Duolingo
Duolingo is an American platform that includes a language-learning website and mobile app, as well as a digital language-proficiency assessment exam. The company uses the freemium model; the app and the website are accessible without charge, although Duolingo also offers a premium service for a fee.
As of 30 June 2020, the language-learning website and app offers 95 different language courses in 38 languages. The app has over 300 million registered users across the world.
History
The project was started at the end of 2009 in Pittsburgh by Carnegie Mellon University professor Luis von Ahn and his graduate student Severin Hacker, and then developed along with Antonio Navas, Vicki Cheung, Marcel Uekermann, Brendan Meeder, Hector Villafuerte, and Jose Fuentes.Inspiration for Duolingo came from two places. Luis Von Ahn wanted to create another program that served two purposes in one, what he calls a "twofer". Duolingo originally did this by teaching its users a foreign language while having them translate simple phrases in documents, though the translation feature has since been removed.
Von Ahn was born in Guatemala and saw how expensive it was for people in his community to learn English. Severin Hacker, co-founder of Duolingo and current CTO, and Von Ahn believe that "free education will really change the world" and wanted to supply people an outlet to do so.
The project was originally sponsored by Luis von Ahn's MacArthur fellowship and a National Science Foundation grant.
On October 19, 2011, during in its "Early Stage Venture" stage Duolingo raised $3.3 million from a Series A first-round of funding, led by Union Square Ventures, with participation from author Tim Ferriss and actor Ashton Kutcher's firm, A-Grade Investments
Duolingo launched into private beta a month later on November 30, 2011, and accumulated a waiting list of more than 300,000 users.
On June 19, 2012, Duolingo later launched for the general public.
On September 17, 2012, while still in its "Early Stage Venture" stage, Duolingo raised $15 million from a Series B second-round of funding led by New Enterprise Associates, with participation from Union Square Ventures bringing Duolingo's total funding to $18.3 million.
On 13 November 2012, Duolingo released their iOS app through the iTunes App Store. The application is a free download and is compatible with most iPhone, iPod and iPad devices.
On 29 May 2013, Duolingo released their Android app, which was downloaded about a million times in the first three weeks and quickly became the #1 education app in the Google Play store.
On June 19, 2013, one year after launching for the general public, Duolingo passed 4 million users, all through word of mouth, and on November 21, 2013, Duolingo reached 15 million users
On February 18, 2014, Duolingo entered its "Late Stage Venture" stage, and raised $20 million from a Series C third-round of funding led by Kleiner Caufield & Byers. It was reported Duolingo had about 25 million registered users, 12.5 million active users, and 34 employees. On June 2, 2014, Duolingo passed 30 million users
On June 10, 2015, Duolingo raised $45 million from a Series D fourth-round of funding led by Google Capital, bringing its total funding to $83.3 million, a valuation of $470 million, as well as passing 100 million users.
In April 2016 it was reported that Duolingo had 17 million monthly users.
On July 25, 2017, that Duolingo raised $25 million from a Series E fifth-round of investment from Drive Capital, bringing its total funding to $108.3 million, a valuation of $700 million, as well as passing 200 million users and having 25 million monthly users. It was reported that Duolingo had 95 employees, and the funds would be directed toward creating initiatives such as TinyCards and Duolingo Labs.
On August 1, 2018, it was reported Duolingo passed 300 million users.
On December 4, 2019, it was announced that Duolingo raised $30 million in a series F sixth-round of investment from Alphabet’s investment company CapitalG, bringing a total funding of $138.3 million, a valuation of $1.5 billion, reporting 30 million monthly active learners. Duolingo will use the funds on developing new products and expanding its team. Expanding the team will span a variety of positions, including in engineering, business development, design, curriculum and content creators, community outreach and marketing.
During 2019, Duolingo grew from 170 staff members to 200 employees, with headquarters in the Pittsburgh neighborhood of East Liberty and offices in New York; Bellevue, Washington ; and Beijing. Of Duolingo’s 200 employees, 166 work in its East Liberty headquarters, 17 work in New York, 8 in Bellevue, and 8 in China.
