Duolingo and Me: A Love Story I Never Asked For

It’s been fourteen years since we decided to uproot a perfectly tranquil life and move to Indonesia.  

It’s been fourteen long years spent navigating the archipelago's torturous bureaucracy, fourteen years of ordering food by pointing aggressively at things, and, of course, fourteen years of nodding along in conversations while understanding only about eleven per cent of what was said to me. 

Clearly, something had to be done. So what else was I supposed to do?

Naturally, I signed up for Duolingo.

Admittedly, that was a few years ago. What I did not fully appreciate at the time was that I was not merely downloading a language app. I was entering into a complicated, codependent, slightly unhinged relationship with a small green owl and his terrifying inner circle of scary memes— chief among them, Lily.

Lily is Duolingo's leading mascot, perfectly trained in the art of passive-aggressive behaviour. Her designer clearly went to great lengths to depict her as a goth teenager who has clearly seen too much of the world and is deeply unimpressed by it.

For instance, when I miss even a single day of practice, there she is in my inbox, materialising like a grumpy aunt who shows up at Christmas.

"You were doing so well," she seems to whisper, fluttering her enormous eyelashes, enhanced by her dark eyeliner. "Come home."

Come home?

Did Lilly think I recklessly abandoned my “real home” for a phone application that once made me translate "My cat likes to drink milk" seventeen times in a row?

I have a home, Lily. I live in Indonesia. Ironically, people around me speak Bahasa Indonesian constantly, and I still can't fully follow along, which is why I came to you in the first place. Perhaps we could move past the drama and get back to the subjunctive tense.

The thing to really understand about Duolingo is that the competitive league system is almost Shakespearean in its design.

At my best, I have scaled the heights and settled comfortably into my place in the Diamond League — which I guess is the linguistic equivalent of sitting at the cool kids' table. Sounds prestigious, doesn’t it?

However, beware, my fellow Diamond League comrades. At this level, it is, in fact, a pressure cooker populated by people who appear to have no jobs, no families, and no hobbies beyond accumulating XP points at three in the morning.

These are not casual language learners. They are seasoned, toned athletes with their eyes firmly fixed on the prize. Chasing them is fruitless, as I have watched competitors rack up four hundred experience points before I have finished my morning coffee!

One of these aspiring linguists, GomezLinguist2847, completed what appeared to be an entire university semester's worth of Portuguese between Saturday and Sunday.

I have questions about GomezLinguist2847’s drive and ambition, though I am not sure I want to know the answers.

And then, of course, there is Xi.

Xi is simply there, week in, week out, seemingly serene and immovable, sitting at the top of the leaderboard, smug in her quest to learn Mandarin, French, and apparently Swahili just for fun.

I do not know who Xi is, nor where she is from, nor whether, in fact, Xi is a woman, nor where she finds the time. I only know that competing with Xi makes me feel as if I had entered a 5K charity run and discovered that Usain Bolt had decided to compete, you know, just to keep things interesting.

Anyway, enough about Xi.

As we all know, when life inevitably intervenes — a holiday, a busy week, a minor existential crisis — meaning I take what I consider a perfectly reasonable break from the app, the consequences are swift and merciless.

I instantly slip out of Diamond League, then plummet through Platinum and Gold, heading steadfastly towards the minor leagues. The descent is relentless, accelerating with grim momentum, as though Lilly is settling a score. In no time flat, I find myself back in the Bronze League — or, as I think of it, the League of People who have strayed from the path of righteousness, where we eye each other with a kind of weary solidarity.

We do not speak of where we have been.

The climb back to the elusive Diamond League becomes an adventure in itself because Duolingo, bless its algorithmic heart, insists on routing me through the foundational exercises before I can return to the intermediate material where I actually belong.

And so, I am forced to identify colours and confirm that, yes, satu, dua, tiga — one, two, three — is indeed how counting works in Bahasa Indonesia. A concept I have had a reasonable grip on since my arrival approximately 14 years ago.

"Amazing job!" beams Lilly as fireworks erupt across my screen as she leads a phalanx of cartoon characters who applaud and perform somersaults. Meanwhile, somewhere on the leaderboard, GomezLinguist2847 adds another three hundred XP to his weekly total without breaking a sweat.

And yet.

I keep coming back because the maddening truth is that the app works, as chaotic relationships often do. My Bahasa Indonesian, while still not what you would call fluent, is a little better than it was. I understand more of the overheard conversations. I occasionally surprise a local shopkeeper by constructing a grammatically correct sentence about the price of a mango, which feels like winning an Olympic medal.

If I become tardy, Lily sends me back to my studies with a nudge, and I do, because to be honest, she scares me! I maintain it because no force on earth is more motivating than not wanting a cartoon character to be disappointed in you.

GomezLinguist2847 need not worry just yet, but believe me, I’m coming for you!

Paul v Walters is an author of several novels, an anthology of short stories and a prolific travel writer. He is also fortunate to live on the island of Bali. His latest offering, RITUAL, was recently launched at the International Ubud Writers and Readers Festival.