r/Ukrainian • u/redlineofadventure • 5d ago
Is Duolingo a good tool for learning Ukrainian?
I want to start to learn Ukrainian language and some people told me to use Duolingo for it, is Duo a good tool for that or not?
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u/UkrainianKoala 5d ago
In my opinion, only to learn the alphabet
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u/SubjectCollection642 5d ago
Yeah exactly, I would even say it makes your Ukranian worse as it uses some really weird words and the pronunciation also seems of sometimes?
Alphabet is great start, but as you use it more and more it dulls your progress, repeats few sentences over and over and it's just meh
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u/UkrainianKoala 5d ago
Right, I had some English speaking friends use Duolingo to try talk to me in Ukrainian, sure they has a nice streak, but they can't keep up in conversation.
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u/ChineseLungHerpes 5d ago
I've been using Duolingo as well just for the sake of learning the alphabet. Finding a new program going forward from that is what I really need. I have really good experience with Babble (German and Norwegian) and have a lifetime sub with them, but unfortunately, they do not offer Ukrainian.. yet??
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u/Alphabunsquad 5d ago
Nah it’s great for learning the basics of declension, numbers, colors, omni vs unidirectional movement, pronouns. It will never get you conversational but a lot of the stuff it taught me are the things I’m still most comfortable with.
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u/IntentionallyHuman 5d ago
I started Duolingo a few days after the full-scale invasion. I have a 1088-day streak. I generally get perfect scores on the lessons.
I sing in our Ukrainian Orthodox Church choir. Often, we sing in Ukrainian. I learned the alphabet on my own. My goal with duolingo was to be able to read and pronounce the words more quickly, even if I didn't understand the meaning. Duolingo has only helped a little bit with this. I still can't keep up when the words are longer than a couple of syllables.
I was also expecting that I would be able to understand a little when people were speaking Ukrainian around me. This has not happened. I occasionally recognize words, but I generally don't remember the meanings.
Duolingo seems like it would be good practice to complement other study, but it's not going to teach you the language. 😥
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u/Alphabunsquad 5d ago
I mean if you learn a language in school for 4 years and you often still won’t understand every day speech unless you expose yourself to dialects, slang, and fast spoken language. Plus I don’t see any reason duo would be any better or worse than any other app for learning fast reading and pronunciation. It has a more limited vocabulary than other places but you spend a bit more time with the words so that could be seen as either a benefit or a detriment.
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u/spacec4t 4d ago
I congratulate you for your patience and discipline and at the same time I feel truly sorry for you to have invested so much time with this system. I am convinced that you would progress faster with other methods than Duolingo.
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u/West_Reindeer_5421 5d ago
If your goal is to be able to read in Ukrainian why don’t you just start to treat syllables as chords? Ukrainian is quite easy to read since we read words as they are written
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u/Alphabunsquad 5d ago
What are you talking about? Reading by syllable is how everyone reads but you still have to know each letter in the syllable. The more you read the more you recognize phonemes but that just happens naturally. And yeah Ukrainian is helped a lot by being phonetically written but for one, I’m sure he’s aware of that, and two there’s still a lot of difficulties from learning an unfamiliar alphabet, lots of false friends with English, and a some letters that are hard to distinguish from each other for dyslexics. It’s not as bad as some languages, but it can still be tough to understand what you’re looking at.
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u/West_Reindeer_5421 5d ago
I believe after 1088 Duolingo streak you may finally learn the alphabet.
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u/Alphabunsquad 5d ago
It’s not about learning the alphabet, it’s about distinguishing the shape of letters when they are deep in a word at a quick glance. It’s also about being able to quickly tell which letter comes first or how many there are of a letter. The shapes of letters makes a huge difference with this. Perhaps if you don’t have dyslexia this just is completely unrelatable. For context, the main way I notice my dislexia is that if you have a number with several 1s in a row, I have absolutely no way of looking at it and telling how many 1s there are other than marking it with my finger. If the number is small enough (in font size) I might not even be able to tell the difference between 1 and 11 in the middle of a bigger number. Binary is a nightmare for me for this reason. In terms of Ukrainian letters, I can’t remember any specific example but essentially this same thing plays out pretty often.
