I think the reward system is good. I feel the way the lessons are broken up and the use of game-like achievements and daily goals encourages repetitive use. The introduction of 'testing out' to complete a section your are confident in saves unnecessary frustration. The format of the lessons, ie. matching pictures, listening, translating, selecting the right word etc. worked well for me. The ability to see my facebook friends' scores would also be a good motivator, but none were doing it at the same time. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

I feel like having completed the whole Spanish course, my actual usable everyday Spanish was still quite limited.

I feel like the introduction of new grammar should included more detailed explanations of usage. I felt the vocabulary was limited and sometimes badly chosen. I was repeatedly revising certain words which I would have very little practical use for. In general, my biggest issue was the lack of practical every day language, which a beginner would actually find use for.

The 'strength' bars are a good idea, but didn't seem to accurately reflect how i confident I felt about each section.

In 'tap the pairs' sometimes the translations could have been more specific. eg. 'dijo' could better be translated as 'I tell' than just 'tell'.

On the whole I felt duolingo was best used as a practice tool, rather than a solid introduction to the language. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

I came to duolingo.com after having done Rosetta Stone for Spanish and Transparent Language for both Spanish and Portuguese. One advantage DuoLingo has over these two is the price: It is free. Rosetta Stone is expensive for what you get; I will defer writing more about that because this is about RS. Transparent Language is reasonably priced and is similar in philosophy as far as it goes. Duolingo is FREE (as of this writing) and goes farther. Duolingo has done a much better job of making the experience game like. It provides excellent incentives to practice every day. It is excellent, attractive software. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

I don't like the translation aspect. Quite frankly, it is not well-incentivized within the point structure they have established. I set a goal of getting a certain number of points a day and it is much more difficult to do it within the time constraints I have if I spend my time translating. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

I think Duo Lingo is great. I love that it allows for practicing on come computers and mobile devices. It has so many languages to choose from! Plus the XP system keeps me coming back, even after I've put it down for a while. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

I'd tweak it in a few small ways: First, the mobile app doesn't always accurately reflect the amount I've practiced a particular language module. I figure this is a bug that will get fixed with an eventual software update. My one major concern is the seeming lack of good review material for past language modules. I don't feel I'm as solid on words and grammar as I could be before Duo Lingo moves me ahead to the next thing. Also, I wish it did a better job of recombining past material in different ways for review and study purposes. It could do better at combining past material with new stuff too. But maybe these are things that happen later in the program? I'm not all that far along. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

The ease of use, competition with friends and how fast you are able to understand your target language. The game aspect is fun and I especially love the timed practice which adds to your point total very quickly if you know the answers. The forum is great too for chatting with other people using Duolingo to hear other perspectives and get tips. The app makes language learning anywhere a snap. I love being able to use it for a few lessons while i'm on a plane without internet access. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

It would be great if it had a better testing process and or separate exercises with more in depth explanation regarding conjugation of verbs. The support options could be better as it seems to take a long time to answers. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

The ease of access, zero cost, and the design being based around small chunks make it easy to fit in to one's schedule and eliminate most of the barriers that similar, paid products suffer from. This is a fantastic way to practice a couple thousand words in your target language on the cheap, however there are some caveats. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Some translations in the younger courses can be a bit strange and sometimes unforgiving until the course designers get around to incoporating feedback. However, my biggiest issue with the program is that in most cases in my personal experience, unless you have outside help in the form of a native speaker or materials with native pronounciation BEFORE starting the process or regular access to a similar resource while just beginning the process, your accent will likely be very bad. It's a failing of the design overall and not much can be done, however I do recommend to all people that use Duolingo - start by learning the sounds and the pronounciation before even starting your target language in Duolingo. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

I love that Duolingo ;

-tracks my progress

-lets me play offline

-has a web version in addition to the app

-Has the option to play with/without sound games

-Has game style incentives such as earning points and characters

-Lets me play against friends Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

I wish it had more listening features that didn't require a response. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

The variety of languages available ensures that you will likely find a language you want/have to learn. The simplicity of the site and the app ensure that you will be able to learn at least the fundamentals of a language in your spare time.