Duolingo had a revenue of $1 million in 2016, $13 million in 2017, $36 million in 2018, and is projected to hit $86 million in 2019.
Business model
Most language-learning features in Duolingo are free of charge, but it uses periodic advertising in both its mobile and web browser applications, which users can remove by paying a subscription fee. This feature, which is named ‘Duolingo Plus’, includes benefits such as unlimited hearts, level skipping, and progress quizzes. It originally employed a crowd sourced business model, where the content came from organizations that paid Duolingo to translate it.Infrastructure
Duolingo uses many services in the Amazon Web Services suite of products, including Amazon DynamoDB, Amazon Virtual Private Cloud, nearly 200 virtual instances in Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud, Amazon Simple Storage Service and Amazon Relational Database Service. The server backend is written in the programming language Python. A component called the Session Generator was rewritten in Scala by 2017. The frontend was written in Backbone.js and Mustache but is now primarily in React and Redux. Duolingo provides a single-page web application for desktop computer users and also smart phone applications on Android, iOS App Store and Windows Phone platforms. 20% of traffic comes from desktop users and 80% from mobile app users.In popular culture
Duolingo's mascot, a green cartoon owl named Duo, has been a subject of an Internet meme in which the mascot will stalk and threaten users if they do not keep using the app. Acknowledging the meme, Duolingo released a video on April 1, 2019 as an April Fools' Day joke; the video depicts a fictitious new premium feature called "Duolingo Push". In the video, users of "Duolingo Push" will receive reminders to use the app in person by Duo himself, who stares at users and follows them around until they use the app.In November 2019, Saturday Night Live parodied Duolingo in a skit where adults learned to communicate with children using a fictitious course on the app titled "Duolingo for Talking to Children".
Recognition and awards
In 2013, Apple chose Duolingo as its iPhone App of the Year, the first time this honor had been awarded to an educational application. Duolingo won Best Education Startup at the 2014 Crunchies, and was the most downloaded app in the Education category in Google Play in 2013 and 2014. In 2015, Duolingo was announced the 2015 award winner in Play & Learning category by Design to Improve Life.Duolingo was named No. 44 on Fast Company's "The World's 50 Most Innovative Companies" list in 2018 "for making new languages irresistible". No. 2 on Fast Company's "The World's Most Innovative Companies: Education Honorees" in 2018 "for making a new language irresistible", and No. 2 on Fast Company's "The World's Most Innovative Companies: Education Honorees" in 2017 "for letting friends compare notes as they learn a new language". No. 6 on Fast Company's "The World's Most Innovative Companies: Social Media Honorees" in 2017 "for letting friends compare notes". No. 7 on Fast Company's "The World's Most Innovative Companies: Education Honorees" in 2013 "for crowdsourcing web translation by turning it into a free language-learning program".
Duolingo won Inc. magazine's Best Workplaces 2018, Entrepreneur magazine's Top Company Culture List 2018, and appeared in CNBC's 2018 and 2019 "Disruptor 50" lists. TIME Magazine's 50 Genius Companies. In 2019, Duolingo was named one of Forbes's "Next Billion-Dollar Startups 2019".
Features
Duolingo mimics the structure of video games in several ways in order to engage its users. It features a reward system in which users acquire "lingots", an in-game currency that they can spend on features such as character customizations or bonus levels.On public leaderboards people can compete against their friends or see how they stack up against the rest of the world. The level system that Duolingo uses is XP, a numerical system that represents a user's skill-level. Badges in Duolingo represent achievements that are earned from completing specific objectives or challenges.
The study process in Duolingo combines various methods such as: listening to the pronunciation, reading sentences, voice recording, forming phrases by ordering words and matching images to words.
