About Lingua Trove

My grandmother was Italian and never quite taught me. Around 2019, I opened Duolingo and figured this time would be different.

Seven years and a lot of cancelled subscriptions later, I have Italian at the level where I can order food without panicking and keep up with a patient speaker at roughly two-thirds speed. I took a run at Spanish before a Mexico trip that did actually happen. Japanese is still mostly daydream. I currently pay for two app subscriptions I keep meaning to cancel and haven't, which tells you something about how the math works on these things.

What this site tracks: how a language app holds up over a real stretch of use. Not the first-week enthusiasm. Not the review written after finishing the basics unit. The 30-day mark where the novelty fades. The 60-day slog where the lessons feel like eating your vegetables. The 100-day point where you either have something to show for it or you don't. I write about which apps I cancelled and what pushed me to cancel, which notification styles got muted by day three, and where each one draws the line between actual retention and streak theater.

I'm not a linguist. No teaching credential, no degree in any language I've studied. I'm a freelance UX writer in Madison, Wisconsin. I keep Italian progress notes in the same notebook I use for client invoicing, which says everything about my filing system. More about who writes here on the author page.

Some outbound links here are affiliate links. I earn a small commission when you buy through them, at no extra cost to you. I don't collect or store any data about which links you click. More detail on the editorial policy page.