Duolingo has worked great for me. I had learned Spanish a decade ago and completely forgotten it. In a few months of consistent practice, I learned enough to get around. And after 6-9 months, I could have basic conversations.
I was never good at learning languages and Duolingo has been the best system for me. I like the paced repetition it does. Also, that it has you practice reading, writing, saying, and listening.
> I had learned Spanish a decade ago and completely forgotten it.
I would argue this is why it worked well for you. You already knew the language and just needed to revise, which is something I would argue DL does do good at, especially the web version.
> Also, that it has you practice reading, writing, saying, and listening.
The thing is, in most courses (the home-developed ones with stories might be exceptions), you don't practice those skills. You learn to translate stuff from the target language to English; that's not reading. You don't learn to read texts and interpret them in the language. The writing is awful as well, since it's just reverse translation, not actually responding to a prompt or natural conversation.
The speaking leaves a lot to be desired, unless it's massively improved since I last tried it. I once said "blah" on the Spanish course and it was accepted as correct; I've also had it accept background noise before too. And the same with listening -- it's a TTS, you don't actually practice listening to native speakers and understanding what's being said with comprehension questions, etc.
It doesn't really teach the four skills as they would be applied in the real world at all. Not to mention that default on the app has you click words in the proper order instead of actually recalling them. That's another huge negative.
>You don't learn to read texts and interpret them in the language.
Are you sure? I regularly come across questions that involve a few sentences, a question, and a multi-choice answer. All in language, and some of them are somewhat tricky. Something along the lines of: "Juan's is with his girlfriend. Her name is Antonia. She is buying a green dress. Where is Antonia?" "A: A restaurant. B: A clothes store C: A party."
There are also questions that are a few sentences and you have to fill in the blank, which often require understanding the context, in language: If Juan is speaking to waiter, then the place he is at is a restaurant...
>Not to mention that default on the app has you click words in the proper order instead of actually recalling them.
Not at all true. I've been using DuoLingo for less than a month and I regularly see questions that are an English sentence and a free form text box for you to type the translation into. And one of the questions for the second "Checkpoint" is: Here is a sentence in language, and a free form text box to type the response.
As far as the clicking words, I'll say I really like that as one of the components of learning, because it lets me focus on the structure of sentences without getting frustrated by typos or misremembering words or even in some cases forgetting words. The prompts of the bubbles are good and still make me remember the differences between the conjugations and the like.
I spent a semester in a class in Jr HS, and was much more frustrated and less educated than I feel after 3 weeks of solid DuoLingo. For me, it's a fun tool for establishing some confidence and understanding.
I was never good at learning languages and Duolingo has been the best system for me. I like the paced repetition it does. Also, that it has you practice reading, writing, saying, and listening.