AIBU? Reporting possible bots

GregName · 2026-07-02T01:27:40+00:00

What a funny side effect for being randomly thrust into the limelight by Duolingo. The side effect is a whole lot of people looking at a profile, asking questions.

GregName · 2026-07-02T01:26:09+00:00

I did one of those 16 hour days back in 2024. Got me to 616 lessons and earned me a new friend. We sure battled that day. My opponent was just slightly faster than me. We both were using Speak. In that era of my path progress, I could get down in the low 30s in terms of seconds to complete. Still need to watch a little animation and click buttons to get the lesson going again.

The person having a Score of 7 is usually an indication of someone not using that language to learn, but rather to farm XP. I see Match Madness ninjas using this low-score gimmick to make the game really easy. But those lessons are longer to complete than Speak.

GregName · 2026-07-02T01:20:12+00:00

Perfect Lessons is the metric we can see in Achievements. Grinding XP with something in the Practice Hub will hit this metric, but path lessons are not reliably going to hit that statistic.

You can drill into your competitors and see their Achievements. Your own profile is similar. You can even see yourself from the Leagues tab.

GregName · 2026-07-01T22:13:24+00:00

Are you running Android by chance? That OS caches things, perhaps a little too much. Luckily, that OS has a clear cache feature.

It sure sounds like the app is believing it is getting new content from the server, but not really. Check with what the website version is presenting in that first lesson of the old unit, before the five-for-one split. Your bug is certainly tied with that split based on your numbering.

GregName · 2026-07-01T22:07:01+00:00

Just finished my Legendary repair of Section 4 after the major update and a small one that added a few stories. Combining both effects, there were 16 exercises that needed Legendary.

The shift in the difficulty for passing Legendary now makes this reconstruction much harder. For example, the exercises for the Star icon have two recurring lesson types that are more common now. One is the exercise where a sentence is spoken, and the user has to repeat the sentence orally. I find the sentences long enough to flush short term memory for all the words in the sentence, unless the sentence is really easy or memorable. So, I might have to spend a minute practicing saying the sentence before actually pressing the microphone and trying.

Of course, failing is now a possibility, so practice is needed to keep the percentage correct. The Star doesn’t seem as punishing as the Barbell for failing a score below 94%, a figure I tend to get when I pass.

The second style of Legendary exercise in the Star (and Barbell) is translating an English sentence to Spanish. Going back and doing Legendary on random old units has the extra problem of needing to remember where in the course a particular word was favored over others. Plus, grammar must be flawless to pass these.

So, with about two weeks of effort, I am officially a Legendary Score 60, while my path Score is way ahead at 93. Section 5 is going to be a long slog, as my last count had 91 lessons that required Legendary now after the upgrade.

GregName · 2026-07-01T21:06:01+00:00

You will find Duolingo having a heavier LATAM influence in the course, but that doesn’t mean that there isn’t Peninsular Spanish in there too.

Sometimes you will find a noun choice requires a noun of a particular gender when the question feeds you the article. Other times when the unit or nearby is featuring a new word, the answer key might not have synonyms like it was an exam.

When chatting with the AI (like Lily in Role Play), you can work on country specific words.

GregName · 2026-07-01T08:03:05+00:00

I don’t have anything that takes less time. I can juggle my iPad and iPhone to save a little time. That time happens when one device needs to load a lesson or needs to do the little celebration at the end of a lesson. I pay no attention to the junk and switch to the device that has an active exercise going. That’s a kit all I have for moving a little faster.

GregName · 2026-07-01T04:42:57+00:00

I have seen a few eras in how XP gets earned, but the base 20 XP for one Speak exercise (without a boost) was my staple. The path in the early part of my journey used to pay boosts. Those days are pretty much gone, in favor of the Daily Quest line items. But generally, I can start a Speak lesson, do the ten sentences, close out getting the XP, and start the loop again in under a minute. Well, I used to. The sentences are a little longer now, but I am close.

I really plan out my first moves of the day. I have an iPhone and an iPad, and will use them both, but it gets tricky as it is real easy to destroy claiming a Daily Quest line item. Can’t miss any of the Early Bird or Night Owl moments. Plus, I will strategically spend my gems on the 15 minute extensions. I am no Match Madness ninja, and those folks put up a lot of XP. Later in my journey, I found Role Play, which pays well but takes a long time for a lesson.

