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Have y'all seen what's happening with
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Dolingo? If you guys don't know, there's
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been a lot of drama with Dolingo
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recently. Dolingo has lost a lot of the
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credibility that it Dolingo is
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successful not because it's a good ass.
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100% not trying to learn a language with
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Dolingo. It's like trying to learn how
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to play guitar with Guitar Hero. I've
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been saying this for 6 years. There's a
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lot of push back. I wonder you know what
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your response is to some of the
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concerns. Duolingo have announced
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they're going to be an AI first company.
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They don't really care about human
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workers. We're going to use AI. You can
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definitely tell there have been hits to
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quality and you're going to learn just
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the same as you've been learning. And I
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had friends who were like, I'm not
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learning anything
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already. It's my family. I'm fighting
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every day.
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So, Duolingo never really worked before
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this. It has been very ineffective at
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teaching languages for the entirety of
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its existence. But recently, they
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announced that it will not just be
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getting worse, but will be absolutely
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terrible. Dualingo has made this app
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more and more progressively useless in
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terms of actual language learning. They
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of course did not use that language.
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Instead going with the language of an AI
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first company, not AI assisted, not AI
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enhanced, just AI first. You don't need
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to speak any other language to know that
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AI first means garbage slop [ __ ] And
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also the price is going up. You're
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paying more for the garbage slop. Like
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where's all my money going? You're not
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adding new lessons. You're not approving
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your courses. A new app has come out
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that has all the best elements of
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Dolingo. Like what? What were the good
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elements of Duolingo? That's like saying
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something includes all the best elements
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of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. What
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were the good elements?
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Uranium. I honestly don't think that
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anyone is talking about the worst
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element of all this. And we're going to
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get to that.
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Hola
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Alice.
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Hola Sally
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tango
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bonita bueno.
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Buenoto is
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um sympathingo has always been known for
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having little mistakes here or there.
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They were always very forgivable because
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it was like ah this is just a small team
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run by some people who really want
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people to get into language learning.
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What? No, like yeah, maybe in the early
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days, but I'm talking like the really
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early days when the people using Dolingo
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were [ __ ] Aztecs. In all seriousness,
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Duolingo has never been a little startup
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who couldn't afford to fix mistakes.
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Even in 2011 when they started, their
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focus has always been on money, and the
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mistakes did not cost them money or did
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not cost them very much money, so they
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didn't fix them and make more money. And
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if you're one of those people who
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thinks, well, no, in the early days they
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kind of have just been focused on money
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because it was completely free, uh, yes,
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they can still have been focused on
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money back then. It's just that they
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have a much longerterm view of how to
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make a lot of money than most of us can
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fathom. We saw exactly the same thing
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with something like Facebook. We all
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know that Mark Zuckerberg is a greedy
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bastard who wants to rule the entire
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world. It's very plain to see, but from
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the early days of Facebook, it was not
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plain to see. It looked like it was
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there to help people connect. But you
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would have to be really stupid to be
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someone who in 2025 looks back at early
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Facebook and goes, "You know what? It
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used to really be about connecting
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people. Now it's just about money." And
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it's exactly the same story with
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Duolingo. It was never about teaching
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the world languages, okay? It was always
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about making billions of dollars. It's
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just that from day one, the best way to
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make billions of dollars was to appear
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to be your friend.
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Dolingo used to be beloved language
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learning tool. Never because it was like
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the most amazing but because it was
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successful at making people do it. I
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think that was always the cell. The cell
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was never hey this is the most effective
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way to learn the language word for word.
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No technically you're right Ludvig. That
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was not the cell. The cell always was
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and still is the world's best way to
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learn a language which is just a little
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bit stronger and I would argue more
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[ __ ] Okay, so we don't need to do
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this again. Duolingo doesn't work now,
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but it actually never really did. I
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showed that in this video here, which
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for obvious reasons, Evan did not like,
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but it doesn't really make what I said
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any less true. But if you didn't watch
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that video, the quick summary of my
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argument is if Dolingo was ever going to
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work in any obscene amount that you want
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to name for any person over any length
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of time anywhere in the world, then it
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would have worked then and there for
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Evan in German. Not like Japanese or
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something, but German. And it would have
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worked if it worked. Let's be honest,
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trying to learn a language with Dualingo
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is like trying to learn how to play
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guitar with Guitar Hero. It is pretty
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close to being that stupid. You will be
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shocked to know that an app that
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includes concepts like weekly
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leaderboards and XP doesn't actually
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care about your fluency in Spanish. Yet
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somehow, I honestly can't believe I'm
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saying this, it's become worse. We can't
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wait until the technology is 100%
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perfect. We'd rather move with urgency
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and take occasional small hits on
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quality. You can definitely tell there
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have been hits to quality. Duolingo's
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dedication to nothing else if not
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shittiness is impressive. Part two, it
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costs a fortune. Here's a quick summary
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of the history of Duolingo's
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monetization model. Originally, it was
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free and it was buil as being free. Then
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it was free with ads and it was buil as
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being free. Then came their first
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premium stage where you could pay not to
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see ads and some other little perks and
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it was build as being free. Then it was
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premium again, but it was kind of pay to
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win or at least pay to not have a really
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crappy experience. And it was built as
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being free. And then it was even more
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pay to win and even more expensive and
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basically unusable if you didn't pay.
