I thought Duolingo was great before it enshitified. I genuinely learned more from Duolingo than from any other method. Will Babbel fill that Duolingo-sized hole? I want to learn Spanish to rizz goth latinas. Also because it’s a beautiful language. I also live in an area with lots of people who speak it as a first language and I’d like to be able to communicate better. Thank you!
When it falls, it’ll make things worse - no one’s understanding each other anymore.
Bible jokes aside, dunno when Duolinguo went to shit, but having used it around 2021, it was pretty bad already. I also tried some more of such “self-learning apps”, and neither were good, all memorization-oriented, without explaining actual rules.
Personally, if your region has plenty of Spanish speakers, I think it’d be better to try to find a private teacher/tutor.
Also, native Spanish speakers seem, from what I observed, rather comfortable on speaking in their native language online when the place allows, so maybe hang around Spanish forums and groups too? There’s some here on the fediverse too, like !chile@feddit.cl (one of the chiller ones imo - and pun not intended), and iirc some Mastodon instances too.