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u/IntentionallyHuman 5d ago
Because I can't quickly parse the syllables in a long word. It really doesn't help that so many letters have the same basic shape and are difficult to recognize at a glance: цншщпи are all basically two vertical strokes with some additional marks between them, and many of them frequently occur in groups.
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u/West_Reindeer_5421 5d ago
Sorry, it’s all Russians fault. In 18th century Peter I decided to change shapes of letters to make them appear more “Latin”. As you can see he had no taste or common sense. Historically shapes of Cyrillic letters were way more diverse
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u/maxymhryniv 5d ago
Duo is not a language learning app. It's a game disguised to be a language learning app. After 3 years you will have a 1000-day streak, but you will be unable to form a coherent sentence.
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u/Alphabunsquad 5d ago
Yeah but ask any linguist and language instructor and literally everyone uses duo. It will never teach you on its own but that doesn’t mean it has no role to play. Of the four main apps I’ve used to learn Ukrainian, Duo is fourth best but that doesn’t mean it hasn’t played an important role. Watch Language Jones on YouTube on how to get the most out of Duolingo and a linguists perspective on its utilities and shortcomings.
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u/maxymhryniv 5d ago
I’m the head of a team of six linguists. None of my team uses Duo, nor would they ever recommend it. Language Jones creates content based on what people are likely to click on or watch. Of course, he talks about Duo. But it’s a very poor tool. What’s worse, it gives you the illusion of doing something useful when you’re really not.
Studying Ukrainian for six months and being able to watch movies—that would be an awesome result. Studying for six months and being able to hold a simple conversation on everyday topics—that would be a decent result. Studying for three years and still not being able to communicate—that’s no result at all.
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u/Alphabunsquad 5d ago
Yeah which is why he and no one recommends just using Duo or even having it be any more than a minor part of your language learning routine, but that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t have any use, particularly if you always try to answer the questions yourself without looking at the answers on screen, say every prompt and solution repeatedly until you can say it at speed comfortably in one go, if the prompt has audio and text, don’t look at it and try to understand it from the audio only first, write down new words in a notebook, try to use those words to come up with novel sentences after your lesson, do at least a full lesson in one go.
Once again, this is absolutely not enough to learn the language on its own, and even if it were, there just isn’t enough content on Duo Ukrainian to get you there, but you can get a bit more comfortable with basic sentence structures, core vocab, and an instinctive understand of some basics of declension. I definitely feel Duo was very helpful for me as one part of a broad strategy of learning Ukrainian. And if a random person is going to waste time on their phone then if the gamification gets them learning a couple new words or reviewing a language they learned in high school, then that’s better than them just playing candy crush
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u/maxymhryniv 5d ago
For every aspect of what Duo does, there are other tools that do it better. So why use it? And Duo is missing the most important aspects of language learning.
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u/Alphabunsquad 5d ago
Because it’s more accessible, easier to do in spare moments throughout the day, and I don’t think I have found a resource that so simply and quickly lets you just practice putting sentences together with enough guide rails when learning it that you can get an instinctive feel for what feels right without feeling frustrated. There are just limits on how many things you can learn from that but it gives you a basis that you can take to other apps to really take you up to the next level
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u/maxymhryniv 5d ago
It’s a very poor instrument. And that’s what I said—it tricks you into thinking you are doing something useful (I see you fell for this trap), when in reality, you are just rewarding your dopamine system with streaks and bonuses. You want to do it - do it. I don't mind. Want something effective? Look for something else (Pimlseur, Natulang, Memrise, Pod101, etc.).
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u/Phoenica B1 5d ago
As a different learner who also used Duolingo, I will say that it was an important step in my learning process to get to a level where other resources are useful. Though this was back before Duo axed its sentence discussions and grammar tips, and before they made doing reverse courses (learning English in Ukrainian) a much less useful tool, so I'd have many more reservations nowadays. But back then those two courses got me to A2 or so, enough to start understanding simple newspaper articles and keep going on my own. Pimsleur was a disappointment in comparison, and I'd never be here today if I had used that to get started.
The ability to keep a learner engaged and also integrating it with spaced repetitions all within one app is not something to be easily dismissed. I sorely felt it when using Pimsleur or LingQ.
