Imagine your going to Spain on holiday. To get into the ‘holiday mood’ you want to learn some Spanish phrases before you go away. Duolingo is the perfect tool for you! Congrats. But when your on your holiday you don’t want to learn the language but rather drink sangria, get a suntan and head to the beach. The only time you’d want to think about language apps is perhaps when you get overcharged at a restaurant or need to explain that you can’t eat peanuts. In those situations you need direct translation and as a result you need something more similar to Google Translate.

The point is; If you need to use language apps so much that you’d be willing to pay for them... You don’t need Duolingo. You want apps that directly translate what you want to say or can help you navigate in the culture. The people that use Duolingo are either learning a language before they go away, in which case their desire to pay monthly for a hobby are slim at best. Or, like myself, they are forced to learn a a language because of circumstances in which case they need to learn the language and will eventually anyway so paying in the meantime makes little to no sense.

Even if somehow paying for Duolingo Plus made learning your chosen language faster, less painful or more fun... which it doesn’t. I just don’t think that the people who want to pay to learn a language need offline access or really care about an add-free experience.