Don’t tell anyone but when we reply “right”, it’s when we stop listening.
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Duolingo gets greedy?
(On desktop, you had two advantages-- no hearts, and a working keyboard. Sure, the gaming element was deemphasized, and I never was able to get speaking exercises to work, but this is the setup that has taught me to read livres à lire sur la plage in french.
(This is being beta tested, and it is possible to avoid such nonsense by leaving Beta, but it is a bad omen)
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https://www.reddit.com/r/Finland/comments/13k89fn/in_the_span_of_6_days_the_duolingo_finnish/
In the span of 6 days, the Duolingo Finnish learning count rose by 12k learners
Wonder why that is?
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Russian deserters?
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That still leaves +10k.
I often get ads with confused localization, but this may take be the most confused yet:
Polish at the top, Russian on the image, Latvian in the description, English in the interface. And I got this after a French lesson in Duolingo. And none of it makes sense: the Polish title is about “the best national parks”, the Russian promises a bonus for opening a chest, and the Latvian wants to tell you all you need to know about taxes. I did not click to find out what language is used by the malware.
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This story brought up something that students in my conversation groups struggle with while watching foreign films or listening to music - the vernacular:
It’s one of the reasons that I check out Duolingo forums after the lessons. The discussion about what people tend to say vs. what the app is set to mark as correct is usually very helpful.
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A couple funny/embarrassing anecdotes, when I first moved to Germany at the age of 18, this was 1994, I bought a cassette and book to try to learn the language ahead of the trip. So I listened and learned some of the very basics.
One night at the club I decided to try one of my phrases out on a new friend. The cassette had taught me that, “möchtest Du dein Tanzbein schwingen?” was how you asked someone if they wanted to dance.
Jens almost peed himself.
Also, all summer I learned mainly from hanging out with my same-aged friends, so when I went to school in the fall and the teacher asked me what I thought of the reading I said it was “geil.” I thought that meant “cool,” based on how I’d heard it used all summer, but the whole class started laughing. Turns out it’s not really appropriate for school.
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I was taught in Belgium to read children’s books as a way to get the basics down. And that way, you might sound simple or old-fashioned, but you’ll never accidentally say something risque!
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Totally, that was what finally tipped me over into true fluency. I was staying someplace and they had a bunch of Astrid Lingren books laying around, not Pippi, but about a group of kids growing up in a remote nordic village. Such a great way to learn a language.
But I had fun hanging out with my punk friends and learning inappropriate German that summer 
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Hey, Bruce and Bongo turned that into a hit record:
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Yup. Excellent advice. (Why did none of my teachers at school ever told me that?) Worked quite well1) for me with English.
Currently giving it a try it with Italian. That and the SatNav. Alla rotonda, prendi la seconda uscita.
1) Starting with books meant for kids/young adults, gradually moving to popular light entertainment.
Tweak #1: reading books I had previously read a translated version of. Already knowing the plot and the characters made it much easier for me to focus on the language.
Tweak #2: reading the book while listening to the audio book. See how the word is spelled, hear how it is pronounced…
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Cross-posting from the trek thread…
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As long as they are modern.
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