# I replaced Duolingo with Gemini, and it’s (almost) the perfect alternative > Source: > Published: 2026-08-17 09:00:33+00:00 Affiliate links on Android Authority may earn us a commission. [Learn more.](https://www.androidauthority.com/external-links/) # I replaced Duolingo with Gemini, and it’s (almost) the perfect alternative Aug 17, 2026 — 5:00 AM ET I’ve seen a few of my colleagues [ditch Duolingo](https://www.androidauthority.com/goodbye-duolingo-i-found-much-better-language-learning-app-3653981/) over recent years, and I can’t blame them. Over the past year alone, Duolingo has changed the goalposts for free users by introducing the [energy system](https://www.androidauthority.com/quitting-duolingo-energy-system-3599842/), then [reshuffling the courses](https://www.androidauthority.com/duolingo-course-upgrade-complaints-3685447/) in a way that irked many people. Even before those changes, many users found the UI to be annoying and over-gamified. I’m much more forgiving, but I was curious to find out if Gemini could finally wrestle me free of my extensive Duolingo streak, which is now somewhere between an achievement and a hostage situation. I’m not setting out to trash the infamous green owl — it gets angry enough if you just miss a lesson. As I [explained last year](https://www.androidauthority.com/duolingo-defense-poll-result-3547001/), having used Duolingo daily for years and amassed a monster streak, I still find it a useful learning tool despite its many flaws. But I live in Mexico, and having reached an intermediate level in Spanish, I feel like Duolingo has taken me as far as it can. Handy as it can be as a refresher, it’s repetitive and not particularly well-suited to real-life scenarios. Worst of all, it can’t adapt to my own personal circumstances, such as my particular weaknesses and the type of Spanish I want to learn. ### Have you tried using an AI chatbot to learn a language? These seem to be issues that an AI chatbot like Gemini could be ideal to address. In fact, there have been times when I’ve turned to AI to understand an answer or explanation in Duolingo. Instead of switching between apps, I was curious whether Gemini could step up as my go-to for daily lessons. I tried it out for a week, and it’s changed my approach to language learning. ## Building my Gemini tutor I started out by creating a custom [Gemini Gem](https://www.androidauthority.com/gemini-gems-3643778/), with the aim of it being my dedicated learning hub. But I wasn’t going to jump right in and ask it to quiz me on Spanish words. The whole point of the exercise is to escape the limited Duolingo approach, so I wanted Gemini to act more like a personal tutor. If that tutor were human, they wouldn’t just hand me a workbook; they would first need to assess my Spanish level, my circumstances, and my learning goals. When you create a new Gem, you can choose from some pre-made versions, including a ‘learning coach’. This would seem like a no-brainer, but I chose to make an uncustomized Gem instead. It would seem counterintuitive, but for some reason, Google makes clear that the learning coach [isn’t suitable for language learning](https://support.google.com/gemini/answer/15146780). That’s weird. In any case, I was keen for the gem to be taught only on my bespoke instructions. I told the Gem to act as my personal Spanish tutor and build me a structured, progressive course. I described myself as an intermediate learner, but asked Gemini to assess me first across grammar, vocabulary, reading, writing, and conversation before deciding where to start. From there, it would create a learning plan based on my strengths and weaknesses and adapt as I improved. I also wanted the focus to be on practical Spanish for everyday life in Mexico, including common Mexican usage and slang, with 10- to 15-minute lessons that mixed conversation, grammar, and more. Having set up the Gem, I asked it to begin, and was presented with a five-question assessment. This seemed short, but I had asked it to keep the assessment brief, so I guess that’s on me. In any event, I was keen to get into the lessons, so I decided not to make any changes to the instructions. After all, the idea is that the tutor can continue to assess my Spanish level as the course progresses. After completing the five questions, Gemini gave me a pretty accurate diagnostic assessment of my strengths and weaknesses. It then made a lesson plan, as shown above, consisting of 12 lessons across four phases. Before diving into the first lesson, I wanted to clarify a couple of points with the AI about how the course would work. Firstly, at one lesson per day, it had laid out less than two weeks of practice. That didn’t seem ideal if Gemini was going to replace the dozens of Duolingo courses, but when I raised this point, I was assured that these four phases made up ‘Module One’ and that I was given some indications of what Module Two and Module Three might contain. This seemed like a potentially big upside for me because the Gem clearly had an idea of where we would head, but it retained plenty of scope to adapt lessons dynamically based on my progress. My other concern didn’t elicit such an encouraging response from Gemini. I’m very aware that listening is my worst Spanish skill, and since I’m interacting with Gemini through typing, it wasn’t clear to me how the chatbot planned to test me on this. My custom Gem couldn’t use [Gemini Live](https://www.androidauthority.com/google-gemini-live-vs-chatgpt-voice-3612678/), so it couldn’t directly test my listening through spoken conversation. I asked Gemini about this, and it suggested a few workarounds instead, including simulating natural Mexican speech in writing, creating “Audio Challenge” prompts that I could play through text-to-speech, and building exercises around common listening difficulties. It wasn’t clear if it was workable, and it was already less seamless than Duolingo’s built-in listening exercises. ## Putting the plan into practice [Matt Horne / Android Authority](https://www.androidauthority.