Is Duolingo Effective? Yes, When Used Properly

You've likely encountered a range of contrasting views on Duolingo—it's an application that tends to inspire either strong affection or dislike. I have utilized it myself over several years to learn different languages, and I studied German primarily using the app.

Based on my usage, Duolingo is ideal for kickstarting more dedicated language study and establishing a good foundation in grammar and vocabulary, provided you are persistent and utilize its features to their fullest.

What Is Duolingo?

Duolingo ranks among the most popular language learning applications available—and for good reason.

You can use Duolingo without cost, making it a common selection for language learners wanting to try things out or have a no-cost method to enhance their abilities.

There is also a paid subscription option to upgrade to Super Duolingo for additional features, such as unlimited “hearts” (which function like lives in a video game) within the app.

Duolingo's primary emphasis is on gamified education that seeks to build multiple competencies like reading, writing, speaking and listening.

The app is highly recognizable due to its distinctive branding. Its mascot is an owl named Duo, famous for its passive-aggressive push notifications encouraging you to finish your goals and maintain your streak. (It even occasionally switches to an angry expression if you ignore it for too long.)

Duolingo maintains a substantial social media presence, and its social media manager Zaria Parvez mentioned she wanted Duo to be recognized for interacting with his followers using “witty one-liners and comebacks.” This approach has generated many memes.

Duolingo is now also adopting AI—they have even substituted 10% of their human translators with artificial intelligence.

How Much Does Duolingo Cost?

While most of Duolingo's features are accessible for free, you can purchase extra features with the Super Duolingo or Super Duolingo Family plan.

Some of these features include an ad-free experience and access to unlimited lives.

Super plans begin at:

• $6.99/month for a single person (with a 12-month commitment)
• $9.99/month for a family plan covering two to six individuals
• $12.99/month for one person (on a monthly basis—select “View All Plans” to see this option, as it is not shown by default)

What Are the Key Features of Duolingo?

Organized, Progressive Lessons

Duolingo is structured into organized, progressive lessons that offer a clear path to better language skills.

While some learning platforms let you choose what and when to learn, I appreciate that Duolingo reduces some of the uncertainty about what you should focus on.

New levels become accessible as you advance, changing from gray to full color, ensuring you are ready to tackle the new content.

Most importantly, Duolingo consistently incorporates old material, so previously learned words and grammar are reused while introducing new content.

Furthermore, lessons are divided into small segments, making it simple to fit a few minutes of learning into even the most packed schedule.

All you need is a short moment during your commute, while waiting at the doctor's office, or even standing in line at the store.

It was previously possible to comment on words to ask questions and join forums, but since 2022, Duolingo no longer supports discussions or forums.

Option to Strengthen Skills

While you can continue progressing to learn new vocabulary and skills, Duolingo also lets you focus on what you've already learned to further reinforce your abilities.

Specifically, the practice option presents material that Duolingo thinks you might need to review so you can be tested on it.

You also have the choice to level up skills you've already studied so you can work on the areas you need with material that will actually challenge you.

Legendary Challenges

After finishing a level, you can complete a legendary challenge to enhance your skills even more, as they are intended to be particularly difficult quizzes and exercises.

Free users spend 100 gems to access the legendary feature, but Super Duolingo subscribers receive them at no extra cost.

I attempted a legendary challenge for a unit in my Duolingo Portuguese course and answered everything correctly. After passing, I received this notification:

Unlike standard lessons, you do not receive hints during legendary challenges. They are split into two parts, with the second being more difficult than the first. After successfully completing the legendary challenge, your unit will turn gold.

Super Duolingo

This is Duolingo's version of Premium content. Subscribing to Super Duolingo eliminates ads and provides unlimited hearts, allowing you to continue learning no matter how many errors you make.

You get free access to Duolingo's “Legendary” challenges and the “Practice” feature, which is customized based on your previous mistakes.

Personalized Practice Feature

“Practice” is one of Duolingo's most advanced features.

