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From someone who is learning Japanese (日本語)
Go and find a online community dedicated to the language your learning and search that community for guides and recommendations because it will get you way better resources than what duolingo can offer
And you can structure the way you teach yourself that language to make it easier to learn
It's better to find resources that you can adapt to your way of learning as it's better and easier
I've been using Duolingo to learn Spanish, and there are a lot of things I dislike about it. However, credit where credit is due, I don't have a huge drive to learn but rather I'm opportunistically learning as I have time for self improvements sake. And for that, Duo does an ok job of feeding me new lessons and slowly expanding my knowledge of the language in a few minutes a day, and it's free. After about three months I can go to a Mexican cafe, get a table, ask about the servers day, and chit chat about my kids, all in Spanish.
Which, if I'm being honest with myself, is more than I would have gotten self studying.
Exactly, japanese was extremely tedious especially at the beginning but now I know hiragana, katakana, some kanji, how to discuss hobbies, time, directions, about relatives... I 100% agree it's not the most effective but it keeps me on track while other solutions would not keep me engaged as much. It's better to do three minutes everyday than 30m for two days and then give up. 148 days streak ongoing
There are a lot of people who go "I tried to learn X through Duolingo and failed". Sure, that's probably true, because staring at the app is not how language learning works. Much like 100 years ago, people would have said you can't learn a language by reading a single book.
Duolingo is great for basics of the language, vocabulary and constant daily lessons. But you always need more. There's a whole language sphere out there. People actually using the language and whatnot.
I started studying French through Duolingo and about 6 months later I was like "I really need a grammar book and a dictionary, dammit". Year in, I was like "I should try reading news in French and maybe try a book."