“In the U.S., about half of our users aren’t even really motivated to learn a language they just want to pass the time on something besides Candy Crush.” Since you’re not able to find internal motivation, you expect a tool to give your external motivation. Why do you need to make it fun? Because you lack motivation. This is gamification – making something fun like a game. If someone drops out, their rate of learning is zero.” “We prefer to be more on the addictive side than the fast-learning side. Making the lessons more difficult reliably speeds up learning-but also increases dropout rates. That’s why we spend a lot of our energy just trying to keep people hooked.” “The biggest problem that people trying to learn a language by themselves face is the motivation to stay with it. Luis von Ahn, a co-founder and the CEO of Duolingo, candidly admits that: The reason is simple: challenging study material is not fun, and most casual learners give up because nobody likes to make mistakes and mumble unfamiliar words. Ideally, you should be having real conversations with native speakers.īut then, why don’t you just speak from Lesson 1 of your app or course, as Ripeti Con Me prompts you to do? Gamification vs. This skill unbalance can be made up for by covering aspects that are overlooked in language apps.

Real-world questions are open, not multiple-choice. Words and phrases from Duolingo’s sentences swim through your mind, but you’re unable to recall them and pull them together. Only when you get out of this bubble do you realize that those points don’t reflect your communication skills.Īt the first practical question like “how to get downtown,” you gape like a fish.

Make you rich in worthless points, and make you cherish them.

Bet points that you wouldn’t keep your streak up for another week.

Use email and phone notifications to stay on track.

Display your progress via various paint schemes.

Praise you constantly, like for responding several times correctly in a row or completing a lesson.

Provide multiple-choice responses that require less effort than open questions.Tell you that you’re right whenever they can, for example, when checking your pronunciation.Help you set daily goals (even if theyìre too low to make any progress).

Free language apps better than duolingo