34
votes
Duolingo is replacing human workers with AI
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- Authors
- Matt Jancer, Matt Vatankhah, Anthony Franklin II, Stephen Andrew Galiher, Shaun Cichacki, Brent Koepp
- Published
- Apr 30 2025
- Word count
- 366 words
I have a a 2,000 day streak in Duolingo.
I currently use the paid version. I switched to this a few years ago. When the year runs out, I will not pay for Duolingo again.
In the beginning it was a pretty good time waster, and maybe I learned a little bit of foreign language. I've learned some, but I'm also sure that I could have learned more using some other method for the same amount of time.
The problem is there is too much gamification which causes you to be distracted from the actual goal of learning the language. Instead you start doing things to earn "gems" and then spend them to give boosts so you get more points or whatever. There is a lot of FOMO/Skinner box stuff going on to make you come back every day.
Another problem is that I've been finding mistakes in the answers. I frequently give an answer that I know is correct, but it marks it wrong. There is a report button, which used to get a response in a few weeks that they had corrected the issue. I don't think they correct the issues anymore.
A worse problem is that the app constantly tries to upsell me to "Max" which is the AI version of the product. It does this every time I get an answer wrong. The button "Explain what I did wrong" is more prominent than the normal "Continue" button. Also, about 1/4 of the courses in the course tree are phone calls to an AI bot. But to do them you have to upgrade too. So every 4th lesson I have to click this phone call icon and then pick "no, I don't want to upgrade". Frankly it's insulting to have this app ruin the user experience and beg a paying user to pay more for some AI feature that they don't want.
Last year they added some additional courses besides languages. They have Music, Math, and Chess. The music and math are both pretty annoying and they have questions that I don't think are very useful. For example, about 1/3 of the math questions ask you to give the answer with little blocks rather than a number. So let's say it asks "what's 1/3 of 9". Instead of letting you pick the number 3, it gives a choice of 5 blocks, 7 blocks or 3 blocks. I'm not sure what is the point of this. I'm not a little baby. And when the numbers are larger, you have to squint and count the tiny blocks on the screen. Sometimes it will be like 98 blocks. I'm not kidding.
The chess is pretty decent, probably. I'm not very good at chess so I don't know if other people would find it silly. But the exercises are very repetitive and the answer is sometimes wrong. A typical problem will be "Make the best move". I will pick a move, and it will tell me that it's wrong and I should try again. It is looking for a specific move. But my first choice was identical to the one that was accepted. (Let's say I can move a knight to a location that sets up the next move the same, but from a different square. It will only take the predetermined move).
You got responses back when you reported something? Over the years I've lost track of how many issues I reported in the German for French speakers course (bad/unnatural translations or phrases, voice errors, refusal to accept anything that wasn't European French as an answer, that sort of thing), and eventually I just gave up because I never got a response to any of those reports in ~3 years of doing the course. It felt like I was just sending them into the void.
I started using Duo during the pandemic just to have something to do, and right now my account is on a share Super family plan that a relative pays for. It started out decent, but it's only gotten worse over time. I'm really only still using it because of said relative and a couple others using it regularly, and because it's kind of become part of my routine at this point.
Yeah I got responses for the French and the Spanish courses for English speakers. The last time I got a response was a few years ago so I stopped reporting problems.
So what would you use instead now? I recently downloaded Duolingo after a 10 year break but you’ve put me right off!
Anki plus immersion is best I think.
Check if your local library has access to
MondoMango Languages if you're for something a little similar.Edit: Spelling
Do you mean Mango Languages?
Yes, they have a deal with my library, maybe it’s the same for yours?
https://mangolanguages.com/find-mango
There are some recommendations on other threads of this post. I’ve tried Language Transfer but not for long enough to recommend it yet.
I get the impression they're basically using LLMs to rapidly translate existing courses into other languages. Duolingo was already a garbage learning platform, so it's impressive that my opinion could get even worse.
Does anyone speak the languages mentioned and want to review the AI's work?
I find this to be such a shame. I remember using Duolingo to bring my Greek from 0 to good enough to talk the streets of Athens and get by (on a very basic level). I remember not liking the changes they made to the Greek language track, and more and more gamification, so I dropped it then, but I always thought about it fondly. Now to see it devolve to this? Ugh.
I think I'm going to have a minority opinion on this topic.
First, I've not been impressed with Duolingo to begin with.
But it sounds to me like they're using it not to write new courses, but to take existing courses and translate them into other languages. And language is what an LLM is good at.
So, in my mind, this is perhaps — out of all of the uses for AI — quite possibly about the most appropriate.
