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Add to SafariWhen comparing Duolingo vs InternetPolyglot, the Slant community recommends Duolingo for most people. In the question“What are the best sites for learning foreign languages?” Duolingo is ranked 1st while InternetPolyglot is ranked 12th. The most important reason people chose Duolingo is:
Progress is measured gaming-like by gaining XP, and leveling up. They use other creative gamification techniques to keep you motivated such as making wagers and improving your position on the leaderboard.
Specs
Question Ranking
Pros
Pro Motivates through creative gamification
Progress is measured gaming-like by gaining XP, and leveling up. They use other creative gamification techniques to keep you motivated such as making wagers and improving your position on the leaderboard.
Pro Generous free plan
Duolingo is completely free to use, with no features limited to upgraded accounts. If you want to go ad-free, the cost is $12.99/month.
Pro Super easy to use.
Very intuitive app. It has the kind of "intangible" user experience that simple feels better than the others.
Pro Has a mobile app
Pro Friendly, active community
There is a discussion board available on the site, and a really active community on reddit in r/duolingo (30k + members). Everyone is friendly and happy to help or offer support.
Pro Extensive
Duolingo is exceptionally thorough when it comes to teaching the nuances of language. It has plenty of audio material, articles to translate, and a cooperative development made by users.
Pro Engaging learning method
Each lesson uses a variety of different learning methods to keep it interesting and fun.
The lessons are short so you aren't forced to focus for long periods of time.
Pro Frequently adding new languages
You can check out the courses page to see what languages are "hatching" (being developed) and what languages are in beta.
Pro Games focus on practicing the words you've struggled with
It remembers the words that you've scored poorly on in the past, and repeats these more often in games/tests than the words you know well.
Pro Free
Access to the whole site/program is completely free.
Pro Five different games to choose from for variety
You can choose from 5 different types of learning games so you can learn in a way that best suits you.
There is a picture game, typing game, guessing game, matching game, and word search.
Pro Very easy to use and covers most of your needs
Cons
Con Mobile app is less beneficial because it's too easy
Some of the games available on the mobile app are different from that on the desktop version, and are oversimplified/make it very easy to guess.
Con Little production of target language
Duolingo focuses heavily on reading comprehension and translation into one's own language rather than encouraging production of text/speech in the target language.
Con The hype in the community creates false ideas about what level Duolingo gets you to
Duolingo is a good tool for a beginner, and a good supplement to other resources. But it cannot get you from zero to understanding natives, tv, and books; and their "do the reverse tree and just speak" is usually not the correct answer to "what should I do after finishing the tree".
Con Tediously repetitive with not much advancement
Not good choice for brushing up on a rusty language. Teaches through constant repetition of same few (very basic) words over and over. Little progression. Range of vocab and grammar very limited. Tedious in extreme!
Con Counting only on Duolingo is a waste of time
Con Repetitive questions on entire lessons
Same questions all over until one section completed.
Con Doesn't take you to an advanced level
Con The health system on the IOS app disrupts learning
5 mistakes and you're out, unless you pay, wait several hours, or use a special review that currently doesn't let you choose what to review. Especially terrible if you're learning multiple or more difficult languages.
Con Available languages are predominately European
Duolingo teaches 23 languages from English at the moment: Latin American Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Irish, Turkish, Danish, Russian, Norwegian, Esperanto, Ukrainian, Polish, Welsh, Greek, Romanian, Hungarian, Hebrew, Swahili, Vietnamese and Japanese (the last currently only on the app). Popular non-European languages such as Mandarin and Arabic are not currently available (although Korean and Indonesian are in development).
Con Dangerously addictive
Con Should be used along with another course/book
InternetPolyglot states on their site that the program is meant to aid in memorization only, and should be used along side other resources.
Con Games do not end on their own
You have to decide when you've had enough playing the games, or set a timer. The games do not end the game for you, so it's not smart about conserving your energy or ending the session when you've learned the material or when you've gone beyond 25 minutes which is the limits of most people's ability to focus.
