Don't forget to subscribe and to completely forget what I said at 0:39.

As a swiss who had to learn 3 (2.5) languages at school, I disagree with the duolingo bashing. It will get you started in a fun way and it will help you to learn alphabets, basic vocabs and language structures. A great starting point to expand learning and start exposure via different means.

Lamont encouraging us to join the dark side and prioritize winning the owlgame over learning a language.... tsk tsk

I admit that I did win the Diamond League once, and to achieve it I spent the better part of a weekend doing Stories in various languages that I already speak fluently. So I didn't learn much, but hey, the Stories are still fun, and I'm a completionist. That was my last remaining gold badge, and now that I have all of the badges I'll never do it again.

I'm glad I'm not the only one thinking these 6k+ XP players aren't jobless and mental.

I am currently battling someone in my first Diamond league and I want to WIN. It’s been taken over my whole week! I love how you refer to us as “freaks” because who else would are this much about a stupid app!? 😂 I feel at home here! Thanks for making me feel normal again!

I used this trick to win the diamond league with only a few hundred XP. It helped that I didn't care about my streak because I waited until Friday to do my first lesson, so I got put in with a bunch of other slackers 😀 At least now I'm Legendary!

I tried this method, and it worked for me. It would have been impossible for me to compete otherwise, because I do minority languages, and on Duolingo that means you don't have any of the more advanced features available - like Stories - that allow you to rack up points quickly. So I joined the Diamond League on Monday, and won it just by doing a normal workload. Then as soon as I won, I made my profile private and dropped out of the leagues altogether, because I was only doing it to complete my badge collection and the whole 'League' thing was pretty unhelpful to my language-learning....

Yeah, I used to do that back before I set my account to private. I’m glad I no longer play in the leagues. The competition seems to be getting worse and worse. I felt much better after the pressure was gone. I don’t want to spend all my learning time just on Duolingo, but that’s how it was starting to get.

I love that you both answered the question and explained how to actually learn a language. Hopefully this gets you lots more viewers and gets some people on the right track for real language learning. I always appreciate your content.

I've been in diamond league many times. Last week I won with 14K+ XP, and this week I got 2nd place with 16K+. But I've won with less than 10K before, too, so it definitely depends on who's in your group. Sometimes if I'm not feeling it or the competition is getting tons of XP on day 1, I'll coast through or even drop down to Obsidian to win that again before moving back up. But a competitive group is fun because it encourages me to work harder. I've even added friends from the league, which gives me more active people to do Friend Quests with. As a linguist and language teacher, I'll add that while Duolingo isn't natural input, it can be useful for learning vocabulary and basic grammar. I've also started using it as a refresher for languages I don't use as much anymore.

I've encountered these claims before, and I always wait until really late on monday before joining a new league, but I see there is another factor which clearly decides who I will be placed with: how many points I made last week. It is obvious that Duolingo strives to put people with more or less the same effort level together.

In addition to joining late to the league, do this as well: join the league a few minutes to an hour before the expiration of early bird chest so that you can both get a heads up and use the early bird boost as well. Also don’t grab the early bird chest as soon as the notification pops up. Lol.

Thanks a lot for this video. I like Duolingo to start learning a language but I was so frustrated to see people earning XPs so quickly while I spend hours to earn my XPs. I suspected well there was something wrong there and not only long hard work. I really do not like the idea of cheating, but also do not like this competition pressure. Thanks to some comments below, I also learned you can have your profile private and stop participating to the leagues. At least the time I will spend will be really to continue learning and not to earn XPs. Thank you!!

I used to not like duolingo but I feel like it helps with languages that your beginner to intermediate in. Helps get your brain comfortable with hearing and putting the langauge together. But once you're advanced and are very comfortable hearing it then it probably won't help much

Good advice. I have won it twice and found what you said to be true. I also avoid doing an early morning lesson the day after the leagues end figuring that a group of die hearts will try for an early start. There is something else I discovered that works well in conjunction with that. If I do a lesson by noon, Duolingo will give me double points for one 15 minute span from 6 PM to Midnight the same day. That is well worth taking advantage of. I don't know if it is a glitch in the system but I have been earning that doubling twice, once on the iPad and one on the iPhone. With that I can earn up to 1600 points in just 30 minutes each evening.

Great advice. I joined on Monday night around 11pm with the less competitive people. I realized now I could have joined much later in the week.

