I've been using it less of late though, so progress is slowing. I only use the website and they've consistently been making things worse by mimicking the app. They recently switched to the hearts model that the app has which has had a few effects:
1) I am much more cautious and much more likely to cheat (use the UI to give me a hint). I used to push myself by taking a stab at things I wasn't sure of, and if I failed, so what. Now if I'm not sure I'll get the hint first. 2) I spend less time using it. Between making legit mistakes and stupid errors (tap the wrong key, etc) I burn through my hearts much faster than I'd give up in the earlier setup.
Still, I like it for what it is. It fits more easily into my lifestyle than taking classes or other more active forms of learning. I recognize that this brings limitations. But it is far from useless.
For some languages they claim B1 and I believe B2 (Spanish & French?) for reading/writing. I'm only about 1/3 through the spanish course and testing at the A1/A2 range on reading/writing tests, so I'd buy it.
But yes, it's almost useless for speaking. When I've been in conversational situations I can sometimes make out what the person is saying, but I can't talk at all. Which also tracks, at no point does it put your brain in a situation where it needs to come up with & speak arbitrary sentences in response to random events. Different neural pathways.
That's neither good nor bad, it just requires people to have properly set expectation. There is no way to build up conversational skills without having conversations.
It’s great that you’ve learned the words to be able to buy groceries or order in a restaurant (basic numbers, yes, no, etc) but if you cannot understand the person asking you questions, then it’s all moot.
The key to learning a language is comprehensible input, and repetition. Our brains are statistical machines and it naturally retains things that are repeated a lot (and spaced).
Of course there are some frequent and stubborn words/phrases that don't stick, in which case, I put them Anki and SRS them. I don't recommend Ankifying everything -- you'll never have enough time to practice and will get demotivated -- but it's very useful to Ankify stubborn words that don't seem to stick, and practice those only.
For instance, in English there are phrases that all seem alike but have very multiple and different meanings, like "put up", "put out", "put in", "put into", "put down". As English speakers we instinctively know what these mean in context, but for a non-native speaker it's super hard to tell the difference, and the key is just to memorize them in context ("put up the curtains", "put up with Joe's habits", "put up a fight"). Anki is super helpful for this.
1. Forget Duolingo
2. Pursue comprehensible input in context (there are hundreds of ways to do this, you have to find your own way). Polyglots like Steve Kaufmann and Alexander Arguelles have a few recommendations if you google them.
3. Also, try not to learn words. Learn phrases in context.
4. Ankify phrases that just won't stick.
5. Practice speaking and writing from the get go.
6. Leverage languages you already know to help you learn new languages (e.g. if you already know a Romance language, learning another is easier. Japanese unfortunately is a language isolate, but folks who know Chinese characters are able to pick up the written language faster, and folks who know a language with a similar grammar like Korean are able to pickup the grammatical structures faster -- finding those connections early give you a superstructure to map new ideas to).
Consistency is key, and even the very best language learners take about a year to become reasonably familiar with a new language. Disbelieve anything that promises you fluency in 3 months (even Spanish speakers need more than 3 months to be fluent in Portuguese, a closely related language).
And then there's a big variation of quality as well, the French and Spanish courses just aren't the same as the Vietnamese one.
What did you do instead?
There's a lot of high quality and very short films on basic daily subjects and subtitled on this app. It's the perfect material you need as a beginner. At the beginning I was watching one 3 minute video per hour and now I just watch it close to normal speed, progress isn't linear.
Short subtitled videos is the ideal material because you are working on your spoken and written comprehension in the same time.
I use the dictionary app on the new words I don't know about and input them into the flashcard app.
I went from close to nothing to around B1 in one year and half. Whereas with Duolingo I never even reached A2 in three years.
My take with language learning is that there's no magic method, you are going to be tired and consistency beats everything, it's a marathon, not a sprint.
It's easier to learn when you're actually interested in the content.
Other tools I use:
* https://www.languagereactor.com -- formerly Netflix for Language learning, a Chrome plugin for Netflix and YouTube for multi language subtitles.
* https://youglish.com/ -- search for YouTube videos with subtitles in the language you're learning. For shadowing and practicing pronunciation.
I like the bite sized modules that I do while i am waiting in a long checkout line. Its has one the best inertia resistant UI.
Sure if you are super-motivated there are prbably better ways but with language learning there is a long period of grinding before you start conversing or understanding the language. Most ppl are unable to learn a languange because its really hard to visualize gains and benefits in far future.
I really love Duolingo and wish it didn't get so much hate.