#7 - Duolingo Pt. 1: Now You’re Speaking My Language!
Two different experiences learning Italian on Duolingo.
Last year, my wife, Jess, and I both downloaded Duolingo to try learning Italian from scratch. Keep reading to see the full interview recounting our two wildly contrasting experiences with the program later in this post!
La nostra storia italiana
Foreign language was always one of my favorite subjects in school ever since my first exposure to Spanish classes in high school. In fact, I enjoyed learning Spanish so much that I even entered college as a Spanish Language major. I eventually switched majors to Political Science, probably the right move at the time, but I was only two classes away from that Bachelor’s in Spanish. Maybe one of these days I’ll get around to finishing that second B.A.
My high school only offered two language classes at the time—French and Spanish—but I would have chosen Italian in a heartbeat had it been offered. Although my last name has Italian roots, my wife and I tease that my family is about as Italian as store-brand marinara sauce. The Morabitos came to the United States from Southern Italy, but it’s my understanding that my father’s side of the family assimilated rather quickly to American culture and very few, if any, of my family’s authentic Italian traditions have persisted in the 21st century.
Meanwhile, my wife’s family has adopted some Italian-American traditions of their own, such as the extravagant Christmas Eve dinner known as the “Feast of the Seven Fishes.” This has rekindled my interest in the Morabito family heritage, and learning the Italian language seemed like a great place to get started.
Duolingo – Il modo numero 1 al mondo per imparare una lingua
Duolingo first and foremost is an online, app-based language learning tool, but don’t confuse it for a boring, buttoned-up education app like Google Classroom or Blackboard. Just a quick visit to Duolingo’s website and you will be instantly absorbed in the platform’s charming visual aesthetic, its soft-curved buttons, cute animated characters, and easy-on-the-eyes color palette welcoming to newcomers. The platform feels a lot more like a game than a stuffy language learning app, which is probably the whole point.
As of early 2022, there are dozens of languages available to learn for free on Duolingo. The top ten most popular languages on the app are those you might expect (Spanish, French, Japanese, German, Korean, Italian, Chinese, Hindi, English, and Russian), but there are also courses available in languages like Greek, Hebrew, Latin, Hawaiian, Navajo, and even Esperanto.
The actual mechanics of studying through Duolingo are much different than the guided learning experience offered in a traditional K-12 or university setting. First and foremost, this is a completely self-paced online course that requires serious willpower and individual determination to reach the end. In the core product, there are no dedicated instructors, no lecture recordings, no assigned textbooks, and no homework assignments or final exams.
Instead, Duolingo lessons are delivered in approachable and entertaining bite-sized modules that can be completed in just a few minutes at a time. Before each module, you have the option to review “Tips” that function as that day’s instruction before jumping into the core activities. For example, in the Food module, the app introduces you to some of the essential vocabulary (colazione = breakfast, biscotto = cookie, mangiare = to eat) while also sprinkling in some basic grammar and pronunciation tips.
However, reading the Tips won’t teach you everything. Duolingo clearly believes in the idea of learning by doing, and the platform’s secret sauce is its gamified learning exercises. Learners will practice reading, writing, speaking, and listening comprehension through a series of activities (such as translating phrases between Italian and English, matching vocabulary terms, speaking into the microphone, and transcribing audio).
For those who like the idea of leveling up in video games, Duolingo has no shortage of collectables, rankings, and accolades for you to monitor your progress. Each lesson earns you XP (experience) that determines your ranking in a League (such as the Bronze, Silver, or Gold Leagues) and fulfilling certain requirements will net you Achievements.
You can connect with friends and send high-fives when they reach a milestone, or you can compete weekly with strangers in your League for placement in the top 3 and the hopes of promotion to the next tier.
And then there is the coveted, and sometimes notorious, Duolingo Daily Streak, a flaming counter noting how many days in a row you have completed at least one lesson in the app. Come back every day and your streak will grow higher, earning you rewards in the Duolingo ecosystem and—most importantly—the ultimate bragging rights among peers.
