Has anyone else struggled with the new Duolingo?

[FlorettaB]

I’ve been happily using it for months and then it changed overnight. From what I’ve found out through googling it, it seems like they’ve been rolling out this new version since August.

I learn through repetition and I feel really lost with the new set up. It seems to assume I know stuff that it’s not covered at all.

I didn't want to pay so much either but found out you can buy a family plan and get a group of people to chip in together, so I'm only paying 20 euros for the year for it

I'm increasingly frustrated by Duolingo - the problem I'm encountering regularly is that there is no way to track back to the place where certain rules were introduced coupled with the fact that I'm not convinced a lot of rules have actually been explained at any point - I think some points (too many) are not being taught explicitly - I think you are expected to absorb them through a combination of repeated exposure and the expectation that you will be able to work out what the rules are yourself by spotting the patterns - I'm often having to leave the app to go and try and look things up and it isn't always easy to find exactly the right piece of advice. Why isn't there a link to take you back to the piece of direct teaching that would help you understand what you did wrong, what the applicable rules are? Here's an example. I'm learning Spanish BTW

I've ditched my Babbel+ subscription and missed the opportunity to do the same with Duolingo - I might go back to Babbel+. I find Duolingo easier - Babbel makes you work harder - I feel learning with Duolingo is so hit and miss ATM - part of me suspects that they don't want you to learn, finish the course and stop paying - hence they are dragging it out and sabotaging the learning process.

And you? How's it going?

I have a grammar book alongside it, because that means I'm more likely to understand - at least with Dutch. The other languages I do are ones I've formally studied in the past, so it's just revision rather than learning. I do have grammar books for them if I needed them, though.

Streak of 1060, focusing on French atm but I do use Duolingo for Spanish and Dutch.

Larkstar - can you afford a class? I signed up for a French course at my local adult education centre and it’s really helped. Small group with a good teacher once a week. Is £143 a term.

Also buy a Spanish grammar book.

I'm now at Unit 7 in French on Duolingo and struggling a bit. They are now using a lot of very idiomatic language, often introducing a load of new terms and phrases with every lesson, but then give relatively little opportunity to practise the new stuff. I try to write it down and learn it, but this stuff really only sticks if I am using it fairly regularly. It's particularly annoying when it marks you wrong for something it's never taught previously.

I am currently doing a course at our local college, which helps a bit. However, the people on the course are all at different levels and that can slow things down.

It’s nearly a year now since I started learning Italian in a class instead of on Duolingo & it’s honestly made a mammoth difference, especially for speaking and listening.

One thing that initially put me off was not knowing what level to start at, but I picked https://ihlondon.com because they had a test I could take to find out.

The tips and notes that were originally written for Duolingo were saved by a bunch of volunteers and can be found at

Duome.eu

I have a streak of almost 8 years on Duolingo, have played around with a lot of languages in that time, and it's amazing how much worse they've made it.

I used it in all sorts of different ways that are impossible now. For example, my son started French while in primary school, and I already speak French, so I went right to the end of the course, did their test there to "unlock" the whole course, then was able to jump around to wherever needed so my son could practice sentences with passé composée, imperfect and what have you, as needed. It really helped him. And no bloody hearts to lose, so you could just keep practicing. And do the same set of sentences over and over if need be, until things sank in.
I recently went through the whole Finnish course (it's not very long). They seriously think one can learn Finnish with no grammar explanations?! And to add insult to injury, it was one of the most recent courses made by volunteers, and the grammar explanations still available at Duome are comprehensive, have all sorts of added cultural information and are written with a sense of humour. All gone from Duolingo itself.

However, the people on the course are all at different levels and that can slow things down.

Yes I find this too. But I enjoy the social interaction.

I think it's such an odd platform now. I have A level french so it's broadly still revision, I can't honestly say I feel I've learned new things. I get frustrated that at the end of the 'story' section when it asks for your opinion in French I'd spend 5 minutes trying to compose a grammatically correct opinion only to be told I haven't written in French. However if you type the word 'français' in and then repeat that 15 times it congratulates you on your progress!!

