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Paying for Duolingo. Would you ?

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Steve579062

Paying for Duolingo. Would you ?

Post by Steve579062 »

I used to bea paid up member, but I will never spend money again.
I freely admit that I am learning with the membership of other users. Or rather, other paying members. My loyalty is now to the 800 days that I have invested.

I see no reason to investment own hard earned cash. I watch enough of the repeated advertising to consider that as payment.

I have noticed the little button for advert removal being hidden more and more. I noticed the removal of membership contact with each other. :x

I have seen that the extra information that I used to read has no access for me to ask a question. :x

I notice the same old moderators posting information and their growing frustration at Duo policy. :x

I know that my monetary investment would be used for development, designers and other staff. I accept that argument and would agree with anyone who said it. But I see so many comments from native speakers that say " that is wrong we would not use that expression". I see too many times that I am having to use American expressions instead of English. :P

I could leave tomorrow and if it were not for the 800 days, I would feel no loss. There are lots of competing companies willing to teach me. Some I have looked at in the past and dismissed. Other methods like YouTube have some advantages. :)

My question is simple...... can you convince me to pay again ?

Last edited by Steve579062 on Sun Aug 14, 2022 2:52 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I'm using language to keep my old brain working.

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Jacko079
United States of America

Re: Paying for Duolingo. Would you ?

Post by Jacko079 »

Just letting you know, I moved this post to the discussions forum. :)

Learning: Italian and Arabic.

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IceVajal
Germany

Re: Paying for Duolingo. Would you ?

Post by IceVajal »

No, I wouldn't pay for Duolingo. I have a subscription for Lingodeer and Busuu. I'll use DL as long as it's for free - and look for other sources, too.

Btw, I can use Rosetta Stone for free with my public library card. I just use it for a week or two, but not daily as the app isn't made for small screens.

N :de: - B2 :us: - Beginner :ru: (Busuu: B1) - :netherlands:

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LICA98
Finland

Re: Paying for Duolingo. Would you ?

Post by LICA98 »

hell no

especially since they keep removing all good features and adding more and more cartoons 💩

Bornhoffer
Norway

Re: Paying for Duolingo. Would you ?

Post by Bornhoffer »

No, I wouldn't pay. Maybe I would if I were focusing on different languages, but I have used Duolingo mainly to learn Latin and Romanian, and those courses are so clearly made by amateurs, and full of oddities and errors. If I were to pay, the product would have to be of a professional quality.

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John Little
Brazil

Re: Paying for Duolingo. Would you ?

Post by John Little »

I don't see the point. But I let the, adverts play out as a sort of compromise.

The lure is not losing hearts. But getting your hearts back just means more practice and more XP (if you're still into XP)

John661162

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IceVajal
Germany

Re: Paying for Duolingo. Would you ?

Post by IceVajal »

Well, to avoid losing hearts, just use the website. No hearts at the web version. 😉

N :de: - B2 :us: - Beginner :ru: (Busuu: B1) - :netherlands:

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LICA98
Finland

Re: Paying for Duolingo. Would you ?

Post by LICA98 »

IceVajal wrote: Sat Aug 20, 2022 10:31 am

Well, to avoid losing hearts, just use the website. No hearts at the web version. 😉

or an old app version which doesn't have them yet :)

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IceVajal
Germany

Re: Paying for Duolingo. Would you ?

Post by IceVajal »

[mention]LICA98[/mention], true, but I didn't like the app version right from the start. I deleted it the same day I installed it. But it's a matter of taste.

N :de: - B2 :us: - Beginner :ru: (Busuu: B1) - :netherlands:

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Thomas.Heiss
Germany

Re: Paying for Duolingo. Would you ?

Post by Thomas.Heiss »

They're killing the site as we loved it and are not respecting long-term users and their wishes, especially not for laddering- and reverse trees.
I wrote multiple times in their "What changes would you like to see?" threads not to forget about these power/Duome users.

So I paid 40EUR for a Busuu PremiumPlus member subscription (one year access to all courses, exams, grammar quizzes, formal grammar introduction, etc.) as other content is available.
Now I paid 99EUR+Vat to Mosalingua for a "Language lifetime bundle" (all languages, Dialogues, TravelStories, all modules incl. MosaTraining, MosaStories, MosaSpeak,..) on a BlackFriday deal.

