As I push on with Japanese on Duolingo I am constantly reminded of the importance of gradualism and humility with projects like this. On a daily basis there are so many fronts on which one needs to contend: vocabulary, syntax, morphology, characters (kanji, hiragana, katakana -- not that I even fully grasp the distinctions). Each day, each session presents a struggle just to stay in one's place and hold onto what's come before, even as one presses on.
No doubt, Duolingo is a suboptimal environment for learning a language this distant from one's native tongue. But in a very real sense Duolingo is like the e-bike, for which data shows that e-bike riders get more exercise than those who own only acoustic bikes because e-bikers ride more often. Same deal with Duolingo: the gamification features bring you back. At least they do for suckers like me.
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