I reached the end of Japanese course about a month ago and have continued to practice daily. Here are my thoughts:
* Many of the English translations don't seem like idiomatic English. Sometimes I think it is even grammatically incorrect. This has made me worried about some of the Japanese not being super great as well. With other people chiming in about how languages they already knew having this problem, it doesn't look great.
* I agree with numbers. They way Duolingo handles numbers, days, months, etc is to me worse than the traditional way. It took a long time to get decent at numbers, and I screw them up a bit. I don't know any of the days of the week, but I know what day of the week words look like. They only ever include one day of the week word it the word bank, so you never actually have to learn.
* On the subject of the word bank, I think if the incorrect words where more plausible. For many lessons, you don't need the Japanese input. The word bank only provides one plausible English sentence.
* It needs more sentence variety. For example, if a less has "The tea is hot." and "The ramen is cool.", why not also add "The tea is cool." and "The ramen is hot."? I find if Duo selects the same lesson a few days in a row, I start to memorize the answers and can punch them in without needing the input.
* I can form original sentences. I'm not very fast at it, but I think that is to be expected. I don't think I'll get better until I start trying to actually speak to people.
* The bigger problem I have is a lack of vocabulary. Duolingo seems to like to jump around a lot, never getting good enough at any one thing. Even in a situation where you are able to get by if you stick to a script, eg at a restaurant, there are still gaps that would prevent me from doing everything in Japanese. Looking at Memerise, it seems to focus on giving you more depth. For example, Duolingo taught me how to say "How are you?" and respond "I'm fine.". Later I've been able to add "I'm tired." and "I'm scared." Memerise teaches you "I'm fine.", "I'm tired.", "I'm happy.", "I'm angry.", "I'm hungry.", and "I'm sick.". That feels more useful.
* The audio quality is crappy. Sometimes it sounds like the syllables are clipping into each other or something. Sometimes it seems like their text to speech engine got confused about where word boundaries are. I took a brief look at Memerise's Japanese course, and the audio quality is much better.
* About 50% of the time when I try to tap the button to replay the audio clip, it seems to think I want to quit the lesson.
* It would be nice if there was something you could tap to temporarily see Japanese sentences with spaces between words.
* While I expect Duolingo would never do it, I think a few lessons on innuendos would be useful. It would save some embarrassing situations.
* Many of the English translations don't seem like idiomatic English. Sometimes I think it is even grammatically incorrect. This has made me worried about some of the Japanese not being super great as well. With other people chiming in about how languages they already knew having this problem, it doesn't look great.
* I agree with numbers. They way Duolingo handles numbers, days, months, etc is to me worse than the traditional way. It took a long time to get decent at numbers, and I screw them up a bit. I don't know any of the days of the week, but I know what day of the week words look like. They only ever include one day of the week word it the word bank, so you never actually have to learn.
* On the subject of the word bank, I think if the incorrect words where more plausible. For many lessons, you don't need the Japanese input. The word bank only provides one plausible English sentence.
* It needs more sentence variety. For example, if a less has "The tea is hot." and "The ramen is cool.", why not also add "The tea is cool." and "The ramen is hot."? I find if Duo selects the same lesson a few days in a row, I start to memorize the answers and can punch them in without needing the input.
* I can form original sentences. I'm not very fast at it, but I think that is to be expected. I don't think I'll get better until I start trying to actually speak to people.
* The bigger problem I have is a lack of vocabulary. Duolingo seems to like to jump around a lot, never getting good enough at any one thing. Even in a situation where you are able to get by if you stick to a script, eg at a restaurant, there are still gaps that would prevent me from doing everything in Japanese. Looking at Memerise, it seems to focus on giving you more depth. For example, Duolingo taught me how to say "How are you?" and respond "I'm fine.". Later I've been able to add "I'm tired." and "I'm scared." Memerise teaches you "I'm fine.", "I'm tired.", "I'm happy.", "I'm angry.", "I'm hungry.", and "I'm sick.". That feels more useful.
* The audio quality is crappy. Sometimes it sounds like the syllables are clipping into each other or something. Sometimes it seems like their text to speech engine got confused about where word boundaries are. I took a brief look at Memerise's Japanese course, and the audio quality is much better.
* About 50% of the time when I try to tap the button to replay the audio clip, it seems to think I want to quit the lesson.
* It would be nice if there was something you could tap to temporarily see Japanese sentences with spaces between words.
* While I expect Duolingo would never do it, I think a few lessons on innuendos would be useful. It would save some embarrassing situations.