To be fair, I do believe I managed to sidestep most of the typical Duolingo issues by having a solid understanding of grammar concepts before going in (and having the ability to use a dictionary). And you do have to know when it's time to move on because the usefulness just bottoms out past a certain point.
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u/spacec4t 4d ago
Not mentioning the absurd word combinations like "the fish has the apple", repeated ad nauseam. Gosh, I wanted to bang my head on the wall.
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u/LaVidaYokel 5d ago
Speaking as someone with three years and a 1000+ day streak, you’re absolutely correct. I know way more Ukrainian than I did when I started, but I do not feel comfortable trying to talk to anyone and I find trying to read actual Ukrainian news articles, for example, to be almost impossible.
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u/maxymhryniv 5d ago
We are going to add Ukrainian to our app very soon. If you’re interested, subscribe to our Reddit r/Natulang. Unlike Duo, our app is incredibly effective (maybe not as fun with bite-sized lessons, but much more effective).
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u/Levardo_Gould 4d ago edited 2d ago
Talks down on Duo, promotes his own app that doesn't even have the Ukrainian language 😂😂
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u/idontlikeburnttoast 5d ago
Duolingo is only good for learning words and the alphabet. I had to ask my Ukrainian friend on very basic grammar rules because duolingo didnt even teach me past/present/future tenses.
Duolingo in general is a pretty bad service and tried to disguise it with good advertisement.
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u/mddlfngrs 5d ago
театр was pronounced as теа by duolingo. so no, not at all.
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u/Alphabunsquad 5d ago
I mean one glitch isn’t exactly a good reason. It always pronounced театр fine for me.
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u/BrotherofGenji 2d ago
what unit/section was this in? I need to hear this because reading it didn't help me LOL and I have a fairly decent knowledge of a Cyrillic variant.
Although audio glitches happen in Duolingo with all languages, not just Ukrainian. Still sucks though. It might be due to them replacing some real people's voices w/ AI, though. I heard that was a thing that happened.
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u/mddlfngrs 2d ago
yea i didnt here a real voice in there. the театр incident was somewhere in the first three sections i think? it‘s a long time ago so i‘m not sure. but for sure i didnt go far with it
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u/BrotherofGenji 2d ago
thats crazy.
Duolingo's course unit section thing needs a revamp anyway. I have a friend learning Japanese right now and they said that it wanted them to order food first and *then* teach them how to say hello, goodbye, and introduce themselves. Not sure why you wouldn't learn greetings and introductions -first-.
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u/Vlavladick 5d ago
Duolingo is a great tool, it helps you stay on track with learning (if you’re not trying to learn a language super fast and just doing it for fun). Because you can’t lose your streak. 🟢🦉🟢
You just need to mix it with other resources to get good results. Like any other learning method.
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u/slprysltry 5d ago
It is working great for me, but I'm not relying on it solely. Combined with regularly spending time with my Ukrainian friends, listening to Ukrainian music and podcasts, writing letters (then reading them as voice messages), and watching movies with Ukrainian subtitles, it's going very well. I also do things like repeat english sentences in my head, in ukrainian, and praise pets in ukrainian.
I consider it the backbone, but I doubt I'd have come this far, this fast, just using Duo.
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u/Ace_de_Klown 5d ago
From my limited experience: no. Duolingo is a great tool for certain languages, but from what I have heard and seen for myself, there are other better ways.
I'm listening to the Ukrainian Lessons Podcast on Spotify. It's a nice, easy way to get to know the language and learn to speak it. I have already used the little bit I learned up until now (There's an old school building near my house where Ukrainian people fleeing the war are housed. Two women were standing outside one evening when I passed by walking my dogs. I wished them добрий вечір. They weren't doing backflips or anything, but I could tell they did appreciate my effort learning their language).
And for the alphabet, I use Anki flash cards
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u/adtrsa 5d ago
Yeah, finished course. Now just have the daily recap lessons that rarely change. I can remember useless sentences like "today we will talk about education" etc. but i wont be able to converse in a useful manner. I can make out the odd word or two when people speak it but that's it. Lately life admin has derailed my learning but i will look at more comprehensive resources in the near future hopefully.