It might sound silly to the uninitiated, but the streak is a big deal. The higher it gets, the more pain you feel when you accidentally forget to log in the one day you had other plans. I think this a genius move on Duolingo’s part as it encourages learners to return to the app frequently, even if it’s just for 5 minutes. Theoretically, this will help improve the chances learners will log in consistently to keep whittling away at their goal. But it can also add a degree of frustration when you’re forced to rebuild your streak, so it’s a double-edged sword.
Beyond the core “gameplay,” there are interactive Stories that better simulate real-world conversation. Duolingo also provides supplemental learning materials, including podcasts, user success stories, and even Duolingo Online Events to practice conversation in small groups.
Seeking out external resources like these to challenge oneself helps to integrate a second language in everyday life, which is key to really mastering the content beyond rote memorization. Internal research finds that students learning a language solely through Duolingo reached “substantial achievements in proficiency,” and while I believe that it could be possible for the most dedicated students, I bet the app would be especially effective as a companion tool in a more concerted language learning program, whether it’s self-paced or in a classroom setting.
Even if you only download the app as a fun diversion with no serious plans to learn a new language, you might just surprise yourself with the little things you pick up over time! Buona fortuna!
Due esperienze diverse
I wrote in my first blog post that I was not expecting to be successful at every learning program I attempted. Sure enough, Duolingo unfortunately bested me when it came to learning Italian from scratch. I really do enjoy the gamified aspects of learning and I feel like a got a lot out of the lessons, but as is often the case for even the best of us, something must have come up one day and I lost my streak, fell off my habit, and never got back into it.
Meanwhile, Jess started Duolingo the same day I did and she is still going strong almost a year later! I’m so proud of her and I just had to get to the bottom of how she was able to keep up her Italian. Plus, as a veritable Duolingo power user at this point, she is in a much better position than I to dissect the app’s strengths and flaws. I hope you find this conversation informative if you are considering Duolingo yourself.
L’intervista
Jake: If I’m remembering correctly, I was the one that prompted you to download Duolingo a year ago so we could go through the Italian course together. What made you interested at first, or more specifically, what made you say yes to learning Italian this way?
Jess: So, originally, I was just excited for us to have something to do together. Since you were so focused on learning last year and we have very different skill sets, it was hard for me to think of opportunities where we could have to do something together. But, the whole point of Duolingo is that anyone can learn a language, and I have a background in French that I studied from 7th grade through 10th grade. Since Italian is also a Romance language, I thought there might be some similarities that might give me a leg up.
Jake: At the time of writing, you’re about to hit a 300-day streak in Duolingo. That’s impressive! How do you think you have been able to stick with it for almost a year straight? How important is it for you to maintain your streak? Does it help you stay motivated, or do you find it stressful?
Jess: So, sometimes I find it stressful, like when we were in the car on the way back from our wedding and I thought “Oh s**t, I haven’t done Duolingo!” and that was annoying. But at the same time, the streak at that point was certainly over 150 days and I didn’t want to lose it. The fact that they track the streaks—and they give you some points for it—is kind of motivational because I don’t want to see the number go back down, especially since I’ve worked so hard for it.
I also track [Duolingo] when I track the other habits that I do, so since it really only takes a few minutes a day, I can hit that goal every day—if that’s a goal for the week, or a monthly goal that I put in my planner. It’s kind of like when you give yourself credit on a to-do list for waking up at this point.
Jake: So, you mentioned this a little bit about studying French in high school. My question was going to be: Prior to Duolingo, did you have any language learning experience? My other question was: How did it go, and did you enjoy learning French in school?
Jess: I loved learning French, particularly the first two years I did it, which was middle school. I had a really good teacher, a lot of my friends were in the class, she was so much fun. She’d have parties where we could each bring in a type of cheese, to have like a French cheese party. She would show us fun videos and we went on a trip in 8th grade to Montreal and Quebec that was from the French class.
When I got into high school, it was kind of a mixed bag. My first semester teacher in 9th grade was a really bizarre man, and he wasn’t the world’s best teacher. Mostly what he did was put on Disney movies in French, and I didn’t learn much. But the next semester in 9th grade I had a good teacher, who also had his idiosyncrasies as a person, but I thought did a really good job teaching. He would teach us songs in French and we would have “singing quizzes” where we would stand in front of the room and sing and everyone would usually get an “A.” And so he kind of brought some of that enjoyment back to French.
