Hi guys and welcome back to my channel! My name is Connor and I make videos about
everything travel and languages. Duolingo has been getting a lot of criticism lately,
not only because of its overly persistent practice reminders
or because it uses phrases so weird someone even made a tumblr about them, but also because some
people claim that it's just not an effective tool for what it was originally designed to do--help
people with learning languages. So today, I'm gonna explain why Duolingo is still in my opinion
the best beginner language learning app on the market. More importantly,
I'm going to teach you how to use Duolingo so that you can have the most effective results.
To give a little context, I've been using Duolingo on and off since around 2017 and in that time I've
completed three language trees--Italian, French, and German. Everything that I'm about to say in
this video is based on my experience learning those three languages on Duolingo, as well as my
language learning experience in general. Without further ado, let's get started! Right off the bat,
one of the best things about Duolingo is that it's completely free. Now Duolingo does offer
a premium version for about $13 a month, but in my experience it's perfectly fine to just stick
to the free version of the app. When Duolingo CEO Luis von Ahn founded the company in 2011,
he was motivated by the idea that education should be freely accessible to all people,
and this philosophy continues to drive their company to this day. According to von Ahn,
the company is targeting an IPO date sometime in 2021, so it'll be interesting to see if this IPO
causes more features to be pushed to the premium version. But honestly, I think it's safe to say
that Duolingo will keep its core business model for at least the foreseeable future
and people won't have to pay to use the app. Now the next big thing setting Duolingo apart
from its competitors is that the app is based on a system of gamification. This means that the app is
designed as much as possible to mimic the feeling that you're just playing any other mobile game.
Duolingo has a simple and playful interface, and its lessons are structured into different
levels--just like in a normal video game. The app gives you XP for getting questions right,
and awards you with its so-called lingots as an in-game currency. Furthermore, it even allows
users to compete in leagues and move up and down in ranking, depending on how much they
study that week. While resources like textbooks and flashcards certainly have their place in
language learning, Duolingo's gamification system makes starting a new language a lot more fun.
With Duolingo's streak system, which rewards you for practicing consistently, it's a lot easier to
get into the habit of setting aside a few extra minutes each day for language learning. And while
it's true that Duolingo can really only help you get to an advanced beginner or low intermediate
level in a language, establishing this consistent schedule early on is crucial before moving
on to other resources. Personally, I've tried dozens of language learning apps and websites,
and none of them have quite matched the gamification feeling as well as Duolingo has.
Back in 2012, Duolingo sponsored a study that found that just 34 hours using the app equates to
a semester of a college level language course in terms of test score improvements. And as someone
who has taken both college level language classes and extensively used Duolingo, I can
unscientifically say that my experiences support these findings. The advantage of self-studying a
language with an app like Duolingo is that the lessons go at your own pace and can be adapted
to fit your own schedule. For example if you run into a vocabulary set that you already know,
it's a lot easier to skip past on Duolingo, as compared to in a classroom setting where you have
to follow along at the pace of the class. On the other hand, if you run into a grammatical concept
you're having a hard time understanding, then it's a lot easier to slow down and review with Duolingo
as compared to being dragged along in a class. On top of that, Duolingo uses AI to personalize
your lessons and make sure that you're studying the right things for your level. All that said,
I think there's definitely a right way and the wrong way to use Duolingo. First of all,
even though Duolingo claims that you can learn a language in just 15 minutes a day, actually
spending 15 minutes a day on language learning is going to result in really slow progress.
If you were able to push that to 30 minutes each day, twice as much, that'd result in an extra
91 hours each year spent on your language. And if you were to spend one hour each day,
four times as much, then that'd equate to an extra 274 hours of language learning each year.
Of course, all of us lead busy lives and an hour of language learning each day might sound like
a lot of time, but if you were to think of all the down time that you spend doing things like
waiting for dinner to finish, waiting for the bus, commuting before and after classes or meetings,
and really all that time when we're not focused on some specific task, then it's pretty easy to find
just a few minutes here and there to spend on a Duolingo lesson. There's also a lot of really
helpful Duolingo features that most people either don't know about or just don't use.
For example, Duolingo stories are a great way to practice newly learned vocabulary words
and start developing a base in reading skills. Furthermore, while most people find it a lot more
convenient to just use Duolingo on their phones, Duolingo actually offers two exclusive features
on their website that I've found to be really helpful for progressing in my languages. First,
on your computer you have the option deactivate the word bank and just type in all of your answer.
I found that doing this pushes me to improve my spelling and dive into my active memory to
recall vocab words, instead of just passively recognizing the ones that are in the word bank.
Second, studying on Duolingo's website also gives you access to the Tips section of each lesson.
This section highlights grammar rules and dives deeper into the construction of common phrases.
Personally, I found this feature to be invaluable when I was studying German, since
the German grammar is a lot more complex than the Romance language grammar that I was used to.
Alright guys, if you enjoyed this video please hit that like button and let me know in the comments
what you think about Duolingo. If you want to stay updated on future videos about travel languages
go ahead and subscribe and click that notification bell. Thanks for watching!