I was a long time duo user (1000+ day streak) learning german. I wanted to be able to read german (books etc) rather than being able to converse in german. The streak system and the gold->diamond tier system kept me going but after a while I realized I had plateaued and I felt like I was forgetting more than I was learning.
Then I realized, I had got to the point where I was good at answering what duo wanted to get the daily requirements rather than learning.
> I wanted to be able to read german (books etc) rather than being able to converse in german.
German can be quite tricky in this regard, in that the written and the spoken language can be quite different grammatically. One basic example that immediately springs to mind is that the simple past (Präteritum) is used very little in speech but very extensively in writing. This means that, when reading German books, one encounters lots of verb forms they'd never hear in speech (which, I'm guessing, would make it unlikely that Duolingo teaches them?)
same here, after while it felt like daily chore than something I wanted to do in the beginning
btw you could disable leagues by stop sharing your progress, but they hide this in web settings, not possible to switch it off in the app, that makes learning less stressful
now after they introduced path UI I uninstalled it after more than 1000+ streak and keeping in phone Drops and FunEasyLearn, second one looks very childish and amateurish, but I actually like it, seems less pushy with dark patterns than Duolingo where whole new Path UI is dark pattern to make you cough up money
Then I realized, I had got to the point where I was good at answering what duo wanted to get the daily requirements rather than learning.
One day I just stopped and let it go