I will expand on this another day, but Section 8 Unit 36 of Duolingo’s EN-FR course is brilliant. It relies too fully on members’ presumed fixation with coffee and sleeping late (a fallacy for those who have advanced this far), but the questions pull effectively from remote corners of the course and exhibit poetic wit while doing so.
« Mes rêves s’effacent tel un dessin sur le sable, et je me réveille telle une sirène perdue sur une plage. »
My dreams fade away like a drawing in the sand, and I awake like a mermaid lost on a beach.
Every sentence is memorable.
The final unit, by contrast, is a jumble of platitudes – flattery of Duolingo for presenting such a “remarkable” course and me for enduring it. It then commends Duo for being an obnoxious, unrelenting passive-aggressive nudge. Over and over. And, just in case we missed it, again!
Examples:
« Merci Duo pour cette expérience enrichissante ! Grâce à toi, j’ai tant appris ! »
Thank you, Duo, for this enriching experience! Thanks to you, I’ve learned so much!« Les notifications envoyées par l’appli ne sont pas très subtiles, mais au moins, elles marchent. »
The notifications the app sends aren’t very subtle, but at least they work.« Les notifications de Duo m’encouragent à continuer quand je veux baisser le bras. »
Duo’s notifications encourage me to keep going when I want to throw in the towel.« À quoi bon avoir un portable, si je ne reçois pas les notifications de Duo ? »
What is the point of having a phone if I don’t get notifications from Duo?« Quand je repense à ce que j’apprenais tout a début, je mesure le chemin parcouru depuis ! »
When I think back to what I learned at the very beginning, I can see how far I’ve come since!
The focus of these prompts is so misplaced. At the beginning, the unit resembles Theodor Seuss Geissel’s graduation address, Oh, The Places You Will Go, but it degenerates quickly into a crass rationalization of the green owl’s TikTok prick schtick. I am sorry, Zaria Parvez and Manu Orssaud, but this is not the place to redeem yourselves. Nor am I the appropriate audience. The 436,000 XPs and 1100 consecutive days I invested in French (approximately 400 XP per day) required no reminders from the owl. Nor do I believe I received any. No, the people you hound with daily texts will probably never reach this point. The pangs of guilt belong earlier in the course, much earlier – say, the end of Section 2, when occasional users tire of your petulance and study elsewhere. Placing holier-than-thou rationalizations at the end of the course is, quite frankly, disappointing.
If Duolingo wants to make the EN-FR course memorable, it should preserve the Dr. Seuss homage, but conclude it with new expressions and vocabulary, not self-adulation. The only worthwhile prompt in the entire unit was,
« À quoi bon apprendre une langue si tu n’oses pas l’utiliser ? Allez, lance-toi, dis quelque chose ! »
What is the point of learning a language if you don’t dare use it. Come on, go for it. Say something!
I agree. Unfortunately, section 8 unit 37 says nothing. It is such a let-down.