![]() “The first few languages we did ourselves,” says von Ahn, but realized it would be impossible to scale-up at the speed they wanted to if they had to hire each lesson writer. countries, he saw a new use for Duolingo, the need for German, French and Swedish language lessons for native Arabic speakers was epic.ĭuolingo launched German for Arabic speakers in March 2016, and according to von Ahn, the course has been used by nearly 330,000 people in Germany Swedish is the most popular Duolingo language to learn in Sweden.įueling Duolingo’s success are 300 vetted volunteers living all over the globe who help Duolingo’s 75-person staff create lessons. But in 2015 when the Syrian refugee crises exploded across the E.U. When Von Ahn initially conceptualized the app, he envisioned helping those stuck in low socioeconomic conditions in developing countries. “There are 94,000 native speakers of Irish,” von Ahn notes, “and we have over a million people learning Irish on Duolingo.” Many other languages are in the pipeline, including Hindi and Korean, even Klingon from Star Trek, which should make Trekkies happy if they’re not already fluent. Japanese lessons for English speakers was launched last week in iOS. English for Spanish speakers is the most popular Duolingo lesson plan with 115 million users, followed by Spanish for English speakers with 90.1 million users. ![]() languages, as well as Swahili, Arabic and Turkish, among many others. There are lessons to learn the popular E.U. Duolingo works on iPhones and iPads, mobile devices that use Android or Windows, as well as desktop computers. Users have the option to use it solo or interact with fellow learners. In look and feel, Duolingo is cheerful, lighthearted and fun without being cloying lessons are short and have a game-like quality. “In most countries you can earn 25 to 100% more by knowing English,” says von Ahn.ĭuolingo launched in 2012, and according to von Ahn there are 170 million users worldwide. Approximately 1.2 billion people are learning a new language and 800 million of those people are learning English to get out of poverty. Sporting an oxford shirt and jeans while visiting New York City from Duolingo’s Pittsburgh headquarters, von Ahn rattles off a couple language learning statistics. Providing free language courses was the driving force behind Duolingo, which he cofounded with Severin Hacker. “I think it has to do with where I’m from,” explains Luis von Ahn about creating Duolingo, the free language learning app: “I’m from Guatemala.” Although von Ahn didn’t grow up impoverished, he saw how the country’s poor-more than half live below the poverty line-had no access to high-quality education, no path out of poverty.
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