Why I'm Quitting Duolingo

I've been studying language on and off for several years, and I've learned a lot about how to find and implement different learning tools and methods for myself across those years. I started out with Japanese. I can't really remember why I decided to try learning Japanese, but I guess some of my creative influences are Japanese (Mogu Takahashi, Nobuo Uematsu, Pompompurin) and I thought it seemed like an interesting language.

Language Beginnings

I remember starting out and combing through different websites and forums looking for resources and beginner's advice. I remember trying out numerous new things that might help with my study - I learned hiragana and katakana on Tofugu, learned some Kanji with Kanji Koohii, downloaded Anki SRS and a "Japanese core 2000" deck of vocab and sentences. The research itself was a lot of fun, and I discovered that there were a lot of curious people like me out there looking to start a language learning journey.

Fast forward some years, and I'm tired of my Japanese study. Kanji aren't going anywhere near my brain any more, and I've gotten to a point where most of the flashcards my Anki deck shows me are for words that don't stick for some reason. At some point here, I become interested in learning a language that is a bit closer to English. I've loved learning Japanese, but what about trying out a language that uses my alphabet, more or less?

Finding Duolingo

I don't actually remember when and how I started using Duolingo. It's one of those things that just happened, I suppose. It felt intuitive and sleek, and learning German like it was a game was fun. I loved turning each subject gold and maintaining a daily streak to be proud of - and most of all, I was learning.

Fast forward some more years (just a couple this time), and I've reached around 40% fluency on the German Duolingo tree (don't be fooled by this number, because it isn't that impressive in terms of how much I can actually communicate, but it means I've done a lot of Duolingo and know what "ein Hund" is VERY well). At this point I am extremely tired of Duolingo. It's become a chore, my daily streak has died a rapid death after I maintained it for over a year because I just cannot be bothered any more. It's a drag.

I would try to get back on the Duolingo horse a handful of times after reaching this stage of full give-uppery (a technical term), but every time just reminded me how much I had grown to hate each practice.

So that's where I'm at right now, and I want to talk about why exactly I no longer like using Duolingo. Don't get me wrong though, I still think it's an incredibly useful resource, and I'm really thankful it's been there since it did teach me a lot of German, and that's awesome.

Duolingo Problems

Here are some things I don't like about Duolingo. Maybe some people like these things or find them useful, or just don't mind them, but for me they affect my learning and bug me.

• Repeating low level sentences. I'm pretty sure Duo, the Duolingo mascot owl, will show up outside my bedroom window one night to scream "Ich bin ein Mann" in a terrifying German owl screech. Please, I know this sentence. I never need to see this sentence again. Have mercy upon me, green owl of punishment.
• Weird sentences. You know, I've seen a lot of people talking about how they don't like some of the odd sentences Duolingo asks you about, and honestly most of the time this hasn't bothered me. I do think sometimes weird sentences can stick in your mind well precisely because they're weird, but on the other hand I can see that often the less you're likely to use words and sentences, the less you're likely to remember them. This has gotten to be more of an issue for me towards the end of the German tree.
• Lack of explanation implemented. I know that you can find extra grammar explanations in some parts of Duolingo, but to me it just doesn't feel super intuitive with a lot of this information and the way it presents it (or doesn't) when it comes to lessons and practice. I feel like Duolingo tries to be a catch-all language practice programme, and ultimately might be better suited to more of a vocab focus.
• I don't like the app. I think desktop Duolingo is the best Duolingo. The app has quite a different style which focuses on multiple choice questions and pair matching. I find the app pretty tedious personally - however I do think it might be the best way to approach Asian languages.
• It's not great for Asian languages. When I started using Duolingo, Japanese and Korean were not available. Now they are, but the courses for these languages differ a lot to those I've tried for languages more like English. For one, you mostly do not get to practice by typing. These two languages currently focus a lot on the multiple choice questions and pair matching I mentioned in the previous bullet point. That's why I think using the app is probably the best way to go for these languages, since the practice style suits touch controls better, but to me Duolingo feels pretty stilted as a whole for these languages. Also - learn the syllabaries (hiragana/katakana, or hangul) first, because Duolingo doesn't really approach them in the most beginner-friendly way in my opinion. I do want to say, however, that some of the Japanese sentence learning is decent, once you get to that stage, but personally I'd recommend starting elsewhere if you're a beginner.

What I'm Doing Now

Since I don't like studying Korean (the language I'm really interesting in focusing on right now) or Japanese on Duolingo, and my interest in practising German on Duolingo has died, I'm finally ready to say goodbye to trying to force myself to use it, and try using other learning resources and tools instead. I think if you're really struggling with an aspect of learning, or you're forcing yourself to do something, then it's probably best to change it. The best learning usually happens when you're enjoying what you're doing.

It's always a good idea to diversify your language learning resources. For German I'd really like to try out some other things (I've heard Deutsche Welle's DW Learn German app is good, and I really like the Memrise German courses because they use footage of real Germans speaking), and for Korean at the moment I'm sticking to Anki SRS and an app on Android called Korean Dungeon (there's also a Japanese version of this, so I might try that at some point).

Ultimately, I believe everyone's language learning is something they have to figure out for themselves, and it's also something that should be flexible as you learn and grow. Duolingo has served me well, and if I want to dip into a new language which uses the Latin alphabet in the future then I may revisit it, but otherwise I'm happy to say goodbye to it and forget about that ever-present streak that looms over me, haunting my dreams, judging me forevermore.