Pain points
Desire for more language options and social features
"I’d love to learn Bulgarian and some other languages that aren’t available yet. It’d be awesome if Bulgarian and some other languages could be added. Also, could we chat with friends on Duolingo? It’d make practicing way easier."
Battery and energy system frustrations
"It’s frustrating when I can’t keep learning just because my battery dies. I wish there was a way around that!"
Ads and subscription pressure
"Love the owl. Just wish that it would be less expensive so it is accessible for more people without the ads."
Inconsistent feature changes and A/B testing
"Users are constantly being used to test new features and app behaviour. Every week the app seems to change the way it handles lesson progression, before silently reverting back again."
Math lesson UI difficulty
"Everything is great on the app except ONE thing on the maths. You have a slider bar to \"estimate\" where a number will be, the only reference you have is 0-100, please add a middle so we have a better answer."
Bugs
App freezing and energy loss during timed tests
"The app keeps ‘sticking’ when using parts of it, usually when testing yourself against the clock. Results in your losing ‘energy’ which is a rare commodity."
Triple XP activation not working offline
"I’m without network. Activated my triple XP. No effect. Also no way to get it back."
Stuck on lessons due to ads and battery charging
"I just charged my battery to full, spent 10 minutes on a lesson and because I got a few wrong it wouldn’t let me finish the lesson. The adverts are becoming heinously intrusive."
Football suit skins bug on iPad
"Great but at the moment the football suits are bugged and do not exist on my iPad."
Praises
Engaging gamified learning experience
"It’s great because you can learn lots of different languages and music chess and much more. It feels more like playing a game than studying."
Effective skill practice across listening, reading, writing, speaking
"The Duolingo App is the only app that gets you to practice the 4 language skills: listening, reading, writing and talking. It makes language learning so easy and fun."
Motivating streaks and daily reminders
"The daily streak keeps me hooked and the reminders push me to keep practicing every day."
Chess learning mode praised
"Really good learning app to learn Chess with. It’s enjoyable and educational."
Positive impact on confidence and fluency
"It helped me learn languages of places I love and made me feel confident speaking."