Spanish- I took academic spanish from 7th grade to 10th grade, and then a semester in my sophomore year of college but i had mostly forgotten it and totally failed a harder Spanish class i took junior year. It was one of only two classes i was taking and i felt like a total failure, so i took a semester off to try and get my shit together and learn to love learning again instead of just seeing it as something i had to do to get grades. Duolingo has been AWESOME for this. I relearned everything i sort of remembered from middle/highschool academic spanish, and also filled in the holes for a lot of things i forgot. I can hold basic conversations for the first time, and I'm starting to recall the information fluently, but I'm not totally there yet.
French- I work part time in the wine industry, and thought maybe even just understanding basic french would help me move up a lot more if i decide to make it a career. I have no immediate need to become fluent in it, but I'm liking Duolingo's french course so much that i'm now supplementing it with other sources. Luckily my Dad and Grandpa both speak french as a second language, and my best friend is trying to learn it with me, so i do have some practice even though i don't know any native french speakers. I hope to make it a long term thing and eventually become fluent in both french and spanish, and kick ass in the wine industry. Hopefully someday i can visit some french speaking countries, or at least know lots more about french wine.
Swedish- I played around with all the duolingo language courses, and swedish was just something that i fell in love with! Its such a fun language, and the grammer is super easy because they don't conjugate their verbs. I really have no reason to learn it except to connect with my swedish heritage, or be able to read the girl with the dragon tattoo in its original language.
Overall, I'm on duolingo because its helping with my anxiety. Its a fun thing to do while still learning and being productive. I got a lot of my friends into it. I have one best friend who was just as enthusiastic about it as i was and is learning German, Italian, and Spanish when she already speaks Mandarin and some spanish. I hope someday we can travel the world together. I also got my 15 year old cousin into it, he's learning spanish in school so hopefully it will reinforce what he's already learning. His younger brother is learning swedish with me, and hopefully if he sticks with it we can talk to eachother in swedish.
TLDR; I love you duolingo!!! You're the best thing about the internet <3 If i had a million dollars to kill i would give it to duolingo so that they can be even more awesome while still being free.