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Duolingo Decoded

BIG news about Duolingo Max... ๐Ÿ‘€


hola ๐Ÿ‘‹

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Duolingo Max hasn't exactly had the best of starts to life ๐Ÿ™ƒ

it launched well over a year ago and hasn't received any significant updates

the take-up hasn't been great either, with most users considering the monthly price to be wayyyyy too high

and if that wasn't enough, its reputation took a further hit a few weeks ago when Duolingo decided to make 'unlimited hearts' a Max-only feature... ๐Ÿ™ˆ

as you can probably remember, people were FUMING ๐Ÿ˜ค

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well, I've got two pieces of good news to share with you...

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Duolingo backtracked ๐Ÿ™Œ

the first bit of news concerns the unlimited-hearts BS

after receiving A LOT of backlash, it looks like Duolingo has decided to quietly return unlimited hearts to Super Duolingo

now, if you try to sign up for Super, you should see unlimited hearts included as one of the main perks of the subscription, alongside other features like no ads, unlimited legendary and personalised practice...

as far as I can tell, the pricing is unchanged -- both for Super and Max

moving unlimited hearts back to Super is the right call... but it was pretty sh*tty of Duolingo to even move it to Max in the first place

if they wanted more users to buy Max, they should have either:

  1. reduced the monthly price
  2. added new features to justify the price

making Super worse -- and keeping the price as it was -- to make Max better just wasn't the way to go

it was a blatant money-grab... and thankfully the users didn't fall for it ๐Ÿ’ช

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good stuff

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Max FINALLY gets better ๐Ÿ™Œ๐Ÿ™Œ

the funny thing about the backtrack is that it comes at a time when Duolingo has, at long last, made its Max subscription better

originally Max was only available on the Spanish and French courses on IOS, extending a couple of exclusive AI-powered features to lessons

well, after over a year since being released, Duolingo is finally rolling it out to more language courses ๐Ÿ™Œ

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the latest courses to receive Max features are:

  • German ๐Ÿ‡ฉ๐Ÿ‡ช
  • Italian ๐Ÿ‡ฎ๐Ÿ‡น
  • Portuguese ๐Ÿ‡ง๐Ÿ‡ท

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so if you're rocking an IOS device and learning one of these languages, Roleplay should now be available to you from the Practice Hub...

furthermore, the newly-polished Explain My Answer should start popping up in your standard lessons...

I still donโ€™t think Max justifies the current price ((ยฃ19.99 a month in the UK ๐Ÿ˜ฌ)) but it does finally seem to be heading in the right direction

the new Roleplay libraries are well organised and there's actually loads to choose from...

considering it's only just come to Italian I was genuinely blown away but just how many scenarios there are ((we're talking hundreds ๐Ÿ˜ณ))

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the new Explain My Answer now allows you to pick out specific parts of your answer, rather than Duolingo just assuming which part you wanted explaining ๐Ÿ‘Œ

that being said, it's still a bit hit or miss...

some of the feedback I've received over the last few days hasn't been that useful and, at times, has actually been wrong ๐Ÿ˜‘

not great for a premium subscription that's been out for well over a year ๐Ÿ˜ฌ

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but hey, let's see how it develops...

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Ciao for now,

-Matt

p.s. I've been getting a few questions about my upcoming Duolingo book. it's taken a little longer to write than i'd first hoped ((you can thank Duolingo's constant updates for that ๐Ÿ™ˆ)) but the first draft is nearly done ๐Ÿ™Œ

i'll keep you posted!

eat ๐Ÿฝ๏ธ sleep ๐Ÿ˜ด streak ๐Ÿ”ฅ repeat ๐Ÿ”

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Duolingo Decoded

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