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And it was buil as being free.
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Duallingingo is the free, fun, and
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effective way to learn a
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language.
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People have said that they feel guilty
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when they miss a day. Some even cry over
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it because that streak, it starts to
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feel like your identity. Most people
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don't pay for content. They pay to
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protect their streaks. Things like
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streak freezes keep your progress safe
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if you miss a day. If your whole idea of
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success is tied to a streak number,
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which is the goal ever really learning
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in the first place. They don't want to
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be a language learning app. They want to
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be Temple Run. And I'm not paying 20
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bucks or even 10 bucks a month for
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Temple Run. And it was by this stage
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that whenever I made a comment about
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Duolingo, like you know that it didn't
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work, I would get a lot of dumb asses in
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my comments saying, "It's free. Stop
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complaining." News flash. Just because
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technically there is a free way to use
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something does not make $20 a month free
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and it's not even particularly cheap.
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Dualingo have finally removed access to
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the sentence discussions tab entirely. A
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move that inarguably has made the site
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and app worse. In summary, it's a bad
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app that you can't learn a language from
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and it's getting worse and it will cost
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you significant amounts of money for the
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rest of your life. So, I'd like to think
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that there was the opposite of that
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somewhere. Well, someone made that. It's
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called Speakly. I get comments all the
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time about how there are no good
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language learning apps. Like, what are
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we supposed to do without Dolingo?
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There's nothing else. But Speakley, if
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you're actually willing to sit down for
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30 minutes, 45 minutes, an hour a day in
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order to try and learn a language, you
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shouldn't be doing it with Dualingo.
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Speakly is, in my opinion, the best
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language learning app, and it's not even
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close. And it's really cheap. In fact,
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there are bits of it you can do for
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free. And I would not be exaggerating to
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say that I think the free version of
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Speakley is better than any paid tier of
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Duolingo. But what I've been paying for
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Speakley Premium works out to $1.50 a
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month. And that's going down with every
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month because I bought a lifetime
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subscription like 4 years ago. And even
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today in 2025 when a bar of chocolate
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that I'll probably eat in like 7 seconds
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is going to cost me like $19. A lifetime
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subscription to Speakly Premium for life
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costs $70. 70 bucks, one and done. I am
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being perfectly serious when I say that
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if it were four times that much, I don't
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think that would be unreasonable. Now, I
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want you to know that this is sponsored,
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yes, but not in the usual way that
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YouTube sponsorships and affiliations
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work. So, I'm going to put the full
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disclosure on screen. If you want to
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pause it and read it, you're very
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welcome to do that. I genuinely want
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people to read that, but for the people
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who don't, it's just a waste of time.
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So, just pause it while it's here. Now,
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honestly, you can listen to what I have
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to say about it, but what I'd really
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recommend doing is just trying it with a
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7-day free trial, which you can find in
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the description, but here are some of
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the reasons that I think Speakley is the
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very best. Words are taught as though
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they're individual words, but they
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always have context. Meaning that as you
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see them come up multiple times, you
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don't even notice that you're developing
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a very natural sense of how that word is
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used, but also how the rest of the other
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words and the language as a whole is
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used in general. Contrast this with
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learning a single word. Let's say the
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dog in French. And a bad app will just
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go between the English and the French
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like 40 times. It'll just be like the
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dog. The dog the dog the
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dog. Whereas speakley might start out
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with something like my dog is wet, but
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you're only asked what the word for dog
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is. And as you get more advanced, you'll
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be asked more complicated things. This
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is already very in line with what we
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actually know about how languages are
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learned. And I haven't even talked about
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my favorite bit yet, which is the
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listening exercises. But when I say
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listening exercises, I'm not talking
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about
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like no because Speakley is for big boys
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and girls. So a listening exercise is
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anywhere between 3 and 12 minutes of
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good clean audio spoken by an actual
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human on a given topic. And there are
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not questions directly about that
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exercise because your job is not to be
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correct about the language. It is to
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listen to the
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language two.
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So I'm not going to lie, for many of
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you, especially if you're coming
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straight from Duolingo, Speakly will be
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a shock to the system. It doesn't treat
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you like a baby. There will be things
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that you don't understand. That's the
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point. That's how you get better.
