Me too, about half that. But I'm painfully aware it's no longer getting me anywhere (I completed the 'tree' hundreds of days ago) - what I really need to do is sit down with my textbook in order to progress further with the grammar, and widen my vocabulary beyond what's in Duolingo. But that requires more time commitment, so I do it much less often, and do Duolingo instead.. fairly pointlessly - sure it probably helps stop me slipping backwards.
Depends what your goals are - but if you wanna be very capable at talking you’d be better off listening to a lot of native content intended for natives (as well as talking with live people). I recommend Language Learning with Netflix, or the more heavy duty/Anki driven Migaku family of tools (can use with Netflix, YouTube or any video with subtitle files), for studying in that form; plus language teachers through something like iTalki (encourage the teacher to not dumb down their speaking for you even if you get lost); as well as talking with random people on services like
HelloTalk/immersing in the place that speaks your language/finding a native speaker to befriend and talk to in the language. Duolingo is a beginner tool in my opinion (there are far more beginners to sell to and the barrier to entry is low).
Absolutely agree it's a beginner tool, and through studying a textbook/Wiktionary, films, talking to a bilingual speaker I've surpassed it. But just as you say the barrier to entry is low, so is the barrier to practice.
Thanks for the tips though, I will give them a go. Especially the Netflix one I keep meaning to; I watch a fair bit in target language (Hindi) but always with (only) English subtitles. Keep meaning to give it a go. (I do sometimes go back and put Hindi subtitles on if there was something I was particularly interested in / wanted to check, but it's a pain to do often.)
The three? Purple? Maybe it's different for different languages. Each lesson (as in topic badge type button) done through 5/5 crowns (1-7 stages per crown iirc), I just go through fixing the broken ones or practicing ones I know I'm rusty on now.
Yup that's what I'm talking about - the Spanish track added a concept of "purple" which is an advance on the broken ones - you can now take an additional set of lessons for one that shows up broken and it will never break for you again.
I think the Spanish track is likely one of the most advanced in terms of number of lessons and quality of teaching - though I expect the "learn English" tracks are equivalent or more advanced, I've just never looked at those.
Spanish track recently was updated... So my nearly complete to 7th milestone tree (had just 4 circles left at 3/5) turned into a tree with 9 milestones and all progress beyond milestone 5 was wiped.
I was pretty mad! It'll take a lot of time to complete it all, it hurt my achiever feelings pretty hard. Of course, more content is more learning, but with later milestones it gets very repetitive.
Oh nice. Mine (Hindi) definitely doesn't have that, it's also shorter than a lot of other older/more mature ones I think. (I've dabbled in the French one.) I'll certainly do it if it becomes available, but for now I've done all that is.
Yes.. I've wanted to for years, even before learning the language. The pandemic is a solid excuse at the moment, but I only have myself to blame really.
