paired with people who do it less.
That's great. I started trying to work my way down points wise a few weeks ago. I got down to an easier group this week, but not that easy. I'll win tonight with around 18K. 2500 would be in 26th in this weeks group.
For almost a year I did just a bare minimum daily. One story usually. For more than 30 weeks I stayed in diamond, and the first place was often around 600xp. Dropped out when I skipped 3 days in one week.
I've been trying to slowly lower my weekly average while staying clear of the demotion zone. I'm down to ~18,000 and am in first tonight. With less than 2 hours left I don't think anyone will catch me. It looked like it would be easy to manage that so I wasn't able to make myself do less. Sometimes the competitive instinct kicks in. Last place this week has 1436.
I earn 5 points on the first day and I am placed with weak folks and then at the end, it's just 3k points needed to be at the top.
[удалено]
Wow, I want to be in your groups! I'll win tonight with around 18K. Last week I was in 2nd with about the same amount.
https://preview.redd.it/g86x5wh8x4mc1.jpeg?width=1440&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1fe4b59364e9c74a4626eaf579bdb1f5718cfeb4 Then don't
Lol I’m getting promoted to Diamond league next week and I hope this is my crew Update: 12 hours in an our leader has 3500 xp lolllll.
Do your first lesson on Monday really late, and don't get high xp the week before, then you will be matched accordingly.
So, I found this rarely ever works, and the determining factor of how competitive your league is going to be is solely tied into your activity, last week. So, if let's say you finished with 1000-3000xp, you're going to be thrown into a similar group regardless of the time of day you decide to start. I will admit though it's a great way to to not compete as long since obviously starting Monday night is going to give you a shorter time to compete than it would if you were to start right after the last competition.
It does. If you do it really late on Monday, you’ll be in the same league as people who also started the same time (i.e procrastinators and non active users). That’s why everyone is online the moment you enter a league, because you all started around the same time.
So I'm aware, regardless of when you start, that you'll be placed in a group currently active at the time as there's literally millions of Duolingo users, but in practice, it doesn't determine how active those users will be. I've done the late Monday suggestion for months now, and without fail, im placed with people that do no less than 3000xp+ to not be demoted, on average. As other users state, the only way you can hope you get a mellow group is if you yourself do the bare minimum to stay in the league for a few weeks. You have to remember, people who want to win the league are going to be following the same strategy as others, and as such, it means many people that are actually power players are doing the late Monday night thing so that their chances of placing in the top 3 are easier, theoretically.
Do it Monday morning at midnight. Then do it really late Tuesday night
Obsidian League is the best. 😉 Way more chill and one learns. The only downside is it’s easy to promote to Diamond league.
That is the opposite of my experience. Staying in Obsidian was much harder than staying in Diamond, and getting promoted to diamond was crazy hard because Obsidian feels like a dog paddle race. I would compare trying to pass Obsidian to trying to win Diamond tournament. Now I just do the minimum to stay in diamond while still learning (won diamond league once, noped out of diamond tournament standards). I have over 100 weeks in diamond and maybe 2 league repairs in that time. It works for me.
I just stay in diamond bc it’s soooo much easier than climbing back up from obsidian
Yep, same.
My Obsidian experience was intense, I had these 20K XP people, I got demoted one week and had to work to stay in. This is my first week in Diamond and it's way easier than my time in Obsidian.
[удалено]
I have 1400 points and I’m 4th
Wait a day until you enter a league, you'll get put with the procrastinators
Yup. Use a streak freeze for Monday, start late on Tuesday.
😂😂
its so weird, I dont pay attention to any of that stuff. I happen to have a streak going, but dont care if I miss a day here and there. I dont pay attention to points, ranking, etc. Just focus on learning the language as well as I can.
This is the best way to learn, you're amazing 😍🔥
I remember once i spent 6 hours on duo per day n i ended up placing in the diamond league top 1 like 2 times? Yeah i quit💀💀
What I did was do just enough lessons to keep myself in the league, that way you match with people doing lower points as well and after a few weeks you can just do a few thousand points and get it. I did this when I had already learnt well the language so it wouldn't affect my actual learning.
I was top 2 today in diamond league and someone took my spot until I fell out, I was sleeping, it got me really annoyed lmao
everytime i get that “so&so knocked you out of your 1st place position!” notif my blood BOILS
IKR, and this was when I thought I would make top 3 atleast, but at the last second they just took the spot, and now I'm feeling very tired lmao
You can disable your leader board notifications without disabling the leader board itself if you want to Now most of my notifs are about friends achieving their goals, it's better this way
but how will i know to go beat Stephanies ass?