If they are using LLM to translate courses into more languages… I would assume they'd have someone go through it as a sanity check, but sure. I'm on board with that.
As far as the rest of it goes… eh. I think there is a larger debate about AI replacing workers and what to do about it. And a debate about AI being a hammer and everything looking like a nail. But I think those debates are not specific to this issue.
I think this is... optimistic. Duolingo didn't even really do this for the original courses before LLMs existed.
Shocker, large language models understand language pretty well.
Duolingo is a very forgettable way to learn imo
For what it's worth, Duolingo has already walked this back (some):
https://www.pcmag.com/news/amid-backlash-duolingo-backtracks-on-plans-for-ai-pivot
I'm not sure he really means that. As of 5/20
Duolingo CEO says AI is a better teacher than humans—but schools will still exist ‘because you still need childcare’
And he didn't exactly give a concrete change in actions just a change in messaging
In the LinkedIn article, he wrote that Duo wasn't changing what employees do, and that they don't have a hiring freeze on employees.
But it doesn't say they changed their minds about phasing out contractors.
Duolingo also barely had any new courses in the last years unless I’m mistaken.
Generating courses that otherwise would not exist isn’t inherently bad. It just remains to be seen how good the quality of the courses will be.
I'll drop a minority opinion on DuoLingo too: it has its flaws but I had a conversation with a taxi driver this year in Spanish. I have a 1040 day streak and I take it semi-seriously some of the time.
As we were in the cab the driver turned to me and asked if I spoke any Spanish. I answered 'un poco' - he said that was the same for him in English. And then we talked for 20minutes as he drove us to our hotel. About sport, family, where we were on holiday, where we usually go, bad drivers on the roads, etc, etc.
I didn't expect it - I'd spent a bunch of time trying to speak Spanish in restaurants and bars over the week but it was mostly going nowhere - but this really took me by surprise.
And whilst there's been a little bit of Babbel in there and 2 hours with a tutor, I can't pretend DuoLingo hasn't done the heavy lifting here for me.
I think most of the criticism it gets online is misdirected. So it teaches you silly sentences about cows cooking or owls cleaning the house, but I think that's a valid way of making otherwise boring content more memorable.
The constant upsell efforts for Max are annoying, but having trialled it I'm not interested so it's not really an issue.
Could it be better? Yes, of course.
Is it making a difference for a sometimes tiny time investment? After my last holiday I have to say yes.
Some days I'll do 20 or 30minutes, but to be honest, most days I'll do 5minutes. But it makes a difference and it works.
I have had very positive experiences speaking with chatty taxi drivers, so I think that can generally be a good place to practice no matter how you're learning. Not every taxi driver is a big chatter but those that are end up being great practice partners ime. The conversation never needs to get overly deep or complex, and the topics tend to be things that are reasonably well-covered by language learning, so it's possible to have a nice conversation without running up against the limits of your abilities being as big a problem.
I do wish I'd understood one of my taxi drivers when he was giving me advice on how to snag cheaper taxi fares by picking the right choices with the app's algorithm. I could understand enough to get that this was the type of advice he was giving me... but not enough to actually understand what the advice was 😅 The rest of our conversation turned to "differences between the US and Germany" which was much more in my wheelhouse.
I read both the article and the Duolingo press release and it's not actually specified what parts are AI or not. The way I read the Duolingo letter was that it was mainly about AI in the realm of software engineering assistance, since that mirrors how other companies, like Shopify, which the CEO refers to, is doing.
Well, either way, Duolingo isn't particularly good for actually learning languages anyway. Although LLMs can is a great way to aid in learning languages, because it's an easy and accessible way for learners to be able to have output.
What are some good alternatives to Duolingo?
I'm not terribly serious about learning another language, but perhaps I will try it a bit.
If you're looking for one app that will teach many languages, I'd probably point you to Rosetta Stone. It's been around for a while, and while the latest iteration is basically web/app SaaS, they do have the option of a lifetime license that covers all of their languages which goes on sale fairly often which makes it a pretty good deal.
But these days I honestly think the best way is simply doing free public flash card sets to build vocabulary and challenging yourself with immersion - reading, writing, listening, talking, and the like. Though I don't know how much of that success I've seen with people comes down to raw determination. Short of that, courses designed specifically for given languages are probably the best, i.e. Genki to learn Japanese. But even then they won't be terribly effective without an active class to keep you accountable, peers to practice, and a teacher to measure and guide you to where you need to be.
I agree with the immersion aspect being critical.