Use in schools
Duolingo provides "Duolingo for Schools" with features designed to allow teachers to track their students. In 2012 an effectiveness study concluded that Duolingo usage for Spanish study was more effective than classroom language-learning alone, but that Duolingo was less effective for advanced language-learners. One proposed reason for this is that the grammar-translation method that Duolingo primarily uses is more applicable to simple words and phrases than to complex ones; simpler ones can translate in a more exact manner from one language to another and thus are more conducive to Duolingo's grammar-translation method.Criticism
Duolingo has received criticism for its lack of effectiveness in helping students to fully learn a language. Duolingo CEO, Luis von Ahn, promises only to get users to a level between advanced beginner and early intermediate: 'A significant portion of our users use it because it's fun and it's not a complete waste of time'. After six months of studying French with Duolingo, von Ahn demonstrated a lack of basic verb tenses when asked to describe his weekend in French, "mangling his tenses." Bob Meese, Duolingo's chief revenue officer, did not immediately understand the spoken question "¿Hablas español?" after six months of Duolingo Spanish study.Language coach and Podcaster Kersten Cable has criticized the app for "its impractical vocabulary, its insistence upon one acceptable translation per sentence prompt, and its lack of explanation for incorrect answers" describing the Duolingo's method as "you learn by parroting phrases without even beginning to cover the background stories that grammar and pragmatics tell." Linguist Steven Sacco at the San Diego State university attempted to test Duolingo's claim of "34 hours of Duolingo are equivalent to a full university semester of language education" by completing a course in Swedish and taking a standardized elementary exam ultimately receiving a failing grade. Sacco suggested some use for Duolingo as helpful for learning vocabulary only in addition to immersion environments like a classroom. Both Sacco and Cable added that Duolingo's translation method of teaching is ultimately inferior to learning language in an immersion environment.
Language courses
Courses for English speakers
, 36 courses are available to the public in English, three of which are constructed languages, and those three include two fictional languages. In this list, the courses are ordered by number of active learners.Complete
, three courses for English speakers are in development- Yiddish
- Haitian Creole
- Māori language
Courses available in other languages
- Arabic: English, French, German, Spanish, Swedish
- Bengali: English
- Chinese: English, Esperanto, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Spanish
- Czech: English
- Dutch: English, French, German
- French: English, Esperanto, German, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish
- German: English, French, Italian, Spanish
- Greek: English
- Hebrew: English
- Hindi: English
- Hungarian: English, German
- Indonesian: English
- Italian: English, French, German, Spanish
- Japanese: Chinese, English
- Korean: English
- Polish: English
- Portuguese: English, Esperanto, French, German, Italian, Spanish
- Punjabi: English
- Romanian: English
- Russian: English, French, German, Spanish, Swedish
