I’ve never used Duolingo so I don’t know exactly what this means, but apparently this course is due for release on 19 December.
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It’s not what I would call a dialogue-based course like SSi. For example, I am using their German course to revitalise my school-boy German - but I don’t expect it to help me be conversational. For that I am eagerly awaiting SSiGerman.
Duolingo is like playing a game and can be quite fun and addictive, if your goal is not one of becoming conversational. I might use it just to help me build vocabulary - and perhaps remind me of some grammar.
Also I should caution that in the past Duolingo do not seem to have predicted the timing of their releases well. They can be out by several weeks, perhaps even as long as two months, once, if I remember correctly,
Justin
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Shwmae
I wrote something in another thread, a while ago:
I think they are expecting a late January/early February beta release, and is estimated at 75% complete. The release time is just calculated from words translated, but I think they still have all the audio to do.
I quite enjoyed using Duolingo when learning Spanish. Its no replacement for conversation practice, but good to have as something to do on your phone if you have a spare few minutes to learn more vocabulary and structures.
Flynn
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Now released! Not yet available on mobile but you can start online: https://www.duolingo.com/course/cy/en/Learn-Welsh-Online
Hoping that this will help add some vocab to the structures I know from SSiW 
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YAY! Diolch!
I’m renewing my Italian, German and Spanish this way and this seams happy addition to SSi but I was sad I didn’t see Cymraeg just yet on mobile so web it is then.
I have to say that amog all what I’ve tried besides of SSi [size=30]which is a law[/size] of course, Duolingo appears the best to me, even better then Memrise (sorry Memrise fans, but that’s how it is…).
So, thank you once again @RachelH in deed! 
EDIT
I’ve just finished basics on Welsh and the first thing I’ve noticed is that they use IVONA TTS voice Gwyneth for audio performance which isn’t even so bad. Then on I could establish it uses rather northern speach (well, not that I’d want to devide language into two parts again) and if you type mwyn instead of isie, Duolingo will not recognize it. It’s great for learning some writing as it gives you correct answers and tells you if you did some tipos when writing (like you’ve written wrong letter in particular word or so.
Well, no worries, I’ll still stick to SSi! This is my home! But now I’m (finally) confident enough to try something else just for fun of it.
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I used it so much for Spanish, and although doesn’t match up to SSIW, (Or Michel Thomas which is what I used for Spanish - hadn’t heard of SSI then) It is a useful addition if it means extra practice, i.e. I used it in situations where I may have not done any language practice.
I’m still going to finish course 3, but Duolingo will be a fun addition
It may be fun to follow each other’s progress on it, so if you fancy following me on Duolingo : https://www.duolingo.com/flinnian
I’m following you now!
I’m at https://www.duolingo.com/RaCHHach
I agree with the timing, I can use Duolingo whilst I wait for the microwave or in the ad breaks, whereas I wouldn’t just do 3 minutes of a SSiW lesson.
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I’ve got you!!!
and you!
Here’s me https://www.duolingo.com/KnightGhos
Oh, and one tip: if you tend to learn Cymraeg on PC and then by the chance go on on tablet or phone (or whatever) go from Cymraeg to some other language first otherwise you wouldn’t be able to switch elswhere but you’d have to choose another language to learn. That’s why it occured I have choosen Russian in addition.
However with Russian here’s another tip: if you don’t have possibility to write in Russian script you will, when comes to writing get tipos for every word or sentence written in Russian. What this brings to the points (lingots) you tend to get I don’t know yet.
So, now you know.
The rest of the languages you can see on my profile I actually speak or have spoken once or (the case with Spanish) have learnt a bit previously elswhere …
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I’m trying out Welsh on Duolingo right now, actually! It’s exciting! I used Duolingo a lot when I started learning Italian. I actually feel nervous for the course creators though because I imagine they’re going to be bombarded with people (like me) flagging up mistakes and inconsistencies in the use of the language, but they have done a great job so far to even get Welsh on Duolingo, and to have completed the task in such a short time, without pay! They say themselves that they’re not ‘experts’ but I don’t see any experts around achieving what they’ve just achieved, so well done them. I read on their FB page that they welcome constructive criticism via the ‘discuss sentence’ option on Duolingo. It’s going to be tough for them though, as Welsh is a geographically inconsistent language, as we all know. I wish them well, and I look forward to hearing what everyone on here thinks of the new Welsh Duolingo! I’ll be working my way through it too. 
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I had previously used Duolingo to try to brush up on my Swedish (with not as much success as I would have liked), but I started the Welsh course yesterday and was having a lot of fun with it! I can see what @Mererid means when she notes that “Welsh is a geographically inconsistent language,” as the Duolingo course varies quite a bit from the SSIW Northern lessons I’ve been taking. I guess I would look at it as another tool in the language learning toolbox.
Oh, and if anyone wants to follow me, I’m at: https://www.duolingo.com/JasonCrow2
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Ooh diolch. I am playing as well - see you all there for some vocab learning 
I am jen.cw
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Diolch for following me first. Followed back.
It’s fun, yes and it’s fun to see how they got IVONA TTS voice Gwyneth to use. It sounds quite natural.