I just want to thank you for making your videos, especially your video about Anki and the Three-90 deck. I took on the challenge of making those two cards per day, and it showed me that I can consistently succeed in a small task. This kinda lead to a domino effect of me becoming much more active and motivated in life. From then, I ramped up my language studies, exercise, everything. Thank you for entertaining and inspiring us!

I've never "won a league" cause I quit duolingo before that was a thing 😆

I won diamond league last night lol. I'm not obsessed with it but it was fun. I'll be watching your more serious video about really learning a language now!

I bounce between the amythist and obsidian leagues, that seems to be what happens given me slowly advancing through the lessons. Duolingo has been really good forgetting me to a level where I can start talking to people a little, watching some tv shows, listening to the duolingo podacast, keeping an ocasional diary and even starting reading a graphic novel in French. But I think I am probably better off focusing on those things now. I am keeping my streek up because it means I'm doing a little bit of French every day and I find the lesesons still do help me learn new vocabulary and practice new sentence structures. When I have a week with a bit of time I will probably go ahead try to win the diamond league. I might as well. I am aware of the long wait trick, but I rather enjoy duolingo so I don't tend to wait =longer than until monday afternoon to keep my streek going, but yeah I will use those streek freezes when its time to go for the diamond league.

I waited as long as I could until around 2 hours before losing the streak and I got placed in a group, where the number one person already bashed up 9k xp on the first day, and ended up with 30k, the second one took 24 k. Not sure, if this strategy works

I made my profile unpublic and it's been great. Racking up points and ranking high on the leaderboards does not equate to getting better at the language.

This man’s videos never fail.

0:30 so there was a guy in the emerald league with me and he somehow got 10k xp under 20 minutes like impossible

Love your videos man. I found Duo good for beginning and for forcing me again and again to re do sections i have not learned yet. I also find it very good at expanding my vocap. However i think Busuu is better. But i still like Duo.

I won Diamond League once with about 4,000 point. There are people who clearly are crazy & must just live on Duolingo 24 / 7. You aren't going to beat them. It doesn't matter. The point of the leagues is to just try to motivate you. If you fall down, then you will get more diamonds to get back up to a higher league when move up again. -- I just do daily quest each day & maybe put a bit extra effort on some hard weeks to stay on Diamond League, so that's a good motivation (imo). But you do you. Once you are on Diamond League enough weeks, then they move into a super Diamond tournament. Really nutsos on that one with 35,000 points. How?

I must have done this by accident because I can keep my Diamond streak for months. I've done it because I was desperate to make learning Greek fun and gamifying it was the only way I've found. I started learning it to figure out what my in-laws were saying and I'm not good at it or learning languages, but I'll be darned if I let that stop me. Anyway, I figure I am learning little by little and getting a lot more positive feedback for it.

Great video as always! What are your thoughts on duolingo closing the forums, and the progression tree redesign coming out later this month?

I’ve been in the Diamond League for just a week so far and it’s absolutely insane how far people go for the ‘Unrivaled’ title. I keep wondering what does people do with their lives…

Oh, gosh. THANK YOU. I always wondered why competition in the league got harder the harder I worked. It was so frustrating; there was no reward for working hard.

I enjoy Duolingo, and I watch videos put out by language teachers and listen to news/stories in languages I am studying. All are very helpful. Thank you for your tips.

I stopped using duolingo years ago,didn’t even know this was a thing. Still I always enjoy your videos.

I won the Diamond league last week with 20k xp and I had in plan to win this one too, but in this league is a man who literally doesn't have a life and already has 17k xp (I have 16k) I really want to win this league too, so this is why I searched this on KZfaq

I had no idea how this selection happens every week! Thanks, this will help me avoid the "freaks". Sometimes I felt like Alice in Wonderland on the chess board, running like mad just to stay in place.

I won the bronze league by doing Duolingo for 10 hours 💀

I heard on reddit that if you join on late monday you will be able to get into a chill server where people dont even surpass 10k

I haven’t watched this video yet but as someone who has won the diamond league for way to many weeks I can tell you how amazing it feels having that little number next to the badge. I haven’t learned any languages in months, I only care about the number getting higher

30 mins later I, after this comment is posted, I will get my first win. But, I only watched this video now. I did 4000xp per day without any boost lol. I feel so messed up now.

I have heard from a few other sources that waiting to do a lesson on Monday is exactly the right strategy. I've won top place in Diamond maybe three times but so far I've just gotten sorted in easier diamond leagues out of luck. Now that I've won the badge for it I don't compete in leagues as much, unless I feel like it will be an easier one to win.