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There is one big drawback to the app and
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that is that it doesn't have that many
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languages because quality takes time. If
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it had the language I was learning, I
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would not hesitate for one second. I
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would download it right now. You can do
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that with the link in the description or
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just head to speakley.me. you will get
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the 7-day free trial. So, you can see
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what I'm talking about because you can
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do as much of it as you like in those 7
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days. It's just really, really good. I
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genuinely recommend it. Do it. But
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three, toxic relationships with
00:11:32
Duolingo. I'm probably going to call
00:11:34
this video like Duolingo is finished. Of
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course, it's not right. It's still worth
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like $23 billion, which is honestly
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insane to me. For all the people who did
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commerce in 10th grade at school and
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firmly believe that the best product
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always wins every single time, Duolingo
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had one job. It failed at that job and
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it made $25 billion. And they've done
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this by getting millions and millions of
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people into toxic relationships with
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Duolingo. It never really worked that
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well. It's getting worse. A lot of
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people don't even like using it, but
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they do anyway. And it's costing them
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something that they probably can't
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afford. I don't think that saying some
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people are in a toxic relationship with
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Duolingo is at all a stretch. There are
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actually people who have done Duolingo
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for years only to travel to a country
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that speaks the language that they've
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been trying to learn and not be able to
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literally do or say anything. Some of
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the lessons even feel a bit like Chad
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GPTish, you know, and then they came out
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and said it. We're going to use AI and
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you're going to learn just the same as
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you've been learning. And I had friends
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who were like, I'm not learning anything
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already.
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And honestly, what's the fun of using
00:12:44
Duallingingo if you could just use any
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sort of like open AI, any sort of AI
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program to make your own learning
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course? If it's AI, then what's special
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about it?
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Dualingo knows that it's not good for
00:12:57
its customers. They know that. They know
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that they are not in the business of
00:13:01
teaching language. That's kind of their
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brand now. They're like, "Oh, we're this
00:13:04
self-aware language learning app that
00:13:06
doesn't really teach you a language." I
00:13:08
saw it in a comment somewhere on
00:13:09
YouTube. It said, "Even Duolingo knows
00:13:11
that it's more of a meme than a language
00:13:13
learning app." And that's completely
00:13:15
true. We can see that they've privated
00:13:17
all their Instagram and Tik Tok videos
00:13:19
and they've turned the owl into this
00:13:21
kind of conspiracy theory Occupy Wall
00:13:23
Street kind of character with a third
00:13:25
eye. And at some point, probably quite
00:13:27
soon, they will make their Instagram and
00:13:29
Tik Tok public again. I'm completely
00:13:31
sure of that. They are just openly a
00:13:33
social media drama performance now. and
00:13:36
they know full well that actual language
00:13:39
learners who actually want to learn
00:13:41
languages are not using Dolingo and are
00:13:44
not watching any of this crap. Duolingo
00:13:46
is to language learning as WWE is to
00:13:49
serious combat. Like yes, ostensibly WWE
00:13:53
is fighting and Dolingo is ostensibly a
00:13:56
language learning app. But anyone with
00:13:58
half a brain can see that it's all just
00:14:01
this big media show now. And so if you
00:14:03
would consider yourself a language
00:14:05
learner who is more interested in
00:14:07
learning a language, but you're still
00:14:09
using Duolingo and still getting caught
00:14:11
up in all this drama, then I would argue
00:14:14
that you're in a bit of a toxic
00:14:15
relationship. And yes, I get that that's
00:14:17
a pretty heavy thing to say, but let's
00:14:19
be honest, we're talking about an app,
00:14:21
so it's okay to admit it. I'm sure many
00:14:23
people can identify with. So if I were
00:14:24
you, I would cancel your 500 day streak
00:14:26
because you're better than this. Just
00:14:28
stop. It doesn't matter. It's just a
00:14:31
silly game. you can stop playing. And if
00:14:33
you're learning one of these languages,
00:14:34
then I really would recommend Speakly.
00:14:36
There's also a bunch of other stuff you
00:14:38
can use for those languages and lots of
00:14:40
languages. If you're not learning one of
00:14:42
those languages and you're learning
00:14:43
something else that you want resources
00:14:45
for, leave it in the comments and either
00:14:47
myself or someone else will get back to
00:14:48
you with some resources that you can
00:14:50
use. There's lots of stuff to learn
00:14:52
languages. I have a much shorter video
00:14:54
coming soon about the things that I use
00:14:56
to learn languages. Most of them would
00:14:57
work for literally any language. Get
00:14:59
subscribed and look out for that. We're
00:15:01
done here. Loto.