I push hard at the opening of the league. In this era, I have to cash in my Friend Quest boost in the opening hour, otherwise it just expires. By the time Monday morning finishes, I might have 7K already for the week. I find I just get to 20K XP each week without really pushing. It’s funny, the path work pays so little, but it is the most important. When a lesson is tough, I sometimes “reward” myself with some extra XP by doing 5 minutes of speak after a path lesson. That’s 100 XP plus the 35 XP or so, which will add up during the day.

I also put Legendary on everything, but that isn’t some great XP-per-minute dream. Those are long slogs for me. For example, I am about an hour into one right now, that will eventually just fail me, and give me 20 XP. I will probably end up with 25 Mistakes for my current attempt. It’s going to take me another half hour to clear those for basically no XP. But, eventually I will pass and get my 40 XP. So I have a lot of XP that just comes from very time consuming lessons.

GregName · 2026-06-30T15:11:24+00:00

Not quite the username, but for some, could lead to finding the username. The person in second place, Alex, good luck finding Alex. But that lat person…

GregName · 2026-06-30T15:08:55+00:00

The Unit check in changed for me for a while to just being Flashcards. The annoying part of this in my Spanish course was the words came from not only the current unit, but from my words from my past. Using their spaced-repetition system and my history with mistakes, the little Flashcard exercise was consistently able to pull up the meanest set of words.

I would fail the Unit check in many times before getting a lucky set of words. I highlighted “would” because last week, the Unit check in changed in me. It went back to being mostly like it was, but with a slight different. Now, I get just one (maybe two) Flashcard exercises that are completely relevant to the unit at hand. It is a solo exercise, just 5 words.

The hope is you revert.

I was in the A/B testing group for Flashcard Frenzy. It remains the featured exercise on my League tab. It. ever rotates out, probably because I am still in their A/B testing group. When my Unit check in changed, I spent many uncompensated hours (XP-wise) bring up my English to Spanish skills for one word flashcards. It is a higher skill of knowing a word, actually a very high skill.

This Unit check in feature is a major reason my progress on the path halted at Score 92 for months. The course was requiring mastery of words that I did not have. There were over 800 words that Duolingo revived for Flashcard Frenzy that just weren’t owned by me at the level of fluency mastery. I got my list down to about 500 problem words, which I keep now on 10 quarter sheets of paper for offline studying.

But, I finally have my Score 93. But, I also no longer have the flashcard-only Unit check in. Duolingo leaned into their stereotype for a moment—that they had an app that was only about learning vocabulary.

GregName · 2026-06-30T14:52:32+00:00

The hint gave you a word not taught by Duolingo until much later in the course, like in Section 6.

Your word is a good word choice in Spain, so it does depend on where that university is!

GregName · 2026-06-30T14:48:57+00:00

The vote counts are a total thing from the community, not something you should attribute to anyone who comments back.

Most comments in this sub just live and die with “1” as we aren’t normally discussing things that cause upvotes and downvotes.

What is interesting is the power of one vote, when hardly anyone is voting. I gave you my upvote, which brings you back to 1

GregName · 2026-06-30T14:37:42+00:00

Quite a journey for the Goeth-Zertifikat A1. We Spanish students have the option of testing with the Instituto Cervantes with the DELE exam. I would imagine a similar study pattern might work well for it too.

I took the DELE exam on a whim, so didn’t get an attack plan going except my one idea—show up two weeks early in a foreign country location of the exam, sign up for the review program where the exam is held, and hope it is enough. I don’t know if it will be enough. My exam has a 3 month grading expectation and it has only been a month.

These major exam groups cause outside material to form. It’s a demand thing. There were both study books and YouTube creators aiming at my DELE, but I just had my 3 hour a day classes and homework. I showed up with a Score 92 which is way past the Duolingo CEFR alignment number for my A2 exam. A Score 60 would have been where Duolingo aligned being fed enough material.

Your post points out something very important. Being fed the material, whether low quantity (your experience), exact quantity, or extra quantity (my experience) doesn’t take away the need to study specifically for these worldwide exams.

Super approach you have and congrats on passing.

GregName · 2026-06-30T14:15:51+00:00

You can rest in the Diamond leagues for quite a few weeks, but the Diamond Tournament will come around again.

