About a month ago, I wrote that I was using Duolingo. I wanted to not only brush up on my French but to — gasp — actually learn more of it. I was only three days into it at the time and already mired down in repetitive monotony. It was so bad, I wondered if I was doing something wrong. “It can’t be like this,” I thought. To that end, it wasn’t just me. I ran across this forum post:

With the latest update the course has become repetitive and boring. to get your 5th crown even in basic which I am sure will become far worse in the higher levels. It takes answering 384 questions that are virtually the same from beginning to end in order to get your 5th crown on that level.

Yes! Exactly! Except that by my estimate, there were more than one thousand questions required to get that fifth crown. I got curious about the actual number one day, so I began to meticulously record stats while completing the “Habits” skill.

Each Duolingo skill is made up of six levels (zero through five) and then each level has an increasing number of lessons (from five to twenty five) and each lesson contains a varying number of questions (from around ten to sixteen). I have not yet finished this meticulous test, which is why I can only estimate there were more then one thousand. If I ever post Duolingo Part Three, hopefully I’ll have an answer.

But it did confirm that repetition is, indeed, repetitive.

Each day I watch TV.
They watch TV every day.
Every day they watch TV.
She watches TV every day.
He watches TV every day.

I continued to read the forum post:

The real problem with this switch over to Crowns is the gamification aspect to it all. So many people seem to view duolingo as a game rather than a tool to learn a language.

Yes! Exactly! Granted, no one installed Duolingo to simply play a game. We all came here to either brush up on a language or — gasp — actually learn a language. But once we arrive, the “game” is hard to ignore. You get a Crown for each skill level you complete. As you complete all five levels, the app displays your progress in a ring, a la Apple Watch. (And everyone knows if you don’t close your rings, you’ve fallen short as a human being.) You’re also rewarded with an in-game currency which you can use to buy stuff.

And best (or worst) of all, there’s a leaderboard. When you begin using that app, you’re placed in a Bronze group with 49 fellow Duolingers. If you do well, you move up to Silver. If you do well in Silver, you move to Gold or back down to Bronze if you do exceptionally poorly. In my first week, I came in first place:

While having a leaderboard is likely meaningless to some people, for me, this is now a competition. I can’t just answer questions about French. I must win French.

“So how’s that bad?” you might ask. “Isn’t wanting to score more points going to get you to use the app more and therefore learn more?”

I’m glad you asked. The answer is yes and no. Sure, I’m definitely using the app more to maintain my so-called status. (I also finished in first place my second week; I placed second in both my third and fourth weeks.) But, ironically, “using the app” and “learning a language” are not synonymous terms. More on that in a second.

In that same forum post, someone else sagely added:

So strange to me that people are complaining [ . . . ]. If you don’t like the crowns, just ignore them. If you start a lesson and it is too repetitive, for goodness sakes, just go on to the next one.

A bright yellow lightbulb appeared in the air over my head. Just go on to the next one. Brilliant. Why answer the same one thousand questions over and over and over? Getting five crowns is absolutely meaningless. When it begins to painfully repeat, just go on to the next one.

So I did. Three crowns was about 40% of the work of five crowns. And two crowns was less than 25% of the work for five! This meant I could now build XP faster and more easily keep my top positions in the leaderboard. And this is why using the app and learning a language are not equivalent. Because I started finding ways to game the system and to forget why I was here in the first place.

In that vein, someone else even more sagely replied:

Strange as it may seem, [ . . . ] I’m here solely to learn Spanish as a language.
Lingots, Crowns, Streaks, XP are all meaningless to me.

This guy gets it. I understand why Lingots and Crowns are in the “game.” Prizes give users a feeling of progress. Heck, who doesn’t love a trophy? But when the pursuit of the trophy causes you to stray from the path, then it’s time for the trophies to go.

Unfortunately, I can say these words but I haven’t yet internalized them. I’d talk more about it, but I’ve slipped out of the #2 spot this week and I have to go figure out how to build XP faster. Bye!