Given all the praise and hype that surrounds Duolingo, I wanted to articulate why, in my opinion, it is at best, a supplement, and what to use in its place if you truly wish to learn Irish.

I’ll begin by focusing on the issues with Duolingo in general, followed by those particular to the Irish course itself later on.

I am not going to focus on Duolingo’s highly inflated numbers; while they are better than they were previously, they are still incredibly misleading, as they count anyone who has done a lesson at any time in the past year. Let’s just say, there are not nearly as many people learning Irish as is claimed.