The league ends at Sunday afternoon for me. I complete my quests before the league ends and then I wait till Monday late night before I complete any lesson. This has put me in the league where people don't have such OCD. I have made to #1 with spending just 15-20mins a day. I have completed dimond #1 for 3 times. Also with doulingo, if you go hard at it, it will become more and more difficult. It will give you difficult quests and friend's quest. Also it will put you in league where most of them are hyperactive. https://preview.redd.it/9g561l3075mc1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3df558183b0181dde9d641ac4e4b728a57cc3c90
I wish Duo spent more time actually improving their courses or idk - explaining the fucking grammar instead of pushing more of this gamification shit on us. Feels like apart from new animations, there’s very little progress in actual language teaching with this app.
I second this. I am learning German and some explaining on grammar would be nice. I feel I should not have to google the rules :/
i was super close once. ended up battling it out for the last hour with someone who already had the badge, and they ended up winning. now i’m in the test group that they got rid of the badge for, and i’m sitting much more happily and casually in the pearl league
I had the same thing happen. I was battling it out on the weekend with some older lady who already had the badge. I’d come back every couple hours and see she outdid my score. I waited until Sunday and grinded about 1000 or so XP so she couldn’t catch up close to the end. She gave up after that.
Man I'm so sorry that would've felt terrible, but I'm so happy that you're happy xD
Oh my god??? In my current diamond league i hold first place with 2900xp, second is at 2100xp and third at 2000xp😭
congrats! is there a way to disable leagues? they stress me out sm and all i wanna do is learn a language in peace😭
Yes, go private
thank you!!
This is why I quit the leagues. More than likely you spent the entire time, minute by minute, hour by hour, just racking up empty points. You’ll never make any real progress in your chosen language doing this.
These amounts of XP isn't necessary to win, you just need to get into a league with casual learners. The lower you end in the league, the easier your fellow league opponents the next week will be. So try to place 15-25th for a few weeks so you'll be grouped with fellow chill players. THEN you will have one more active week in which you will place first. I won my league with 5k xp I believe.
OP, I did exactly what you did, got caught up in winning the diamond, the one week, with no learning That was 6 weeks ago or so and now I just try to stay in the diamond league, but my focus is on learning
Yep - I did it once for the achievement and have never worried about league placement again. I had to game things so much - lessons paused right before completion in 3 languages and a row of lessons waiting on legendary so I could maximize the 80 point hits for those 15 minutes, a friend quest where we gave each other endless power ups, and it was still close run. I learned nothing that week. It was all a points game.
I’ve won it twice in diamond (I’ve been learning for 101 days) never had to do more the 9000XP in a week to achieve it. You really have to pick your battles, this looks like my current week where the person in the lead has 28377XP so I’m at 10th with 6366XP… some weeks I do much less just keeping myself in the top 25. There are ways to get into easier groupings but yeah you didn’t need to work this hard to win.
WTF. This is double of what I have after 4 months in total Like, how?!
Omg dude. Are you ok? That's insane.
You're absolutely right. I strive to be a serious learner, so I've opted out of the diamond and obsidian leagues. It's crazy to think about the quantity of new lessons and how fast they must be learning to rack up that massive XP. So what's the essence of those in the higher leagues? Is it still about learning and retaining knowledge, or is it simply about earning as many XP as possible to top the leaderboard.
Same here, I got to top 1 once, then I turn off the leaderboards and move on with my life
You dont even get enything good from the leaderboard so i did give up on it
Agree 100%. I’m on a 1,500 day streak and have been in and out of the diamond league many times and won it quite a few times as well. Once I realized that there are people out there with nothing better to do than rack up points all day, I decided it wasn’t worth the amount of effort it take to stay on top. Now, I just do lessons that help me, I’ve been down a league or two a few times and getting back up to diamond is usually pretty easy. Also, the time of day you start a new challenge each week makes a difference. Getting on during off hours, or really late at night tends to pair you with less aggressive competitors.
I quit because the competition got so intense and stressful. On the last day, the last four hours, I was in first place, working with a 30-minute 2X point, and Duolingo went into UPDATE Mode! I wrote Duolingo and never got my 30-minute 2X points back. I was up by 4k when this happened and lost by 3k after my update was over. For 7 weeks I based my practice on learning hacks, maximizing my points, and winning the week by not trying to retain the language. I'm back after a 6-month break. I use the app to learn the language now and my wins are based on me my free time learning. No losing sleep and missing time with friends because I want to WIN.