It's not the question if I pay to Duolingo but WHY and what is contained in a Plus/Super/Gold membership.
I would donate money to the Portuguese contributor team with no hesitation for using their well-constructed course and getting sentence discussion and forum support. I really have been enjoying being part of this community and reading through the written Web Tips&Notes and detailed SD's by the PT moderator team and they did a really good job for so long.
Now Duolingo has locked all of the sentences. Can't even suggest to put some advanced comments to the T&N which go greatly into more detail about new concepts.

See my other comment here: viewtopic.php?p=36978-giving-up-on-duolingo#p36978

I doubt many adult long-term users will pay next New Year's sales for a Super memberhip as the direction from management and developers is set and clear.
Once you paid, the next things are getting removed...

An own user opinion and endless of change requests or signed "Change Petition: Duolingo Revert Path update -
Reverse newest update"
https://chng.it/TfWYqMtqn5 does not count a single thing!
Instead of the HQ in Pittsburgh knows everything better how we want to learn/practice and enforces everything onto our heads (alle Lernende über nur einen Kamm scheren - eigene Benutzeroptionen für einen bestimmten Lernstil gibt es nicht und gab es noch nie, stattdessen mußte man sich lange versuchen mit Tampermonkey UserScripts über Wasser zu halten).

The last bit of flexibility is getting cut out of this software so it now truly fits a 6-9 years old child or younger.
No idea if a 2-4 years kid shall use it or not (who can't write or read).
Overfilling the screen with cartoon characters and wasting empty space doesn't count.
Word banks often don't fit the bottom and prefill the solution into the answer fully or partly.
But a professional website and usable screen area for sentences and words is not that important.

Haven't used the website that much lately but I do see my days counted to really make use of Duolingo for reverse-/laddering trees and to start learning French here.
Their linear path doesn't match if I learned French for one year somewhere else.

The Busuu Android app screen/UI gave me a relaxing time....no cartoons, no wrong TTS voices, nice colours, no animations, no cut back "simple route" logic.
It's a shame how many bug reports I have to submit as "wrong audio" and "Other error occured" detailed text description as the new TTS Pt-Br voices drop a lot of consonants. A beginner will just be confused, like I'm as a long-term learner.
My impression is not that technical staff is able to catch up and finally fix the broken Pt-Br rules engines or that the vendor is able to fix their voice library.

Was a nice refresher in 2022 to use something different than Duolingo alone ;)

Well, okay, I NEVER liked the brainwashing (just one learning resource) so I always used Memrise, Mondly, 50languages in parallel to Duolingo and I still believe that Duolingo alone is not enough.
The SRS lacked. Compare the cycles to Memrise and you'll know why you hardly had remembers new words here.
I still like the Mondly UI but the word banks on the mobile app (and website) there are hardly toleratable on the advanced level settings for the Portuguese language. Pearson seems to have bought Mondly but my detailed feature requests from 1.5-2+ years ago were not realized yet. I want 100% free typing, no cloze-deletions or word banks.

Hopefully Duolingo will add some features to Plus/Super in the future which are really usable.
They should ask who is going to pay if the leave the old tree design with 5 crowns and Legendary ;)
Or to rollout story functions like listening comprehension and speaking to EVERYONE as an option.
Not that I'm keen seeing all the chartoon characters in stories, not at all, so usually I don't do them in those languages I know already.
But I didn't continue with the nice old (but complicated) Portuguese stories. Hadn't known all vocabulary.
2-3 years later and we still can't save weak/difficult words to a MyVocabulary tab and expert from there to .CSV and professional SRS software.
So that's all not included with Duolingo. Why should I pay? For what now?

Also can I please get the old website layout back from 2016/17? ;)

If I shall pay for Duolingo I should be able to decide what I want to have in my account and what custom settings I want to turn On or Off.

Next stop: One month of Pimsleur Premium (app) and playing around with Mosalingua.

Best regards from Germany

Last edited by Thomas.Heiss on Sun Jan 08, 2023 12:30 am, edited 2 times in total.

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

cannonplug
Ireland

Re: Paying for Duolingo. Would you ?

Post by cannonplug »

There's a very good chance I won't be renewing my Super Duolingo membership when it comes due the next time.

The biggest issue for me is the inability to choose to which crown level I want to take a skill. There are some languages I'm only interested in learning superficially, so just going to Level 1 in all the skills and getting the owl gave me a measure of accomplishment even though my knowledge was still very limited. I didn't care. I knew that if at some point in the future I wanted more, I could go back and do levels 2-6. Not anymore. Now if I wanted to quickly learn, for example, the basic structure of all the verb tenses of a language, it would be impossible (afaik) to do so without following the snake in its entirety (i.e., the equivalent of bringing all the old skills to level 5). That's simply too much of a time-and-effort investment.