It includes “Unit Rewind,” which is an auto-timed review of a specific unit. Unlike the standard “Practice” feature available with the free plan, you cannot select which unit to complete with “Unit Review.” This is because it's Duolingo's implementation of spaced repetition. So the app will notify you when it's time to review an older unit based on its assessment.

The Super Duolingo “Practice” feature also includes “Speak” and “Listen,” which are sessions aimed at improving these specific abilities.

The final three practice tools are “Words,” “Stories” and “Mistakes.” “Stories” is the only one available to free users.

“Words” is a vocabulary list containing all the words you've learned on Duolingo, along with their translations and pronunciations. There is also an option to practice your words at the top.

Lastly, “Mistakes” is a customized lesson that allows you to practice only the words and phrases you've answered incorrectly.

Duolingo Stories

“Stories” is the sole practice feature available to free users, located under the “Practice” tab on the sidebar. However, it is only supported for certain languages.

I have finished several stories in Portuguese—they are enjoyable and a great method to increase your XP points on the app, which is useful for free users.

The stories are designed to help you practice new words you've learned within context. There are no English translations—something I really appreciate—and they are adapted to your proficiency level.

After reading a few lines, Duolingo pauses and asks you to answer a comprehension question before moving on.

Unique Push Notifications

The push notifications are an aspect of Duolingo that people either adore or despise. Since passive aggressiveness is part of their brand identity, the owl becomes quite cheeky when you fail to meet your daily goals.

Some find this amusing and endearing, which attracts them to the app even more. Numerous memes circulate online because of this as well—jokes about Duolingo targeting users' families, screenshots of the irritated bird, etc.

However, other individuals find the guilt-tripping disheartening.

But when you do return to Duolingo after an extended break, the owl welcomes you with a message and offers the chance to do a brief review before resuming lessons, which I find helpful.

Ability to Make Friends

Duolingo allows you to connect with other users as friends. You can encourage them and compete with them. The app even sends you notifications and options to congratulate your friends when they achieve new milestones or maintain a long streak.

You also create your own avatar on Duolingo. When adding a friend, you can view their profile—which includes their avatar, the languages they're learning, their XP points in each course, how long they've been using Duolingo and more.

What Are the Strengths of Duolingo?

Ability to Learn Multiple Languages at Once

You can enroll in as many Duolingo language courses as you desire (with a free account as well). You can easily switch between languages at the top of the website and app, and your progress is saved individually for each one.

Immediate Sentence Building

From the very start, I noticed that learners are introduced to sentence structure along with a corresponding translation.

This might not appear to be the most exciting or glamorous feature, but regarding language acquisition, it is incredibly important.

Being able to observe how sentences are constructed and how grammatical units relate to one another shows learners how to convey meaning early in the process.

Wide Array of Languages

Duolingo does not limit its language offerings. It provides over 45 language courses, including Arabic, Chinese, English, Japanese, French, German, Italian, Korean, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish.

It also offers some less commonly studied options, such as Indonesian, Navajo and Welsh.

Because it offers such a wide selection of languages, most language learners will probably find that the language they're studying is available on Duolingo.

Goal Setting

Duolingo tracks how many consecutive days you return to the app to finish a lesson, creating a “streak.” Chances are, you won't want to break your streak, so you'll keep coming back daily. You can even bet “Lingots” (in-game currency) that you'll maintain your streak for a set number of days, to receive a larger reward if you succeed.

Duolingo's approach also enables you to set goals and be recognized for your diligence. The app will hold you accountable if you're slacking, as its persistent notifications are sure to increase your motivation to learn.

Gamification

Learning a language can be difficult, but Duolingo makes its lessons more like a game, which is certain to keep you entertained and eager to learn.

Duolingo has several features that can be considered gamification, including its winning streak, leaderboards and virtual currency. You also earn awards and personal records as you use Duolingo, which are shown in your “Achievements” tab.

All of these are sure to spark competitiveness and motivate you to be consistent with your Duolingo routine.

