I've yet to try Super Duolingo. But I've also been tapering off my usage as they keep forcing to use the word bank instead of keyboard at an increasing rate. I've no desire to use the word bank, they seem to have no desire to let me use the keyboard. Unless that's buried in one of the premium options I see the writing on the wall.

Interesting, I am a Super Duolingo subscriber but I don't think that's one of the features. Anywhere I'm inputting a sentence I think I get the keyboard option, maybe I'm misremembering, but I do a lot of typing on my Japanese keyboard when I study.

They were clearly doing some A/B testing a while back based on sporadic complaints on r/duolingo. At some point I noticed it had solidified. The current setup is if the drill is target language to host language, you'll always get word bank. If it's host language to target language it'll push you towards word bank but you have a subtle thing to click on that brings back the keyboard. Sometimes it's called "make harder" or sometimes "use keyboard" (vs "make easier" and "use word bank")

Try supplementing Duolingo with Anki / Ankidroid. Every word that I learn in Duolingo, I put into Anki. I do all my reviews in Ankidroid on a small E-Ink device but it's actually designed for phones.

You can configure Ankidroid to require you to spell the words properly.

Also worth checking out something like Clozemaster.

Thank you, this looks great.

If you enrol in the classroom version of Duo (which I originally did to get back the old style tree) it is firstly, free. Secondly - you can be a single participant. Thirdly - no ads. I even forgot there were ads because I haven't seen one since I enrolled - in eluding the annoying self promotion ads for Super Duolingo. I have a 1631 streak at the moment, so it is saving me quite a bit of time not seeing ads. It is not my loop hole, so I guess it is just something I found by accident.

>the explain your answer is something I'm really interested in to help me understand the sentences I'm constructing

They used to have an army of native-speaking volunteers to do this for free in the comments. I guess this is why they turned those off.

Usually that decision is driven by the cost of moderating/deleting abusive content quickly enough in order to not get banned from use in schools...

Maybe I'm wrong, but I would not be surprised if forum moderation was a volunteer activity. Even core functionality like developing the lessons, for less popular languages, was done by the Duo community and given very little support from paid staff.

Yes, but moderating and screening for abusive content can't reliably left to unpaid volunteers if it needs to be good enough not to scare off parents and educators. I remember that this was the death knell to a Lego online game: People were making genitals quicker and more inventively than anybody could keep up.

In education technology, many seem to hope to get that from AI: the helpfulness of a forum of volunteers without the abuse. The rise of the "unsocial network".

They still have the forum style "help me out", but there are some where the responses are really a huge miss where I could see this AI helping out more by giving better answers.

I also use it daily but I'm a bit worried I won't concentrate as much if I have unlimited hearts, have you noticed any decline in recall? But yes, the ads are super annoying... especially the same one to upgrade Duolingo puts in every time!

> I'm a bit worried I won't concentrate as much if I have unlimited hearts, have you noticed any decline in recall?

I did a trial and I noticed I spend more time with the App when I had unlimited hearts, so I got through more lessons a day. Less attention to a single question, but a lot more time spent on the app.

And that when it comes to actual recall, the mistakes don't count when it comes to learning. I don't really learn by recalling information, I learn by having stuff shoved into my brain with Spaced repetition.

The unlimited hearts thing fed the repetition cycle a lot more.

Just starting my second paid year - I didn't put up with the adverts for long.

Works far better for me without the hearts. Less time staring at sentences trying to make them perfect - more quick failing, learning why, iterating and drilling it into my head.

Also much more likely to spend longer in the app, maybe a couple of times a week.

After a few months of Duolingo you should move onto comprehensible input for learning. Your Duolingo subscription is holding you back

That's a new term for me, but after researching it, it makes sense. What are your preferred sources of comprehensible input. After a few months on Duolingo I still find TV shows to mostly not be comprehensible, so not productive.

Dreaming Spanish is well reported for Spanish learners. For other languages it is harder to find something.

You're over-estimating my intellect...

I do occasionally get through some french youtube with subs and I'm getting better at roughly following - I'm not just relying on Duo. (I also have a grammar book to hand as well)

what’s comprehensible input? (ah. googled. makes sense. )

I think any serious user should be using unlimited hearts. You learn by making mistakes.

I have found that it works better for me not have unlimited hearts. I make my mistakes, and in I am not ready on a level then I have to repeat it. And either way I then do practice rounds to fill my hearts back up to full (I try to always leave the app with full hearts).

In the times I have had SuperDuolingo for free Have been annoyed that I can just keep plowing through mistakes (really: lack of knowledge), and don't have to really learn things before moving on with them... I just have to guess right once for each question.

But I do agree that DuoLingo is all about learning by making mistakes. I wish they had a bit more focused teaching for grammar, at least it would help me with the Hungarian. For a few items I have had to go outside the app for lessons on what I am just not getting by repetition.

You learn by making mistakes.

Amen

I haven't, but I got sick of the ads pretty quickly and have been signed up for super for most of my ~10 month streak.

I try to spend 10-20 mins a day on it (learning Spanish) and actually do a lot of the "review" lessons which are good at drilling words. I am often surprised by my recall at phrases that I haven't seen in a while -- pretty sure they use the spaced repetition type algorithms.

My challenges now aren't so much on vocab/recall, but on verb conjugation and sentence construction / structure. I kind of know what to say but have trouble putting it together.

What I need to do is practice more actually speaking Spanish and interacting with Spanish speakers -- I had planned to spend a few months living somewhere in Hispanic America, but the 3 day-a-week RTO at my job has trashed that. I'll probably just have to settle for Skype-based chats/lessons.

Depending on where you live, there may be hispanohablantes nearby too

I haven't even noticed ads using uBO.

They're a lot more intrusive on the mobile app

I've had success blocking the ads using a pi-hole. You still see ads for Duolingo Super and other in-house offerings, but the obnoxious video ads go away.

Yes, should have added more detail, I was talking specifically about my experience on the mobile app

ditto