I like Duolingo for the exact reasons you don't. I want to learn a language, and I will need to know the basics to be able to talk to people on my honeymoon next year. What you see as "nagging" I see as "holding me accountable to a goal I've set for myself."

I can definitely see why you'd want to be able to dial back the notifications, though.

On principle, I'd usually be on your side in this kind of situation. But again, for me, in this particular case, the nagging is a feature, not a nuisance. Besides, of all the things an app can nag you about, learning a language is pretty innocuous.

Fun fact: if you have a pi-hole, the only ad you'll ever get is their own ad promoting Super Duolingo. I'm assuming it's a video embedded in the app somewhere.

If it’s important, why cede control of your own discipline to a notification loop of a for profit company? These things aren’t hard, people have been doing it for long before computers even existed. if you need to learn something, set a schedule like an hour each morning before anyone else is up, and take control and learn it.

Why poor people just don't get rich?

You might not lack discipline but most people that lacks it have a really hard time doing this:

"if you need to learn something, set a schedule like an hour each morning before anyone else is up, and take control and learn it."

I started writing this before you updated your comment. I'm glad I saw the change, because I was going to reply with a similar level of snark!

In my case, I'm learning German. My wife already knows a good bit of German (which she learned in "real" classes, not Duolingo) so I have a captive practice buddy. We speak German with each other sometimes, and she has coached me through some things Duolingo can't - like properly articulating the German "ch" sound.

I like your approach, by the way - it's almost exactly what I use for my photography. I wake up with the sun, about 2 hours before my wife, and I go make photos.

The thing about HN comment threads is that you don't know who anyone is. So, the natural(?) assumption ends up being that anyone who disagrees with you is the perfect strawman for your own side of the argument. In my case, I have a support structure outside of Duolingo, I have an active interest in taking my learning outside the app...

and I still find the gamification and notifications helpful. I just don't feel very motivated some days, but I still get a few lessons in! Something in me wants to be high up on that leaderboard. Is this the healthiest way to harness behavioral psychology to learn a language? I don't know, I'm not a psychologist. In any case, I'm practicing German every day, and that's pretty cool.

With Duolingo, I think the ends justify the means. FWIW you can turn off the notifications in your phone's settings, and emails are easy to direct to junk/spam/whatever black hole you prefer.

Thanks for the detailed response. Sounds like what I do too, but for the social component I try and find someone learning the same thing. Sometimes that’s easy, sometimes not.

Like most people with young kids these days, I’m struggling with the reduced willpower people are trading for their digital conveniences. My original comment took that reflexivity too far and ignored the obvious utility of apps (I have ones I use too!) with a blanket assumption.

Cheers!

> If it’s important, why cede control of your own discipline to a notification loop of a for-profit company?

What makes you think all minds are equally capable of controlling their own discipline? (look up executive dysfunction)

I generally don’t think all people are equally capable. I have a kid with fairly severe adhd, and i am mildly affected myself. I’m very familiar with executive dysfunction. What I have found is that it’s a muscle I can exercise and keep in shape, and if I start slacking on it it’s very easy for my discipline to fall apart. It took a couple of years to build up that fitness as well.

I have fairly severe ADHD myself, and while it's possible for me to be vaguely functional, it already takes all of my energy just to not quit my job, and then there is no energy left for my personal time.

(I love my job, but that unfortunately doesn't stop it from being made nearly impossible for me. thanks, ADHD)

Because language learning generally sux, is horribly boring and I don't get enough of sleep enough anyway.

So, if there is an app that makes me want to open it, enjoy the process, then it is pure gain. Sometimes I get double motivated and do extras (content consumption, reading grammar), other times I just keep the streak.

But if I had to wake up every day an hour sooner to study language, then I would be forgetting everything in two weeks, because that would genuinely lowered my quality of life.

And yes, I am ok with idea that you will learn faster then I will.

> I want to learn a language

Then why are you using Duolingo in the first place?

That app has to be the worst method, because people think they are progressing while they in fact don't. From personal experience it's the worst method I tired to learn a language, and the content present for languages I know isn't good either.

I plan on adding a community college class into the mix, so there is some education outside of the app that will happen eventually. But, there's at least a few reasons why you'd use Duolingo exclusively.

1. If you can't afford something better. I keep getting pummeled on the leaderboard by people doing 5000+ XP/week worth of English for Spanish Speakers. None of them have Super Duolingo (you can see if they have it by looking at their profile)

2. If you're testing the waters. I already talked about the money, but a semester of a language class is a big time commitment, too. You also lose scheduling flexibility that's especially desirable when you don't know if you want to commit to a class yet.