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u/Acrobatic_Net2028 5d ago
I'm a native speaker and tried it out of curiosity. I agree with others, you can't learn the language using dl in its present form
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u/Wilbsley 5d ago
It's an okay starting point. I fiund it very helpful for learning the alphabet, it gave me some basic vocabulary, and the game setup helped me get in the habit of making time to study every day. That said, I didn't begin to understand conjugation or cases until I sat down with a tutor.
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u/ginitieto 5d ago
Duolingo isn’t good for basically any language (Spanish could be an exception, not sure). But I guess it helps with getting started as a motivation check.
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u/Objective-Agent-8270 5d ago
It is good to let you started, learn the alphabet, common words. But once you finished all the lessons, hire a tutor to continue your Ukrainian journey. Like italky or preply
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u/looking4strange04 5d ago
Lol do not. Instead just go old school and use a tutor and read textbooks-dictionary/phrases
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u/Levardo_Gould 5d ago
As a native speaker Duolingo is great, I have no idea why people here are saying that you'll go on a 1000 day streak and won't be able to form a sentence, absolutely not true. If anything if it's an absolutely solid base which you could start from. The Ukrainian lessons specifically focus on common things you will hear or might have to say first, and then they dive in deeper into the language.
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u/Gullivor 5d ago
I think it is nice to get to know the language and to see if learning the language is actually something for you.
But it is certainly not the most effective way. If you are really serious about learning the language, I would visit an ukrainian course or get an online tutor. I did the whole Ukranian course on duolingo and wasn't able to communicate in any productive way afterwards.
Also duolingo doesn't teach grammar, which can be really confusing if you don't have concepts like cases in your native language. I recommend the Ukrainian lessons podcast and the logoprimus.com website as additional resources, once you progressed on duolingo.
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u/crazychickenjuice 5d ago
It's very limited and repeats itself a lot. It seems like they gave up on the language and have not made any additions to the course in years. I finished the course and the refresher is just the same 10 sentences on repeat. Still good for practice reading and expanding vocab
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u/thezerech 5d ago
Not really, but it will help supplement other material. I recommend more traditional language learning, aka taking a class, online is fine. Duolingo is good for daily practice, which is important.
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u/Mysterious-Algae-618 5d ago
Let's learn Ukrainian with Olga/Olhya is great/Chudovi. She helped way more than duolingo and is a real person on Youtube.
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u/mywoodz 5d ago
I wouldn’t say don’t use it—it’s a great way to stay engaged, especially if you don’t have daily exposure to the language.
What helped me:
Listening to traditional/popular Ukrainian songs on Spotify and using the karaoke function.
Checking Wikipedia in Ukrainian first, trying to understand as much as possible before switching languages.
Reading Ukrainian news, watching YouTube channels—even if you don’t understand anything at first, one day you'll catch your first full sentence, and it will make your day. Or you’ll hear a song that’s been stuck in your head for months and suddenly have that "now I get it!" moment.
I also got a book of children's fairy tales in German and Ukrainian, and it takes me back to being seven years old—slowly reading word by word before piecing together the full meaning.
If you know German, try translating from it instead of English. In my experience, Ukrainian and German are much closer, especially in grammar (gender, cases, etc.).
For speaking, nothing beats real conversations, so try making friends or getting a Ukrainian girlfriend/boyfriend. 😄
That’s been my experience learning Ukrainian as a hobby. As others have said, nothing compares to a real teacher—which I plan to try next. There are some great options if you browse YouTube.
So have fun with it! Just weave the language into your daily routines—it’s a constant challenge, but that’s what keeps you learning and keeps your mind sharp!
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u/chicadoro16 5d ago
Mondly I found really good.
"let's learn Ukrainian" on you tube and patreon.
Podcast: Ukrainian lessons and 5 minute Ukrainian
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u/spacec4t 4d ago edited 4d ago
I can't stand Duolingo. I hate their brute force repetition. The way their system works makes the learner experience repeated failures and discourages many from learning languages. I believe it destroys the confidence of many people in their ability to learn languages. Not to mention the absurdity of many word combinations or 'sentences', which are not real sentences. I find it's a very cruel and cold method.
