I first met Duo the owl before a move to The Netherlands was even a glimmer in my eye, opening duolingo.com on a lark one day at work and discovering how devilishly simple they’d made it to get started. After two or three clicks, I was learning the basics of Dutch: vrouw = woman, jongen = boy. Weeks later, I surprised Kiki on one of her visits to Texas by showing off my fancy new Dutch skills: “De vrouw heeft een appel.” (The woman has an apple.)

It only took a couple of months before Duolingo’s various casino-style “gamification” tricks got me on a daily streak that, as of this writing, stands at 2,500 days. Like most addictions, I never expected it to last this long. Unlike most addictions, it’s adding rather than removing brain cells. 

Wait, 2,500 days straight?!

Pretty much! Duolingo graciously offers “streak freezes” to allow for the occasional missed day; heck, I used one just last week. But to give myself credit, those are rare. This has become one of the most consistent habits of my entire life, up there with teeth-brushing. I told myself I’d let it slide after 1,000 days, but almost involuntarily, I just kept going. I even made it to the very end of their Dutch lessons (yes, there’s an bottom to the well!) only to hop over to French and continue. “La femme a une pomme.”

So are you fluent?

Hahahaha good heavens, no. A boy becomes a man when he realizes there will never be a single glorious day where fluency lands on his head like a dove from heaven. Learning a new language as an adult is a lifelong assignment, every day a quarter-inch forward.¹ I’m inspired by longtime immigrants like Kiki’s Australian dad, who can easily navigate a conversation in Dutch. But then, he’s been in-country for 30 years; me, less than five.

But are you conversational?

Kind of! I can easily navigate a bar, restaurant, or shop, where the conversations tend to be “choose your own adventure” predictable. After years of instinctively requesting English—”Kunnen we engels spreken?”—I’ve been conducting more phone calls in Nederlands. The urge to speak English in a country where everyone is fluent can be almost overpowering. But, however glacially, I’m doing that less and less. 

So Duolingo worked!

Again, kind of. The thing is, you’ll never ever ever get over the hump with language learning without actively practicing it in the real world. Duolingo might’ve taught me the delightful word for “rhinoceros²,” but it never taught me to say “Hé??” upon hearing surprising news. You gotta get off the apps, is what I’m saying: conversational practice, reading children’s books, watching movies, even muttering words to yourself as you read them to get the pronunciation down.

Ah. Well, should I use Duolingo for an upcoming trip?

Good Lord, no. Not unless you expect to be using sentences like “The woman has an apple” or “How tall is the tree?” on your holiday. You might get the basic feel of the language, but Duolingo seems to intentionally avoid useful phrases like “Where is the bathroom?” in favor of building a vocabulary and grammar base. I’m honestly curious about a better app for that. 

…Wait, so what’s Duolingo even for, then?

Ahh, there’s the real question. Duolingo is an odd bird. 

My brief summary of its usefulness is “It’s great for learning to read signs.” I’m experiencing this afresh with my French learning: on a recent trip to Paris I noticed that signs, menus, and even conversations were a bit more “in focus” than they’d ever been before.

I’m aware that it sounds like I’m kinda roasting the very app I’ve invested so much in. I’m not. Duolingo is a great foundation for learning a language in the long term, steadily feeding new words and grammar rules to your brain like drops in an IV. The daily streak itself is a benefit, so that you don’t lose the knowledge.

And of course you’re spending 5+ minutes per day on something educational—however minimally—which is 5+ fewer minutes spent doomscrolling or playing Candy Crush. So that’s refreshing. But again, if you want to really learn the language, there are many more steps to take.

Alright, what’s the big catch?

Sigh, there’s no such thing as ethical consumption, is there? Duolingo had built a warm-and-fuzzy reputation for its simple, positive mission, but their CEO recently pooped in the punch bowl with a LinkedIn post announcing that the company was now “AI-first” and would be replacing a large chunk of human labor (including the lovable voice actors) with our robot overlords. This was enough for Kiki to delete her app from one day to the next, abandoning a 2,300+ day streak of her own. I respect and love her for that. Myself, I feel more ambivalent—ironic, since voice acting is precisely the field I’m trying to break into! Suffice it to say that there’s a bit of a “holding my nose” feeling  when I open the app every morning. I could say more, but… 

1. 6.35mm
2. It’s neushoorn, literally “nose-horn.”