- Spanish: Catalan, English, Esperanto, French, German, Guarani, Italian, K'iche', Portuguese, Russian, Swedish, Yucatec
- Tagalog: English
- Tamil: English
- Telugu: English
- Thai: English
- Turkish: English, French, German, Russian
- Ukrainian: English
- Vietnamese: English
= Course still in beta version
Number of languages available for speakers of 'x' language on the app and on the website
List of courses by number of learners
, 94 courses are available to start learning, and 10 are available to be notified when they are released.| Rank | Teaching | For Speakers of | Number of Learners | Release date |
| 1 | English | Spanish | 27,600,000 | 2012-03-30 – 30 March 2012 |
| 2 | Spanish | English | 24,200,000 | 2011-11-30 – 30 November 2011 |
| 3 | French | English | 13,600,000 | 2012-06-19 – 19 June 2012 |
| 4 | English | Portuguese | 10,800,000 | 2012-10-30 – 30 October 2012 |
| 5 | German | English | 7,820,000 | 2011-11-30 – 30 November 2011 |
| 6 | Japanese | English | 6,430,000 | 2017-05-18 – 18 May 2017 |
| 7 | English | Russian | 5,720,000 | 2015-11-02 – 2 November 2015 |
| 8 | Italian | English | 5,300,000 | 2012-11-13 – 13 November 2012 |
| 9 | English | Arabic | 4,520,000 | 2014-05-09 – 9 May 2014 |
| 10 | English | French | 4,430,000 | 2013-05-07 – 7 May 2013 |
| 11 | French | Spanish | 3,880,000 | 2014-01-10 – 10 January 2014 |
| 12 | Korean | English | 3,670,000 | 2017-10-10 – 10 October 2017 |
| 13 | Chinese | English | 3,560,000 | 2017-11-15 – 15 November 2017 |
| 14 | Russian | English | 3,300,000 | 2015-11-02 – 2 November 2015 |
| 16 | English | Chinese | 3,190,000 | 2014-04-11 – 11 April 2014 |
| 15 | English | Turkish | 3,050,000 | 2013-12-29 – 29 December 2013 |
| 17 | Spanish | Portuguese | 2,650,000 | 2014-03-09 – 9 March 2014 |
| 18 | Italian | Spanish | 2,510,000 | 2014-09-15 – 15 September 2014 |
| 19 | English | German | 2,280,000 | 2013-11-27 – 27 November 2013 |
| 20 | Portuguese | English | 2,240,000 | 2012-10-30 – 30 October 2012 |
| 21 | English | Vietnamese | 2,150,000 | 2014-06-10 – 10 June 2014 |
| 22 | English | Italian | 2,120,000 | 2012-11-24 – 24 November 2012 |
| 23 | Portuguese | Spanish | 2,110,000 | 2014-02-01 – 1 February 2014 |
| 24 | English | Polish | 1,660,000 | 2014-01-19 – 19 January 2014 |
| 25 | German | Spanish | 1,590,000 | 2014-05-19 – 19 May 2014 |
| 26 | English | Hindi | 1,520,000 | 2014-04-21 – 21 April 2014 |
| 27 | Turkish | English | 1,450,000 | 2013-12-29 – 29 December 2013 |
| 28 | Spanish | French | 1,430,000 | 2014-05-21 – 21 May 2014 |
| 29 | Arabic | English | 1,410,000 | 2019-06-25 – 25 June 2019 |
| 30 | French | Portuguese | 1,400,000 | 2015-03-12 – 12 March 2015 |
| 31 | Dutch | English | 1,350,000 | 2014-07-16 – 16 July 2014 |
| 32 | Swedish | English | 1,190,000 | 2014-11-17 – 17 November 2014 |
| 33 | English | Japanese | 1,170,000 | 2014-03-03 – 3 March 2014 |
| 34 | English | Indonesian | 1,140,000 | 2014-04-23 – 23 April 2014 |
| 35 | Spanish | German | 1,080,000 | 2015-09-01 – 1 September 2015 |
| 36 | Hindi | English | 1,070,000 | 2018-07-18 – 18 July 2018 |
| 37 | Greek | English | 1,040,000 | 2016-08-30 – 30 August 2016 |
| 38 | Japanese | Chinese | 958,000 | 2019-04-24 – 24 April 2019 |
| 39 | English | Romanian | 942,000 | 2014-02-04 – 4 February 2014 |
| 40 | Irish | English | 924,000 | 2014-08-25 – 25 August 2014 |
| 41 | German | Russian | 887,000 | 2014-03-26 – 26 March 2014 |
