Tourist fluent, maybe. Enough to go to a country and get by on the patience of the natives.
I did French all through high school and most of college, then learned firsthand that I was maybe 25% as fluent as I assumed. Then I went home and went through the entirety of the Duolingo curriculum in a few months, without learning anything new (a couple new vocab words, maybe).
So, you could view this in two ways: either it's a scam that tricks you into wasting a lot of time viewing ads or paying a subscription without delivering on its promise. Or, you could see it as a shortcut that's worth at least a couple years of classes. But, at least in my experience, it does not enable you to speak a language with fluency.
(Which makes total sense if you step back and look past the marketing promises. Of course 20 minutes a day with a cartoon bird is not going to replace actually living in a country and being immersed in the language 24/7)
I did French all through high school and most of college, then learned firsthand that I was maybe 25% as fluent as I assumed. Then I went home and went through the entirety of the Duolingo curriculum in a few months, without learning anything new (a couple new vocab words, maybe).
So, you could view this in two ways: either it's a scam that tricks you into wasting a lot of time viewing ads or paying a subscription without delivering on its promise. Or, you could see it as a shortcut that's worth at least a couple years of classes. But, at least in my experience, it does not enable you to speak a language with fluency.
(Which makes total sense if you step back and look past the marketing promises. Of course 20 minutes a day with a cartoon bird is not going to replace actually living in a country and being immersed in the language 24/7)