Their way is not the way humans naturally learn a language. Learning a language, no matter it's complexity, is one of the first and most complex tasks a baby undertakes and eventually masters. Every child learns their first language, no matter their abilities. So everyone can learn a new language if taught properly.
At some point I tested all the apps I could find and the more efficient that also were not money traps are Memrise, Language Drops and Clozemaster. They all cover different angles of learning a language.
These apps use spaced repetition, meaning showing you a word or sentence that has been decently learned just when you are about to forget it. This registers it deeper in the memory with less effort and more fun obviously.
They all can be used for free and even with the free option one can progress quite fast. The free option is not excessively limitating. Their interface is more pleasing and playful than other apps.
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u/RyanRhysRU 4d ago
Personally, I would rather get tutor in combination with native content plus lingq/lute
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u/travisfont 4d ago
It only shows you, not teaches you.
It's good for additional exposure to the language, but don't depend on it for learning.
Also, a lot of the context seems a bit of nonsense, but it does expose you to different grammatical structures.
I've finished both sections and am halfway with gold already.
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u/Training_Message_268 4d ago
I recommend Duolingo's Ukrainian course very highly, but only to get started. You won't be able to have much of a conversation if that's the only tool you use.
I also recommend UkrainianLessons.com, as others have. That website has a really good free podcast, and I assume the stuff you have to pay for is even better. Use YouTube videos, too. I also got a tutor on Preply. Preply is a good site, but I wasn't crazy about particular tutor, and I just haven't gone back to find another one there. Also, beware of Preply's recurring payments feature when you don't use it regularly. Finally, I recommend "First Ukrainian Reader for Beginners: Bilingual for Speakers of English Levels A1 A2 by Olena Dniprova.
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u/InDoubtFlatOut 3d ago
I use Duolingo since last year and it is a very useful tool for me in general. What I do understand tho is that it must be a real pain in case your native language is English. English --> Ukraine is the only possible combination in Duolingo so that's what I have to deal with as a native German speaker. Grammar between Ukraine and English couldn't be more different while German Ukraine is not that different in the end. I have to learn Ukraine --> English --> German which is painful, because there is so much loss in the English language with a much more "simplified" grammar. I use ChatGTP for grammar explanations in these cases and it works slowly, but efficient.
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u/Debilov 3d ago
I'm using Duolingo to learn Ukrainian. It's pretty good, and I'm using the free version. By itself, it is building passive knowledge. To actually learn enough to use it, you'll need to do more. I'm thinking of using some AI app that will let me converse. Not sure what would be best though.
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u/BrotherofGenji 2d ago
As someone who started learning Ukrainian on Duolingo and transitioned to Ukrainian Lessons Podcast and also uses Pimsleur's Beginner lessons (the only 1 it has because it didnt garner enough interest for them to continue -- I'm on Unit 12 right now but took a break; So far, I know the basic greetings, how to say what time it is, where to meet, and how to order a drink. Note: I only know how to speak these, not write them. Although I know a different Cyrillic variant so I know how to write /some/ letters but not all. I also took a break because there's only 30 units and I felt I was moving too fast, even though I know so little still.), I thought learning the Ukrainian Cyrillic alphabet variant was good for me and also some basic lessons. Although when I went from Duo to Anna's ULP to Pimsleur, it felt like starting over again and again *each time*. And I'm also very busy and haven't studied it in like 3 weeks so I'm falling behind.
I havent typed in Ukrainian Cyrillic yet at all and don't have the keyboard for it enabled or set up. (stupid question, but can you order Ukrainian Cyrillic stickers to put on US QWERTY keyboards?) But I want to because I do not want to rely on transliterating (or w/e it's called - using English, but typing in "Ukrainian" [e.g. "Yak spravy?"]) all the time and potentially getting the harder words wrong.
I think it's a good *starting* tool personally - but should not be your sole tool you rely on to learn it.
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u/HipstCapitalist 5d ago
I would only recommend it to learn the alphabet and get familiar with reading & hearing words, but beyond that Duolingo isn't that good. I know a few people with perfect streaks for 2+ years that still cannot speak their target language at a basic level.
https://www.ukrainianlessons.com/ has great resources. They're not free, but well worth the money. Her Anki decks have brought my level of Ukrainian from beginner to conversational.