Then there's supplemental, extracurricular practice. If you never use a language outside of class, you'll lose it very quickly. Anyone who had to take a language class in middle/high school knows this. Duolingo (or any other app) can help reinforce learning, by regularly poking the "foreign language" part of your brain, even on days when you aren't in class.

The supplemental is what I'm using it as, in between my A1 and A2 in-class lessons I'm using it to keep my level up and improve my ability to sentence build. New vocabulary is also nice.

I'm definitely progressing. I won't get fluent, but my level is definitely higher than that of languages I learned in high school, and I can read signs and stuff. (In fact, I think the method is fairly similar.)

The reason I use Duolingo because it's the only thing I'll actually use, thanks to the emotional blackmail.

Could you elaborate on which features you'd miss from Duolingo if you switched?

For context I'm working on a language learning app (phrasing.app) and I'm pretty against gamification. I've got a couple different review methods (listening, tapping, and typing) but I assume you're referring to a more complete feature set.

PS: If anyone wants to beta test the application, contact me on twitter @barrelltech. I just got everything re-released this weekend, so I'm just now starting to work on user guides and documentation!

I don't think they do anything special. It's just on aggregate between their various interactive mechanisms, there is nice variance to the types of interaction you get to do. Speaking, typing, word selection, etc.

So when you click on a lesson - you like the variance of all the review types before the lesson finishes? That's very doable! Definitely somewhere I'm working towards, and I have a loooot of review ideas XD it'll be a few months until I add more I think though.

Thanks!

Not tried this yet but looks interesting: https://www.50languages.com/apps

I like Lingvist for vocabulary building, but it's also not perfect.

If you were in charge of Lingvist, what would you change/build?

edit: long time lingvist user, I'm also a huuuuge fan.

Lingvist only tells you how a word/sentence is written and spelt. It only explains what the single word & full sentence you are looking for means.

But sometimes it would be useful to know what a different, already shown, word means.

FWIW, I found Busuu great.

After a year on busuu and 1000 days on duolingo, I find the former way better for language acquisition.

Thanks for the recommendation. But just checking it out there,it seems to also follow a gamification model that forces you to click "commitment" buttons like you are some kind of child.

I have unlimited hearts and I don't pay for subscription. I don't know if there is a glitch with my account or maybe my streak is so long (>1500 days) they have just given up on trying to monetise me.

I'm the same, I just figured I'd been grandfathered into something. Although I don't use the app any more since they redesigned all the courses last year or so; it's worthless now.

Be careful, there's guaranteed to be employees reading along here :)

Babbel or Rosetta Stone

Can you elaborate? It seems pretty opaque what they are like since it seems to be credit card up front with both of them.

Babbel kind of takes traditional textbook style learning, and adapts it quite well to technology. It's also built around really colloquial conversations, and the audio is high quality. I would say it tends to focus more on how people actually speak than textbook-style speech

Rosetta Stone was the big player before Duolingo. They had a method that involved not using your mother tongue, which they called 'immersion'. I believe in the recent years (since Duolingo ate their pie) they have moved more and more towards dueling style learning. They have an app that's a lot more corporate, but I've heard good things about it too

Note, I haven't used either of these applications in years, I just work in the space and this is my understanding of them

Thanks for the summation. I was aware of Rosetta Stone as an older entity.

Babbel sounds interesting.

They are also language learning apps. Different style than Duolingo, but still worth the price imo

With a PiHole/DNS blocking of ad servers, I just get their presumably baked-in "Get Super Duolingo" ads, these are not skippable but I just close the app and reopen it a second later.

It's not the ads that bother me it's the heart model. I use the website, not the app. About a year and change ago they transitioned to the hearts. The amount I use Duo every day dropped by about half as once I'm out of hearts for the day I stop.

Resources for things like vocabulary building and such will vary by your target language.

However, the "memorization techniques" of most language apps really boil down to "spaced repetition" (SRS) of some form, which is basically doing reps, and having the space between reps increase over time as you remember them better.

Anki and Mochi are two spaced repetition systems (which will require you to create or find your own flashcards, but will take care of spacing out when to review them), and if you google for spaced repetition software targeting your target language, you'll probably find other alternatives too.

I personally find Anki to be a joy of a piece of software, and after using it for 5 years I have no intention of stopping or switching to another SRS app.

Mango is super good and free with most library cards.