I wasn’t fluent but I was good enough to teach English to Fiat executives while living in Turin, form real friendships and, occasionally, date. I started with Italian because I used to live in Italy so I already spoke it pretty well. It’s not exactly a yardstick for international relations, although the number of users learning Ukrainian through the app grew by 1,171% this spring (Duolingo declined to provide comparable figures for Russian).
But for those who are already English-speakers, the app has 41 complete languages – Spanish and French are the most popular – with the added options of High Valyrian (from Game of Thrones) and Klingon (Star Trek), though not, oddly, Filipino or Bulgarian.
‘The last big spike was when Squid Game was released and everyone decided to learn Korean.’ Photograph: Zuma Press, Inc./Alamy Duo’s face is the first thing I see each day and increasingly, the last thing, too. This is when you’ll engage with Duolingo’s mascot, an officious green owl called Duo who, if you’re anything like me, will eventually define your self-esteem. It’s all fun and games until you make too many mistakes, run out of hearts and lose your progress. Make a mistake, and you must correct it before moving on. Each level is structured like branches of a tree, and when you complete one, you move down the tree earning gems to “spend” on the app or hearts that you need to perform the exercises.
After you’ve chosen which language you want to learn, you are presented with about 100 skill-sets divided by scenario or grammar (grocery shopping, the future tense and so on). Now it’s this.ĭuolingo is a language learning app and pretty simple to use. I usually spend between 10 and 20 minutes on it while the kettle boils or I load CBeebies or write some emails. I’ve been starting my days like this for a few months now: wake up, wash face, grapple with the gerund. T his morning, before checking in on my young son or making a coffee, I opened the Duolingo app on my phone and translated “They love smelling meat” into Italian.
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