In 10th grade though, which was my last year of it, the teacher was just a little too intensive and immersive and it felt more like you were trying to keep up with her than actually getting a chance to ask in English what she was saying. Then, I kind of fell off of it and thought it wasn’t super enjoyable at that point.
Jake: Coming off of the school experience versus Duolingo, do you like the way Duolingo’s lessons are structured? Do you feel like you are learning from them?
Jess: I like the way the lessons are structured because you can do practice and then you can move onto the next topic. What I tend to do is stick with one topic, go through all the lessons in that subject, and then move on.
I don’t know if that’s the right way to do it, but one thing I’ve noticed is that—I’m almost a year into this, I’m 9 months in, and I just now learned the months of the year and the days of the week. I felt like in French class, that was one of the first things we learned. I still haven’t learned how to count in Italian.
Granted, if I had done the lessons a little differently, maybe I would have learned that by now. But I still think it would have taken a couple months to get to that point, especially if you aren’t practicing regularly. So, I think that they could have taken a little bit of a cue from my understanding of how foreign language classes in K-12 goes and done some of the more basic things first versus teaching us all the animals immediately. That’s just my thought.
Jake: I’m not going to ask you to say anything in Italian, but could you share some examples of the things you’ve learned in Italian through Duolingo? Have you been able to apply any Italian in your daily life?
Jess: Thank you! So, going back to the months of the year and the days of the week, one thing that’s interesting is how many are similar in their roots to French, so that’s definitely helping me. Some are exactly the same word written out and it’s just the pronunciation that’s different. So like, “ottobre” is October in Italian and “octobre” is October in French, so it’s a little different spelling. “Novembre” is spelled exactly the same actually in both French and Italian.
I liked learning about the food. We don’t have a trip planned to Italy, and frankly I don’t know that we’re ever going to go—though I’d like to—, but most of where I feel like you and I would encounter Italian is on a restaurant menu. And so, just knowing some of that—and I had a little bit of a background, just from either my French background, figuring it out, or just general knowledge from going to so many Italian restaurants—that’s probably been the most I’ve been able to apply it.
Jake: Two more sets of questions. First, what do you like most about Duolingo? Did it live up to your expectations? What things do you think the app gets right when it comes to learning?
Jess: I think that I thought Duolingo was going to mostly be just parroting back words versus actually learning sentences and more about sentence structure. So, in that sense, it’s actually exceeded some of my expectations.
What I think the app gets right is that each lesson really takes under 10 minutes. And if you’re flying through it, you could do it even more quickly. And so, I think that really does help. If you don’t have a ton of time, but you want to fit some learning into your day, you could do it really quickly while you’re waiting for an Uber, or waiting for a class to start, or something.
I think that’s really helpful because my guess is that most people who use this aren’t also taking a class simultaneously in a classroom setting in the same language. So, I like that it’s easy to fit into the day.
I like that Duolingo isn’t too hard, but it does incrementally add challenging tasks as you move through each lesson. And it also rewards you too if you get a couple of lessons right without making any mistakes, then it will move you up to the next level. So, if you’re like me, that means that you’re closer to learning your next unit because I go through each full lesson before moving on.
Jake: And finally: What are some things about Duolingo that you think could be improved? Would you recommend Duolingo to others, and why or why not?
Jess: Like I said, I think that just in terms of the pacing of what you are learning, I think that learning some more basic things—and I don’t know if the unit structure is the same for each language they teach, but I think again that learning numbers and months of the year before animals and every type of clothing makes a little more sense in my head just because that’s the way that I was taught in French class.
I also think that what could be useful is if they had a feature where you could essentially go through flash cards. Where, you know what, I don’t want to do a sentence today, I just want to remember the months of the year or days of the week, and could go through some flash cards saying them out loud and things like that for some quick review.
Jake: And then would you recommend it to anybody?
Jess: I would recommend it. I think it’s an easy thing to use. I think that it’s fun. But I think that if you’re someone who doesn’t really want to learn a language and needs the pressure of homework or a teacher, then I don’t think it’s going to work for you, but I don’t think that’s who this is intended for either.
Jake: Awesome, thank you very much for answering my questions!