I'm very curious about Max though ... the explain your answer is something I'm really interested in to help me understand the sentences I'm constructing (which is where I make most of my blunders!).
You can configure Ankidroid to require you to spell the words properly.
They used to have an army of native-speaking volunteers to do this for free in the comments. I guess this is why they turned those off.
In education technology, many seem to hope to get that from AI: the helpfulness of a forum of volunteers without the abuse. The rise of the "unsocial network".
I did a trial and I noticed I spend more time with the App when I had unlimited hearts, so I got through more lessons a day. Less attention to a single question, but a lot more time spent on the app.
And that when it comes to actual recall, the mistakes don't count when it comes to learning. I don't really learn by recalling information, I learn by having stuff shoved into my brain with Spaced repetition.
The unlimited hearts thing fed the repetition cycle a lot more.
I try to spend 10-20 mins a day on it (learning Spanish) and actually do a lot of the "review" lessons which are good at drilling words. I am often surprised by my recall at phrases that I haven't seen in a while -- pretty sure they use the spaced repetition type algorithms.
My challenges now aren't so much on vocab/recall, but on verb conjugation and sentence construction / structure. I kind of know what to say but have trouble putting it together.
What I need to do is practice more actually speaking Spanish and interacting with Spanish speakers -- I had planned to spend a few months living somewhere in Hispanic America, but the 3 day-a-week RTO at my job has trashed that. I'll probably just have to settle for Skype-based chats/lessons.
Works far better for me without the hearts. Less time staring at sentences trying to make them perfect - more quick failing, learning why, iterating and drilling it into my head.
Also much more likely to spend longer in the app, maybe a couple of times a week.
I do occasionally get through some french youtube with subs and I'm getting better at roughly following - I'm not just relying on Duo. (I also have a grammar book to hand as well)
In the times I have had SuperDuolingo for free Have been annoyed that I can just keep plowing through mistakes (really: lack of knowledge), and don't have to really learn things before moving on with them... I just have to guess right once for each question.
But I do agree that DuoLingo is all about learning by making mistakes. I wish they had a bit more focused teaching for grammar, at least it would help me with the Hungarian. For a few items I have had to go outside the app for lessons on what I am just not getting by repetition.
Amen