100 days of Japanese on Duolingo
Today I officially hit a 100 day streak of learning Japanese on Duolingo. I'm proud of the accomplishment, but at the same time, not feeling incredibly motivated to continue. While I plan to keep going, I've identified some pain points that I need to address going forward.
The gamification is too much
I'm fine with keeping up a streak, but Duolingo layers on levels of gamification. Right now, I'm in the semifinals of the Diamond Tournament. When I last stopped using Duolingo, they had just introduced the league system. When I started learning Japanese, I didn't care too much about progressing in the leagues. However, my motivation to learn the language gave me plenty of XP to easily reach Diamond League.
Now, as I'm getting deeper into Japanese and the lesson are getting harder, I'm struggling to keep up. I want to win the Diamond Tournament now that I'm close, but I also dread the upcoming grind. I hope, once I finish the tournament, I can go back to not caring about the leagues.
New lessons aren't sticking
This relates to the earlier gamification problem. Each unit is throwing new vocabulary and sentence structures at me, and I'm not able to absorb everything before moving on to the next level.
Why? It's all about the double XP bonuses.
To really get the most XP and stay at the top of the league, you have to effectively stack XP bonuses. This involves doing at least one lesson in the morning and evening every day to get the Early Bird and Night Owl XP chests. Then, each completed level grants double XP for 15 minutes.
I feel pressured to grind levels in order to get XP bonuses, so I'm "faking my way" through new concepts instead of taking my time understanding what I'm learning. It's all about doing as much as possible within 15 minutes to get the next bonus.
Also, XP bonuses only exist in the mobile app. This deters me from using the website. I think if I used the website I would consult other resources more often.
This is really a problem of my own making, I know, but also, it's the way this app was designed. Duolingo is created to generate maximum engagement to sell subscriptions and generate ad revenue, not to teach you a language.
I can't read
The first section forces you to learn hiragana and katakana to progress, and it's not exactly a fun time. You're finishing units and then you're hit with doing 15 or so hiragana/katakana lessons. You don't get any XP bonuses for these lessons. Because the writing system lessons aren't similarly rewarded, it feels like a slog.
Once the first section is finished, there are no more forced writing system roadblocks, but there's still an unstated expectation that you'll keep up with those lessons and move on to kanji for each unit.
Again, my bad for not finishing the hiragana and katakana lessons and starting with kanji, but it's honestly not emphasized. It feels like an afterthought within the app.
Not everything is bad
Even with these problems, I still actually do like learning with Duolingo! While I feel like the program could use more grammar instruction, I kind of like figuring it out for myself by parsing out sentences. Duolingo feels designed to give you those "aha!" moments when something finally clicks. This is opposed to more traditional learning methods, where you learn a concept, then implement what you learned.
Personally, I learn best with "aha!" moments. It's one reason why I love tinkering with things and strange programming problems. I also enjoy the pattern recognition skills that I get to use with this type of learning. Getting the language thrown at me feels like the most engaging way for me to learn, even when it's temporarily frustrating.
Supplementing with other resources
I'm to a point where I really do want more information on Japanese grammar. I do worry that if I continue making assumptions based on parsing out sentences, I'm going to make some wrong assumptions that will become ingrained.
For learning kanji, I found WaniKani. WaniKani is a resource specifically geared towards learning kanji and vocabulary. While I'm still trying to progress with hiragana/katakana, I know that I need to get a jump start on kanji as well, and this resource is highly recommended.
For learning grammar, I found Bunpro. I'm really enjoying Bunpro. WaniKani and Bunpro emphasize slower learning and spaced repetition. Bunpro in particular warns about trying to learn too much at once. This is contrary to Duolingo's attention-based approach.
My favorite part of Bunpro is how each lesson is broken down to really teach the quirks of Japanese grammar. If Bunpro's explanation isn't enough, there are additional resources linked at the bottom of each lesson. Before finding Bunpro I spent some time trying to read Imabi and Tae Kim, which are both excellent grammar resources, but they're a lot to take in all at once. I'm finding them much more useful linked to actual grammar lessons.
I also enjoy that Bunpro quizzes require typing in answers as opposed to using a word bank. I feel like I use the Duolingo word bank too much as a crutch.
Bunpro also offers additional "decks" (courses), and I've added on a vocabulary course as well. I do feel like I might end up overdoing it with new vocabulary, but I'm taking Bunpro at a much slower pace than Duolingo.
An additional resource that I'm interested in is MaruMori, which is a newer site that aims to be an all-in-one resource for learning Japanese. It aims to replace Duolingo, Bunpro, WaniKani, and Anki (a flashcard app). However, I'm not looking to replace Duolingo, and I also don't want to restart from the beginning. Also, MaruMori only offers a 14-day free trial, vs. the 30-day trials of Bunpro and WaniKani. (Bunpro also has a totally free option.) While I think MaruMori looks interesting (and beautifully crafted), I think I'll stick with the other options for now.
I've also looked at textbooks like Genki, which are highly recommended, but at $40 per textbook, plus an additional workbook, I kind of want to see how I fare with the online options.
The next 100 days
I'm going to be switching up my tactics a bit. I'm going to emphasize grammar over blindly following Duolingo's lead. I'm only a few days in with Bunpro and WaniKani, but I plan to utilize those resources more as I continue with Duolingo. Instead of blindly memorizing patterns as I'm doing now, I'm going to take the time to learn the grammar rules behind the patterns.
My current progress
- Section 2: Explorer, Unit 10. There are 18 total units in section 2.
- This means I've completed 15 units out of a total of 143 units over 6 sections (section 7 has 6 levels, unknown if those are "units").
- 87216 total XP (this goes back to 2014).
- 11 top 3 finishes (I think this also counts all language courses).
- Average 352.88 XP per day (just for Japanese).
- Most XP in a day: 1928 (Feb. 10, 2024).