Using Duolingo to Learn Spanish

Duolingo has quickly become one of the most popular resources for learning a language or supplementing the language learning process. I can only review it from the viewpoint of the Spanish lessons because so far that is the only language I have used.

I love Duolingo. It's colorful, easy to start using and of course... it's free. It takes basic computer knowledge to navigate but if you can handle this blog, you can probably handle Duolingo!

Duolingo Advantages

It syncs across devices so you can be logged in on the computer and your cell phone and when you practice on one device everything will be updated on the other as well.

Now, as for the material it covers. It does a good job of teaching you the basics, but don't be able to expect to walk up to a native Spanish speaker and easily be able to communicate. It gives you a good vocabulary base and basic grammar points. The grammar is easier to learn on the computer because on the phone app, at least with the android version, you can't access the verb conjugations or the additional lesson information that you can find on the computer. This can make it hard if you don't already know the basics of conjugating Spanish verbs.

Another point about Duolingo is that it teaches you South American Spanish. Most notably, South Americans don't typically use the Vos conjugations so you won't be practicing this in Duolingo, and of course the accent is different as well.

It gives you a wonderful chance to expand your vocabulary, learn grammar and sentence structure, and read and translate from Spanish into English. It doesn't give you the opportunity to listen to real conversation, so at the least you may want to supplement it with an audio course or basic level podcasts if you want to learn the full spectrum of the language.

There will come a point where you have learnt enough that Duolingo isn't useful anymore, but never fear, when you hit that point you will be ready for the plethora of other material that is out there. 
 
I tend to play it for a while, get distracted, ignore it, then play obsessively again. But the way I look at it, practice is practice!

So all in all, I would recommend trying it out. It's free. It can't hurt, and it certainly might do you some good!