Does it work?

>>9768250
Not /lit/

But yeah its great for learning grammar, although there's better websites for learning vocabulary like Memrise.
Once you reach around B1 level you should switch to learning from books and actual communication.

>>9768262
On grammar, if you're only using the app you can still learn the basics of grammar but you do miss grammar lessons available on the website. Before I took actual German classes I couldn't figure out why I kept messing up articles in different cases. The difference between the app with a book or the website and without a book or website is big in my opinion.

>>9768250
I definitely know more french and spanish than I did before. The vocalizations are good. I think that's important. It's not great, but it's free, and easy, and that's all you need to start. Later, switch to something else, or supplement it with children's books of that language, but I suggest using it in the beginning.

It's a good start. After completing a Duolingo tree, you can start reading simple texts and actually communicating with people. But it's a long way from fluency.

It's an okay supplement to learning a language properly.

>>9768250
Not really, you wont learn any language by using duolingo

>>9768250
sort of, you'll pick up individual words and isolated phrases.

The best way to learn any language is complete immersion and practice

>>9768294

Yeah, it's a good start.

There isn't any one source you'll find that will make you fluent in any language. You'll have to do duolingo, or something like it, at first, then move on to simple reading then move on to a couple dozen other things you'll have to master before you're actually competent.

Does it work in terms of learning a language? Absolutely not. I've taught myself three languages and Duolingo wasn't a major part of any of them.

You don't really learn vocab from Duolingo, but it's a very good way of learning sentence structure and basic grammar. Some of the grammar explanations, Russian in my experience, are however lacking.

As other posters have mentioned you need a full exposure to the language to have any chance of becoming fluent. Memrise is better for vocab and from that start listening to songs, reading books, watching subtitled shows, actually talking to native speakers etc etc.

My problems with it:

A lot of times it just starts throwing bullshit at you that you've never gone over before. Like, I'm just trying to learn the basics of verbs and all of a sudden I'm expected to know the imperfect passed tenses and shit all of a sudden. Fuck you, could we just stick to one goddamn thing at a time?

The phone app really bugs me. You only get like 3 mistakes then you have to start the whole damn thing over again, the regular website doesn't work like that. Real fun too when they start throwing shit you've never gone over all of a sudden. If you want to use it like that fine, but they could at least make it an option to turn the fucking shit off.

>>9768458

it's not a good start because there is no organization to the learning process and ultimately you'll have to undo a lot of the mistakes and bad practices that you've started to cement. i was preparing for the Goethe Institut by using duolingo and it ended up hindering me more than helping me. now i'm C2 fluent in german.

people fall for duolingo because it's trendy and free but their goal is not to educate but to advertise. if you want to learn a language, just buy the fucking $30 book with a CD and work through it.