Well, I had a good run. I went about 194 straight days on Spanish. According to my stats, learned over 9,000 words and was in the top 1% of students.
But a couple things happened. First, COVID started to slow me down. I wasn’t bad yet but the morning Spanish sessions were getting more laborious.
On one Sunday, I thought I’d had enough points to keep me in the vaunted Diamond League once again. I miscalculated and got bumped by a fraction of a point.
Worse, how they let you know you got demoted, with a snarky animated shot of your Diamond plaque falling on the floor. It irritated me.
Admittedly, I was already feeling off, and really wasn’t in the mood for the Duolingo attitude machine. With which they try and apply more guilt than the Catholic Church. Next, I realized that I’d have to spend that much more time to try and get a ton more points in the following week to achieve Diamond again.
No. It was a lot easier to maintain Diamond than try and scale the mountain again, so I just stopped, cold turkey.
I needed a break anyway, and unfortunately, soon, I really getting worse. And I would have had to stop anyway when I went into hospital. So it is what it is.
Then of course, I eventually got an email from Duolingo saying “I made Duo sad”. Duo is their owl mascot, through which they often deliver their guilt. Crying Duo, pestering Duo, reminder Duo, etc.
Yeah, well for once I responded to the email. I’d just about had it with the Duo guilt. Sure, it’s their schtick, how they keep you on track blah blah blah.
I was really not in the mood. I won’t go into exact wording but yes, I totally overreacted.
Although bonus– no more guilt reminders or emails from Duo!
Now I know what it takes.
Will I ever go back?
No yo se.
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