[ckz]

~B1 French here with Duo being an important step on the way.

The trick for Duolingo is to use the desktop version and disable all the "helpful" bits you can or at least use the browser version if on mobile. Desktop had far fewer gamified bits than the app as of a year ago (sadly the new UI broke my workflow and I dropped Duo altogether). Gems weren't a meaningful thing, etc.

In particular: Use your keyboard for everything. You'll probably want to be able to type in the target language anyway and it helps you avoid the trap of being really good at pattern recognition instead of really learning all the grammar quirks.

You can disable both animations and the leaderboard gamification in the settings (the latter by setting your profile to private). CSS/uBlock can help hide other distractions, add dark mode, etc. as needed.

It takes some extra work now to unbury the learning tool beneath but Duolingo itself, especially if you go in with a general idea of how to go about learning a language, is still really useful.

Super helpful link that I used along the way as well (not mine): https://runwes.com/2020/02/11/howilearnedfrench.html