I'm B1 and started duo lingo out of curiosity for the first time. I have a 17 day streak. I have learned a total of two new words😂 but I'm still doing it, because well some languages exposure is better than none and its a fun 5mins a day break my other 5mins break a day is drops. I got to my level mainly by Busuu(because of this channel) and refreshing same levels with DW hour long lesson course.

Oh we know man, we know you are a cereal killer. You eat them every morning, right?

I don’t know if I have ever placed first in diamond league but I have stayed in the diamond league for multiple weeks. Make sure to take advantage of your early bird boost which you get by doing a lesson before 10 AM, I think, and then also by doing the happy hour which I believe is seven or 8 PM… Can’t remember but if you turn on notifications it will tell you lol you get double XP for those times

I love to take challenges like securing 1st position from 30 to 1 within last hour. It gives me extra layer of pleasures😅

I don't need to learn how to win. I just will 😆👍You get points because you're good, you're faster than most people and make fewer mistakes. Simple ❤

I used to be competitive until i realized it was a COLLOSSAL waste of time. The only thing i care about now is doing a whole unit per day and finishing it. Thats already a tough time investement of 2-3 hours grinding through +/- 800 lines. The thing is, unless youre part of a group there's no real recognition and since no one there actually knows you OR cares about your results. Competing is a complete waste of precious time.

If you make your profile non-public, the leagues will disappear. You can make it public again on Saturday or Sunday and do a few lessons and you'll surely get first place. It worked a few months ago. Now I'm trying it again to see if they have changed it.

I usually not too excited doing duolingo but if someone pass you and you try to pass them back but they keep fighting you, that's when I go berserk mode and once get 10k a day without cheating...

I have never paid attention to the Leagues, but having a strike used to be a thing for me. Then I lost it after like 80 days, got mad and stopped using Duolingo for a while 😆 Now I use it every now and then just for fun 😄

Anyone else notice the scoring has been nerfed? I used to get 2x-4x what I'm getting these days

I just got out of ruby league. Me and this other player both put in 20000 + points before I said F@#$ this and just played casual. She eventually won and I got promoted to ruby. It was an exhausting week and I was hurt by the experience. I’m guessing I’m one of the psychos but I had a breaking point. I’m happy this video has given me a better strategy for the future. I’ll hang with the late crowd. 😂 good video thank you. ❤

Another way of leaving it as long as possible is to set your profile to private and therefore not in any leagues. Then Saturday or Sunday make your profile public and then do a lesson and it will then add you to which ever league. And you are only going to be in with a bunch of people that aren’t daily users. I didn’t lose my streak either!! Being private I was still able to do a daily lesson! I got the Diamond League using this trick a few months ago. Then I went private again because I hate the leagues thing. I wish there was an opt-out option for leagues without having to go private

I have been using this trick for yrs..wait and then join...it sure works!

Thank you for this, lots of amazing info even if you don't want to compete with others. You have left a vital part unaddressed and that is what do I do with these boxes of caps, is there really a snake in absolutely everything in Italy and when does this salad go off?

Hey Lamont I'm planning on taking your "learn a language in a month" idea and documenting it. I have two textbooks and want to give periodic updates every 7-10 days ( I haven't decided yet). I'm just wondering if u have some advice for me both on the learning side and production side?

I used this trick this week and delayed till Monday morning with enough time to complete a class before 12pm. But my new Diamond League had one guy get 7000 points by end of Monday 😂 I just checked and i’m in demotion zone with 700 points (Wednesday morning). I have won it a few times though before but I am not going nuts by doing nothing else.

Just got 1 Diamond with 21653 Points, I can finally focus on actually learning a language now. I actually had to stop myself from progressing, so that I didn't get any challenging task in the timed challenges. Ended up wasting 12 hours 15 mins on this pointless challenge.

This is a great video, and I really enjoyed every minute of it

Dang! Sometimes I accidentally get in, in seconds because i was doing a lesson when it ended 😢 now I'll wait a few hours at least so i join more normals ones because definitely i noticed people get thousands in just one day😂

Won it once with about 1300 XP I think. Waited till close to the deadline to get a few hundred more XP just to not create a race between my and then first place. So yeah, it's a good trick. Would I care to do it again? No.

