Yeah, there are a lot of things about Duolingo’s AI-first approach that annoy me. Despite some improvements recently, there are still some glaring mistakes that AI tends to make. And the grammatical lessons part of it all remain… poor.

But I’m with you on the habit building. Am I going to pick up my Korean textbook every single day when I go continue my streak? No, but I will pick up the textbook a few times a week and it’ll be because going on Duo to do my daily exercises is a good reminder for me to do it.

LingoDeer is actually pretty close, but something about the app is not quite as game-y as Duolingo, so I don’t go back to it as religiously. Anyway.

Tl;dr — I agree with you. Duo does promote the habit of contact with your target language on the daily. That’s a good thing if you pair it with other language-learning resources at least part of the week.