I'll continue with my main language (Irish), which I do want to accomplish in full, but I'll likely do so with the free version. I'll begrudgingly follow the one and only path that Luis has seen fit to lay out for me and finish the course. And it would be nice if they brought back the tips soon, so I don't have to come to Duome to find them each time. Irish is hard enough with the tips; it's impossible without them.

I'll probably still hang around Duome, regardless. I like it here!

Cheers!

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FurbyZeKat
Switzerland

Re: Paying for Duolingo. Would you ?

Post by FurbyZeKat »

Today is my 1000th day streak!
I've paid during two years and I think I'll continue, as long as I'm motivated enough to learn languages and Duo provides enough good courses that interest me.

I use mainly the Android App because I find the display and ergonomy better on my smartphone than the web app.

As a paying customer I find convenient to have unlimited hearts (even though I didn't turned on unlimited hearts for years), no advertising and unlimited retries on legendary lessons.

I also found a very interesting feature in the app where you can often give a voice answer instead of a written one. Of course you can do it with the standard voice recognition but its integration in the app makes it more useable.

I also like and use a lot the mistake review feature. And of course I don't miss the ads at all.

Anyway I like the App and have enough money to afford it. It's the price of a good book on language. Finally, an hour on Duolingo costs me less that 50 cents, so I think it's a good and cheap investment.

N French C1 English B2 German B1 Esperanto L Turkish

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LICA98
Finland

Re: Paying for Duolingo. Would you ?

Post by LICA98 »

LICA98 wrote: Sat Aug 20, 2022 12:04 pm
IceVajal wrote: Sat Aug 20, 2022 10:31 am

Well, to avoid losing hearts, just use the website. No hearts at the web version. 😉

or an old app version which doesn't have them yet :)

this advice is already outdated as the old version stopped working :? but the good news is that it's possible to just join a classroom and the hearts will be removed 👍🏽

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MoniqueMaRie
Germany

Re: Paying for Duolingo. Would you ?

Post by MoniqueMaRie »

[mention]FurbyZeKat[/mention] congrats on your 1000th day streak.

I have not yet seen a reason why I should pay for Duolingo and I generally don't like subscriptions

Native :de: / using :uk: / learning :fr: :cn: :it: / once learnt Image / trying to understand at least a bit :poland:

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Gentianopsis
Czech Republic

Re: Paying for Duolingo. Would you ?

Post by Gentianopsis »

Thomas.Heiss wrote: Sun Nov 20, 2022 7:03 am

The last bit of flexibility is getting cut out of this software now so it now truly fits a 6-9 years old child or younger.
No idea if a 2-4 years kid shall use it or not (who can't write or read).
Overfilling the screen with cartoon characters and wasting empty space doesn't count.
Word banks often don't fit the bottom and prefill the solution into the answer.

I study other languages on Duolingo than you, thus, I wonder whether "your" languages are really good for little kids in the "snake" form. In languages that I study only the web/app design was changed and simple questions were added (previously, there was no pairing of single words, and choosing one of 3 pictures to match a word was rare), but the word bank and sentences in the courses remained the same. Which means that I still get sentences like "North Korea launched another missile today." (in English from Czech course), but nothing about teddy bears, dolls, witches and wizzards etc. is present in the courses. Little kids in central Europe do not care about North Korea and they do not care about missiles (as long as they do not fall on us) and you cannot make them learn foreign languages on Duolingo only by some stupid colorful pictures and animations that are always the same, which means they soon become uninteresting and boring. Duolingo languages I learn were made for adults, their skills match the world of adult people and children do not like them either with or without pictures and animations. Are the language courses you study on Duolingo more balanced in their content to be useful for both children and adults?

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gmads
Mexico

Re: Paying for Duolingo. Would you ?

Post by gmads »

Never.

🦎  Imagination is the only weapon in the war with reality.  🦎
Antinomy - Imagination

🇲🇽 :us:  ·  :it: 🇧🇷  ·  :ru: 🇦🇪

wayfarer

Re: Paying for Duolingo. Would you ?

Post by wayfarer »

Nope.

I stopped using Duolingo nearly two years ago now, and found that my language learning has actually increased as a result. This has led me to the conclusion that, for me, at least, Duolingo actually works against language learning. You end up wasting too much time trying to complete levels and gain the gamification bribes and compete in leagues etc, all to the detriment of your language learning.