Okay, I’ve never used DuoLingo before, but it looks fun. I’ve joined and am following all of you.
One thing I don’t understand. It asks you to use words that it doesn’t introduce you to first. It taught me ci, cath, lemon, oren and then it asks me to translate a sentence with cig oen in it. How can I translate words I haven’t been taught? I happened to know that one, but if I didn’t, how would I have been able to answer? I don’t understand the methodology.
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If you put your cursor over the word it is asking you to translate it gives you optional answers. You can use your choice then to answer the question.
I guess it’s a sort of learn the vocab, then use it and then you might remember it approach. It feels like you are cheating a little, like a test where you have access to the answers - but there must be a method in their madness.
I think they must feel that if you are having fun and its not too hard you will continue and learn more than if it were more difficult;
Justin
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Diolch, Justin. Hovering the cursor over the word definitely seemed like cheating to me. But if that’s the way it’s supposed to work, then that’s what I’ll do
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@tatjana I just keep wanting to type “moyn” instead of “eisiau”!
I guess doing DuoLingo and watching “Rownd a Rownd” will teach me some Gog
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I don’t want to be a party-pooper and what I’m about to say may be considered controversial. Also it may be that I am in a minority of one in my opinion - in which case I’m happy that other people hold a contrary opinion.
I have used Duolingo a fair amount for German and Russian. My conclusion is that it is fun and addictive. I also had great hopes that it would help me learn vocabulary. What I find is that I retain very little days later.
So I will continue to use Duolingo in the hope that there will be an improvement on my initial not so small experience with it.
However, - and this debate needs to be had - I am starting to think that the designers have put very little thought into how one learns a language and how one learns and RETAINS vocabulary. I think they have produced a brilliant and fun game that comes in the guise of language learning but may be less effective than desired.
My comparison is with what I retain after a session of SSi. I RETAIN nearly everything (OK not everything!).
Sometimes I have redone a Duolingo session several times and I find that a few days later I am not much further ahead. If I repeat the SSi challenges I find my retention is even better than the initial very satisfactory result.
So the creators at SSi are doing something very thoughtful based on research into what is effective in language learning - and it works.
I will continue with Duolingo in the hope that it will help, but so far other than having a super-fun time it has been relatively ineffective for me even in learning and retaining vocabulary.
Interestingly if it has had any value for me it has been in the area of reminding me of some grammar in German and Russian.
May your experience be better,
Justin
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Anna - it did let me type moyn but I think it was split in half.
I really hope that I do retain some vocab, but def agree with Justin that SSI seems to be the best method for retention (especially compared to my classes!)
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I’d say that I mostly agree with Justin’s impressions of Duolingo. The repetition is too haphazard, with some things being revised to the point of nausea while other things are not revised methodically enough to really teach your brain the pattern.
But it is easy and convenient, so may serve a function as part of the learning process.
I’ve had three distinctly different Duolingo experiences.
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I first tried it with German. My German had once been reasonably good, but never good enough that I was comfortable saying “I speak German.” Duolingo really helped remind me of the basic grammar and provided a simple and direct way to drill on it.
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Then I tried Spanish. Living In California I always felt I should learn Spanish, but it never captured my imagination. Duolingo Spanish by itself was a hard slog. As Justin observed, I didn’t retain much. But when I coupled it with SSiSpanish, I could better appreciate the process and things started sticking.
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Russian. I’ve long wanted to learn some Russian. Duolingo Russian has been a depressing experience so far. Again, the repetition seems too haphazard and I’m having trouble associating the sounds with the declensions and conjugations. I have a feeling that it really could be much easier, but so far I struggle with details like spelling. Adding memrise to the mix helps a little, but I know that what I really need is SSiRussian.
I’m now working through the Duolingo Welsh course, mostly because I just cannot help myself. It is hard to know how much would stick if I weren’t already a confident Welsh speaker (thanks, Aran!). But as it is, it is probably helping my spelling and teaching me some vocab, so it is worth it. But I’d much rather be firmly stuck into Level 3 and the 4k project.
Jeff
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Might be, might be … but I still prefer “moyn” more.
This can’t be denied and I still tend to learn or renew every single language through SSi when available. Duolingo I use for renewing my knowledge and is the tool for doing somethign useful but not involving speaking on the bus. And Cymraeg on Duolingo I catually started to try how it looks like. It’s fun though and it can contribute a little something just like every additional thing we (each ane everyone in their own way) do.
SSi is always the first choice though.
Well, here, we, Slavic people are in a bit of advantage. As little as I’ve tried Russian on Duolingo these last days, I could establish that I know quite a lot of what has being taught but this is probably because quite some Slovene and Russian words (of the content I went through of course) are very if not almost entirely similar so I actually can’t say anything about how the people of “the rest of the world” feel about it. Even grammar is quite similar. The tricky part is to make my tablet to write in the cyrilic but DuoLingo seams to be in accordance with our script too it just tells you how one word would be originally written and you can retain something about the script this way too. Well, as I said, speaking is easy for me, even easier then I’ve expected though.
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