| 42 | English | Dutch | 879,000 | 2013-12-23 – 23 December 2013 |
| 43 | Polish | English | 877,000 | 2015-12-10 – 10 December 2015 |
| 44 | High Valyrian | English | 875,000 | 2017-07-12 – 12 July 2017 |
| 45 | Norwegian | English | 841,000 | 2015-05-21 – 21 May 2015 |
| 46 | Hebrew | English | 814,000 | 2016-06-21 – 21 June 2016 |
| 47 | English | Czech | 803,000 | 2014-10-17 – 17 October 2014 |
| 48 | Italian | Portuguese | 765,000 | 2017-06-13 – 13 June 2017 |
| 49 | French | Arabic | 761,000 | 2016-02-02 – 2 February 2016 |
| 50 | French | German | 750,000 | 2014-03-31 – 31 March 2014 |
| 51 | English | Hungarian | 713,000 | 2014-01-08 – 8 January 2014 |
| 52 | Russian | Spanish | 706,000 | 2018-06-20 – 20 June 2018 |
| 53 | Catalan | Spanish | 679,000 | 2015-11-19 – 19 November 2015 |
| 54 | Latin | English | 676,000 | 2019-08-28 – 28 August 2019 |
| 55 | German | Portuguese | 669,000 | 2015-09-15 – 15 September 2015 |
| 56 | English | Korean | 632,000 | 2014-05-26 – 26 May 2014 |
| 57 | French | Russian | 620,000 | 2016-02-18 – 18 February 2016 |
| 58 | Vietnamese | English | 583,000 | 2016-04-21 – 21 April 2016 |
| 59 | English | Ukrainian | 565,000 | 2014-08-12 – 12 August 2014 |
| 60 | Italian | French | 562,000 | 2014-11-06 – 6 November 2014 |
| 61 | Korean | Chinese | 559,000 | 2019-04-24 – 24 April 2019 |
| 62 | Hawaiian | English | 554,000 | 2018-10-05 – 5 October 2018 |
| 63 | German | French | 550,000 | 2015-10-14 – 14 October 2015 |
| 64 | Spanish | Russian | 544,000 | 2016-03-02 – 2 March 2016 |
| 65 | German | Turkish | 538,000 | 2015-12-14 – 14 December 2015 |
| 66 | Danish | English | 506,000 | 2014-08-25 – 25 August 2014 |
| 67 | Romanian | English | 438,000 | 2016-11-15 – 15 November 2016 |
| 68 | Czech | English | 416,000 | 2017-09-05 – 5 September 2017 |
| 69 | Spanish | Chinese | 406,000 | 2016-07-06 – 6 July 2016 |
| 70 | German | Arabic | 392,000 | 2016-03-07 – 7 March 2016 |
| 71 | Welsh | English | 389,000 | 2016-01-26 – 26 January 2016 |
| 72 | Indonesian | English | 387,000 | 2018-08-15 – 15 August 2018 |
| 73 | French | Italian | 364,000 | 2015-10-08 – 8 October 2015 |
| 74 | Swahili | English | 358,000 | 2017-02-20 – 20 February 2017 |
| 75 | Klingon | English | 344,000 | 2018-03-15 – 15 March 2018 |
| 76 | English | Thai | 337,000 | 2017-05-10 – 10 May 2017 |
| 77 | German | Italian | 316,000 | 2017-01-09 – 9 January 2017 |
| 78 | Hungarian | English | 314,000 | 2016-06-30 – 30 June 2016 |
| 79 | Ukrainian | English | 308,000 | 2015-05-21 – 21 May 2015 |
| 80 | Russian | Turkish | 293,000 | 2018-02-08 – 8 February 2018 |
| 81 | Navajo | English | 292,000 | 2018-10-05 – 5 October 2018 |
| 82 | Esperanto | English | 282,000 | 2015-05-28 – 28 May 2015 |
| 83 | Portuguese | French | 279,000 | 2017-01-30 – 30 January 2017 |
| 84 | English | Greek | 255,000 | 2014-04-25 – 25 April 2014 |
| 85 | Esperanto | Spanish | 254,000 | 2016-10-26 – 26 October 2016 |
| 86 | Guarani | Spanish | 250,000 | 2016-08-30 – 30 August 2016 |
| 87 | French | Chinese | 237,000 | 2019-04-24 – 24 April 2019 |
| 88 | Esperanto | Portuguese | 216,000 | 2018-05-15 – 15 May 2018 |
| 89 | Scottish Gaelic | English | 167,000 | 2019-11-27 – 27 November 2019 |
| 90 | Swedish | Arabic | 147,000 | 2016-03-01 – 1 March 2016 |
| 91 | Italian | Chinese | 83,800 | 2019-04-24 – 24 April 2019 |