The website offers an impressive variety of languages. At the time of this review, there are eleven languages that are out of beta, two still in beta, and ten languages in active development. That's just for native English speakers!

In addition to brief lessons that feature a mixture of vocal and written lessons, Duolingo features a remarkably innovative system where aspiring multilinguists can spend time translating works in order to gain a stronger grasp of their language of choice. The material consists largely of be online articles that touch on a variety of subjects, thus ensuring that the content to be translated will appeal to someone. Moreover, since this practice doubles as a business model, the website has a clean, simple interface bereft of ads or fees(there is an on-website currency called "lingots," but those are earned through achievements, not through exchange of actual money).

In addition to the very reliable and functional website is an app available for Apple, Android, and (all three) Windows Phone users! The app is somewhat more minimalist, but is also very efficiently designed, and even has limited offline functionality. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Duolingo is not without flaws.

The website, in an effort to serve as many people as possible, is largely server-controlled. While there is a very active community, there are no personal lessons and very few actual people involved. As such, the speech lessons use voice recognition that is... inconsistent at best. When translating a sentence, Duolingo is not always capable of capturing nuance, and as such will sometimes mark right answers wrong and wrong answers as "right enough."

The translation portion is, seemingly, all web content, and mostly articles. As such, there is no translating actual recordings, nor published works. When translating, it only offers the option to translate from a foreign language into your native one, and not vice-versa. In order to do that, you must change your native language setting and then sign up to "learn" your actual native language.

e.g. If I am learning Dutch, and want to try my hand at translating an article only available in English INTO Dutch, I have to tell Duolingo that my native language is Dutch and I'd like to learn English.

The app, while functional, is very limited in scope. You cannot do translations through it as of right now, the lessons are more abbreviated, the speaking exercises obviously rely on server functionality and thus require you to be online. The offline functionality only allows you to practice unlearned lessons, you cannot get a random assortment of exercises or download an old lesson you'd like to go over.

Ultimately, Duolingo is no replacement for an actual teacher. This is, at best, going to teach you a language up to the equivalent of a 200 level college class. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

The app uses incentives to keep you interested in practicing. It sends reminders and keeps changing question formats so you don't get bored. It's also colorful, easy to use and includes an immersion option for high-level translation. You can "earn" lingots (language currency) to "buy" fun add-ons to your account. Make wagers against your consistent practice to increase your stack of lingots. Streaks of practice earns you more lingots as well.

The app also tracks how fluent you are in the language of your choice. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

It is a program best suited for people already familiar with the basics of a language. It doesn't teach fundamentals, it just provides a practice session. It also doesn't sync across devices very well. Using the account on a mobile device does not automatically update the progress of the user on the account when it is accessed via a desktop computer. The immersion program does not give users the ability to collaborate with other users and "lock" translations. Anyone can come in and revise your translation of a sentence. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

That its on all platforms - i used to only use it on my ipad but recently have been using more on the computer - it seems theres variation and using the computer makes you learn more. The ipad version seems to have the same sentences etc after a while so you can go by memory and not use the knowledge as good as could be.

I also like the amount of languages offered and how its continually growing. Ive "completed" french but will be trying more languages soon. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

The male voice can be very hard to understand sometimes on the phone app. I also liked when you could verse someone else with the product but that was removed, if that was brought back it would be amazing. especially playing random people of your level. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Duolingo is free, which is incredible and I recommend it to people all the time.

It's a great introduction to a language or a fantastic supplement to taking a language class.

I would say that you can get a great basic education from using ONLY Duolingo to learn a language but I would always recommend several resources if you are really trying to become fluent (audio program, class, music, tv, skype with native speakers, etc.)

Duolingo is great for reading and writing because you need to be able to spell and conjugate words correctly in order to make progress. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

For being a FREE product there is not much to dislike.

I guess the only let down would be that once you complete a language (I've completed Spanish and French) you can keep strengthening your skills but it feels like it's over to some extent and I feel less motivated than I did when I was trying to complete the program.

So many people spend a lot of money to learn a language only to get bored and put it down, they end up wasting their money. With Duolingo, it's free, so you can start learning your language and if you decide to discontinue it, you haven't invested money. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.