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John Little
Not only have our beloved character"s been over dubbed by AI voices but all the good stories have been replaced by a few boring stories that are repeated over and over
I could take a repeat of the old "Follow the arrows" about Bia or Lin's secret birthday suprise party if it still had proper actors but the new voices in the new stories are flat and soperific. I might have to visit the old story archive on duome to refresh my inspiration.
John661162
John LittleAh. Just revisited "Follow the Arrows and discovered it was actually Marcia and Pamela and not Lin or Bia . But at least it wasn't AI
Edit. Here is a link to the Portuguese story archives.
The archive of stories in other languages is here" https://duome.eu/stories
Portuguese stories:-
viewtopic.php?t=84-links-to-removed-portuguese-stories
John661162
Also, they've dumbed down and shortened the stories since I started. The stories used to be longer and more interesting.
Also, I don't want subtext/explanatory narrative in my native language in a story that's supposed to be in my target language.
John LittleJudieLC wrote: Mon Jan 19, 2026 10:42 pmAlso, they've dumbed down and shortened the stories since I started. The stories used to be longer and more interesting.
Also, I don't want subtext/explanatory narrative in my native language in a story that's supposed to be in my target language.
They used to be graded, too. From very simple to quite complex stories with multiple episodes One of the later ones had at least 6 and possibly 8.
John661162
duomehttps://duome.eu/stories/en/pt
Sometimes there are stories with identical names next to each other - these are different versions of the same story (usually different characters)
https://duome.eu/stories/pt-voce-precisa-de-ajuda -- Adriana vê um homem ...
https://duome.eu/stories/pt-en-voce-precisa-de-ajuda -- Lin vê um homem ...
The French course is great for using stories to practice French. The quality is really good.
The stories are interesting enough. Narrated by the voice actors. Good tone. I'm used to all the characters' voices by now.
Stories in the A1 part of the French course do have English re-explaining or expanding the French. But A1 has really simple objectives: basic grammar such as determinants, present tense conjugations, vocabulary, agreement. of determinant, adjective & noun, and prononciation. You don't even get a taste of passe composé and imparfait until the tail end of A1.
The stories there accompany the A1 lessons. The A1 part of the course is for beginners, and at their level, the stories are probably spot-on. I can't gauge for myself, as the stories being aligned with lessons came after I finished the A1 part of the course.
What I can say is with the old stories, people were doing them without understanding them, as was clearly evident in discussions about them on the old forum. So it made sense to adjust the stories to the level of the students doing the lessons.
It's really easy to avoid stories with English in the French course: just don't do A1 stories.
Stories are all in French in the A2 part of the course, but there are some Q&A in English. The stories here are okay. One example is two guys go to restaurant and want the same sandwich, but the waiter explains that there's only one left. So they ask the waiter to give them a couple of minutes. When they decide & call the waiter back, the waiter says another customer ordered the final sandwich.
I think the A2 stories are a bit simplistic, but they are probably spot-on for those in the A2 part of the course. That's who they're designed for. They might be ok to review vocab once in a blue moon. They're also really simple to avoid, by using the same strategy to avoid the A1 stories.
In doing stories, you have to choose the story. It's not fair to blame Duolingo for your choices. And you have a lot of options later on in the course...
In the early B1 part of the course, there are 250 stories all in French, with Q&A in French, and there's a free-form open-ended question at the end. There's another 250 in the upper B1 part. To boot, there's another 500 plus radio lessons on the app in those two section. These, I think are well done. Both stories and radio also match the lesson that they're associated with, so if you're having trouble with the vocab in the story, just do a practice lesson nearby to refresh vocabulary. There's also several hundred stories in the B2 part of the course.
A sample story in low B1: Zari asked Lily for some help in memorizing dates for a history contest. She really wanted to beat Sophie Martinez, who always won. Lily asked Zari to watch a monster movie. Zari was frightened watching the movie & not at first getting the point, then realized that there were a lot more scarier things than memorizing dates. She ended up winning the contest. Sophie, it turned out, didn't attend in favor of a mathematics contest.
If you're at B1, these stories are good. It's not Hemingway, or Nabakov, or even Dan Brown but its okay for language comprehension.
Duolingo is only set up for one-stop shopping in learning English, French, and Spanish. Even in those courses, it's recommended to use other resources. Maybe the German course is getting there. For everything else, according to Matt Ozone's table, it's A1 and A2. Duolingo just gives you a taste of the language. You're not going to get what we get. You should know that coming into the course, if you have about 100 units, you're not going to get to the same level as the French Spanish and English with about 250 units. With the changes from a month ago, we now have over 1000 units but these units are difficult to compare.
When I was doing A1 & A2 lessons, I thought the podcasters like Français avec Pierre, Nathalie Fle, and Parlez-Vous French were hard to follow. Français Authentique sort of says in its introductory podcast you ought to be able to pass an A2 test. Français Immersion and the instructors in English like French with Alexa were the places to get instruction. Lawless French, Coffee time French, Comme Une Française and Easy French were other resources. Français avec Pierre's beginner course, Extra French (thirteen episodes with Sacha Annie Nico and Sam), and Bienvenue en France (twenty-six épisodes featuring deux stagiaires at a hotel in Paris, Vincent and François) were also suitable for me. For everything else, the podcast had to be carefully chosen. I think it's pretty good of Duolingo to have something appropriate for A1 & A2 learners in French because there really isn't much available.
I don't use Alexa now, or any English-based instruction. I think it follows that Duolingo's A1 and A2 stories are not too useful for me now. But that doesn't make them bad or dumbed down. They're just not appropriate for my current level of French.
The French B1 and up stories are not boring, repetitive or dumbed-down, and there's a variety of choice.
