Duolingo Tips & Tricks
Things that might help you get the most out of Duolingo
Introduction
¡Hola, aprendientes, y bienvenidos a mi blog de nuevo! This week I’m discussing some things I’ve found helpful in using Duolingo, the language learning app I use daily. Every day. I’ve got like a 1200+ day streak going on. This is my fourth Duolingo post in a row, so I’m going to put a lid on it for a bit. Next week I’ll be discussing something else. I’m not sure there’s a whole lot more to say about the app, but it’s certainly provided a good bit of fodder for hopefully useful posts. But I’m not here to be a Duolingo salesperson, recent blogs notwithstanding!
I’ve actually been poking at the app since 2017, although I think I have some failed Rosetta Stone attempts mixed in that time, too. So, I’ve been at this a while mostly learning from my own experience, where a perhaps more intelligent person would maybe look for other people’s experience and take advantage of that.
If you’re a more intelligent person, I’m here for you! I will impart to you the things I’ve incorporated into my own daily practice to get the most out of this app. Hopefully some of these will help you make better use of the app, if you don’t already do these.
Alrighty, then! Let’s get to it!
Pay For It!
This may be a little controversial, but if you can, pay the annual subscription at least until you can finish your course. And DO NOT sign up through an app store!! Go through Duolingo’s Web page. Sometimes you can catch a sale and get a discount. If you can swing the annual fee, it’s absolutely worth it to get through your course. For some reason, the free ad-supported version does not effectively promote effective learning. More on that later.
I gotta say, for how much I use the app, the subscription has been absolutely worth it, mostly for my peace of mind. It can be supremely annoying bumping up against some of the limits of the free access. Generally, I’m in favor of paying for things that provide me value if I can, and doing so also helps the provider make improvements and provide support. But I’d like to feel I’m paying for it to gain extra value instead of paying to avoid annoyances.
Unlimited Hearts
Is it later enough? This is one of the paid features. The TL;DR: in the free version you get a number of hearts (3 or 5, I forget which) for the day. You lose a heart for each mistake. When you’re out of hearts you’re done for the day. In an app that pushes learning a language for free, this is so extremely counterproductive. Mistakes are key to learning and should not be penalized like this in a language learning app. This is an annoyance I’m paying to avoid. So, if you subscribe, one of the first things you do is turn on Unlimited Hearts. You’re Duolingo life will immediately become exponentially better.
Read Unit Guidebooks
Every unit in a section has a “Guidebook” that will give you tips and examples for the upcoming lessons. Frequently you’ll also find new vocabulary, as well. I can’t recall the number of times I made a mistake (and lost a heart!) on a word I didn’t recognize, only to remember to look at the guidebook! Guess what word I found in the guidebook! 🙄 Yeah, review the guidebooks before starting a unit!
Accent Marks – Learn Them!
This is not specifically a Duolingo tip but is applicable across a wide gamut of languages. Accent marks, umlauts, and other diacritics are rampant and running wild with reckless abandon in SO MANY languages! Everywhere you look, there one is!
Pay attention to those pesky little attachments to letters, especially if you’re a native English speaker! We don’t have to deal with such marks in our mother tongue, so we may tend to dismiss diacritical marks without a thought. Those little marks will dramatically change the the meaning of what you may read as one word but are actually two different words.
Let’s take Spanish, por ejemplo. You have “una” (one, feminine) and “uña” (fingernail or claw). There’s “cuna” which means crib or cradle, and “cuña” that means wedge or shim in English. You have “te” versus “té”, which are you (direct object pronoun) and tea, respectively. We’ll end this list with “cono” that translates to cone, and “coño” which translates to #$%& (i.e., don’t use it in polite company and could get you slapped across the face, but the English meaning definitely gets you nasty looks in the USA).
So, yeah, pay attention and learn the diacritics.
Repeat EVERYTHING Out Loud
This is something I did not do in the beginning because, sitting alone in my living room, with only the dog for company, I let myself be so awfully, absolutely self-conscious. I know Duolingo also proffers this tip in some of those “while you’re waiting for me to load” screens. This will, no lie, help you out so much! Get the words coming through your brain out your mouth, and get your mouth muscles making the sounds of the language as much as possible.
Duolingo has Speaking exercises in the Practice Hub, if you’re a paid subscriber. Those are handy. But I’m talking about every single lesson you go through in the Learning Path, every single Story. Read the text out loud, in a normal talking level. In the Stories, read both sides of the conversation out loud! When you make a mistake, read the corrected text out loud. Make sure you are getting your mouth used to speaking the language.
Speaking Exercises – Don’t Look!
Speaking of speaking, if you have access to the Speaking Exercises in the Practice Hub, work those into your practice schedule. These exercises give you some text to read into the microphone, and ostensibly the app rates your approximation of the sounds of the language. But that’s not what I’m after, here.
Do this with the exercise: don’t look at the text. Just listen. Hold your thumb over the little speaker icon to play the sound again so that you can’t see the text but can still play the sound repeatedly. Then, tap the Speak button and speak what you heard instead of what you read. I found this to be a truly invaluable exercise in building up my listening comprehension. I’m sure you will, too.
Don’t Look!
