Have any of you become fluent or close to fluent on Duolingo?

[Gopackers02]

I’m trying to learn Spanish since my job right now is 95% Spanish. I’m tired of using the translator app too in order to make friends. I know basic words like baño , donde, corazón, etc but I want to become fluent where I can visit Spanish countries and talk to locals you know. So if you did use Duolingo how long did it take you to become good enough at Spanish or any other language?

[purplepoppy]

I'm not Spanish but we get a lot of people moving here to Wales who use the Duolingo app to learn the language so I've quite a bit of experience dealing with learners.

Duolingo is good and will give you a grasp of the basics but it doesn't always make things clear. For example,

It teaches several dialects at once, this could be a problem in Spain like it is here. Worse still it doesn't tell you where each dialect is spoken. Learners tend to blend the different words and grammar together. I know the Spanish can be sensitive about this.

It doesn't give proper context to words, for example, we have two words for "before" but Duolingo doesn't explain when to use each one and that confuses learners.

The feedback I get from learners is duolingo gives them enough to read and write and speak basic sentences but they struggle to understand spoken replies especially when a lot of slang or colloquial language is used. Duolingo is a good starting point but it won't make you fluent and you'd benefit from having a native speaker guide you through the course.

[Gopackers02]

Thank you for your comment it was very helpful. Yes I saw on a video where it compares the different types of vocabulary common in each country. Like the word bus is said differently depending where you go. Luckily at my job some people are helpful and giving me pointers on learning. The one thing I struggle with is the sentence structure, it’s different from English and the sentence structure also comes in play when speaking as well. But my friends at my job who are learning English say they use Duolingo and they’re pretty good not going to lie like one girl there is perfectly fluent like she has some errors but that’s normal. So I’ll finish the lesson on Duolingo and see where I am after that but apparently it’s really long lol. Especially after seeing how long the Korean course is it’s like 3 trophies or lessons and for Spanish they say it takes 4-6 months to finish

[purplepoppy]

What I tell learners here who struggle with sentence structure is to forget the Welsh words and try and a speak English using welsh word order. E. g. "Went John to the shop." or instead of "John has two blue balls" say "there are two balls blue with John". Some people like to do it in Yoda's accent. Try it with Spanish word order but using your languages words, it'll soon feel natural.

[katiesmuff]

You should have taken advantage in high school and taken 2 - 4 years of Spanish like so many of my friends and myself did.

[Gopackers02]

I wanted to but my counselor thought other classes were more important 😒 but I should’ve though