What happened to the Duolingo icon?

NightoftheLemmy@sh.itjust.works to Asklemmy@lemmy.ml – 217 points –

Is it just me or does the Duolingo bird looks sad/old/tired? What happened to the previous icon?

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Duolingo keeps doing mass layoffs, so the bird is overworked. You can help him out by switching to a language learning app that actually helps you learn a language instead of endlessly throwing flash cards at you without teaching you anything! Win win.

I've been working on my Spanish with practice from some of my coworkers and patients. So far Duolingo's "flash cards" have actually been pretty helpful, but I grant that some of the actual "instruction"isn't there. I went from really rudimentary Spanish to being able to conduct a patient evaluation in Spanish as long as it's straight forward.

Everyone shits on Duo but I've found it to be a really helpful practice tool myself.

Anything is better than nothing. This is true. But that doesn't mean you aren't wasting your time on something that does the bare minimum.

What app do you recommend? I've seen good progress with duolingo since I upgraded to premium but I'm willing to try something different

Language Transfer has been highly recommended in the past. I’ve only gotten through two lessons so far, but it seems like a good place to start, at least. It doesn’t have anywhere near as many languages as Duolingo does, though.

Busuu is much better. It feels like it actually tries to teach you the language in an efficient way, instead of teaching you useless phrases like "my owl never paints" and waisting your time

I mean Duolingo does not teach you to memorize that phrase. It teaches you the structure of the language and words so you can start making phrases on your own

Edit: didn't mean to sound to dismissive, I'll give it a try, thanks for the recommendation

I would also recommend getting a textbook and using a flash card program like anki to memorize words. Apps like that have an incentive to keep you from ever getting good enough at the language that you might stop using the app. They can be a good tool but they won't get you where you want to be on their own, especially not in a time efficient manner.

Absolutely wild thing to say. The time it takes for someone to learn a language enough to delete an app, especially an adult is so astronomical that there's no reason for apps to try and stop you from learning the language.

I really wouldn't describe a few years as astronomical. And that's how long it takes to actually learn a language. You might delete the app a few months into it and switch to other methods if you were actually progressing quickly. The longer you stay on the app, the better chance they have of tricking you into spending money on it. I'm definitely not the first person to notice this. People have been talking about it for years.

Changing the Duolingo icon to look sad, old, and wrinkled is a strategy to make users curious, so they open the app to see if there are new updates or content. In other words, Duo is only trying to get your attention.

This tactic is rooted in the psychological effect known as the "novelty effect," where new stimuli can temporarily increase engagement and motivation. Snapchat similarly employs this strategy with the red dot and yellow dot on the Bitmoji.

It just reminded me how long it had been since I'd launched it so I just uninstalled it lmao

Yep. I figured this is what had happened and it definitely worked on me. 🙃

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Makes sense. My partner was showing it to me "see? It's probably because I've got notifications muted" unmutes notifications, "no that isn't it" then I suggested they complete a lesson to see if it changed and it still didn't, so she put it away. Later I heard that the app notified her that two of her friends congratulated her for starting to again.

It's a cute program, but wow does it hector people.

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It's my fault, y'all. I'm sorry.

I recently started using Duolingo to learn Spanish, and it's clinically proven I ruin everything I touch, so I think I'm killing the bird...

Can you do the whole world a favour and go to the Kremlin?

Just rent a Cesna and fly straight there, they don't stop you.

Oh, I thought it's because I stopped opening it daily and broke my streaks lol

I've been opening it daily and I thought duo was just tired of my bad Japanese...

It must feed on the blood of oppressed immigrants trying to learn English or it's immortality will cease

Duo has lost all will to live now that his landscape of progress is a single, non-branching path.

Not just you, it's the same on Android. Maybe related to April Fools?

Just checked and the last update for Android was on April 3rd. I can't confirm it but I think this happened.after the first.

Duolingo became old cuz everyone forgot about them. Tragic ;-;

Duo está cansado y viejo.

I love how (apart from endless commentary on apples) the main thing it likes to focus on first is all about what trabajo does to you.

Como hispanohablante nativo, le están dando un cortocircuito a mi cerebro, pierdo mi sentido de la orientación en la internet, derrepente ya no se si estoy en feddit.cl (chile) o en el resto de lemmy.

😵‍💫😵‍💫😵‍💫

Jaja a mí también, es muy inusual ver a otro hispanohablante fuera de feddit.cl o eslemmy.es

Omg! Como un estudiante mal de Español (y solo Duolingo), estoy muy emocionada porque entiendes mis palabras!!! Soy de New Zealand, solo entiendo un poco de tu hablo. Hola y kia ora!

It is somewhat estrange but definitely understandable, for me, one of the best ways i had to get better at English was to join and be active in English-speaking communities, so probably the same can work with you.

idk what's "kia ora" tough, is a NZ native thing?

Yes, it's from the Maori language, but is widely used by everyone. It just means "hi" (literally, have life/health).

I like trying to read the Español but I don't think my understanding is good enough to speak yet!

El idioma es como un músculo, nunca serás bueno si no lo practicas, apóyate de un motor de traducción si así lo prefieres, pero no llegaras mágicamente o solo con teoría a un buen nivel sin empezar ahora.

Gracias por esto. Sí, claro, eres cierta!! Soy viejo y mi cabeza no es buena aprender ahora - soy demasiado veijo tiener "músculos idioma" grandes ahora, es verdad! Pero yo estudio para divertido, y intento. Gracias para hables conmigo!

(To be honest I am very surprised at how much I have learned from Duolingo!)

I'm tired, boss. Tired of bein' on the the app store, wantin' to be lonely as an owl in the rain. I'm tired of always havin' people annoying me, tellin' me to give them new words. Mostly, I'm tired of people never memorizin' the vocabulary. I mean, how many times can I give you "Cómo estás?" before you finally remember what it means, Cletus?

There's too much misremembered - it's like pieces of glass in my head, all the time, I've fed you the entire Spanish lexicon ten times, and you've learned three words. Can you understand?

They recently added some unlockable graphics for the widget. Nothing major.

Guess they changed the icon just for the hell of it while they were at it.

It’s freaking tired of reminding everyone to practice, yet very few people do it regularly

“You mean he’s getting old!?” -Matt, Eddsworld Zanta Claws III

I like duolingo, would recommend.

Whyyyy... I have 147 days streak on Duolingo.

Sorry to flex but...

How many languages you speak fluently?

Just english my native tongue. I have been learning for fun, only doing one lesson a day during my morning shit and admittedly dont do any supplemental learning (ie. Writing down phrases after lessons or trying to recall new words outside of lessons).
So i have a good 'streak' going, but i am far off being able to speak a second language (the latter being much less impressive).

The app says i have finished CEFR A1, if i was to believe them.