#you have my sympathies anon

[apostaterevolutionary]

Wholly agree Duolingo isn't great any more but it's the only fully free site so it's all I can use...:(

I totally get it anon, it’s a tough situation. For what it’s worth, I believe most of memrise is free, so it might be worth taking a look to see if it has your language. And I mentioned this in the post, but your local library may give you free access to other apps. Tumblr library propaganda has taught me many things about what libraries offer!

And even though I’ve been mad at duo for a lot longer (since they rolled out that stupid path, even though I managed to dodge it for over a year by not updating my app, they did eventually force it onto my ancient and crumbling version lmao), I kept up with it for a long time just because I couldn’t find an alternative I liked. And tbh I’m still not sure what I’m gonna do now, cause it turns out I like casually learning languages, it’s fun and I don’t want to stop, I’d love to get at least conversational in several, but I’m not exactly sure where I’ll go from here yet

Even disregarding the ethical issues, I do worry about the future for duo learners because machine translation simply cannot compete with the real thing. I think anyone trying to read something from another language knows from experience lmao. But I think it will be a while before the app really dies, because the idea of learning for free is a good one. It’s just sad the ceo sold his soul and made duo publicly traded, because it’s been going downhill since (completely changing courses when you’re halfway through, the path, the loss of the forums, the removal of notes, the loss of typing practice, and now severe staff cuts for a cheaper but inferior option)

It sucks ass but it is what it is and I won’t necessarily judge anyone for sticking with it if it’s your only option. I also saw some statements from people who worked on the original duo courses as volunteers upset about these developments, but also distraught that all this work and effort and love they put into the courses would be for nothing if duo eventually does shut down. The courses were originally made by people, for free too, and most of their work is still there, I can’t blame them for being upset at their love letters to the world getting twisted but also not wanting their work to disappear forever because everyone quit. There’s no winning for them at this stage

Idk this is way more rambling than was necessary lmao, but anyway let’s summarize by saying I feel you, it sucks, but I also understand if people keep using the free version duo because, and especially depending on the language you’re working on, sometimes there really aren’t feasible alternatives

[just-antithings]

It’s a weird night anyway, this bathroom I’m in smells like formaldehyde

f in the chat