Do you lingo?
I am, I suppose, something of a Duolingo veteran at this point. I currently have a 2,573 consecutive day streak, which means I’ve been at it for just over seven years.
I started out learning French, and I’ve made reasonably good progress in the French course. Along the way I’ve let myself get sidetracked a few times, primarily in order to do work temporarily on languages that students were studying under my supervision. One of those sidetracks led into Italian, and last fall I completed the full Italian course, an accomplishment in which I took a certain satisfaction.
This week, however, I have realized that I am as nothing compared to the true Duolingo fanatics.
I neither understand nor can keep track of the various changes Duolingo regularly makes in its program. But a few weeks ago I found myself once again in “leagues,” something I hadn’t seen in a few years. Each week I am thrown together with a random group of other Duolinguists, and we compete—wittingly or unwittingly—to see who gets the most “points” and advances to the next higher league, or at least avoids being “demoted” to the league below.
I am in the “Diamond League,” which I take it is pretty good—the highest league they have, unless I am mistaken.
But that raises a problem, of course. Because how can Duolingo motivate people who are already in the highest league to keep coming back for more?
The solution: a new competition. This week, for the first time, I am not only in the Diamond League, but also in a brand-new “Diamond Tournament.” The top ten of fifteen participants will advance to a “semifinal” (with, one assumes, a final to follow after that).
And let me tell you: these folks play for keeps. They take this seriously, and the competition is cutthroat.
I am hanging in there in 10th place, but only by the skin of my teeth. The first-place participant already has four and a half times my number of points, and it is only Wednesday. The person behind me, in 11th place, clearly has designs on the top ten and is just waiting to pounce.
Which raises the question: how much do I really care about reaching the semifinals?
The answer, I think, is not very much. I do, I confess, retain some of the old competitive juices, enough to take some pleasure in bumping someone out of the last slot to avoid demotion just a few minutes before play closes for the week. I do not affect complete indifference to these little victories.
But Easter break is ending and I’m teaching again tomorrow morning. I’m working roughly two full-time jobs this semester, plugging various holes. To say nothing of trying to keep writing for all of you. And of course you are all more important to me than some gamified competition against anonymous Duolinguists. (Aw, shucks!, I can hear you all saying.) Who has time to spend an hour a day on Duolingo?
So you know what? If someone else wants the Diamond Tournament semifinals that badly, he can have it. Someone with too much time on his hands. I’ll keep pounding out the Microstack instead.
Don’t ever say I never did anything for you.