As someone who has learned and is learning multiple languages this rings true to me. Duolingo is very good for getting started and acquiring the basic vocabulary. but it plateaus rapidly. After that you don’t get much from it and you should use something that uses mini stories with a larger context and preferably audio read by natives (Small aside: Duolingo has awesome mini story podcasts for Spanish and French which they should incorporate into their app). The best tool I found for the mini story approach is Lingq, which is not so good at getting you started though. You’re also right about the gamification. This is something Duolingo absolutely nails. A friend’s mother is addicted to doing her English lessons and has a 2 year streak. But she also barely speaks English yet, which is unsurprising to me given the fact she only ever uses Duolingo.