Duolingo doubles its range of language courses

The mobile learning platform Duolingo published 148 new language courses on Tuesday, doubling its range of courses, according to its information. While German can now be learned in 17 other languages – including Arabic, Dutch, Greek, Japanese, Polish, Russian, Swedish, and Thai – learners in Germany will also benefit from the language course offensive: they will gain access to three new language courses in Japanese, Korean and Chinese, which were previously only accessible via English as the source language.

The new courses are mainly aimed at beginners (level A1–A2 according to CEFR) and offer interactive formats such as Stories (to promote reading skills) and DuoRadio (for better listening comprehension). More advanced content will follow in the course of the year.

“Squid Game” drives demand

According to Duolingo, the demand for Asian languages has grown rapidly recently. Over the past two years, the number of learners of Korean and Japanese in Germany has more than doubled. According to Duolingo, the launch of the second season of the Netflix series “Squid Game” contributed to this.

When asked about the reason for the increased interest, Duolingo refers to an unspecified survey, according to which the mostly younger learners (50 percent are under 24 and 80 percent under 34 years old) simply enjoy learning an Asian language. This even applies to one in three of this group (36 percent), while the overall average of German Duolingo users is around one in five (18 percent) who learn “just for fun”.

AI makes it possible

According to Luis von Ahn, CEO and co-founder of Duolingo, the major expansion was only made possible by the consistent use of generative AI: “It took around twelve years to develop our first 100 courses. In contrast, we created the almost 150 new courses in just one year,” says von Ahn. The in-house expertise can now be used “in an even more targeted way for monitoring and optimization, ensuring that every course meets Duolingo's strict quality standards”.

All 148 new language courses will be rolled out directly on both iOS and Android. Duolingo previously offered a total of over 100 courses in 40 different languages, from English, Spanish, French, and Japanese to Navajo and Yiddish.

(nij)