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Paying for Duolingo. Would you ?

We are not Duolingo, we cannot solve any problems directly, but we can provide community-based advice.


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trackerwannabe
United States of America

Re: Paying for Duolingo. Would you ?

Post by trackerwannabe »

I started off using the free version of Duolingo (web version only). Later I paid for a few years, and started using the Android app as well as the web version. A few days ago my subscription to Super (I think that's its current incarnation) expired, and I chose not to renew it. Here is my perspective.

Both the paid and unpaid versions have pros and cons. Of course there's the money, and the support of an organization that seems less and less engaged with their user-base over time. But there are additional considerations for me.

Pros of the paid version:

  • The option to review (most of) the exercises I got wrong. I found this extra practice to be quite helpful.
  • Targeted practice...meh. Maybe a nice-to-have, but I don't miss it.
  • The option to review stories is still present in the unpaid version, though I suspect they'll remove it at some point. I don't think I'll miss it when they do.
  • Extra listening practice. That was nice; I miss it a bit.
  • No ads. This hasn't been much of an issue for me. I block most ads when I am using the web version, and I have thus far seen only one (relatively innocuous) ad on the Android version.
    [Edit 13 feb 2023] Since I posted this, the ads (on the app) have become much more frequent and obnoxious.

Pros of the unpaid version (beyond the money-related considerations):

  • The fact that I can run out of hearts, or need to pay for legendary practice, forces me to pay closer attention to each exercise. I used to rush through them, blithely figuring I could re-do them if I got too many errors. Now I think my extra attention is resulting in greater learning.
  • I now have something (e.g. legendary practice) on which I can spend the lingots and gems I have amassed over the years.

I use a number of other resources in addition to Duolingo (something I highly recommend, especially once you're past the beginner level), and this likely colors my perspective.

Anglo-American (English): Native // Français (French): Intermediate // Deutsch (German): Beginner

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trackerwannabe
United States of America

Re: Paying for Duolingo. Would you ?

Post by trackerwannabe »

I now think I am still paying for Duolingo. I get that people refer to it as free (there was a lot of back-and-forth in that regard when the Duolingo forum was shutting down), but I am now paying with my time by waiting for ads to complete.

Even if each ad costs only 5¢ of my time, and I wait for 10 ads/day, that costs me more (in time) than an annual subscription would (in money).

Athenais21st
United States of America

Re: Paying for Duolingo. Would you ?

Post by Athenais21st »

I just cancelled my renewal. I started Duolingo in April of 2021 and switched to the paid platform in June of that year. I spent an hour or two a day on Duolingo for close to a year. I found the tree, the castles, and accumulating the crowns highly motivational. I have found the app less and less enjoyable as each of these elements has disappeared. I still have a 560 day streak and 90 weeks in Diamond league, but every time I use the app I miss the old experience and feel sad and annoyed.

I will happily resume my paid subscription if they bring back the tree.

AnomalousCowherd
Great Britain

Re: Paying for Duolingo. Would you ?

Post by AnomalousCowherd »

I was finally in a position to pay for Duolingo, but then they took all the meaningful grammar lessons away from the Welsh course. Consequently, it is no longer possible to use Duolingo to learn Welsh - without the guidebooks explaining the grammar (Welsh is complex!), all one is doing is learning parrot-fashion and without understanding. I still use Duolingo occasionally,and pop in here from time to time, to see if things have improved, but now I use it as a sort of flash card system rather than a tool for learning new knowledge.

User avatar
Corinnebelle

Re: Paying for Duolingo. Would you ?

Post by Corinnebelle »

AnomalousCowherd wrote: Wed Feb 22, 2023 8:02 pm

I was finally in a position to pay for Duolingo, but then they took all the meaningful grammar lessons away from the Welsh course. Consequently, it is no longer possible to use Duolingo to learn Welsh - without the guidebooks explaining the grammar (Welsh is complex!), all one is doing is learning parrot-fashion and without understanding. I still use Duolingo occasionally,and pop in here from time to time, to see if things have improved, but now I use it as a sort of flash card system rather than a tool for learning new knowledge.

