Learning Spanish through Duolingo
Since late August, I’ve been learning Spanish through the popular app Duolingo. I’ve tried Duolingo before but didn’t manage to keep using it every day. This time, I’ve had a good motivator; I visited Barcelona for work in late September, so I wanted to learn at least a few conversational basics before that.
Duolingo uses gamification elements; everything renders experience points (XP), and successful learning is rewarder with lingots, an in-app currency that can be used to buy extra lessons or power-ups. Unlike most other microcredit systems, there is no way to buy lingots.
The one thing one can do if the ads, which only appear in-between lessons in a very non-intrusive way, are bothering you, is to use Duolingo plus. It is available at a fixed rate per month and it rewoves all ads, plus it enables offline lessons. Other than that, Duolingo plus is a big waste of money imho, and the price is not proportional to what one gets in return. At the time of writing, I’ve used Duolingo plus for a month, so it is expiring some time soon. If I end up missing some feature that turns out to be plus specific, I’ll post an update.
¡Hasta luego!