• Motivation for the Switch:

  • Growing frustration with Duolingo's excessive gamification, recent course overhauls, and the restrictive energy system for free users prompted the search for a flexible alternative.

• Setting Up a Custom Gemini Tutor:

  • Created a dedicated custom Gemini Gem instructed to act as a personal Spanish tutor rather than using generic pre-made templates.
  • Prompted the AI to first evaluate the author's current proficiency across grammar, vocabulary, reading, and conversation before building a tailored, progressive study plan.

• Strengths Over Duolingo:

  • Personalized & Dynamic Learning: Functions like an interactive workbook overseen by a patient tutor, explaining exact mistakes and adapting future lessons based on performance.
  • Deeper Focus & Understanding: Teaches brief concepts prior to exercises rather than throwing users straight into repetitive matching puzzles, requiring real engagement instead of mindless tapping.

• Limitations & Areas for Improvement:

  • Audio & Listening Gaps: Lacks the seamless built-in listening comprehension tools of dedicated language apps, making audio-first drills clunky.
  • UI/UX Friction: Minor interface issues (such as text overflow requiring horizontal scrolling) show it is not natively designed from the ground up as a specialized language app.

• Verdict:

  • Gemini serves as a highly capable, adaptive, and customizable language tutor that easily outperforms Duolingo in depth and flexibility, provided the user is willing to manage the lack of native audio drills.

It wasn't very interactive

I was a subscriber of Duolingo specifically for Cymraeg until about a year ago. Updates, while they seemed nice, seemed to keep putting me farther back than my previous level, and spending 20 to 30 minutes a day didn't seem to be getting me anywhere. Ultimately I gave up on Duolingo in favor of Say Something in Welsh which seemed to be a bit more challenging and improved my spoken grasp of the language. Now I need to spend some more time with some of the finer points of the grammar, but Duolingo really isn't the best place for that either.

Anecdotally, it seems like a lot of the movement on some languages on Duolingo was taking advantage of free labor of volunteers. Duolingo seemed to be getting a lot of help on the Cymraeg front which they may not be getting now and this may be a play for financial support that they probably don't really need given the usage they're seeing. Given my experience with the app and where they've placed their resources in the past, I'm actively suspicious of their motivations.

https://welshclass.wales/podcast%2Fpodlediad

https://duome.eu/chrisaldrich/progress

Duolingo progress with words and grammar tabs

Have you thought about crowdsourcing localization via weblate? It includes DeepL and can also be a learning ground, such as Duolingo Immersion.

https://forum.artofmemory.com/t/what-language-s-are-you-studying/73190

I've been studying Welsh on and off now for just over a year.

I've been using a mix of Duolingo for it's easy user interface and it's built in spaced repetition. I like the way that it integrates vocabulary and grammar in a holistic way which focuses on both reading, writing, and listening.

However, I've also been using the fantastic platform Say Something in Welsh. This uses an older method of listening and producing based teaching which actually makes my brain feel a bit tired after practice. The focus here is solely on listening and speaking and forces the student to verbally produce the language. It's a dramatically different formula than most high school and college based courses I've seen and used over the years having taken 3 years of Spanish, 2 of French, and 2 of Latin.

The set up consists of the introduction of a few words which are then used in a variety of combinations to create full sentences. The instructors say a sentence in English and the listener is encouraged in just a few seconds to attempt to produce it in the target language (Welsh, in my case), then the instructor says the sentence in Welsh with a pause for the student to repeat it properly, another instructor says it in Welsh with a pause for a third repeat. This goes on for 20 to 30 minutes at a time. The end result is that the learner gets into the language much more quickly and can begin both understanding the spoken language as well as produce it much more rapidly than older school based methods (at least in my experience, though I have known some college language labs to use a much more limited version of a similar technique). Each lesson adds new material, but also reviews over older material in a spaced repetition format as well so you're always getting something new mixed in with the old to make new and interesting sentences for conversation.

SSiW also has modules for Manx, Cornish, Dutch, and Spanish.

I find that the two done hand in hand has helped me produce much faster results in language acquisition in an immersive manner than I have done previously and with much less effort.

https://blog.duolingo.com/plus-family-plan/

Educator resource kit

singular

from Latin insanus, from in- 'not' + sanus 'healthy'.

Source: http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/insane

If you get this after you achieve your daily goal, today will not count towards the Double or Nothing streak.