I never thought much about any of these scales when I was learning Spanish these last few years. In fact, all I really was concerned about was my silly DuoLingo active streak. It was in the last year or so when I realized I was totally consumed with continuing my streak, while my language skills were not improving that much. I hit a plateau and I wasn't taking it seriously anymore after about 2 years active.

Then once my partner turned her back on our plans to relocate to Costa Rica or Panama, I stopped my daily use of DuoLingo altogether. I'm still glad I spent a few years to build my basic vocabulary knowledge and conjugation of pronouns and verbs, but I think my next goal for language acquisition will be to try something less gamified like Rosetta Stone. At the very least, I am in a much better place to help my 6th grade students, about half of which are non-native English speakers coming mostly from Ecuador.