If nothing else, the “three lives” concept can actually deter a student from really learning something by understanding it. Imagine if I carried that message into my lessons? Three errors and you’re out? Same error three times, let me start you again? If any IRL teacher did this to a student, they’d be asked to come in for a review with the pedagogy council. Personally, I don’t feel that giving a language learner three lives to pass a lesson is an idea that you’d ever get away with in real life. The mascot is very cute too, so there is very little to dislike about how Duolingo is designed. It’s an app designed for modern consumers. Why?ĭuolingo is well-designed, pretty, engaging and takes away a lot of the “dusty books” image from learning.

When someone asks me how they can get started learning a new language, I don’t want them to start with the Duolingo app. It’s that I actively stay away from recommending it to people as their first language learning contact. And by unattractive, I don’t just mean that I personally don’t want to use it. In today’s post, I’m going to try and give you some insight into what it is that is making Duolingo so unattractive to me. I want to be part of the club of people who sit in a doctor’s waiting room levelling up their vocab, but somehow I just don’t get it.

Here is the thing: I don’t love Duolingo. It’s free, it’s accessible and it is based on solid research. The little app with the friendly owl has become the absolute go-to resource for newbies trying to acquire any language.

Duolingo sign up free