This Valentine’s Day I ended one of my longest committed relationships: my Duolingo streak. That dastardly green language owl and I have had a steady decline for the past couple of years, and I recently realized that perhaps the relationship had become toxic and that it needs to end. So, on Valentine’s Day 2023 –I completed my final Duolingo Lesson, reached a 1000-day streak, and deleted the app off my phone.
Yes, 1000 Days of Duolingo. 2.7 years to be more exact. Of course, it wasn’t 1000 days continually, I used more than my fair share of streak freezes throughout my time as a Duolinguist. This streak ostensibly began around November of 2019, as I had accidentally lost another rather large streak in September. But Duolingo has been a part of my life even longer than that, as I began using that app in 2011. So here I am, today, ridding the owl permanently from my daily routine.
If you are reading this and do not know what Duolingo is, it is basically a gamified language-learning app that began in 2009. It is a series of lessons where one needs to properly translate sentences, match words, listen and transcribe sentences, and even speak some sentences into the microphone. There is an absolute plethora of languages on the app, so one can theoretically learn the most popular languages. The app is also gamified with in-app currencies (originally called Lingots, but now gems), challenges, and most importantly the heavenly “Streak”. Due to the app’s layout the longer your streak the better language learner one is. Consequently, one can use the lingots one earns through completing lessons to buy streak freezes, and save the streak in case, god forbid, one misses a day of completing lessons.
Look how ugly Duolingo was in 2016
I’ve been using Duolingo since high school and have been a relatively devout member since as evidenced by my 1000-day streak. The app has been helpful, I cannot deny that. I was a fool and took four full years of Latin in high school instead of a “practical” language, so Duolingo was a way in which I could practice modern languages with ease and fun. And it was without a doubt helpful. The best part of Duolingo is that it allows one to learn vocabulary. The foundations of my German vocab were from Duolingo, which made the initial steps towards learning the language easier. My Spanish vocabulary is also attributed to that green owl. And Duolingo was always a handy tool for learning the basics of a language if I were to ever take a trip to another country (Portuguese and Polish come to mind here when I went on small trips). And lastly, Duolingo was a fun way to learn the letters of a non-Latin alphabet – I can in theory read Japanese’s Hiragana and Katakana as well as the Cyrillic alphabet due to Duolingo Lessons. So there have been some benefits to my Duolingo addiction over the past 12 years
But here’s the crux of my personal issue with Duolingo. I haven’t actually learned any languages despite my lasting connection to Duolingo. Sure, I can get by in German and I possess some Spanish skills, but speaking and comprehending a language are amateur at best. In my experience, Duolingo can help one learn words, but there are some preventions to actually learning and connecting to a language. It’s gamified learning, not real learning, and it becomes almost more like a game than a learning platform. Further, Duolingo presents language as almost fully separate form culture, which maybe isn’t the best way to approach language learning. To me, Duolingo has almost become masturbatory; it gives off the illusion of real language learning but is only a shallow reproduction of the real thing interpolated onto a screen
The fundamental issue is that Duolingo is a game first and language learning second. It’s about maintaining one’s streak, and that creates a near-addictive connection to the app. For the past several months I have just been going through the motions of completing one lesson a day to make sure the streak is maintained, unconsciously clicking words. I’m sure there is some latent learning going on, but it’s not why I’m doing it. I’m completing lessons because I want that sweet dopamine kick of an animated owl telling me I did a good job. Duolingo is really just another addictive app on my phone with the appealing facade of language learning.
And I think that I may have continued this way for indefinitely had it not been for Duolingo’s recent decline in quality. Originally it was just lessons and an owl. But now there is so much extra stuff – matching games, leadership boards, leagues, quests, etc., that keep you in the app completing goals rather than learning. I think the most egregious thing that happened to Duolingo was the insistence on creating cartoon characters that you are supposed to connect with, such as Eddy, his son Junior, and a talking bear. The focus becomes less on the language and more on the overarching world of Duolingo. Everything in the app has become softer and sillier, and I think that prevents the goal of learning the language. Initially, I would say it was 60% game and 40% learning a language, but now it is closer to 85% learning and 15% game.
It’s shocking to think how much time I have spent on the app, as it has been a part of my daily morning routine since I was a teenager. But I’ve come to realize that I am no longer a user of the app, the app is using me, and my language learning has only plateaued on Duolingo. I’m no longer learning, and just desperately trying to keep the streak alive despite there no longer being any flame. An over-arching goal of mine is to develop a more healthy relationship with screens and addicting applications, and as long as I hold that Duolingo steak, I know that I will remain connected to my phone as there is that lizard brain part of me wanting to collect lingots and get just one more day of the streak.
So here I find myself, more than a decade into Duolingo usage, and I have finally decided to delete the app and end the streak for good. There have been several valuable skills that Duolingo has brought me over the years, but I know it’s time to say goodbye. I think ridding myself of this routine may just help me connect to language learning in a different way and eliminate my need to get educational validation from a fictional polylingual owl.
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