Learning the lingo – with a bit of guilt tripping

With a friendly, yet threatening demeanour, Duo, the Duolingo owl congratulates you while also threatening to make you feel guilty, and somehow you know the Hebrew word for “shelter” but not “bathroom”.

For millions of global users, Duolingo isn’t just an app, it’s a quirky, gamified ritual. It sends push notifications like a clingy friend, and rewards your dedication with digital gems and the occasional existential crisis over how you still don’t know how to say, “Where’s the bathroom?” in Italian. But in between the streaks, the owls, and the bizarre example sentences about penguins and soup, something interesting is happening: people are actually learning.

For occupational therapist Jenne Lewskowski, once she retired five years ago, she had a lot of free time for herself, so she decided that she would start learning French on Duolingo. “After I started learning French, I decided to learn math on the app. And then after learning math, I decided to learn Zulu. And then I decided to learn Arabic. And then I decided to learn chess,” she said.

Lewskowski spends between an hour and an hour and a half each day learning lessons on Duolingo, and it has started a love affair for learning languages that she never thought possible in her eighties. She explained that even though she had some knowledge of Hebrew as she had lived in Israel, she had no knowledge of Arabic, and Duolingo has given her the chance to learn Arabic. A year later, she is now able to recognise the Arabic letters.

“Every time I do my lessons, my marks go up. My Zulu is amazing. I’m not ready to talk yet, but every time I remember words, it’s incredible. But you’ve got to do it every day. It’s exciting, and my favourite thing now is that I’m learning to count in Arabic. It’s interesting because I’m beginning to see how close it is to Hebrew,” she said.

Similarly, Amalia Frankel, in Grade 11 was interested in French three years ago, and started learning the language on Duolingo as she wanted a simple, accessible way to learn the language. She was then able to take what she learnt on Duolingo and apply it when she started learning French as a subject at school after a year on the app.

“I learnt quickly how to formulate sentences, and made a lot of progress in vocabulary and grammar,” said Frankel, “My least-favourite part would be the pressure of keeping a streak, and a small sense of failure when it was lost. I really love the game format and how the app makes it feel easy to learn and progress.”

When doctor Lana Mallach’s son qualified to compete in an international chess tournament in Rhodes, she didn’t want to arrive in Greece without being able to say a basic hello and thank you. So, in March this year, she decided that she was going to start learning Greek on Duolingo.

“My older son had actually been learning some Russian last year on Duolingo, so I thought I’d give it a try,” she said. “I had no exposure to the language before – it was Greek to me.”

Even though she has made steady progress, she doesn’t think she’ll continue. “I have a head for languages – I did four languages for matric, and won the linguistics prize – and I simply don’t like the teaching format. There’s no explanation about declension or conjugation. One is simply meant to absorb it via repetition.”

Similarly, virtual assistant Steph Cohen started learning Spanish and Hebrew on Duolingo almost two years ago because she enjoyed watching Spanish shows on TV and wanted to be able to watch without subtitles.

She said her progress has been slow, but over her more than 550-day streak, she is understanding the language more and more. Said Cohen, “I’m not sure how solidly I could hold a conversation in each of the languages, but I’m understanding the languages quite a bit more.”

Teacher Marilyn Lever has been learning Hebrew on Duolingo for about 890 days, and although she knew a bit of Hebrew from her time at school, the app has taken her Hebrew ability to a new level.

“I get Hebrew-based TikToks and things on Facebook, there’s video clips, and I can understand it,” she said. “I have to replay it a few times because they speak too fast, but I can understand what they’re saying. Also, when the Hebrew staff at school talk, I can understand most of what they’re saying.”

She said she is often fascinated about what kind of sentences Duolingo gives her, which probably wouldn’t appear in lessons for other languages. “It’s fascinating, like, with the Hebrew, how your general sentences are like, ‘I’m running to the shelter’; or ‘Where is the nearest shelter?’ These are general conversational sentences they’re teaching you. You’re not getting that on the French or the Chinese version. It’s probably more where’s the museum, not where’s the shelter.”

Twenty-three-year-old Jenna Gelman started learning Portuguese on Duolingo because she wanted to go to Brazil and be able to converse with people while she was there.

“I’ve definitely progressed a little bit,” she said. “I understand quite a few words, but I’m not able to understand full sentences or put together sentences just yet. But I’m only three months in, so it probably takes a bit longer than that,” she said.

Said Cohen, “I’m a bit obsessive about keeping my streak going, so I do a lesson or two every day. It gets my brain going for the day. I don’t really have a least-favourite part, but if I had to answer, I think it would be that if you don’t pay for the subscription – which I do – then your chance of getting the answers correct aren’t endless, and you have to wait for the ‘gems’ to rejuvenate.”