Paying for Duolingo. Would you ?

[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]

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]

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.

[Corinnebelle]

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.

[01tmJ8kb]

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.

[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]

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]

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

[FurbyZeKat]

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

[dochawk]

I would have, before all of the downgrades.

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

[Gunslinger]

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.

[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.

[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

[Thomas.Heiss]

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.

[coz]

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

[Thomas.Heiss]

I generally don't like subscriptions

Me neither.

I)

That's the reason why I was happily buying "FastLingo French - Learn from scratch" from this Rumanian teacher who is constantly adding more and more FR sentences.

Only was - still is - an one-time investment and is more affordable that way. The other full app also supports Google Play store family sharing (I got the one app with in-app purchase).

II)

As Univerbal from Quazel (which interactive chat bot demo and corrections I found impressive) is on the higher monthly price side (GPT4 or something):

I recently enrolled into EF Hello app for one year.
They also say they have AI explain and AI roleplay features available and the available English intermediate and advanced content looks massive.

Sales email offer this time was $29 (26 Euros) and only Pro lets me add French/Spanish..
Normally they ask for way more per year on the Web or Google Play store.

..(...)..

That way I can try around a bit, maybe repeat given French A1-A2 content more slowly (Busuu was always way too speedy) but I'm not exactly sure how I can review well-known content and directly jump to quizzes, summary pages, reading texts or dialogues without having to go through well-known words more slowly like a true beginner and without the bottom scrolling text animation.

At least I do see for each course module a quick lesson overview where each one is selectable.

There is a warning about losing old/previous progress when I click on a later lesson.

..(...)..

Hm, while EF English advanced course modules seem to offer videos (haven't tried "that much" but the first one immediately started with this in a lesson) by EN native speakers, the French voices in the EF beginner courses sound to me more like a TTS engine
Not THAT excellent, not native like.
I need to ask their support.

Will try Spanish too:
I remember Lingvist's Spanish voices (probably TTS) were superb and crystal clear; sounded much better than Duolingo Spanish or Google translate in 2017.

I know how the French TTS voices sound from Android Accessibility and the built-in "Select to speak" feature...

..(...)..

Somehow I feared before that EF French won't have the same full intermediate and advanced content available and have to confirm this now for French and Spanish courses.
So now we exactly know why they have hiding this fact behind a Pro subscription....LOL.
Didn't let me change English to French or only register the account for French.
Main reason might be my German location. Android OS is already set to English.
Only account set to US United States (maybe UK English too) can add the other languages, not Germans which locale setting is fixed (to learn English).

I'm not so sure if the two AI bot features will be available for French/Spanish/Italian or to what extend (like roleplay).

The AI stuff from other apps normally requires a monthly subscription and GPT4 support is on the higher side.
Like Duolingo Max.