Additionally, the artwork and rapid-fire questions make Duolingo feel more like a game than a conventional language learning program.

Due to Duolingo's gamified approach to learning, many students find it more enjoyable and accessible than other language learning tools.

Multiple Skills Targeted

Comprehensive language learning requires multiple skill sets including vocabulary, grammar, reading, writing, speaking and listening abilities.

Because it can be challenging to incorporate all these skills into one program, many language learning tools concentrate on just a couple of skills.

However, Duolingo aims to build well-rounded skills in all areas by providing a foundation in grammar and vocabulary, then targeting reading, writing, speaking and listening skills with engaging activities.

Duolingo offers various add-ons for specific languages that further develop these skills, such as Duolingo Stories for reading and listening comprehension, and Duolingo Podcasts for listening practice. It's important to note that these two features aren't available for every language, but Duolingo is continually adding new content.

What Are the Disadvantages of Duolingo?

Few Options for Advanced Speakers

While Duolingo has a large selection of lessons, its resources aren't extensive and varied enough to push intermediate and advanced students toward full fluency.

Once a learner has finished a Duolingo program, they might revisit lessons and/or strengthen their skills. While it's possible to reinforce what they've already covered, further progress is much more limited.

Moreover, due to the structure of the Duolingo program, there's no opportunity for spontaneous use of the language.

Little Conversation Preparation

Duolingo provides speaking and listening practice, which are good initial steps toward conversation skills, but the app isn't quite capable of simulating a real conversation.

Holding a conversation in your target language may be more stressful and time-consuming than the exercises on Duolingo can prepare you for.

If you plan to have conversations in your target language, you might want to supplement your Duolingo learning with another course and a language exchange app like HelloTalk.

Inconsistency Between Languages

Not all languages are treated equally on Duolingo.

Some language courses, such as Spanish and French, are highly developed and offer many options for lessons, exercises and add-ons.

Conversely, some of the other language courses don't have as much content.

Take a language like Finnish, for instance. The Finnish material is clearly underdeveloped compared to other languages, with fewer lessons, tips, and no corresponding Duolingo Stories or podcasts.

Some of these less-developed courses also have inconsistent audio quality. For Spanish, the audio is very clear and spoken by native speakers. For Finnish, there is less audio and it is only computer-generated.

The quality of instruction on Duolingo largely depends on a language's popularity.

Good for Practice, Not Always for Learning

Even with some of the well-developed courses, Duolingo may not be sufficient to fully teach a language to fluency.

As noted before, Duolingo is great for establishing a base in a language—but don't expect to reach an advanced fluency level using only Duolingo.

In fact, the language I have the highest XP in—German—I no longer remember at all. And as I mentioned earlier, I used almost exclusively Duolingo to learn it.

Grammar instruction is largely inadequate on Duolingo, often lacking technical explanations for certain rules, irregularities and nuances.

Furthermore, Duolingo is notoriously weak with non-Latin scripts, so learning Chinese characters or the Cyrillic alphabet may be difficult or nearly impossible with Duolingo.

The Gamification Can Be Overwhelming

Duolingo has significantly increased its focus on gamification since I used it most regularly about five years ago. For example, when I logged in recently, I was confronted with all the new flashy, video game-like elements—rewards, hearts, gems, XP points, etc.

I personally find it overwhelming, and many users share this sentiment. But ultimately, it depends on individual preference.

Very Little Pronunciation Support

Besides learning basic vocabulary, another crucial step for beginning language learners is to learn how to pronounce these words correctly.

For some languages, Duolingo offers a simple pronunciation guide in the “Tips” section of the initial lessons.

While this is useful, this guide isn't comprehensive and is sometimes not even included. Additionally, tones receive limited attention in languages like Chinese or Vietnamese, which is essential for speaking accurately.

Is Duolingo Effective for Beginners?

Comparing Duolingo's strengths and weaknesses, it's quite reasonable to conclude that yes, Duolingo is adequate for beginner learners.

