If you use Duolingo but struggle to get fluent

Do you have a daily streak on Duolingo or a similar language app? Are you motivated to learn on it, but you just can't get fluent, or can't get past the conversational stage? If that's you, this is for you.

It takes more than a language app to get fluent, because you think in a different way when you're playing a game on your phone than when you're talking to someone in real life. When you're filling in blanks, you have time to think and can see what's in front of you. When you're talking to a native speaker, you're a bit anxious, you want to say the right thing and you're more scared of making mistakes. On the app, if you make a mistake you lose a heart, it's not too bad. That means you're less likely to try when you're speaking to a real person.

I'm James, I'm a native English speaker, and I help people reach a conversational level in a different language.

What Duolingo is good for

When people think "I want to learn a language", they go straight to Duolingo, and it's perfect to get started. There's a lot of banter online about whether it's actually good. The truth is it is good for teaching you the absolute basics: hello, how are you, what's your name, where do you live. It gives you some exposure to the language and gets you used to what it feels like.

It's also a game, with a daily streak, which is really good for motivation. One of the biggest reasons people fail to learn a language is they quit after not seeing enough progress. Motivation gets you started. You see a film in Spanish, download Duolingo, and four weeks later, like people at the gym, it gets a bit boring and you haven't seen your progress as quickly as you thought.

Duolingo is really good for staying disciplined. Discipline is doing something even when you don't want to. If you're lying in bed at 11:30 at night with a 40-day streak, you get your phone out and do one exercise just to keep that owl quiet.

The issue is you're doing it to maintain it, not really to progress. It might let you ask for the Wi-Fi password or where the toilet is, which is really good. But if you want to get conversational or fluent, Duolingo itself is not enough. You need to train your mind to have conversations with native speakers.

Do it as well as, not instead of

I'm not saying have a conversation with a native speaker instead of Duolingo. I'm saying use it as well. Duolingo teaches you the basics so you're not completely silent in front of a native speaker. If I said "speak Spanish now" and you've just downloaded Duolingo, you'd say "hello" and not know what else. It gets you past that point.

The issue comes when a native speaker says something to you. They're not going to have perfect pronunciation, like me in English. I've got quite a northern accent and some people find it hard to understand me. Native speakers don't always speak as slowly as the speakers on Duolingo, so to get to the next level you need exposure to actual people. A few ways to get it:

• An online platform like Preply, where you pay someone, from about £5 an hour up to £20 or £50 depending on how much you want.
• Apps like Tandem, where you talk to normal native speakers, not teachers.
• Language exchanges, where you spend half an hour speaking English in exchange for them speaking Spanish with you. It doesn't cost anything, because the time is equal.

If you're on a daily streak doing Duolingo for 10 minutes, or even five, add this on top. Maybe on Tuesday evening from 7 till 9 you go to a language exchange in the city, or you book three half-hour lessons online at around $4 for half an hour. If you really want to get conversational, dedicate some time to it.

Make sure you do things you enjoy, and talk about things you enjoy. You could ask an AI tool for 30 common words and phrases related to football in Spanish, memorise them before you have a conversation, and have them on your phone while you speak. They might not be in the right order or grammatically correct, but it's a start, and the more you say them the more you won't need your phone.

Add some passive listening

There are lots of moments in your lifestyle where you could add this. We all travel, to work or the gym or picking the kids up from school. I spend half an hour or more each way driving to work. Instead of music or the radio, swap it for a podcast or YouTube video in your target language. Duolingo has a Spanish podcast, and most languages have one on Spotify.

Ideally it's 100% in your target language. You don't have to understand every word. It's about hearing the intonation, how things sound and the patterns, and your mind will naturally pick it up. We're programmed to understand new languages so we're more connected with what's going on around us. It works as a survival mechanism: if we know what's going on, we know if there's any danger. So our brain naturally wants to understand a language whether or not we want it to.

It has to be something you enjoy, because otherwise you'll give up after a while and switch back to the radio. Be honest with yourself. If you want it to be sustainable, you have to enjoy it to some extent, and trust me it'll pay off. The first four to eight weeks you don't see much progress. You are progressing, because your mind is absorbing the content, but it won't come to the surface until after a bit of time.

A word on what it teaches you

There's a lot of banter and memes that Duolingo teaches you random stuff like "the table is on the umbrella". It's not always 100% accurate either. If you're learning to be informal, I've noticed on Spanish it might say "usted", which is really formal. I got caught out using it at a house party. My friend said, "James, that's super formal, it's like speaking to a professor." I didn't know I'd learned that from Duolingo.

The way around that is exposure outside it, to podcasts or native speakers. Then you'll think on Duolingo, "I've heard natives say this other option, and that one's more colloquial."

To summarise

• Duolingo is great as a starting point, great to get going instead of saying "I'll do it tomorrow", which never happens.
• It's good for learning discipline with the daily streak.
• It has limits. You can't get fluent just by using it alone.
• Your mind works differently when you're generating answers and deciding what to say to natives in real life. If you train your brain for the hardest thing, you'll be more used to it than the easiest thing. If you only do Duolingo you'll get a bit better, but you'll never get fluent.