Studying languages in college? USE THIS FIRST.

If I could give this app 7 or 8 stars I would.

Ive been using Duolingo since 2013, when I was a junior in undergrad. My college didnt offer many of the languages I wanted to study, so I was trying to learn Turkish and Russian, as well as French (which I didnt have time to take formally) on my own and via practice with friends. I continued doing Duolingo French for a few years and can now read academic texts with little difficulty, despite having no formal experience studying the language. But thats not what I want to tell you about. Heres the important part:

Duolingo Turkish came out in the spring of 2015, the year I graduated and began grad school at UT-Austin. Over spring and summer breaks of that year, I completed the Duolingo Turkish course. This course put me at such a high level that when I took my language exam at UT, I tested into the second-year course, despite having no formal experience. My ability to test into a Turkish class this way gave me the necessary coursework to apply for (and receive) a FLAS Fellowship to Istanbul in the summer of 2016. While I was in Istanbul, I also completed the Russian course that came out late 2015, which allowed me to reach a high enough level of proficiency that I am now auditing a second-year, second-semester Russian course at UT. I couldnt have done any of that without Duolingo, and I owe the green owl a major debt of gratitude.

So if you want to study a language in college and Duolingo has it, USE DUOLINGO FIRST! Itll help immensely in developing necessary grammar structures for getting into higher classes so you can worry less about complicated grammar and focus more on confident speaking skills (since, admittedly, that is one of Duolingos biggest weaknesses). Itll also help for applying to scholarships, since itll show people that youre independently motivated to learn the languages. Take it from me--I got FLAS last year, and Im going to Tajikistan on CLS this summer.

In conclusion, why are you still reading this? Start using Duolingo right now if you havent already! You wont regret it!

HardRockGuru about Duolingo Learn Many Languages for Free, v5.0.14