Most people don’t know where to start learning French.
That’s why they turn to the most popular app to start learning French: Duolingo.
But how to use Duolingo efficiently?
Some say it took their French to the next level, some say it’s impossible to speak French using Duolingo.
They end up giving up on French.
They think ‘French is easy’ first, but then quickly lose their motivation.
Sadly they never come close to their objective: be fluent in French.
I will show you how you can make the best of Duolingo, bearing in mind the pros and cons of this app.
What is Duolingo exactly?
Duolingo changed the game when it comes to learning French, and learning languages in general.
An American based company, the app was made public in 2012.
The app is free, with a premium service that can be accessed for a fee.
With 500 million users and 40 languages that you can learn, Duolingo is an obvious favorite of:
– first time students of French, learning French from scratch
– people who need to refresh their school French
– people who need to brush up on their French vocab
I will show you how you can benefit from using Duolingo if it’s your first time learning French.
If you’re one of the people who only need a refresher or a brushing up, jump straight to the second part of this article 🙂
How to use Duolingo learning French for the very first time
Learning a whole new language from scratch can be a daunting experience.
You feel like there is so much to cover, so much to do.
As if you were about to climb a mountain.
I personally used Duolingo for fun, during lockdown times. I was being caught up in a Korean soap opera 🙂
I watched 20 episodes of 60 minutes each. So in theory I was exposed to Korean language for 20 hours straight, one hour a day.
Did that make my Duolingo journey easier?
No. No, no, no.
One year later, I only remember one word the characters kept saying in the TV series: /krejo/, when they were saying things like ‘Ok’, ‘Alright’, ‘I see’. Not sure about the Korean spelling here.
I was trying to build momentum from watching the series but I quickly lost motivation.
I first needed to learn the alphabet and that’s not something I could benefit from watching the show.
Surprisingly there was no scene that had the characters spelling out the Korean alphabet!
Also the sounds were very hard for me to distinguish from another.
So much time spent on just mastering the alphabet was very discouraging.
That’s for my personal experience learning a whole new foreign language.
I’m an English speaker: Where do I start?
Naturally I had to pretend that I’m learning French to understand what you’re going through as a first time French student.
I used the English version of Duolingo and created an account as if I were an English speaker learning French (native or non-native English speaker).
The progression bar above gives you the impression that you’re already making progress. That is stimulating.
The app is designed in a way that is attractive to the eyes.
I pretended to be learning French for the first time for ‘Family & Friends’.
I assumed to be a ‘Regular’ French student, with a 10 minute daily practice time.
What’s good about Duolingo is that they take care of the logistics first.
Sorting out the logistics first are a great way to stop wasting time on learning French because of poor logistics.
I forget, everybody forgets. It’s only human.
But with the Duolingo notifications, there is a better chance that you won’t forget to do your daily French practice.
I would be learning French from the first time.
A tip is to click on every picture although you know the answer is ‘le chat’.
This way you will know ‘l’homme’ is pronounced /lohm/, and ‘un’ is /in/.
I had a female voice pronouncing. The pronunciation feels very robotic though.
The Duolingo test: how hard is French for me?
Duolingo then wants you to take a test to adapt the questions to your actual level.
The first test is writing in French.
This can be intimidating as it doesn’t relate to anything you have learned before.
It it meant to test previous knowledge of French so it’s more aimed at those who need a refresher.
The ‘choose the words’ test isn’t very relevant, with things like ‘anglaise’ and ‘française’ that are unnecessary and overcomplicate things. In real life, there is little chance you would want to say ‘française’ to express the idea that ‘Her name is Marie’.
I first tried to give it a slightly wrong answer, to see how sensitive to mistakes the program is.
A correct/incorrect answer sounds a bit harsh.
It can be demotivating for you if you’re learning French for the first time.
A different approach would be to say: ‘There is a tiny word missing in between elle and appelle, what do you think it can be?’
I tried to imitate what an English native speaker would do, which is to follow the same word order as in English.
Are / you / Marc?
Becomes:
Es / tu / Marc?
The capital T is really misleading then because you think it has to start with a T.
Also jumping straight into questions is an interesting idea. After all, real life French conversations are based on questions/answers.
