When you have earned 5 crowns in a skill in Duolingo, your skill will turn gold! However, you’ll notice that soon after it turns to gold, it breaks. You’re given the choice to practice the skill to restore it, but what does that mean? Keep reading to figure out how to restore your skills on Duolingo, why you even have to restore skills at all, and what happens if you DON’T restore them!
UPDATE: You no longer restore skills on Duolingo. Instead, you can review the lesson or complete the Legendary Level.
How Do You Restore a Skill on Duolingo?
In order to restore a skill on Duolingo, you click on the skill and hit “practice.” You will earn 10 XP for practicing and it will turn your skill back to gold!
However, after a while, it will break again and you will need to practice the skill again to restore it.
Italki is how I learned 2 languages from home! Try out a class and you’ll thank me later. They’re usually $9 or less!
Why Do You Have to Restore Skills on Duolingo?
Duolingo has you restore skills on Duolingo since it’s natural that you start to forget things that you have learned after a certain period of time and that you will need to practice them again.
The app has set a certain period of time before the skill breaks and you have to restore it that is based on how long it takes for you to forget something.
This is called spaced repetition and allows you to practice something right before you are about to forget it. However, I think that Duolingo has you restore the skills way too often. Which brings us to…
Want to stop forgetting the words you’ve learned and maintain your fluency? Check out this book on Amazon about how to stay fluent in a language over time without losing fluency!
What Happens if You Don’t Restore a Skill on Duolingo?
It isn’t necessary to always restore your skills on Duolingo. In fact, with languages that I know well, like Spanish, I don’t bother to restore the skills at all.
I know the basics and it would be a waste of time to restore those skills instead of focusing on more advanced skills that appear later on in the Duolingo tree.
If you are trying to earn a lot of XP as fast as possible, then restoring your skills each day is a quick way to do that.
However, it can easily become a distraction and you end up spending your time each day restoring your skills instead of learning anything new.
Language Learning Must-Haves
- iTalki Language Classes: The #1 reason why I’ve been able to learn languages from home. Take conversation classes from a native speaker for only $5-$10 an hour.
- How to Be Fluent Books: Two of my favorite books about language learning have definitely got me super excited about learning a language and I highly recommend reading both!
- Fluent Forever: How to Learn Any Language Fast and Never Forget It
- Fluent in 3 Months: How Anyone at Any Age Can Learn to Speak Any Language from Anywhere in the World
- A Language Planner: Keep track of your scheduled language classes, set language goals, and organize your study schedule with my favorite planner ever.
- Harry Potter in Your Target Language: Reading a beginner book that you’re familiar with is an incredible way to learn vocabulary quickly!
- The Perfect Language Notebook
Read More About Duolingo:
- Everything You Need to Know About Earning Duolingo Crowns
- What You Can Do With Points in Duolingo & How to Track Them
- Who Has Earned the Longest Streak EVER on Duolingo?
- Who Has the Most XP on Duolingo?
- How Many Crowns Are in the Japanese Duolingo Tree?
Dayna Brockbank is a travel and language-learning blogger who has lived around the world but has now settled in Nice, France. She speaks 3 languages at varying levels of fluency: Spanish, Italian, and French, and graduated with a Bachelor’s in Spanish Education. She and her husband focus on making travel part of life by living cheaply and traveling on a budget.