Speaking of not looking, a lot of the exercises come with audio that plays whatever phrase or sentence comes up. When you get done with an exercise, put your finger over the Continue button, close your eyes, and tap. Listen to the audio that plays and try to repeat it, before looking at the screen. Duolingo is a relatively safe place to practice listening; most of the phrases are relatively short and easy to repeat. Spend as much time as possible not looking at the text on the screen, but instead listening to the words that are coming out of your phone’s speaker (or your computer’s). This has dramatically improved my own language acquisition, but it doesn’t seem like something most people would think of.
Speak Oh-So-Slowly
Again with the speaking! There’s so much speaking! Yup, sure is. Here’s a trap: you hear someone, a podcaster, a teacher, and TV actor, speaking along like a Gatling gun. You start getting that (sinking) feeling that you need to speak that fast to be able to speak the language effectively. NO!! You do not need to speak that fast!
The idea here is you need to be able to make the sounds of the language more-or-less accurately. If you can do that, speakers of the language will understand you no matter how fast you speak. Duolingo will not penalize you for speaking slowly, either. With the Speaking exercises, you just want to make sure you’re getting through the sentence in a smooth flow, but you don’t have to go particularly fast. Just without pausing.
Practice the sounds of the language. Find an IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) with audio for the language; Wikipedia is actually a good place to start. When you speak the words in Duolingo, go slow, super-slow. The most important thing is to enunciate the words as clearly as possible with the correct sounds, and the best way to do that is slowly. Start out slow and repeat ad nauseam. You will get faster; it’s just physics! Fluent speakers won’t mind you speaking at your own pace, so try not to feel like you have to catch up!
Look for Context Clues
This has been a frustrating point for me. I tend to “absorb” phrases and sentences and don’t always see all the words in a sentence. I make a fair few mistakes in Duolingo because of that. Make sure to read all the words of the sentences!
Duolingo expects you to push a bit, but they’ve made some changes that guide toward specific answers. One thing is many of the questions use word bubbles now and don’t allow the keyboard. This limits the available answers that Duolingo must check, which is fine, I think. Sometimes Duolingo gets a little tricksy with its riddles, too, though, so be sure to read the exercises carefully. Have I mentioned that before?
As an example, you might see a sentence, “¿_______ comer algo más, o está terminado?”, and you must fill in the blank or choose the right word bubble. Now, me, with my normal reading habit, would write “Quieres” in the blank. Because my brain defaults to informal and my eyes feed my brain what my brain expects to see. 🙄 But the correct response is “quiere”, to match the “está” in the last part of the sentence. This is just a simple example; there are more complex questions throughout the exercises. Keep your eyes peeled and read the words!
Go Lickety-Split in the Learning Path
My largest error in this whole Duolingo thing has been fiddle-farting around playing games and what-not, when my goal is to actually learn a language. No hate to those who just amuse themselves playing in Duolingo or similar (“free”) apps; we all need entertainment. If you’re trying to actually learn the language, though, you need to put in the time and effort.
You need oh-so-much-more than any app will give you to become comfortably conversational in a language. Duolingo (or whatever app) should not be a centerpiece, but maybe more of a primer to blast you off on your language journey. It will help give or strengthen basic vocabulary and give you some context-based foundations in the basic grammar of the language. Therefore, it works best if you try to bulldoze your way through it as quick as possible.
If you tend to soak things up fairly fast, maybe skip the Legendary challenges. Me, I need things pounded into my head over and over again, so I’ve done all the Legendary challenges. These days, I turn right around when I finish a lesson and take care of them right away. Repetition works well for me. I’ve almost stopped doing so much work in the Practice Hub, and really focus on getting as many lessons completed in a day as possible. Your daily obligations will have a say in how much you can do; do as much as you can.
I will let you know, if you’re in the A* levels, that those first levels are quite the slog. It takes a bit to get through them and the amount of vocabulary and grammar learned there may seem relatively meager. So try extra hard to get through those as fast as possible. Getting into the B1 levels, I’ve found vocabulary and grammar are coming at me like a horse on fire. Language learning is like that. You’ll spend what feels like so many boring, frustrating hours learning a pittance of the language. One day, though, that’ll change seemingly overnight. You’ll start picking up more and more vocabulary and grammar, as long as you keep working on it, and you’ll pick them up so much quicker. It’s like playing a musical instrument. When you’ve got a decent foundation in the instrument, you can pick up new tunes much more quickly and reliably. Keep at it!
Final Thoughts
I mentioned above that Duolingo (or any app) should not be a centerpiece, nor a cornerstone. I have a post in the works discussing how I go about learning these days, and how I’ve been working on moving the app from my primary source to a supporting role. I feel the apps are definitely useful, but I also feel no app on its own can effectively make a determined person conversational in a language. Keep an eye out for that post in the hopefully not-too-distant future.
Also, Duolingo is fine as a language app. So is Babbel, and so is Pimsleur, and so are a dozen others. Ignore those doom-and-gloom YouTube videos vehemently preaching fire-and-brimstone about how evil Duolingo is and how you should never, EVER use it! They’re usually trying to get you to buy their own app or system, or the one that sponsors their videos. You do you, boo, but understand that an app will never be able to teach you a language in 15 minutes a day. It’s just elementary, my dear Watson!
Si has estado, ¡gracias por leer! See you back here again next week, or later this week if you enjoy my photograph descriptions. Thanks for stopping by!