One can memorise all sorts of vocab and grammar as factual information, but I've found that the only way my brain can grok a foreign language and learn to just apply that information without thinking is by repeatedly reading, writing and speaking the language in real world usage.
It follows that having reading and listening content (books, TV shows, movies, games, etc.) that you're interested in / fellow enthusiasts which you can use the language to discuss that content with is a big help, as it makes the above much less of a slog and more likely to succeed as a carrot-driven (I actually have fun doing this) rather than stick-driven (I'll be shamed by others if I fail / I'm letting myself down unless I stay disciplined) approach.
I’ll second this recommendation, it’s what I’ve been doing to learn Japanese. The caveats to this method:
It’s like a semi-formalized version of how a lot of people learned English as kids by watching cartoons on TV despite not understanding them at all at first that also takes advantage of things adults are generally better at than kids (like using SRS software to review vocab).
For @skybrian and anyone who might have missed it, SRS is short for spaced repetition system. One popular example of SRS software is Anki.
Yes, I've used Anki before (though not for language learning).
Unless Rosetta Stone has changed a lot since I used it, I wouldn't really recommend it. While it can be a good tool for learning vocabulary and a few set phrases, it's pretty awful at teaching you grammar. If you just want to go on vacation and say a few words and point at things, it's probably sufficient (although idk what its current pricing is like and whether it's worth it), but I'd be surprised if it ever got you to even an A2 level in a foreign language without you taking part in a lot of outside study.
I've always had the best luck with in-person courses (the absolute ideal is with fellow students who don't speak your native language, but that depends a lot on factors outside your control) because it involves actual speaking practice and there's a level of accountability because your attendance is kept track of. But aside from that, the language-learning app I've had the best experience with personally is Babbel. It's got a lot of the flaws common to all language-learning apps, but it does a good job of combining vocabulary practice with grammar and teaching you to use words in sentences effectively. Whether its worth its subscription cost is going to vary based on your financial situation, but I'd definitely rank it well above Duolingo or Rosetta Stone based on my own experience.
DuoLingo refugee here. My account is as broken can be -- I can't log in any more. I sent a number of support requests, but only got canned responses. Not one single time have I ever interacted with a DuoLingo employee, ever. In that sense, they seem to be the Google of language learning: build a product that can just run perpetually on its own, and never talk to your users, ever. It's a bit of a shame, because I was literally ready to pay for a subscription just before this happened.
Anyway, having reviewed several options, I've settled with Mango Languages. Primary reason is that I get access to non-free features by way of my local library. Second reason is that I don't need to install an app to use it. I like it so far (still just in unit 1, though). In comparison, it doesn't have any automatic checking of typed answers, which is the main reason I used DuoLingo (to practice output). On the other hand, there is no automatic right/wrong judgement. In the lessons, you just keep hitting the Next button; in the reviews, it asks you to self-judge whether you got it right or wrong. I suppose that is slightly better, since I now no longer have to put up with DuoLingo marking me wrong even when I know I'm right. And, after all, if you cheat, you only cheat yourself.
I'd recommend people interested in language learning to check out their library to see if they can get access to Mango Languages through their library account.
Airlearn is a new one I just downloaded so I haven't poked at it too much. First lessons seem better at explaining rules than Duolingo is but we're talking "bonjour" so not a lot to go on.
Limited to five lessons a day on free though
I saw this recommended recently: Language Transfer
I've done 3 lessons so far.
This is a website or an app that is completely free. It is very different than duolingo. Basically it is just recordings of an instructor asking questions to a student. You listen to the question, then pause the recording and try to answer the question yourself.
There's no ads. No gamification. You can just listen to the recordings. You can download the recordings.
It seems like something you would check out from the library.
I'm not sure how effective it is yet. But it's refreshing compared to an enshittified app that is tracking everything and trying to sell me things.
Depends on what you want to learn. For Asian languages, Lingodeer is better than Duolingo.
I've tried Babbel and wouldn't recommend it to be honest. In my estimation it's aping DuoLingo to some extent, but it just came across as a clunkier version of it. There might be many valid criticisms of DuoLingo but it's got a very polished UI/UX.
I did like the short podcasts that were included and the little nuggets of local knowledge that popped up as tips occasionally were really good, but overall it was a worse experience that DuoLingo.
I'm no longer using either, but I found that for the stuff past the very basics, Babbel does a much better job of effectively teaching and incorporating grammar than Duolingo. This becomes more important the higher level the content you're engaging with is -- I think the B1 German course I took in Babbel was solid, even though it didn't remotely serve as a replacement for an actual class, whereas I'm not even sure Duolingo even has anything that's at a B1 level in its courses.