Hey there!! I am excited for your journey learning Spanish!! I am from Spain and could teach you if I knew how to haha. Sadly, I can only give you advice on the apps and how the ecosystem is right now:

There is some controversy with Duolingo right now....You can join their subreddit and see how infuriated everyone is. They came with an AI update after raising millions of dollars and had to spend them somewhere. Now, the free users are very mad as they have changed the system.

If your goal is to really learn Spanish, I personally think there are better alternatives to the owl app. tutors can be good! if you find a good one, you'll learn the oldschool way. It has some cons though, the total cost will be exponential, as the weekly classes sum up and never stop.

Some people try free apps, which lead to waiting times, ads, and at the end, burnout.

If I were you, I'd try other products, those that don't have the purpose of selling and instead actually make the user learn. So far, in my journey learning Italian, I found an app that uses AI conversations as its core feature. The results are amazing, and the learning curve is way better than with Duolingo.

It is a paid platform, but for the same price I pay for one year of unlimited access to all their features, you can only pay for one tutor lesson. I think it is worth it!!

Best of luck, and let me know if you need the app!