# Duolingo 39 Hacker News commenters recommended Duolingo and 111 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 12 of 13 months; owners who said how long report a median of 3 years (4 owners). **Verdict:** Recommended for building basic vocabulary, grammar exposure and a guided path for beginners; critics say it gamifies rather than teaching conversational fluency. ## Why people recommend it - Guided, structured beginner learning path (4 comments): "DuoLingo gives me a guided learning path to explore." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46392254)) "I use Duo Lingo as a guided learning path" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45926354)) "the addictive, clear progress of Duolingo's vertical roadmap" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46891379)) - Useful for vocabulary and basic grammar (4 comments): "Most apps (like Duolingo) are great for vocabulary, but they gamify the process so much that users become addicted to "streaks"" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46432156)) "it introduces me to new words I'm otherwise not encountering in my regular Spanish usage" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46914323)) "The first for rote memorization, vocab, and exposure to grammar." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47115207)) - Gets beginners to A1-B1 levels (4 comments): "Duolingo does work for those A1-B1 levels it has courses for." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48046498)) "Duolingo it got me just enough Spanish (with zero prior knowledge) to get around" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48045653)) "I actually learned things on it getting real results" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49595983)) - Polished, engaging app design (3 comments): "I've never seen an app be so annoying in a positive way, I appreciate it" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49486178)) "One thing you absolutely can't say about Duolingo is that it's ugly." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45804604)) "it's still a great app that has helped millions of people learn languages" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49411590)) ## What people warn about - Gamification replaces real learning (6 comments): "Duolingo is worse than doing nothing, because it does a much better job of convincing you that you're learning than it does actually teaching you." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48045428)) "it's gamification kept me pre-occupied for a while without noticing that I wasn't making any progress learning the language" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46280695)) "After all the drilling and gamified lessons I never even started to feel like I was actually _learning_ these languages." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46297531)) - Doesn't reach conversational fluency (3 comments): "the broad anecdotal consensus that Duolingo, a gamified language app, famously does not do much if anything to prepare people for conversational fluency" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48862706)) "even after two years on it daily, you'll know plenty of words and I suppose simple sentences, but you can't actually speak or comprehend the language" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46271936)) "Duolingo claims its courses go a little over B1 - you start B2 content but dont finish it." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49602502)) - Addictive streaks and notifications (3 comments): "Their container is made of every cheap trick in the book -- notifications, streaks, etc -- because they work." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46281088)) "The actual app icon changes to a red faced angry owl if you wait too long to refresh your daily activity." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46914193)) "it can interrupt your progress on your current lesson and will actively block you from making further progress" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46916360)) - Company ethics and AI concerns (4 comments): "I already suspect that Duolingo destroyed real people's recording of Spanish conversations and replaced them with AI." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45832906)) "I cancelled my Duolingo subscription as soon as the imbecile CEO made a big stink about replacing workers with LLMs." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47088259)) "Companies like Wikimedia, Duolingo, IMDB, social media and so on, are taking unpaid labour and making money off it." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49958493)) ## Alternatives hackers recommend - [9M Mandarin tone speech model](https://hackerapproved.com/p/9m-speech-model-for-mandarin-tones.md): 14 recommend - [Language Transfer](https://hackerapproved.com/p/language-transfer.md): 13 recommend - [Pimsleur](https://hackerapproved.com/p/pimsleur.md): 9 recommend - [Voxel Tokyo](https://hackerapproved.com/p/voxel-tokyo.md): 9 recommend - [italki](https://hackerapproved.com/p/italki.md): 8 recommend ## Where to get it - [Visit the official site](https://www.duolingo.com/) ## Cite as Hacker Approved, "Duolingo", https://hackerapproved.com/p/duolingo/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).