I think it really depends on your group and I find the more weeks you're in a league the lower the competition. For example sitting 4,5,6 weeks in Obsidian the Top 3 are all well under 5,000 if not 3,000. Diamond league is higher than that typically but not automatically as I've had the top dog "only" have 3,600 points or there about. And ya artificially keeping your unit level lower than your proficiency means the matching game can be totally gamed at least to level 9. Reality is to constantly win level 10 is manic as unless you go on a prolonged run of picking the matches as they fade in you just don't have the bloody time.

Spending too much time on Duolingo wouldn't make you fluent in any language. I am in the diamond league this week which is my first time. It is just too much "work" and I can't really learn anything. So, after this week, I will skip one week and focus on Japanese grammar. I will also spend time on reading Japanese news on NHK's website and try to memorize about 100 Japanese verbs using studystack. Level 4 Japanese is getting very tough in terms of Japanese grammar and vocabulary. It is difficult to compete with those who keep doing old lessons and reviews.

I've won the diamond league once with less than 4000XP. Some are easier than others. Sometimes even in lower leagues, you get some people who earn those likings in just 1 day. I wouldn't 'waste' time trying to compete with these people.

I remember trying soooo hard to win diamond league. Would do it for hours while the brat was at gymnastics. Won it and then… nothing happened! I’d thought there would a prize at the end. Was so disappointed I cursed that owl hard! Lol

A person in my league got 71000 xp Edit : A person last week earned 110,000 xp. He was online the whole week and was earning 100xp per 45 seconds. I reported him!

I always do my lesson within 2 hours. I mostly get about 2nd, but for some reason there’s always that one person that gets like 10000xp. To get more XP, I think the events such as match madness or lightning round gives the most the fastest.

I just want the doggone achievement then I'll tank my elo back to emerald league where I belong 😑

I got 2nd in the diamond league and had 14k points, first was like 25k+

I naturally don't rejoin right away on the Sunday night since I put in a surge of effort to get a good finish to the week on the last day and am tired of it so need a rest. Also, I did notice freaks that have crazy XP that do it at the start of the week and do bursts etc. Well I did a burst today and got into the Diamond league. So I did a search and found your video. You confirmed my suspicions regarding time zones and groups. So now that I have achieved my game goal, I will implement your suggestion for maintaining status and playing around with getting top slots to check those boxes off. Now I do intend to study more usefully to build better conversational skills.

I've been on Duolingo for Turkish for about a year, study from an English to Turkish textbook, I LIVE in Türkiye and have for about 7 months, my wife is Turkish, and she is the only member of her family that even knows English (at a level B2)... Her family doesn't know any English. When we go out, I try to read everything I can and always try to practice my Turkish. Even my favorite genre of music has become Türk Sanat Müziği and my favorite artist Nesrin Sipahi (even though I don't understand the lyrics). Still can't learn the language to save my life. I'm no better than I was at week 1.

When I started it was between 1000 and 3000 then first week of diamond league. I was busy. And I show how many languages I learn. For me is fun I get to learn languages. But now they're in 40.000 points what happened?

This vid capped off my Friday

When I was doing English course(I'm not native) i was gaining up to 24k points a week for 2½ months, so many wins

I will confess. I was mostly doing lighting rounds in Duolingo, I would spend at least 1h on lighting rounds. Found out, that with correct boosts, you can do 4k exp/h and I was really happy doing it! Today, they added Match Madness instead of Lighting rounds, and you no longer can earn any exp from league events… it put me on a crazy, that I wont be able do be competitive… I was browsing internet to find answers until I popped up on this video. I wanted to thank you, guy on my screen! I forgot why I downloaded the app at this point. My original goal was to learn a language, and I just became a mindless gamer instead. So thanks for waking me up! I will turn off the leagues now, and I will never get competitive over a language again!

I am learning Spanish for fun and I am a very competitive person. I started learning about two weeks ago. N I placed first in both weeks in bronze n silver league. Now in gold league, I have met another competitive person. Because of them, I'm already on 5000 points in 4 days. N I know that they are going to cover this lead I have and I'll have to work harder for even more points. Frankly, it's tiring.

Winning the Diamond League at least once can aid in motivation and learning, imho. After that, forget the Leagues for the most part. I've won Diamond multiple times but now I don't care when I'm booted down to Obsidian because I started a league early and the super competitive members all had thousands upon thousands of XP.

Your video literally SAVED my life. I could no longer do 4000xp/day it was just no longer possible I spent 3/4 hours a day there and I didn't go out. THANKS !

Hm. I'm on Ruby right now and i started a month ago. Been #1 by a far margin every league. I'm coming for you mate!!!!!!