From what I understand they haven't added any new content, at least with the Hebrew course. I don't know if they have added to the Welsh tree. But in order to figure out what unit level goes with which skill, you need a schools account. I have been trying to put that together for Hebrew using my knowledge of the Hebrew course and the old skill names and combining it with titles for the new units. You may able to figure something out for Welsh. On the other hand lesson size has been reduced. The challenge isn't there. You only get 2 reviews of lessons. If you use this word list, provided the course hasn't been updated since 2020 you'll be able to match the lessons to the school's levels. Schools now links the levels that review lessons. It's all very fiddly. Of course having a schools account means you won't be able to get new content until it is out of beta.

🇺🇸 L1 🇮🇱 Advanced beginner Duolingo levels

Languages without borders, languages bridging gaps, the Red Cross are my heroes.

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01tmJ8kb

Re: Paying for Duolingo. Would you ?

Post by 01tmJ8kb »

AnomalousCowherd wrote: Wed Feb 22, 2023 8:02 pm

I was finally in a position to pay for Duolingo, but then they took all the meaningful grammar lessons away from the Welsh course. Consequently, it is no longer possible to use Duolingo to learn Welsh - without the guidebooks explaining the grammar (Welsh is complex!), all one is doing is learning parrot-fashion and without understanding.

Duome has some Welsh grammar notes at https://duome.eu/tips/en/cy but I don't know how well they tie in with the snake. I'm not learning Welsh through Duolingo but make occasional use of Modern Welsh: a Comprehensive Grammar by Gareth KIng.

:gb: N :de: A1 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 A1 :fr: A1

Athenais21st
United States of America

Re: Paying for Duolingo. Would you ?

Post by Athenais21st »

I've thought about this some more. I would pay if the subscription came with a say in how the money I pay is to be divvied up. For example, maybe half the fee would go to maintenance. Then the users would get a say over priorities. So I could say that I wanted the remaining 50% to be split between polishing the French course, expanding the Italian course, and adding more hands-free audio lessons. No animations--that's not what I'm paying for. This is a pipe dream.

AnomalousCowherd
Great Britain

Re: Paying for Duolingo. Would you ?

Post by AnomalousCowherd »

01tmJ8kb wrote: Wed Feb 22, 2023 11:22 pm
AnomalousCowherd wrote: Wed Feb 22, 2023 8:02 pm

I was finally in a position to pay for Duolingo, but then they took all the meaningful grammar lessons away from the Welsh course. Consequently, it is no longer possible to use Duolingo to learn Welsh - without the guidebooks explaining the grammar (Welsh is complex!), all one is doing is learning parrot-fashion and without understanding.

Duome has some Welsh grammar notes at https://duome.eu/tips/en/cy but I don't know how well they tie in with the snake. I'm not learning Welsh through Duolingo but make occasional use of Modern Welsh: a Comprehensive Grammar by Gareth KIng.

Unfortunately the new path (the snake) does not match the notes. It matches in many places, and in other places it is necessary to jump around and find the bits you need, but some bits are new. I do use the Duome resource, and I'm grateful for the effort that went into preserving the old notes, but fiddling around matching one bit to t'other is off-putting. I'm using SaySomethingIn, which I am finding to be very good.

Upbeat 88
Mexico

Re: Paying for Duolingo. Would you ?

Post by Upbeat 88 »

it's a waste of money But thats only what i think biden doesn't care though

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FurbyZeKat
Switzerland

Re: Paying for Duolingo. Would you ?

Post by FurbyZeKat »

Athenais21st wrote: Wed Feb 22, 2023 11:27 pm

I've thought about this some more. I would pay if the subscription came with a say in how the money I pay is to be divvied up. For example, maybe half the fee would go to maintenance. Then the users would get a say over priorities. So I could say that I wanted the remaining 50% to be split between polishing the French course, expanding the Italian course, and adding more hands-free audio lessons. No animations--that's not what I'm paying for. This is a pipe dream.

You make me think that if all Duolingo users bought a Duolingo share (the price of a yearly subscription) we could take over the company and elect a learner friendly board of directors, or at least become an unavoidable lobby.
https://www.nasdaq.com/market-activity/stocks/duol

N French C1 English B2 German B1 Esperanto L Turkish

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dochawk
United States of America

Re: Paying for Duolingo. Would you ?