I've said this before but I think you can learn more in one hour spent with a good YouTube channel than in a week of using Duolingo for several hours a day.

DL had become more about completing DL than about learning the language. I haven't kept up with the recent changes so don't know if that's still the case. But either way I won't be spending my money there.

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Corinnebelle

Re: Paying for Duolingo. Would you ?

Post by Corinnebelle »

[mention]wayfarer[/mention] Do you think that depends on your learner style? Some people learn more via observation others learn more via trying to do something. I think Duolingo fits the later style more than the former. Does YouTube give you exercises to do?

🇺🇸 L1 🇮🇱 Advanced beginner Duolingo levels

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

wayfarer

Re: Paying for Duolingo. Would you ?

Post by wayfarer »

Corinnebelle wrote: Thu Nov 24, 2022 2:27 am

@wayfarer Do you think that learns on your learner style? Some people learn more via observation others learn more via trying to do something. I think Duolingo fits the later style more than the former.

Thanks for the reply.

Certainly I agree that different people learn differently but I think my point was more general than that, namely that Duolingo's various ancillairy features, especially its gamification features, actually take up more of ones time, attention and energies than one notices - time and energies that could otherwise be used for actual language aquisition.

It sort of tricks you into thinking that things like leagues and streaks and XP and lingots and crowns, etc are important, when really the only important measure in language learning is how much meaningful and useful language one has acquired at any given point.

I just found that or me there were more efficient ways of acquiring more useful language within a given timescale than via DL

Does YouTube give you exercises to do?

That depends on where you look; I think just about every variation and technique, from comprehensible input to grammar drills, to every variety of excercise can be found on YouTube - at least for the more popular langauges. But really my intention was not to recommend YouTube in particular. It was just an example of a free, easily accessible non-DL source of langauge learning.

Incidentally many of the same criticisms I level at DL can also be levelled at other convoluted language learning systems, especially those that involve gamification or proprietory techniques, all of which seek in some way to reinvent the wheel.

Ultimately I feel one needs to make an honest appraisal as to how much time is being taken up dealing with the needs and sidetracking features of the system rather than merely learning the langauge. That streak or those jewels/lingots/points/crowns or that league or leaderboard dominance won't help you a jot while you're trying to hold a conversation with a native speaker of your target language.

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LICA98
Finland

Re: Paying for Duolingo. Would you ?

Post by LICA98 »

wayfarer wrote: Thu Nov 24, 2022 1:15 am

DL had become more about completing DL than about learning the language. I haven't kept up with the recent changes so don't know if that's still the case. But either way I won't be spending my money there.

nowadays it's more about cartoons than completing DL

Deleted User 3754

Re: Paying for Duolingo. Would you ?

Post by Deleted User 3754 »

.

Last edited by Deleted User 3754 on Wed Sep 06, 2023 7:07 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Corinnebelle

Re: Paying for Duolingo. Would you ?

Post by Corinnebelle »

[mention]wayfarer[/mention] I see your point especially if you have to earn lingots to get legendary. It's not all about being good at your language. One can also get a book for exercises. [Not free though.] That doesn't have the advantage of being able to ask someone else if something doesn't make sense. I think YouTube makes more sense for conversation and Duolingo for reading and writing.

🇺🇸 L1 🇮🇱 Advanced beginner Duolingo levels

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

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gmads
Mexico

Re: Paying for Duolingo. Would you ?

Post by gmads »

Corinnebelle wrote: Thu Nov 24, 2022 2:27 am

@wayfarer Do you think that depends on your learner style? Some people learn more via observation others learn more via trying to do something. I think Duolingo fits the later style more than the former.

There is one and only actual way to learn, and that is by doing. Reading, listening or moving are just means that favor our particular process to assimilate information, I'd say.

Corinnebelle wrote: Thu Nov 24, 2022 2:27 am

Does YouTube give you exercises to do?

Some Youtubers do, some other do not.

🦎  Imagination is the only weapon in the war with reality.  🦎
Antinomy - Imagination

🇲🇽 :us:  ·  :it: 🇧🇷  ·  :ru: 🇦🇪

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gmads
Mexico

Re: Paying for Duolingo. Would you ?

