It's a great way to start, and a great way to practice certain skills that are perhaps less oiled. I read foreign papers, listen to foreign music, and watch foreign films but that only helps so much with the actual speaking part of language. To those complaining of DuoLingo shortcomings, remember it's a part of language learning and not a one-stop-shop.
Practicing tricky conjugations and endings for languages is where DuoLingo is of most use to me, such that I keep up with my "language feel" so on-the-fly speaking isn't as mentally taxing. The times where I have taken extended breaks from DuoLingo would always end in my feeling as though I was getting rusty and not able to properly speak.
Also, thank you to whomever added the "leaderboard" feature to DuoLingo. Really brings out my competitiveness such that I now do something like 300 lessons per week as opposed to doing maybe 50 per week back in the day. Love when apps do things like that, helping me help myself.
Practicing tricky conjugations and endings for languages is where DuoLingo is of most use to me, such that I keep up with my "language feel" so on-the-fly speaking isn't as mentally taxing. The times where I have taken extended breaks from DuoLingo would always end in my feeling as though I was getting rusty and not able to properly speak.
Also, thank you to whomever added the "leaderboard" feature to DuoLingo. Really brings out my competitiveness such that I now do something like 300 lessons per week as opposed to doing maybe 50 per week back in the day. Love when apps do things like that, helping me help myself.