Post by dochawk »

I would have, before all of the downgrades.

But this latest version isn't worth my time, free or not.

Gunslinger
United States of America

Re: Paying for Duolingo. Would you ?

Post by Gunslinger »

dochawk wrote: Tue Mar 14, 2023 5:37 pm

I would have, before all of the downgrades.

But this latest version isn't worth my time, free or not.

I'm a payer. It's only ~$6 a month. Like everything else, it has it's pros and cons. Others have already brought up most those so I'll try not rehash. I will say overall I prefer the paid version.

I do have some gripes, of course,

I think as a subscriber they should you should have access to more tips and explanations. They should keep the "Discuss" open for subscribers with moderators to answer questions and/or delete bad/wrong answers. While I get people are trying to be helpful, often the responses are not helpful, or they're written by theoretical linguist! They shouldn't be run like forums.

Other general gripes are they seem to spend more time updating cutesy cartoons than making lesson better. Once you get about halfway through a complete course tips and guides, and even answers, complety vanish for some sections. I'd rather see more of these than moving mouth cartoons. I suppose it's more likely that subscribers get deeper, and perhaps finish, courses.

While I'm warming up to the new format, I think duolingo implements changes without first vetting them out. Most my original gripes have been fixed in one way or another. They should ask for beta volunteers and listen to their feedback before making it available to everyone.

Overall, I like the experience much better than say, rosetta and most of the other apps I tried. At some point I need to either move somewhere and immerse myself or pay someone to talk to me and teach me to really get fluent.

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Thomas.Heiss
Germany

Re: Paying for Duolingo. Would you ?

Post by Thomas.Heiss »

I have a different suggestion:
Consider to backing up Fluyo's Kickstarter campaign to help a team create something new:

viewtopic.php?t=12912-fluyo-app-kicksta ... 4-new-play

A LIFETIME option is at least available through the Kickstarter if you are on some serious budget.

1, 2 or 3 years plans are available too (yearly contains Ikenna's method online course which alone is priced $100-200).
The 2 years subscription was recently added according to my suggestions.

Let's help him a bit (and the whole listed Fluyo team in the background) to make his dream from the last 3-4 years come true.

See my further comments about missing options on the Kickstarter comment section.

Last edited by Thomas.Heiss on Sun Apr 16, 2023 1:53 pm, edited 1 time in total.

:de: Native | :us: Upper-B2 (BritishCouncil) | ImageL25 (Duo) / A2 (6+y, McGraw-Hill) - Learning (Busuu): :fr: (A1 McGraw-Hill) | :brazil: (interm.)

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coz

Re: Paying for Duolingo. Would you ?

Post by coz »

I'm considering paying for it: the reason is that my mother needs something to keep her mind sharp. She's not great with tech so the best device for her are tablets, but if I were to use old versions without heart limits they would get overwritten by my siblings (not out of malice, but they are unlikely to remember that this the one app that shouldn't be updated in a year)

So I might pay for her account :)

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Thomas.Heiss
Germany

Re: Paying for Duolingo. Would you ?

Post by Thomas.Heiss »

coz wrote: Mon Apr 10, 2023 1:46 am

I'm considering paying for it: the reason is....
So I might pay for her account :)

Upps, this was meant for Duolingo, not Fluyo ;-)
Totally confused it first.

Well, too late, my text draft is already written down.
Have published the mild warning in the linked thread about possible investments / sponsering to only spend money which is absolutely available and won't burn a hole in one's purse so you still can afford to buy food.

:de: Native | :us: Upper-B2 (BritishCouncil) | ImageL25 (Duo) / A2 (6+y, McGraw-Hill) - Learning (Busuu): :fr: (A1 McGraw-Hill) | :brazil: (interm.)

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coz

Re: Paying for Duolingo. Would you ?

Post by coz »

Thomas.Heiss wrote: Mon Apr 10, 2023 4:16 am

Upps, this was meant for Duolingo, not Fluyo ;-)
Totally confused it first.

Well, too late, my text draft is already written down.

It was a long reply, I wouldn't want to delete all that either

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