| 92 | Spanish | Italian | 68,800 | 2018-08-22 – 22 August 2018 |
| 93 | Chinese | Japanese | 48,500 | 2019-11-21 – 21 November 2019 |
| 94 | Swedish | Spanish | 31,000 | 2019-11-30 – 30 November 2019 |
| 95 | German | Dutch | 19,300 |
List of courses in beta
As of 7 May 2020, 7 courses are in the beta phase on Duolingo. Date courses started development were obtained from the Duolingo Wiki.| Rank | Teaching | For Speakers of | Number of Learners | Date courses started development | Release date into Beta |
| 1 | Korean | Chinese | 1,090,000 | 2018-09-10 – 10 September 2018 | 2019-04-24 – 24 April 2019 |
| 2 | Spanish | Chinese | 423,000 | 2016-07-06 – 6 July 2016 | 2018-06-25 – 25 June 2018 |
| 3 | Hungarian | English | 319,000 | 2014-03-12 – 12 March 2014 | 2016-06-30 – 30 June 2016 |
| 4 | Klingon | English | 317,000 | 2015-04-09 – 9 April 2015 | 2018-03-15 – 15 March 2018 |
| 5 | Navajo | English | 286,000 | 2018-08-23 – 23 August 2018 | 2018-10-05 – 5 October 2018 |
| 6 | Esperanto | Portuguese | 207,000 | 2017-03-13 – 13 March 2017 | 2018-05-15 – 15 May 2018 |
| 7 | Italian | Chinese | 136,000 | 2018-09-10 – 10 September 2018 | 2019-04-24 – 24 April 2019 |
List of courses being created
As of 24 June 2020, 20 courses are currently being developed on Duolingo. Percentages are based on jrikhal's Weekly Incubator Summary.| Rank by Estimated Completion | Teaching | For Speakers of | Percent completed | Date courses started development | Estimated completion date | Number of Contributors |
| 1 | English | Tamil | 82% | 2016-06-01 – 1 June 2016 | 2020-08-01 – 1 August 2020 | 2 |
| 2 | English | Bengali | 79% | 2016-06-02 – 6 June 2016 | 2022-02-21 – 21 February 2022 | 2 |
| 3 | Yiddish | English | 78% | 2015-02-19 – 19 February 2015 | 2020-12-31 – 31 December 2020 | 9 |
| 4 | Swedish | Russian | 66% | 2015-02-18 – 18 February 2015 | 2021-04-24 – 24 February 2021 | 0 |
| 5 | English | Tagalog | 49% | 2016-08-30 – 30 August 2016 | 2020-09-01 – 1 September 2020 | 2 |
| 6 | Spanish | Arabic | 30% | 2016-09-12 – 12 September 2016 | 9999-12-31 – 31 December 9999 | 3 |
| 7 | English | Punjabi | 29% | 2016-12-08 – 8 December 2016 | 2019-07-08 – 8 July 2019 | 2 |
| 8 | Esperanto | French | 2020-07-01 – 1 July 2020 | 10 | ||
| 9 | French | Turkish | 28% | 2015-10-27 – 27 October 2015 | 2022-02-19 – 19 February 2022 | 0 |
| 10 | English | Telugu | 22% | 2016-08-10 – 10 August 2016 | 2019-12-25 – 25 December 2019 | 2 |
| 11 | Finnish | English | 18% | 2019-04-17 – 17 April 2019 | 2020-12-31 – 31 Decemberl 2020 | 7 |
| 12 | Haitian Creole | English | 18% | 2017-01-27 – 27 January 2017 | 2020-07-01 – 1 July 2020 | 5 |
| 13 | French | Dutch | 2020-12-20 – 20 December 2020 | 9 | ||
| 14 | Esperanto | Chinese | 2020-05-06 – 6 May 2020 | 12 | ||
| 15 | Māori | English | 1% | 2020-02-12 – 12 February 2020 | 2021-02-21 – 21 February 2021 | 3 |
| 16 | German | Hungarian | 0.5% | 2019-06-18 – 18 June 2019 | 2020-03-25 – 25 March 2020 | 5 |
| 17 | Italian | German | 0.25% | 2021-03-12 – 12 March 2021 | 2 | |
| 18 | German | Chinese | 0% | 2018-09-10 – 10 September 2018 | 2020-06-30 – 30 June 2020 | 1 |
| 19 | English | Hebrew | 0% | 2019-11-03 – 3 November 2019 | 2020-04-12 – 12 April 2020 | 0 |
| 20 | Yucatec | Spanish | 0% | 2020-02-12 – 12 February 2020 | 2021-02-12 – 12 February 2021 | 4 |
| 21 | K'iche' | Spanish | 0% | 2020-02-12 – 12 February 2020 | 2021-02-12 – 12 February 2021 | 0 |