“Every time a new student told me they had been using Duolingo for several months, their level was almost indistinguishable from someone who had done absolutely nothing in that time frame.” I think the problem here is not Duolingo itself, but that many people rely on one resource to learn a language and use no other resource. As a similar example, while I was going to Alliance Française, there were many people in my class who were only attending the courses, but not doing any extra work outside the class. As a result most of them got stuck at the beginner level. I think learning a language needs a lot of time and motivation, and you need to try multiple resources at the same time to improve. I have found it best to incorporate language learning to my daily activities, such as reading the newspaper in French, watch Quebec series, trying to use my French at work, etc.
I definitely fall in the camp of thinking I can skip the 'comprehensible' and go straight to the input. But I've been reading less and less because I still cannot fully understand a sentence. This was a good wake up call for my French learning.
“Every time a new student told me they had been using Duolingo for several months, their level was almost indistinguishable from someone who had done absolutely nothing in that time frame.” I think the problem here is not Duolingo itself, but that many people rely on one resource to learn a language and use no other resource. As a similar example, while I was going to Alliance Française, there were many people in my class who were only attending the courses, but not doing any extra work outside the class. As a result most of them got stuck at the beginner level. I think learning a language needs a lot of time and motivation, and you need to try multiple resources at the same time to improve. I have found it best to incorporate language learning to my daily activities, such as reading the newspaper in French, watch Quebec series, trying to use my French at work, etc.
Je suis d'accord à 100%
Duolingo, c'est comme une "maladie" de la société moderne) Presque tous mes amis l'utilisent et personne ne veut croire que c'est inutile
C'est une bonne façon de se faire croire qu'on est en train d'apprendre une langue!
Thank you for this article!
I definitely fall in the camp of thinking I can skip the 'comprehensible' and go straight to the input. But I've been reading less and less because I still cannot fully understand a sentence. This was a good wake up call for my French learning.