Functionality: 8.5/10
Okay, so I have been using Duolingo for about two years, give or take. I have tried out learning about seven languages, Dutch, French, Korean, Vietamese, Chinese (Mandarin), Spanish, and German, but I only stayed consistently learning the last three. So I have some tips for the developers, and some warnings for users.
The pronounciation feature NEEDS work, sometimes it tells me I’m correct before I even finish the sentance, which can be frustrating as I am not able know if I am correctly pronounciating the sentance.
Specificially for Mandarin Chinese, I think instead of teaching people words in written Hanzi, first you should teach people radicals, and their short hand version(s), because this is the actual way people in China learn to write and read.
Again for Mandarin Chinese, it may be the same for other non-latin alphabeted languages, it doesn’t have the stories feture, so you can’t see your vocab in a practical sentances. At least for Mandarin, you can use Pinyin (the phonetic version) for the stories, or at least have it be able to be unlocked later.
For Spanish, there is many extra fetures such as Radio, and videos, that I don’t think are available in any other langauges, which is annoying. Maybe you should add this for French, German, English, Mandarin, all the big languages spoken world wide? Just a suggestion!
I don’t know about you, but Duolingo seems to ask for a lot of data that can be used to track you, and data that can be linked to you, such as user content, location, identifiers, contact information, usage data, purchases, contacts, financial information, and search history. So just be aware of that, because this app is run predominantly on Artificial Inteligence.
Can we please add more language options? There are no Filipino language options (I suggest Tagalog as I would definitley learn it), Te Reo Maori would be a really cool language to be more widely spoken, Cantonese, and Taiwanese should also be added,
Other than that, it’s a really cool app, and I recommend it highly!
My Age Rating: 3+
I think it should be allowed to any age, because the earlier you start learning a language, the easier it is. But parents should be aware of the ammount of data it collects, and should keep their child safe.