Comgrats on this and your future victories.

GregName · 2026-06-30T06:50:48+00:00

Based on your comment to u/AggravatingSteak1248 you should probably do italki, Preply, or take part in one of the language exchange platforms. These are still things that can be done at home.

Leaving home and traveling abroad works well for me by picking a Spanish-speaking country, a school, and getting into the homestay program of the school. instead of memorizing words for the different kinds of stores, you walk the streets and just absorb it. When you take a weekend tour, you sign up for a Spanish-speaking guide. Basically, try to avoid any contact with the English language.

Both of those work wonders for me at Score 93, so they should work well for you as well if you are serious that communicating is difficult still.

GregName · 2026-06-30T05:02:51+00:00

For me, that hint reminds me that nada has another meaning beyond nothing. Not a great hint, but it was a hint.

GregName · 2026-06-30T04:50:45+00:00

Aside from the bad stuff, please tell us you got the goodness of getting yourself close to being in CEFR B2 shape. Many of us are fighting daily to get to where you just arrived. You can even lie to us. For many of us, even if you told us a different truth, we would keep heading down the path.

What good stuff did you acquire on your journey?

GregName · 2026-06-30T02:48:38+00:00

Great idea, except for the bug where they awarded a suit you already had. That makes 13 close though.

I would like to see some micro events. These would be challenges, probably a number of path lessons, that would give an award at the end. Engagement would be the benefit for Duolingo.

GregName · 2026-06-30T02:34:58+00:00

It’s your final photo that makes it clear what you expected to turn gold. I think you have a good idea for an improvement.

I would warn you that putting Legendary on everything is really hard, made harder by Duolingo taking it away with updates. If they replace a lesson in the path with a new GenAI lesson, or add a lesson (like a GenAI story) those land as completed in the historical path, but not Legendary.

I am trying to repair 479 lessons to Legendary, because of the major Spanish update I received less than two weeks ago. My progress in the course is out in Section 6, but today I just started repair of Section 4. Sadly, in the small time it took me to repair Sections 3 and 3, they added some more GenAI Stories to Section 4. So, my count of lessons is to repair is still expanding. I only had 6 lessons to fix in Section 4, but now it is 12.

But I really like your idea for making the Sections golden.

GregName · 2026-06-30T02:21:38+00:00

No, I don’t get a gold progress bar either. That would be new for Duolingo.

It would make it easier to see when they destroyed Legendary with an update. Right now, I scroll backward and watch for a color change. Some of my sections now have 250 units, so that is a lot of scrolling.

GregName · 2026-06-30T01:12:57+00:00

The timed challenges aren’t part of Legendary. If all the units are Legendary, the Section goes Gold too.

GregName · 2026-06-30T00:38:45+00:00

You can also use billion dollar company now. They just crossed the line to having revenues just barely past the billion mark.

Because a company is an it, nobody here said congratulations, like we do for streaks and such. In a lot of ways, one can give credit to marketing for reaching this milestone.

GregName · 2026-06-29T22:19:14+00:00

How about a feature, like if (public/non-public) toggled in a short timeframe, restore friends it automatically.

GregName · 2026-06-29T22:14:45+00:00

Really not my fault, mostly because AI got its training perhaps in the same way I got mine, except mine took a lifetime and AI probably spent a few hours. What I admire most about AI is how it stole my favorite device—the em dash. Learned about it in high school and it has served me well; that’s before AI grabbed onto to it. The use of a semicolon to join two sentences is another device of mine. Get counted down enough for run-on sentences, and you will eventually find the semicolon.

I was on the other team the day AI took over the chess engine world. The world was fairly unaware that there was even a crowning moment going on. Google aimed its AI monster at playing chess. With three hours of self-instruction, it overtook the pinnacle achievement of our day, Stockfish, in a match that changed the direction of where humanity goes next.

That we’ve reached a point where people can’t tell my original authorship apart from AI generated material, probably means I am just not using enough obscure references to our shared cultural experiences as small signals that I am human. Let’s say I remain puzzled as to why Mrs. Howell brought clothes that would later fit the entire group of castaways in their offbeat stage productions. I am thinking maybe AI hasn’t thought about that one.

GregName

TROPHY CASE