![]() ![]() To let you know the amount of practice, I have about 61k XP. For the first year I almost exclusively used DuoLingo (though I heard translated Spanish every day at work). So I decided almost 2 years ago that I would try again. However I work as an ER doc in an area where there are a metric fuckton of monolingual Spanish speakers (and limited English proficiency somewhat bilinguals). So since I had actually worked at trying to learn both, I logically made the conclusion that I just didn't have that skill. In fact, German was the only reason I didn't graduate with a 4.0 in college. I took a total of 5 years of languages in college and HS (Latin and German) and speak not a word of either. That said, using only DuoLingo, like using only any language learning resource is not enough. If that's the question, then for me the answer is yes. My best measure would be can you use the language to communicate to speakers who do not speak your native language? It depends largely on what you measure as "learning a language". For a complete meal, you still need at least a dessert - active practice and authentic language. To use your food analogy, Duolingo is the appetiser. You struggle to understand what people are saying, figure out what you want to say and respond - all in the space of maybe 30 seconds. When you start trying to use the language after, say, a year of relying solely on textbooks, you realise how unprepared you are. Any language course requires extra practice if you want to be able to actually use the language. Language learning requires active practice and exposure to authentic language - textbooks just can't provide interactive practice and they can't provide as much exposure as you need. But they're one tool out of many, and you won't become fluent in a language solely from textbooks either. Textbooks are great, hell, you couldn't pry my Routledge books from my cold, dead hands. The thing is, anything you use when learning a language is a tool - including textbooks. It doesn't teach grammar, but it's great consolidation if you're using it alongside a grammar book. It will not teach you a language in its entirety - no single resource could. Duolingo's a good practice tool at a beginner's level. ![]()
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