Post by gmads »

wayfarer wrote: Thu Nov 24, 2022 7:46 am

[...] I think my point was more general than that, namely that Duolingo's various ancillairy features, especially its gamification features, actually take up more of ones time, attention and energies than one notices - time and energies that could otherwise be used for actual language aquisition.

It sort of tricks you into thinking that things like leagues and streaks and XP and lingots and crowns, etc are important, when really the only important measure in language learning is how much meaningful and useful language one has acquired at any given point.

I just found that or me there were more efficient ways of acquiring more useful language within a given timescale than via DL

Indeed. I definitely agree with your observations.

Duolingo is not a real learning platform, but a showcase environment. They just show sentences with their translations, and although they only do that, the problem is that they don't do it correctly.

While it was useful for learning vocabulary and getting a general idea about grammar structures, DL worked for me not because it's a good system, but because I used it as a learning guide, so once I finished a unit on grammar, I would then google the concepts to start studying them using webpages or videos.

🦎  Imagination is the only weapon in the war with reality.  🦎
Antinomy - Imagination

🇲🇽 :us:  ·  :it: 🇧🇷  ·  :ru: 🇦🇪

luciennet
France

Re: Paying for Duolingo. Would you ?

Post by luciennet »

At the moment I’m freeloading as I get so much from the app for free I’m not sure there’s any need to pay.

However I also feel ethically that maybe it’s time to move to super as the company is doing a great job and needs money to continue.

Steve579062

Re: Paying for Duolingo. Would you ?

Post by Steve579062 »

gmads wrote: Wed Nov 23, 2022 1:48 am

Never.

Short and sweet. :geek:

I'm using language to keep my old brain working.

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Gentianopsis
Czech Republic

Re: Paying for Duolingo. Would you ?

Post by Gentianopsis »

I saw the only benefit of payed Duolingo Plus/Super in unlimited Legendary lessons, because I was always short of lingots. Problem solved: if you create your own classroom or join someone else's classroom in Duolingo Schools (the Globe icon on the left side of ".../learn" page), you do not need any lingots for legendary lessons and just keep collecting them. As there is no option to choose the type of questions in practice lessons (if I need to practice speaking, I certainly do not want to waste my time on word pairs, translations and listening exercises) in payed Duolingo either, I have no reason to waste my money on Duolingo payed version that would give me nothing substantially better than the free version. And as Duolingo diligently keeps going from bad to worse, I do not expect to have a reason to pay for it in near future, not even if it becomes a payed application only.

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Thomas.Heiss
Germany

Re: Paying for Duolingo. Would you ?

Post by Thomas.Heiss »

Gentianopsis wrote: Sat Jan 07, 2023 8:30 pm

Problem solved: if [you create your own classroom] or join someone else's classroom in Duolingo Schools

No, this is not a good idea to use someone's else classroom code - as a foreigner.

Duolingo teachers have some definitive superpower over a student, can change account settings, reset password, see your email address, etc.
You will get hacked that way.

You only need to register your own account as a teacher and create one single classroom on that School icon.
That's it.
The school flag is then valid for ALL languages, the whole account, not only one classroom and selected course.
It's a global account thing to be excluded from A/B testing.

You don't even need to rejoin as a student or use two separate accounts.

: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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Gentianopsis
Czech Republic

Re: Paying for Duolingo. Would you ?

Post by Gentianopsis »

Thomas.Heiss wrote: Sun Jan 08, 2023 7:20 am
Gentianopsis wrote: Sat Jan 07, 2023 8:30 pm

Problem solved: if [you create your own classroom] or join someone else's classroom in Duolingo Schools

No, this is not a good idea to use someone's else classroom code - as a foreigner.

Thank you for the warning. Do not worry, we have our own little family classroom and Grandma needs us to do all the settings for her and often forgets her password anyway. ;-)

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gmads
Mexico

Re: Paying for Duolingo. Would you ?

Post by gmads »

Thomas.Heiss wrote: Sun Jan 08, 2023 7:20 am
Gentianopsis wrote: Sat Jan 07, 2023 8:30 pm

Problem solved: if [you create your own classroom] or join someone else's classroom in Duolingo Schools

No, this is not a good idea to use someone's else classroom code - as a foreigner.

Duolingo teachers have some definitive superpower over a student, can change account settings, reset password, see your email address, etc.

Very good advice for those unaware of what happens after joining a classroom.

🦎  Imagination is the only weapon in the war with reality.  🦎
Antinomy - Imagination

🇲🇽 :us:  ·  :it: 🇧🇷  ·  :ru: 🇦🇪

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