In requiem: the Duolingo Owl

“Requiem æternam dona ei, Domine…” Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord – except, in this case, the dearly departed is not a soul but the green, unblinking menace of language learners everywhere: the Duolingo owl.

But fear not, for like any good horror movie villain – or that French teacher who never let you slack off – Duo is never truly gone. The funeral was all part of Duolingo’s latest viral stunt, a marketing ploy that saw the infamous green owl ‘killed off’ before inevitably rising from the dead. For an app that has spent years terrorising users with passive-aggressive notifications and the looming threat of losing their streaks, it seems fitting that even its mascot’s demise would be theatrical.

At first glance, the app seems like a dream come true. Free, gamified, and available in a staggering number of languages, from Spanish to Klingon

Yet, beyond the memes and the emotional blackmail that infiltrates our phones, one fundamental question remains: does it actually work? Because for all its charm and clever marketing, Duolingo’s actual ability to teach languages is questionable at best.

Perhaps, then, it is time for an investigation. What truly led to Duo’s untimely demise? Was it the endless barrage of nonsensical sentences? The hollow victory of a thousand-day streak without real fluency? Or did it simply collapse under the weight of its own marketing gimmicks? Let’s examine the evidence.

At first glance, the app seems like a dream come true. Free, gamified, and available in a staggering number of languages, from Spanish to Klingon (because, why not), it feels like the perfect tool to pick up a new tongue. Users rack up XP, earn virtual gems, and move up leaderboards as if fluency were something you could unlock like a new level in Candy Crush. But therein lies the problem: completing a lesson in Duolingo doesn’t necessarily mean you can hold a conversation in real life.

The biggest flaw? Duolingo shines at drilling individual words and simple phrases, but it struggles to provide the grammar and cultural intricacies that make language meaningful. Users find themselves memorising sentences like ‘the ducks are reading the newspaper,’ which, while amusing, doesn’t prepare you for ordering a coffee in Paris without embarrassing yourself. Real-world communication requires understanding sentence structure, idioms, and slang – things an algorithm struggles to teach. Users instead attempt to glean grammatical rules from the limited selection of sentences they’re shown for most languages.

Even the much-feared Duolingo streak, meant to encourage consistency, can create what is only an illusion of progress. Users return daily to keep their streaks alive and fulfil friend quests, but how much do they actually learn? The app seems to prioritise engagement over understanding, rewarding repetition rather than comprehension. It’s possible to maintain a 500-day streak and still be unable to form a basic sentence beyond ‘a man and a bird drink water’. Impressive commitment, sure – but not quite the conversational fluency one might hope for.

Another issue is Duolingo’s insistence on translating back and forth between English and the target language, reinforcing the habit of mentally converting sentences rather than thinking directly in the new language. Any seasoned polyglot will tell you that fluency comes from immersion – surrounding yourself with the language until you start processing it naturally. But Duolingo keeps users tethered to English, making it difficult to break free from translation dependency.

Beyond the more commonly learned languages like French, Spanish, and German, Duolingo’s offerings become noticeably weaker. These courses often lack depth, and the app’s speech synthesis can be laughably bad. Its attempts to pronounce words in Irish, for instance, could send a Connemara man into an early grave. Likewise, while Duolingo might proudly declare that you can now “read the Hebrew alphabet,” this is hardly a ticket to fluency – being able to sound out letters does little to help you hold a conversation.

Could this be the smoking gun – the moment when Duolingo overpromised and underdelivered? Perhaps Duo’s true downfall was its failure to go beyond surface-level learning, leaving users stranded in a limbo of half-formed phrases and robotic pronunciation. The body of evidence grows ever larger.

Its bite-sized lessons provide exposure to vocabulary and basic grammar, and the interactive format makes studying feel less like a chore

In recent months, Duolingo has made headlines for another reason – its decision to lay off almost a tenth of its workforce last year – in favour of ramping up AI-driven features. It’s hard not to wonder if an algorithm can really teach a language in the same way an experienced tutor can. AI might excel at pattern recognition, but languages are complex and often inconsistent syntactically, shaped by centuries of human history and culture. While Duolingo’s push to integrate AI might streamline lessons, expand its reach and ultimately cut the company’s costs, it could also turn the app into an even more robotic version of itself, trading authenticity for efficiency.

For learners, especially those less serious about achieving fluency, the charm of Duolingo has always been its blend of technology and  human touch – interacting with Duo’s quirky messages and seeing progress in a personalised way. This increasing reliance on AI might strip that away, making users feel like the mere data points in a machine’s learning process they always were.

That’s not to say the app is entirely without merit. For complete beginners, it offers a low-pressure way to dip a toe into a new language. Its bite-sized lessons provide exposure to vocabulary and basic grammar, and the interactive format makes studying feel less like a chore and more like a an enjoyable, potentially social addition to one’s daily routine. It can be an excellent supplementary tool, especially when paired with other methods like speaking practice, immersion, or structured courses. However, if you’re hoping to become fluent with Duolingo alone, you may be in for a disappointment.

And with that in mind – goodbye for now, auf Wiedersehen, adiós, au revoir, arrivederci, and whilst this rather novel murder case is not yet closed, may your language learning journey be filled with more meaningful phrases than ‘the monkey eats an orange’.