Same here! I’ve had my “correct” English answers marked as wrong so many times, because I’ve used British English constructions not American English. “Have got” being marked as wrong, “gotten” being marked as right. I do flag it but it is annoying, they should accept both.

Blooming Duolingo. There are a few of us using the free version it so I thought I might stump up for the family/friends plan. However the course I'm doing - Polish - does not have half of what other languages have. I never have to speak it, for one thing, and given how complex it is this should really be pretty important. Also, the "notes" section has very little there, and no "tips" as other languages have. It looks like the paid version would offer very little extra, too.

If I'm not getting the same as other users I'll be buggered if I'm paying for it. Pah.

I am not sure if this has already been mentioned on this thread, but this website has all the grammar notes that used to be available for each language before Duolingo changed it all.

Paying for Duolingo doesn't change the content of the course. Some of the courses like Spanish and French are absolutely massive, while others like Latin and Irish are very light on content and could do with more development.

I found the paid version almost unusable and very difficult to make much progress. I'm using the family /friends version at the moment.
I miss the community discussions you could click on to. I can no longer find those from a Google search, though it may be possible to find them still.

@skilpadde I tried to do the Latin course as a refresher but I found it really odd in the way it's done.

It's also irritating how little feedback you get for flagging something up. I used to get messages if my translation was accepted subsequently, but that seems to have stopped. Some of their English is stuff that no-one other than Americans would ever use.

You can have discussions on Facebook groups which can be quite helpful. However, it's not evident that Duolingo pays any attention when people raise legitimate issues on there.

I recently went to the paid version when they had an offer on at Christmas time, and I don't find it any different from what I had before in terms of the content and format. The bonus is not having the adverts or losing hearts, plus it allows access to more practice sessions etc.

When I was using it, I remember the section on education being difficult because there was an assumption that I’d know US terms for the different types of school.

Not to mention school being used as a synonym for university.

Yes, I didn't expect it to change the content exactly, but I'd have expected something for my money! There certainly needs to be some more development of some of the courses, or at the very least an acknowledgement that the course is not as full and/or has fewer features.
As I said the Polish course, like the Irish and Latin, is quite scant. There's no speaking or pronunciation. People learning e.g. German get a lot more already, so why would I pay to get less than others get for free? I know I'd get access to the whole platform, but I only want to learn Polish just now.
I get annoyed that they keep asking!!

Oh, that one infuriated me. They insisted on translating the French term into the US equivalent, neither of which bears any resemblance to the English system. I can't remember the details, but it was something like the second stage in French equating to 10th grade in the US system. Unless you went away and learnt both systems often all you could do was to make a wild guess. I don't expect them to translate anything into the English system, it seemed to me that they could just translate the French term literally and leave it there.

Same with German. No, the Abitur is not a high school diploma, and a Schülerin is not a student!

I'm not really resurrecting this thread - I just wanted to know if everyone else on Duolingo has had to do a 'Daily Refresh' every day this month? It's a set of lessons revisiting my ''weak skills' and comprises a lesson, then a story, a lesson, a story, a lesson and then a round-up.

It's incredibly boring, I'm doing the same lessons every day - literally. To the extent that my predictive text knows what the sentence is - I just need to type in 'Mein ' and the sentence pops up. And the stories are the five minute ones on the site, I've done them all a hundred times.

Is everyone else getting this too? I hope it is only for January?

I feel that at this stage I'm not learning anything. I'm thinking of ditching my 1107 day 'streak' and going elsewhere.

FWIW Duolingo fired a bunch of linguist staff recently and now use AI to generate their content.

I would massively recommend switching to a taught class if you can, whether in person or online. It made a huge difference for me.

IMO the only way to properly learn is in a class.
A woman joined my (quite advanced) French class last autumn, she had got a long way on Duolingo but she was miles behind and couldn't keep up at all.

I have looked at it for revision purposes, but thought it was pretty hopeless for that too. Memrise is a much better app.