It’s worth noting right away that the audio quality available for each language varies quite a bit. You can listen to the audio as many times as you like, and the turtle icon plays a slowed-down version of the word or phrase. This is one way you’ll practice listening in the app. After selecting a color, you’ll get to hear a voice say the word in the target language. This is an example of an exercise Duolingo uses to teach vocabulary. Mateo and I both found these exercises fun and easy to use. The learner practices each skill through a series of basic exercises. If you’re not ready to take such a big leap, you can also take tests for individual skills to quickly level them up. Luckily, you can get around this by testing out of skills.Ĭompleting checkpoint challenges opens up a new section of skills you can test.

Since there are so many similarities between Italian and Spanish, much of the beginning Italian material was a bit too easy for me, which made the exercises very repetitive. While the progression of the skills feels natural, there may be times when the material doesn’t move as quickly as you’d like it to. The progression of skills is different from language to language, but the progression is mostly intuitive - later skills build on those that come before.

Above are the first skills you see for beginning Chinese. There are “skills” that you can level-up by completing exercises. SkillsĪfter selecting your path, you come across the main Duolingo screen.Īt its core, the way you progress through Duolingo is very straightforward. I managed to get a handful of the questions correct and thought I might just be able to game the system, but Duolingo saw right through me and I was placed at the very beginning.įor both Italian and Chinese I skipped the placement test and started at Greeting 1. I took the placement test for French, despite being a complete beginner, just to see how it worked. The placement test only takes about five minutes and is designed to get harder or easier based on your answers. LessonsĪfter you’ve chosen a language, you have the option to take a placement test or start as a beginner. You can also see right away just how many languages there are to choose from, which got me excited. Mateo hit the nail on the head by saying, “it makes learning feel casual.” There’s nothing too serious about Duolingo, and this is immediately evident.

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