While I'm not a huge fan of Duolingo, currently, it's the most convenient option for me. I actually started it for my trip to S. America two weeks ago, and since I started it, I figured I might as well finish it. I have ~100 lessons to go before finishing the whole course on Duolingo. This is going to take a while, a long while. I shall post screenshots of my progress from time-to-time. Hopefully someone bugs me if I don't progress:
https://www.iflscience.com/brain/the-language-you-speak-may-change-how-you-see-the-world/?fbclid=IwAR1Vt4NVNcTr3kO5tq-fKRF6doVVTspyRQszneWG1nvbDIwE-A1Hp3YlUbA
This is a rather interesting, if limited study on the relationship between language and what we see. They did a study of using participants from different languages, and asked them what they saw. For some languages, where variations in color did not exist in the vocabulary, the participants did not "see" other colors.
Another reason to celebrate the diversity of languages. 
Duolingo makes some lofty claims, e.g. finishing up a course will be equivalent to one year of college-level language courses. After spending ~1hr a day on their French program for 3 months, I actually finished their French course, and they actually classified my skills as advanced (ha!).
Quite frankly, it is rather fun, not too hard, but also, quite disjointed. Prior to Duolingo, I spent one year learning French at college for 1 hr/day, which gave me the foundation to actually use Duolingo. Duolingo helped with vocabulary acquisition, but not much else, really.
I found its usefulness/uselessness, when I tried to learn Russian from scratch on Duolingo. I spent probably 1 month (~30 min a day) on the app for Russian, advancing to level 7 (whatever that means). A lot of time was spent learning Cyrillic, which was very useful to my survival when I was in Central Asia (I ended up eating a lot of пицца/pizza, because that's one of the few words I could read. Also, I like pizza). Beyond that, I realized that its basics really has some oddballs that makes it hard for jumping into basic conversation. Like why would I want to know the words for man, woman, girl, boy before learning something like "Where are you from?" or "What is your name?"
If you use Duolingo, how do you use it?
I recently read an old article that's been making its round again on social media (https://www.businessinsider.com/learn-french-in-17-days-2014-11). The writer claims that he achieved conversational fluency in French in 17 days. Regardless of whether it's true/possible, he describes his daily routine:
1) Write out regular and irregular verb tables for 1.5-2 hrs a day, while listening to a French language learning CD
2) Listen to catchy French music while running (45 - 60 min)
3) Go to lunch with French friends who won't slow down for you
4) Spend afternoon reading children's books in French, e.g. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
5) Spend an hour writing basic essays about himself, e.g. where are you from? and have a friend check for errors
6) Learn filler words (alors, en fait) to buy time in conversations
Do you find any of techniques helpful while learning a new language? Which one do you think is effective? What are some other methods that you use?
Personally, I am mostly a textual learner. I can read in a number of languages, but will probably sink like a rock to the bottom of the ocean in a conversation. My favorite way of self-learning usually involves reading a familiar text written for basic learners. Most recently, I read a basic version of Les Miserables in French.
The thing that struck out to me is the importance of writing things out. It actually brought up a lot of memories of learning Chinese as a child, where we would fill up whole notebooks, just writing out the characters, over and over again. I will try and incorporate more writing in my learning.
Hi all! I am Meifeng, and new to the forum. I am currently traveling around the work, and learning Russian intermittently (could have been more helpful if I were more consistent and knew more than срасибо in Russian when I was in Central Asia). On a related note, why so many stressed and unstressed vowels in Russian! 
