掲示板 Forums - Which is better?
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Without a doubt, renshuu 
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I've tried using Duolingo before, and all that really stuck to me in 2 years was how to ask for water. Meanwhile, with renshuu, I've learnt more in 3 months than I've ever before 
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renshuu also has guides, games and even a dictionary. Plus, you can customize many things however you want (dashboard, terms you want to add to your schedule, etc.) 
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There's many more great things about renshuu, but I'll just say a few more. renshuu does NOT use AI, you can "talk" (*cough* I don't know what else to call it *cough*) with other users, and can even receive mail (tap the menu button (3 horizontal lines) and the envelope button to see) to update on what's happening inside the app 
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There's so much more great things about the cutest being alive (*clears throat* the only and only Kao-chan) compared to a certain green owl (*AGRESSIVE COUGHING* Duolingo *EVEN MORE AGRESSIVE COUGHING*). I might be biased, yes, but I've had my experiences, and in this app, they were much better 
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as someone that actually uses both apps, i have some input on this:
each app has their own uses, renshuu is better at actually learning japanese. while duolingo is better at building a strong foundation for japanese and hirigana, katakana and warm ups for both depending on how you feel.
and this is just a me thing but i use duolingo to keep track of how long i use japanese.
but overall if your just starting out i would recommend the first 5 or so units of duolingo and getting at least all the hirigana memorized, and then switch to renshuu as your primary
renshuu teaches you everything except actual speaking and sometimes listening, so both are good
and if your confused on why the others are making a big deal out of the fact duolingo uses AI (aside from the ethical issues) it isn’t very good for learning a language because it makes mistakes, and you can’t fact check those mistakes unless you can physically speak the words your learning
both sites have pros and cons, and i’m trying to be as neutral as possible. but there is a reason everyone here is biased towards renshuu (yours truly included)
as usual i can be wrong i’m not a dictionary 
Okay, so before I was using renshuu, I used duolingo, I spent one year on there improving my Chinese skills (I learn at school) and then 2 years learning Japanese.
In my opinion, I feel like duolingo is alright if you are primarily learning through other means such as at school or on another app, as duolingo can help with speaking and listening practice, however, if you are using it by itself, you actually do not learn too much. Tbh, I feel like I have learnt way more in the 3 months that I have been using renshuu than the 2 years of my Japanese progress on duolingo.
And honestly, in the 3 years that I was using duolingo I noticed that it started to become harder to actually learn and became a lot more like a game, like others are saying in this forum post. For example, when I started, there was a heart system which made it so that you only lost a heart if you made a mistake. But now they've changed it to an energy system which makes it so you can only do a maximum of around 3 lessons a day without having super or having to watch ads to gain more energy. And honestly, both of these systems are quite bad for beginner learners as they punish beginners for making mistakes.
Renshuu on the other hand does not have these systems which punish you for making mistakes, and I find that this encourages me in my studies a lot more.
Also in duolingo, you hardly ever revise words that you learnt in previous units; you just spend ages learning one unit and then never see some of those words again. Renshuu is a lot better for remembering stuff as in each quiz you revise the new words that you have learnt as well as the old ones.
So honestly, I would definitely recommend renshuu a lot more than duolingo. (sorry for my yapping )
I'd just like to note that the AI/text-to-speech audio Duolingo uses has a lot of issues. It frequently messes up pitch accents and sometimes uses the wrong readings of certain kanji/words. I'd personally recommend avoiding it, since you can pick up some bad habits. Specifically referring to speaking/listening. Learning from native recordings is always much better.
In fact, in some cases you wouldn't even be able to tell what the audio is trying to say without looking at the text... this is both from my own experience and from what I've heard native speakers say.
I'd love to say that both platforms have their pros and cons, but I'm honestly not sure what Duolingo's pros are... I guess it's more approachable as a beginner? I'm really not sure.
Maybe I'd still recommend it if the sentence discussions where still a thing, but those got removed a long time ago. Perhaps they were too helpful, so Duo removed them to keep beginners around for longer 
PS: I don't have anything against people who use/like Duo, I'm just sharing my opinion :)
Renshuu because Duolingo uses AI so it makes mistakes 
but renshuu is human checked so there is a lot less mistakes 
Oh oops, I didn't know that I should probably stop using it to practice Chinese listening comprehension then 
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