Duolingo and my history of lazy Spanish practice

Language learning and the limits of gamification

In August 2016 I “conquered the Spanish skill tree” on Duolingo, and got a virtual golden trophy. I’m still far from fluent, however.

This morning I completed a practice session on Duolingo, the popular language learning site. Nothing remarkable about this, but I’ve been doing it faithfully every day for nearly four years now. Yes, I have logged practice time on Duolingo every single day since January 3, 2014 — easy to remember…