Duolingo excels at diving straight into the most practical words and phrases… for some languages.

If the language we're learning uses a Latin-based script, we learn the basics quite quickly. Early lessons include fundamental food, people and even verb words.

You're immediately prompted to start constructing sentences, which is an ideal way to begin as it naturally builds and reinforces our vocabulary.

On the other hand, if you're a beginner in a non-Latin-based language, you might need to start with another resource to learn your language's writing system first.

Is Duolingo Effective for Intermediate and Advanced Learners?

Duolingo can develop certain language skills to a higher level, but not all of them.

Attempts to Be Well-rounded

Duolingo generally does a good job of balancing the four essential skills of speaking, listening, reading and writing.

It doesn't solve the problem that we might not be pronouncing words correctly, but the ability to create and speak our own sentences is a significant step toward genuinely learning to use the language.

Some of the Sentences Are Unusual

Duolingo is famous for having learners master odd and unnatural sentences they will probably never use, like “The Loch Ness monster is drinking whiskey.” Some sentences are also repetitive.

Artificial vs. Real Language Usage

There are many different ways to express the same idea—but because Duolingo typically teaches only one way to say it, your conversations can become stiff and unnatural.

Plus, Duolingo's vocabulary isn't diverse or challenging enough to build a large and varied core vocabulary. You don't get to select which vocabulary words you're learning, which makes your learning seem artificial.

In this sense, the Duolingo method isn't as effective for learning a language, or at least the real, authentic version of a language.

A more natural method to learn vocabulary is through immersion, particularly via language programs that utilize native content.

Is Duolingo Effective as a Standalone Language Learning Program?

To evaluate whether Duolingo “works,” it's important to remember that any platform or resource largely depends on how the learner uses it.

Assuming you use Duolingo as intended—logging in daily, utilizing all its features, reviewing periodically— it's likely that you would still find it challenging to learn a language solely with Duolingo.

The opportunities for actually speaking the language are quite limited, and the absence of authentic content, vocabulary and grammar explanations would make this program difficult to use as a sole language learning method.

Overall, you would definitely need to supplement your Duolingo learning with other resources to develop all your language skills comprehensively. Some languages will simply require more supplementation than others.

What Are the Alternatives to Duolingo?

At this point, you might be curious about other options available to you. Here are some Duolingo alternatives that can help you reach your language learning goals:

Memrise

Memrise is often discussed alongside Duolingo as a robust vocabulary-building app. In recent years, the app has undergone a major overhaul and now focuses on teaching common vocabulary and phrases through videos of native speakers saying the terms aloud for you.

Like Duolingo, this app relies on repetition and building upon what you've already learned. Learn more about Memrise in our review.

Lingflix

Lingflix is a good alternative or supplement to Duolingo because of the authentic media it uses. The main objective is to make you comfortable with everyday language, by combining all the advantages of complete immersion and native-level conversation.

Mondly

Mondly can help you address the language skills that Duolingo doesn't fully cover. The app includes a speech recognition program that lets you refine your speaking skills.

It also has some interesting learning options, including a cool AR mode, in case you're feeling tired of the same repetition found in Duolingo and similar apps.

Learn more about Mondly in our review.

Lingvist

Instead of teaching you sentences you'll never use in real life (for which Duolingo is famous), Lingvist takes a scientific approach to language teaching.

The app concentrates on teaching you language that's useful in everyday situations. It does this through natural scenarios and context, with the goal of familiarizing you with 80% of the words you'll need to know to become conversational—all while picking up grammar concepts naturally through exposure to the language.

Learn more about Lingvist in our review.

Final Verdict: Is Duolingo Actually Effective for Learning Languages?

Duolingo is an enjoyable app that's great if you're starting out with a language. It can serve as an introduction to long-term, more serious study by helping you build consistent habits.

It's most beneficial for beginners and early intermediate learners, teaching you the fundamentals of a language's vocabulary and grammar.

But it won't bring you to an advanced or fluent level and is best used alongside another resource.