So the strat is join late in the weekly cycle so your competition is other "slackers". What do you mean by "win"? Top 10 or first? As of today in my diamond league there are 30 people. 10 in "tournament", what actually happens if you finish in that top 10? Is it different from being 1st? Also the "tournament" is only marked on iOS, not on PC.

Until I reached the Diamond League, I had won every level on the first week. That didn't take too much effort, I didn't do it to win the first place, I just liked practising the language. However in the Diamond League I realized winning it would take so much time and work that it's not worth it. After all the point of Duolingo is to learn, have a good time so I shouldn't sacrifice every minute of every day so that I could say, I have won this league too. Because if I do, then what? There's no next level, I can stay here as long as the course finishes or I finish learning so there's really no point. I am competitive but I am also sensible. :)

You just let the cat out of the bag😂😂😂.. That was my secret when I felt like competing . I don't do it anymore though coz I really want to take my time learning..

Bruh this weeks diamond league i had to collect over 15000xp just to be in 3ed place, if i knew i was competing with menaces i wouldn't have put so much effort, i regret it, i will try your tip for next week's thanks for the vid

I average a score of about 300 points a day on my own learning a single language. It took 210 days to complete the course in German

I kept doing that for a couple weeks already and I'm still paired with the freaks. Just boarded on a new diamond league and within the first 10 minutes #1 already had 360 XP. How is that even possible?!

I think the cartoon with the dogs is cute, but I don't recognize it. Where is that from please?

Lamont, My specialty is my ability to speak the languages well, somewhat parrotlike but I an actual learning them, and can knock out the points especially the 15 ninute doubles. I am a top 3 "winner" in diamond league many times but I do it for my mental health, I'm 82 and started in 2016 as a paying member. I do not cheat, I work within the rules, but this week the number one had over 90,000 points. These people easily get 100 to 150 points per lesson. I think it's their life. IT completely disses us and the idea of competition. I started with Spanish and can actually speak it a bit but I wonder why Duolingo doesn't concentrate on spoken language and sentences that are practical., wouldn't that be the way to go? Cheers, Rik Spector

I have almost a 300 day streak and have noticed that if I go easy on the points until the last couple hours, I get placed with regular people and not the maniacs who get 100k points in one day lol I won Diamond League once and decided never again lol it’s not worth it for me, so now I only do enough to stay in a Diamond league

That's me, i always join at the end of Monday! I'm a UK resident, and it always resets at 10pm (Winter) or 11pm (Summer) on the Sunday. I managed to win a Diamond League Semi-Final tournament with 4,600 XP. Though the 2nd place person had 4,100 XP, so i did 500 too many..!

Just got to diamond. Day 1: the first guy has 6.2k points WTF!?

Duolingo helped me build a habit. Its not the end all be all. But Im happy you have this video plus expressing real learning techniques

I’m in amethyst league right now. Some psychopath dropped 10,000 points in one day and then 6,000 the next. I honestly think they are cheating somehow though, because they racked up 1,000 points in the first 15 minutes of the league. That should be mathematically impossible.

It's easy but what's the point? I just don't bother.

So if I just play Duolingo for 30 mins a day, I can learn any language I want? Sweet!!

I have learned my second language only on Duolingo and I can communicate with others in that language perfectly fine. As a matter of fact I have been told, I make others have to bush up a bit and it’s their first language. Duo is a great tool!

Aaaah, thanks a lot for the tip!🤗

There’s this person named June in my league who has 15k EXP 💀

i figured this out a few years ago not too long after I quit using duolingo. I find it nice when i'm FIRST learning a language for some training wheels, but I tire quickly of the game.

This is very helpful. I've been pulling 12-15k and still only placing 4th or 5th lol

I don't think climbing or competing in leagues helps to learn a language. In fact, I think, it makes learning less effective. I am on my way to get my diamond league win. Why do I do it? Because I am the victim of the gamification. I am completionist kind of person, and I just need to get the achievement and an icon, even if noone cares about it and I would never use it. After getting it, I have decided not to ever look at the leaderboards again. I also don't need to work hard to win it. I actually need to get less XP than I did climbing. What works for me is: 1. Joining the league late. I joined about 16 hours after the end of the previous week's results. 2. Using a consistent source of XP. For me it was a language that had an easy lightning rounds challenge, that gave insane amounts of XP (40, or 80 with a boost in less than 2 minutes). Would I suggest anyone to do that. No, unless you are a completionist like me. I think it hinders learning.

Thanks for the video. (Is there a good app you could recommend?)