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/Gemini-Language-Tutor-Duolingo-1-scaled.jpg) I was ready to start, so I asked to begin lesson one. The immediate difference from Duolingo was that Gemini didn’t dive straight into the question. It gave me a very short lesson, then asked me to complete four exercises related to it. This is certainly how many tutors would approach learning, although, given that it was in text form, it felt more like an interactive workbook. That certainly isn’t a bad thing, not least because it then marked my answers right after, and told me where I’d gone wrong in the ones I was incorrect on. The obvious benefits of this were offset somewhat by the audio challenge, which was as lacking as I expected. It actually said, “Listen to or read the following sentence at natural native speed (note how words run together).” The problem is that there was no obvious or slick way to listen to the sentence without seeing the text, which totally defeats the point. And the idea of me reading it at natural speed and “noting” how the words run together was comically inadequate. If I could accurately imagine how native Mexican Spanish sounds from written text, I probably wouldn’t have this weakness in the first place. When you contrast that with Duolingo playing a sentence you can easily tap to replay and can’t see, the green owl certainly has the edge here. I asked Gemini not to give me more audio challenges after that, as they weren’t productive. Other than that issue, Gemini continued to impress as I slid into lesson two. I was told that the difficulty of an aspect of Spanish I “aced” in lesson one would be increased slightly, demonstrating how dynamically the chatbot was able to adapt for my benefit. When I made a few minor mistakes in the exercises for that lesson, it explained exactly and encouragingly why I wasn’t far off the mark in the way a human tutor would. It then added a nuance about the phrase that’s more commonly used in Mexico. There were other nice touches you might expect from a real tutor working one-on-one with me. For example, when I got to a question with the same elements I’d fallen foul of in the previous lesson, it gave me a little hint to be wary of them, saying, “Watch your prepositions & infinitives!” And when correcting me, it used English parallels as examples, which is a learning technique I find especially useful. I could continue to mold the Gem toward my preferred approach to learning. Being a chatbot, I could also continue to mould the Gem toward my preferred approach to learning. For instance, the first few lessons followed immediately after a summary of how I did in the previous lessons, but I wanted clarification on one point I’d answered incorrectly in lesson four. I interrupted lesson five to ask the Gem to pause at the end of each lesson to ask if I had any questions, and it obediently complied. It wasn’t all smooth sailing. I was given a string of garbled text in the middle of one of the explanations, seemingly out of nowhere. It looked like an Excel formula for putting a sentence together, but I can’t see any reason it should be there. Still, it didn’t appear to be in place of part of the explanation, so I chose to ignore it. In the next lesson, it gave me a table that required a horizontal scroll to fully reveal. This wasn’t a big problem, but it showed that Gemini isn’t as slickly set up for learning a language as Duolingo. ## How Gemini schools Duolingo The various advantages that Gemini has over Duolingo in language learning largely fall under one umbrella: It’s like working through a workbook under the supervision of a tutor who never gets impatient, needs coffee, or charges by the hour. They just mark your work and clearly explain where you went right and where you went wrong. The effectiveness of the app in addressing my personal needs and situation really can’t be overstated. Not only is the content tailored to address my strengths and weaknesses, but it continues to adapt as the LLM gets a better understanding of my level. In other words, the workbook in my analogy is changing dynamically as I approach each lesson. Moreover, I’m being taught correct Spanish, as well as how Spanish is actually spoken in the country where I live. This is something I’ve [long wanted Duolingo to incorporate](https://www.androidauthority.com/duolingo-changes-i-want-to-see-3671847/), but I suspect the reason it hasn’t is that regional variations would cause too much complaint. The gamified system in Duolingo means everything is either right or wrong. With regional variation, there would be some busybodies ranting online about how they were denied a Diamond League win because they gave an answer acceptable in the corner of the world they vacationed in, yet it wasn’t textbook correct. You can't stumble through it half-asleep as you might with a Duolingo lesson. The workbook-and-tutor analogy also nods to another way Gemini is more effective than Duolingo, because you actually have to focus, take in the pointers at the start of the lesson, then apply them in the exercises. You can’t stumble through it half-asleep as you might