Finishing Duolingo

[Dannyd857]

I really enjoy using Duolingo for refreshers in Spanish (although I have started to learn Italian using the app) and to keep my mind active with the language. I don't think I could fully rely on the app to make me fluent in Spanish, which seems to be the consensus with most people here. I do appreciate the fact that you can receive updates and reminders for daily practice. Learning basic words and phrases is a great perk regardless.  

I've heard that speaking the language (preferably to other people in conversation) is the only way to really achieve and maintain fluency, especially for more difficult languages.

[宇崎ちゃん]

Does Duolingo actually work? I haven't downloaded it yet, but was thinking about it. I knew someone who used it for Spanish but gave up.

If you don't mind incorrect translations here and there, Duolingo works quite well for your short term memory.
But for your long term memory, I would rather recommend you to use Anki decks (find new vocabs, grammar and sentences, store them in your decks and go over them every day).
And while not going over your flash cards, turn your vocabulary into full sentences and shout them out of you on a daily basis (preferably to a native speaker, but a rubber duck works too if you don't care about pronunciation yet) (and try thinking of new sentences every day, or you'll end up only being able to say that one sentence ).

[bobbieb]

I have a friend/old coworker who married a native Spanish-speaking woman, and his way of starting to learn Spanish (his mother in-law speaks very little English) was to label objects throughout his house with the object's name in Spanish. I thought this was a great idea! And probably much more effective than any app one may try to use on a regular basis. Now he is of course at an advantage to be married to someone who knows Spanish fluently already, but it seems like a great way to stay motivated in learning a language. 

[Nathicana1992]

I use duolingo all the time. It's a pretty good piece of software and you can learn a lot from it, although I wouldn't recommend using it exclusively. To truly get a feel for the language I'd say use that in combination with a variety of other learning methods.

[Litnax]

I used to use Duolingo in the past, learning many languages at once.

But then I decided to see how well the Dutch course was done (curious).

I couldn't facepalm enough when I saw so many mistakes during the course.

 

I reported most of them, but only got a decent response once.

Other than that, those moderators were complete arseholes.

They think they know Dutch better than a native speaker.

That's not good then. I was just getting interested in this app but if the lesson and translation are off, the ones who have everything to lose are the users who are trying to learn another language.

[宇崎ちゃん]

Edit: after checking this video again, I realised it was a joke.
My apologies.

I'm not the only one to say that:

Edited October 19, 2015 by Blaveloper