[lb1lf]

That it doesn't - teach you to communicate, that is - but I found DuoLingo great at providing the base vocabulary and phrases to enable me to make my first small attempts at communicating.

(I suddenly found myself stuck in Brazil for work for two months this year, and after a couple of hours of DuoLingo I was able to exchange a few phrases with hotel staff, often interspersed with the most useful phrase 'O que isso significa?' (What does that mean?')

The best part of DuoLingo was (and is) to save my conversation partners much of the 'Oh, in Portuguese we call that...' we'd otherwise be doing.