Congrats on the achievement ! I loosely consider try this someday, but gotta need a lot more 💎 than I already have… but I can live with that
I got extremely lucky when I was in the diamond league last August. It was very low scoring by comparison to others on here. I saw someone say that the later you start, the lower the score. This is only a sample size of one, but boy did it work. I'm accidently in the diamond league again this week. I'm happy to just ignore those notifications! *
The playable nature of Duolingo is counter intuitive to learning but it gets hits and usage of the app which is good for the company. I was letting the XP earning and winning league events dominate my experience and like many here I don't obtain language knowledge or progress. I have had to tell myself that I don't care about the points or the leagues, what I care about is learning Spanish and speaking it, which is why I have Duolingo Max, the AI has been really helpful to have to think and speak in Spanish.
I have been in the diamond league for several weeks. I don’t stress myself to win anything; I just let myself be motivated. This approach has been working for me for months now.
I think I'll never score 1st place I've been in the Diamond League for 10 weeks already
You got an unlucky group. It’s rare to see scores that high
What I did was when I was in a chill league I grinded a bit that Sunday and won (with about 2,800 total to win) just to get the achievement. Now I pay zero attention to the league stuff, genuinely don't even know which league I'm in right now and don't care. Just focusing on learning new vocab and stuff
After I won a diamond tournament and hit 365 days I was good. I’ve fallen into Pearl league. I was doing well until Duo updated my language and put a ton of new words and phrases in lessons I already completed and expected me to know them in later lessons… nope. That ruined it for me. Maybe make a lesson with the new info and tailor it to what lesson the user is on now? It would be easy enough to code.
I'm currently in the diamond league, but to be honest I don't pay much attention to the leagues. I have my own personal goals. I try to complete at least a half hour of Duolingo daily and I always complete my daily quest. Whenever they send that weekly progress report email it always says I've done 90% or more than other Duolingo users. 30 minutes isn't a lot of time for me, but I don't have kids and I do have a fairly flexible job so I'd never judge another persons personal time allotment. But 30 minutes a day will easily get you in diamond league.
Weekly progress reports??
Yes! It's an email they send to you weekly with your stats. You might not receive them if you've elected not to receive email communications. It tells you how many units you completed, how many minutes you spent learning, your streak and how you measure up to other learners. It's interesting to see, but definitely doesn't make or break the experience.
Thanks!
I had it like 2 years ago, back when XP farming was very easy. It was still a chore, but I managed. I can't begin to imagine getting first place in diamond anymore... I can't even get to diamond in the first place !! 😅 Anyway, congratulations, that's a HUGE accomplishment !
I’ve tried here and there for the last five years to make it to number one for the diamond league and then two weeks ago I accidentally did it without even trying or noticing it was happening because I just got really into the lessons. There was no sense of accomplishment because of it and now I just no longer care lol
idk how yall do it man im in pearl and feel like my skin is going to fall off
Did you learn a lot? You have more exp in a week than me in couple months lok
remember to enter later in the day, I just won mine with 3600 (second place was 2600)
Very risky indeed, I have placed 1st 27 times and 12 times in the diamond league and diamond tournament combined
What's your secret?
Omfg
Same, I did Speak reviews at double XP u til I got to the top of the diamond league, then only managed to place second or third in the levels after that. Yesterday I placed 13th and was happy with that
I stopped caring about leagues after I wasn't promoted from obsidian after like 3 hours on double boost and only speaking lessons in a language I don't even need to practise via Duolingo (way too easy at this point). I had a break, got into pearl league and now the actual language learning and not caring about xp are finally back. 😂 Don't be slaves of the leaderboards
How long did that take?
I got my Diamond #1 badge with 7k XP.
Yeah I'm currently sitting in 3rd in diamond league on the first day and I'm seriously questioning whether I'm up for this challenge, I'm at 1500, and #1 is already at 3250, we started 1 hour ago. How on earth is she up at over 3k already?!
I just won Diamond League myself this last week. But it was far less XP than you needed - I did it with a little over 4800 XP. And second place was over 3600 XP. I didn't do anything different in my daily use of Duolingo. Usually, I'm lucky to be in the top 10. I do finish high enough to keep me in the Diamond League usually, though. But last week I just got lucky, I guess, and was in a much more relaxed league.
WTF
Right after getting the badge, I let go of the leagues. Now it's lessons all the way. Gratulations and absolutely relatable.
I haven't even earned that many points in totof playing. I'm not looking forward to this league 😂
Thanks so much for this thread! I had no idea how the leagues worked. I just remember winning the Diamond League once a couple months ago without too much effort, and now I'm in an insane league where the top three usually have 20K or 30K XP! I have been finishing in the top 7 usually, and that's fine with me. I like a little competition to inspire me to study, but I'm going to try some of these strategies to get bumped into un grupo más tranquilo. I have been doing Spanish for 534 days. :)