I tried this a couple weeks ago because they give you a 'freebie' run before gating the feature behind a Max subscription. It really is quite good, at least for basic conversation.
> The other thing you’ll notice about Lily is that her sassy personality really shines.
It's not sassy, Lily seems entirely bored and annoyed that she has to speak to you. It really is a curious choice and I wish they'd explain why they went this way. But I didn't find the personality off-putting at all. I just said my lines, got realistic responses, felt it worked well, and then went back to regular Duolingo exercises.
Lily is a teenager and she's the depressing-bored type. Like Wednesday Addams. This is quite coherent throughout the whole course. She always uses the little words possible, and when reminding you about lesson she says "do it or not I don't care"
Lily has the best duolingo personality: bored office worker.
My least favorite is app mascot Duo himself, who is always trying to get you to do things.
It took me a while to realize it but putting characters with animal crossing-esque personalities into sentence exercises is one of duolingo's better features.
Casting the monthly achievements as progressing their character arcs was a stroke of brilliance as well, but I wish they weren't so stingy with them and that you could review the previous months.
To throw you off your comfort zone? In a youth motivational program, we were paired and asked to converse about our favorite topic three times. When the partner was engaged, I felt happy, when he was confrontational, I was angry-excited, when he was dismissive, thats when I felt most uncomfortable.
Unless I'm reading the wrong pricing page, Duolingo Max seems to cost $29.99/month. In my experience learning Chinese, it costs $15-20 an hour to find a decent teacher online with whom to practice via video call. A few teachers charge less than $10 an hour, but they are very weak. Seems pretty darn reasonable for me, especially since I'm guessing they have at least $10/month in costs just paying for the LLM.
But I can do the same with my free chat gpt account. I understand this is probably much better and targeted at my knowledge though. As I wrote in another comment, so many want me to subscribe for monthly payments, I wouldn't have money for food if I did to everything I am interested in. And I pay for Duolingo Super already
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> The other thing you’ll notice about Lily is that her sassy personality really shines.
It's not sassy, Lily seems entirely bored and annoyed that she has to speak to you. It really is a curious choice and I wish they'd explain why they went this way. But I didn't find the personality off-putting at all. I just said my lines, got realistic responses, felt it worked well, and then went back to regular Duolingo exercises.
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My least favorite is app mascot Duo himself, who is always trying to get you to do things.
It took me a while to realize it but putting characters with animal crossing-esque personalities into sentence exercises is one of duolingo's better features.
Casting the monthly achievements as progressing their character arcs was a stroke of brilliance as well, but I wish they weren't so stingy with them and that you could review the previous months.