[Android 0]

I’ve seen a few of my colleagues ditch Duolingo over recent years, and I can’t blame them. Over the past year alone, Duolingo has changed the goalposts for free users by introducing the energy system, then reshuffling the courses in a way that irked many people. Even before those changes, many users found the UI to be annoying and over-gamified. I’m much more forgiving, but I was curious to find out if Gemini could finally wrestle me free of my extensive Duolingo streak, which is now somewhere between an achievement and a hostage situation.

I’m not setting out to trash the infamous green owl — it gets angry enough if you just miss a lesson. As I explained last year, having used Duolingo daily for years and amassed a monster streak, I still find it a useful learning tool despite its many flaws. But I live in Mexico, and having reached an intermediate level in Spanish, I feel like Duolingo has taken me as far as it can. Handy as it can be as a refresher, it’s repetitive and not particularly well-suited to real-life scenarios. Worst of all, it can’t adapt to my own personal circumstances, such as my particular weaknesses and the type of Spanish I want to learn.