with a Duolingo lesson. In fact, I got a strange urge to please the AI almost as much as it’s constantly trying to please me, which is probably how the machines get us in the end. Workbooks and tutors have been a good way to learn a language for centuries because you’re more engaged, but since a personal tutor would get expensive very quickly, it’s fair to call it a Gemini-specific advantage. It’s a future of education that looks much cheaper for students and more than a little ominous for private educators. I’m happy to also admit that I hadn’t fully appreciated how excellent the real-world scenarios would be. A real-world scenario in Duolingo or a textbook is still relatively generic. My Gemini Gem gave me scenarios specific to me and the situations I might encounter in my Mexican home city. As I was practicing, I was aware that the word or phrase I’d just learned might actually come up in conversation when I’m out and about. Explanations of why I got things wrong were also specific to me and nuanced, at times explaining not only why what I wrote wasn’t wrong, but also why it would usually be phrased differently in Mexico. ## Things I miss about the little green owl If you’ve read this far — or even tried learning a language through a chatbot yourself — you might have anticipated which elements Gemini still can’t quite match the Duolingo experience. It might be to my benefit that my Gem requires me to sit down and focus, but it still means I need to do so. This is just that small extra measure of friction and hassle that could cause a language learner to casually forgo practice for a day, or maybe even two. Unless you’re disciplined, this could easily snowball into losing your rhythm. Duolingo just requires you to tap open the app and choose a handful of multiple-choice words to ‘progress’. In fact, it’ll actively nag you to do so. This is better than nothing, albeit sometimes not by much. It’s the same deal with [Duolingo’s gamification](https://www.androidauthority.com/duolingo-xp-boost-ux-trap-3674572/), which Gemini obviously lacks (though you could probably ask it to build some in). Much as it’s maligned, Duolingo’s gamified elements do have some impact on me. From the gratifying pings of a correct answer, to dutifully adding to my streak, and often jockeying for top spot in the league table, these arcade-like elements mean I interact with the app at least once per day, and often twice. It isn’t even a rare occurrence for me to practice for longer than I might have subconsciously intended so that I clinch the Diamond League crown. Gemini didn't present any ideal way for me to practice my Spanish listening, which is my Achilles heel. It’s a smaller point, but you notice how purpose-built for language learning Duolingo is when you replace it with a tool that’s much more of a Swiss Army Knife. Gemini isn’t as slick and hasn’t spent as long honing the formula of making language learning as pain-free as possible. My Gem’s presentation could have been better at times, such as when it gave me a string of nonsensical text in the middle of an explanation. But by far the biggest downside to Gemini is that it didn’t present any ideal way for me to practice my Spanish listening, which is my Achilles heel. The audio challenges it tried to give me in text form were woefully inadequate, but any workaround that involves the text-based system producing sound is likely to be a bit clunky. In fact, you’re likely to see the phrase you’re being tested on before you hear it, which is a hack you don’t get in real conversations. The most obvious solution is to switch to a conversation with Gemini Live for this practice, but that slightly defeats the purpose of finding a convenient one-stop replacement for Duolingo. ## Can Gemini actually replace Duolingo? [Matt Horne / Android Authority](https://www.androidauthority.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/Gemini-Language-Tutor-Duolingo-2-scaled.jpg) I’m very close to ditching Duolingo for Gemini, because there’s no doubt in my mind that the chatbot offers the best prospect of improving my Spanish. To be honest, a workbook alone would be better than Duolingo, assuming you have the discipline to plow through it. Gemini is a constantly adapting workbook that reflects my progress, with a pliant and helpful one-on-one tutor to guide me. Moreover, it teaches me the exact type of Spanish I want to learn — both in terms of regionality and scope — rather than the generic phrases the owl offers. But the lack of listening practice means I can’t quite pull the plug on Duolingo. I’ll need to source those aspects elsewhere, and perhaps I’ll end up bringing Gemini Live into the mix as the next step of my venture. Before one of you points this out below the article, I’m fully aware that Duolingo isn’t exactly the perfect aural solution either. Almost no native-language speakers talk like the owl does, let alone a car mechanic or the vendor at my local taqueria in Mexico. But at least Duolingo can give me simple, convenient practice with the basics. For now, I’m keen to carry on with both Duolingo and Gemini for my language tuition. I’m not suggesting it’s the optimal combination for anyone in particular, but two approaches are better than one. Plus, my Duo streak won’t let me leave that easily. But if you’re starting out on your own language-learning journey and have the discipline to sit down and focus, Gemini is a great place to begin. Have you had a better or worse experience learning a language with Gemini or any other chatbot? 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