Duolingo is a language-learning app that’s based on spaced repetition concept. It is a gamified app that structured each language courses around lessons. In each lesson, there are several questions, and each time you answer a question incorrectly, you lose a heart. For the free tier, there are limited amount of hearts which regenerate over some period of time. I find that the concept of losing hearts over making mistakes is counter-productive for language-learning, since language-learning means making mistakes and correcting them often.
They also annoy you with ads while you’re doing lessons. The goal of this is to entice you to subscribe to their “Super Duolingo” plan. Having interruptions during lessons is extremely frustrating because it distracts you from learning and forces you to focus on something else.
However, there is a legitimate feature that bypasses the annoyances of limites hearts and ads during lessons: Duolingo for Schools.
Duolingo for Schools is a feature designed for teachers to conduct language lessons using Duolingo. It is meant for teachers to assign some assignments to their students. However, students who enrolled to a classroom gain unlimited hearts and get ad-free experience. At time of writing, anyone can still create a new classroom and enroll themselves into their own classroom.
To create a classroom, go to schools.duolingo.com and create one. After some basic setup like classroom name and the language course, you will get a classroom code. Then, go fo the regular Duolingo website or app, find the button in the settings to enter a classroom code to enroll yourself to the classroom.
Once enrolled to a classroom, you will no longer see ads and your hearts will be unlimited. However, take note that this is different from “Super Duolingo” plan. With this schools feature, you will no longer be able to participate in certain features such as public leaderboard challenge and shared achivements with friends. Personally, I find this is a worthwile trade-off.
Note: As of November 2024, I’ve stopped using Duolingo, so I’m not sure if this method still works.