This passage from Fifty Sounds really struck a chord. 
As the fact I am spending my lunchtimes with Duo reveals, I am not entirely skeptical of its methods, and I don’t find the comparison drawn between public-school language education and the Duolingo model outrageous, at least prima facie. Unlike a lot of language-focused applications, Duolingo is not devoid of audio content; it has clips of real people talking, and invites its users to speak phrases into the microphone, so they are at least interacting with how the language actually sounds, and feels in the mouth.
While its level-unlocking structure drawn from the world of gaming means that users might be focusing on strategies to pass rather than to truly master, the same accusation could be leveled at language education in schools: there is, in short, a lot of hoop-jumping. You learn the language the way that the exam boards or the green owl want you to, but it is, at least, a start. If it makes language education accessible and enjoyable to those who might not otherwise have access to it, then that is surely a good thing.
So why, then, does Duo’s factoid bring me such a sense of unease, and why do I begrudge his hooting pride? It dawns on me that the source of my discomfort resides—utterly unreasonably—with his use of the word “learning.” I say unreasonably, because I recognize that this word is used legitimately to cover a whole range of activities undertaken with varying degrees of intensity.
The generous, rational part of me can see there is no cause to bar people from calling their five or twenty minutes a day on Duolingo “learning a language.” But even as I have this thought, another part of me stamps its foot resentfully, the kind of foot-stamp that ends up hurting the stamper, and declares that the world has turned its eyes from what is real and true. This part wants to say its piece. It wants wider recognition that there is another, far less stable form of learning—a radium to Duolingo’s lurid neon.
The language learning I want to talk about is a sensory bombardment. It is a possession, a bedevilment, a physical takeover; it is streams of sounds pouring in and striking off scattershot associations in a manner so chaotic and out of control that you are taken by the desire to block your ears—except that even when you do block your ears, your head remains an echo chamber.
The language learning that fascinates me is not livening your commute and scoring a dopamine hit with another “5 in a row! Way to go!” Rather, it is never getting it right, hating yourself for never getting it right, staking your self-worth on getting it right next time. It is getting it right and feeling as if your entire existence has been validated.
It is the kind of learning that makes you think: this is what I must have experienced in infancy except I have forgotten it, and at times it occurs to you that you have forgotten it not just because you were too young when it happened but because there is something so utterly destabilizing about the experience that we as dignified, shame-fearing humans are destined to repress it.
It is a learning that doesn’t know goals or boundaries, and which is commonly known as immersive. The image that springs to mind is a lone figure wading gallantly into the sea, naked, without a single swimming lesson behind them.