But the fact that two answers can be correct can create a lot of confusion as a total French beginner.
No explanation given for why that is.
Also we have no idea how ‘Es tu Marc ?’ and ‘Tu es Marc ?’ should both be pronounced.
French writing again, but with listening this time.
Listening to French is probably the most underrated skill when it comes to learning French from scratch, so I find it a good idea to just get on with it.
However, the fact that the listening is all written out makes it ‘reading’ rather than ‘listening’.
Total beginners will be familiar with ‘oui’ and ‘Paris’, allowing them to take an educated guess on what’s French ‘J’habite’ in English.
The ‘à’ part should be ‘in’, guessed from context: ‘in Paris’ wouldn’t be ‘well Paris’ for example.
This guessing game is an important part of learning French as a beginner.
Exploring how French works is actually great fun as you start.
This translation practice can be good for a few sentences like this one.
However, translating to French from English can be a very bad idea as a total beginner.
The mindset of a first time French student
The comments are mixed though, and total beginners are left confused.
They have plenty of questions left, such as:
- listening problems: ‘J’habite à Paris’ is understood as ‘J’ai dite à Paris’.
Of course, as a beginner or total beginner, how are you supposed to know?
Also the robotic voice doesn’t help. - writing and spelling problems: ‘J’habite à Paris’ leaves this student hanging on an explanation for why the ending of ‘habite’ is an -e, not -es.
Some comments here also reflect the mindset of a total beginner French learner:
- Asking for explanations on why this word is used.
It’s actually not so important as you get started.
Duolingo is helpful then to just get you started with French because of its simple structure.
Later, as you learn more, it will be useful to come back to why French is structured this way. - Looking for ways to replicate the process.
Such as asking ‘Why do we say à’, or ‘when to use habite/habites for countries’.
As a total beginner, you want to focus on having good pronunciation (listening) and recognize the words (reading).
You need to do passive learning first.
It can be difficult to accept as a first time French student who’s eager to just speak French.
(I know it was for me and I wanted to just speak some Korean!) - False assumptions.
Or more precisely, confusion that leads to false assumptions:
The ‘j’habite’ or ‘j’habites’ choice doesn’t depend on whether it’s a man or a woman speaking.
But beginner students will assume things work this way or another, if they aren’t given any guidance learning French.
Fellow French students can answer your questions.
It can be a great way to make connections and find French language partners as a beginner.
The people you can socialize with will roughly be at the same level as yours.
I recommend you ask someone who seems to know a little bit more than you do as a French ‘sparring partner’.
If you two get along, you would be holding yourselves accountable, and keep the motivation going.
When lacking the motivation to do your daily French practice, you’ll be saying to yourself:
‘I don’t want to fail my French language partner!’
Unfortunately the explanations from fellow students aren’t too clear, and they are mostly assumptions.
There is no French tutor to confirm if your assumptions are true or false.
– the last assumption is true though 😉
3 Final Tips to use Duolingo as a beginner
- Make the most of the app by sticking to a regular daily French practice.
What made this app successful is the gamification.
It makes you addicted to learning French, and want to come back for more. - Connect with fellow first time students of French.
This ensures you are not alone in the process.
You can share your doubts and confusion with other students.
Pick someone who’s at the same level as yours, or a little above.
This way you know they’re not going to laugh at you, and save yourself some embarrassment. - Use the app with caution.
The robotic French voice will be the first French words you’ll hear.
Chances are, you want to speak with actual French speakers, not robots 🙂
So your ears are being trained with the wrong intonations to the language.
This can be highly detrimental to your progress, as you want to focus on listening a lot as a beginner.
The translation approach is decent overall but isn’t always great.
Generally no explanation is being given for why your answer is incorrect, which I find highly demotivating as you’re just a beginner.
The focus is on writing French first, whereas the main focus should be on reading and listening as you learn French from scratch.
Starting speaking French means you’ve mastered listening enough to put together great pronunciation with ease.
Without hesitations.
Without ‘building the sentence in your head’, or ‘translating in your head’ from English to French.
Wanna know more about what to do as a beginner?
Check out my beginner’s guide to learning French.
Let me know in the comments what you like/what you hate about Duolingo
– also if like me, you’re somewhere in the middle 🙂