Duolingo: Language Lessons
Languages, Math, Music & Chess
Ratings
Age
4+
Category
Education
Languages
English
Tue May 05 2026
Our mascot owl, Duo, is trading in his usual diet of mice for bugs this week. Yup, we’re squashing those pesky bugs to make the experience better for all of you.
For more Duolingo news, contests and product releases, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram @duolingo.
Duolingo is a game-changing educational app that makes learning a new language feel like playing a game. Featuring over 40 languages, the app uses a variety of exercises—listening, speaking, translating, and multiple choice—to build comprehensive skills. With its iconic mascot, Duo the Owl, and a system of streaks and leaderboards, Duolingo is designed to keep users engaged for a few minutes every day, making long-term learning achievable for everyone.
Dinsun Expert Review
Our Expert Score
Duolingo is essentially the gold standard for mobile education. It has figured out the psychological 'hook' that keeps us playing mobile games and applied it to something genuinely useful. I’ve been using it for over a year for Spanish, and while it won’t make you instantly fluent, it provides an incredible foundation for vocabulary and basic grammar.
The recent UI updates have made the learning path much clearer, and the 'Characters' with their unique voices add a lot of personality. It’s accessible, friendly, and surprisingly effective. My only gripe is the 'Hearts' system on the free tier which can be punishing, but overall, there is no better way to start your language-learning journey on a phone.
Features
40+ languages including Spanish, Japanese, and French.
Bite-sized lessons for busy schedules.
Gamified experience with streaks and leaderboards.
Personalized learning paths using AI.
Free to use with a premium 'Super' option.
Featured In
Tips & Walkthrough
The key to Duolingo is consistency. Set a daily goal (even if it's just 5 minutes) to maintain your 'Streak.' If you miss a day, you can use a 'Streak Freeze' to keep your progress intact. Use the 'Review' tab to go back and strengthen older lessons that have 'cracked' over time.
Gameplays
Lessons consist of short exercises that adapt to your performance. If you struggle with a specific word or grammar rule, the app will present it more frequently. Earning XP allows you to climb weekly Leagues, adding a competitive element to your education.
Screenshot
Q&A
Yes, you can learn every language for free. 'Super Duolingo' is an optional paid subscription that removes ads and offers unlimited hearts.
Ratings & Reviews
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Great app!
Fri May 24 2024 yhgchggchhtI wanted to download Duolingo because I am going to fly to Paris France soon, and of course I needed to learn some French to go there. so when I first downloaded it, I thought I would go straight away to French, but no they want to take interest of why you are learning the language. which is a feature that I really like, including the fact, you have a choice to take a quiz when you first download it and start learning your language. like for example they will ask you if you would like to start from the beginning or if you want to take quiz to see how much you know and get as far as you can. obviously, I just wanted to learn French because I was going to fly there and so I pressed start from the beginning. they also make the learning fun! They find cool ways to teach you things. Like for example I was having so much fun on Duolingo. I spent 15 minutes on there when I chose only five minutes a day. including the fact, I didn’t know that I knew all these French words for example I was just doing a lesson on Duolingo and these questions got popping up and I kept easily answering them not even knowing that I knew those words. that’s how Duolingo shows you that you made progress. I also like how there are different characters with different voices so you can understand other peoples voices and way of speaking and not just one person’s voice on Duolingo. now I am super pumped to go to Paris!! 😀😃😄😁😆🥹😅😂🤣🥲☺️😊😇🙂🙃😉😌😍🥰😘😗😙😚😋😛😝😜🤪🤓😎🤩🥳🙂↕️😏🙂↔️🤭🤗🥴
I don’t like it
Wed Mar 02 2022 Project Makeover 200Given that I am I a fluent English speaker and only speak one language, I wanted to use an app that was free and helpful for learning to speak and understand another language. Duolingo is a popular choice among language learners so I decided to give it a try. I used the app for about a month before deleting it. Learning to speak the language with this app is not only hard, but also ineffective in helping me understand the language. For example, I was learning hangeul and I was supposed to listen to a voice saying the word and click on the answer that correlates with that word. Except when I clicked on the answer that sounded like that word, I was wrong. How was I supposed to know which answer was right when they all sounded the same? Not to mention, the robot voice is really unhelpful when trying to pronounce the words. I can barely hear the distinct sound of the word. Another thing, when I was first learning, I was bombarded by words I never even learned and duolingo wanted me to identify what the words were. I’ve never even seen the word in my life and it expected me to know what it sounded like and looked like? Ridiculous. Also, I never received lessons on how to identify the difference between two words that look almost alike. They just left it up to me to figure it out myself. All in all, I won’t ever be choosing to use this app to learn a language. I even tried Spanish! Still didn’t learn anything useful or complete my goal of learning and speaking a language.
Really easy and nice features
Tue Dec 09 2025 AmyBrown2829This is a great app. I am trying out Max in German, and it would really help if the app gave suggestions on how to respond if you need it. Sometimes I forget how to start or end the sentence, forget a noun I want to use and could use a reminder, and sometimes it throws a verb at you that you didn’t learn yet. Example: Lily asked me where I was (I think, not even sure) and I ended up using the beginning part of her sentence and a word for dogs at the end of my sentence because it was the only word I could think of at the moment. Lily thankfully didn’t chastise me for my misunderstanding, but switched to asking me if I like dogs. I didn’t learn the verb for like yet, so I was completely lost on what she was saying. I didn’t know until I read the explanation at the end of the call (which was very helpful, btw). On the next call, she remembered that conversation and expanded on it so I was able to practice the using the verb “like” in my responses now that I knew what she was saying. At any rate, the video call could be improved by making some explanation/hint available if you need it. I don’t want it up front because that doesn’t help with ability to recall the info on your own. I also love that the widget feature gently reminds you every day with a little owl humor to practice and that has been EXTREMELY helpful for me when I have so many other notifications on my phone. Overall, this is a wonderful learning tool for a new language.
⭐️ best app ever⭐️
Thu Oct 23 2025 A12d4gThis app has been amazing, but I do recommend taking notes for when test taking on when you wanna move on faster. It is a great language learning app. I learned so much from it and you can take different courses. I love the new math one and there’s a other app for like gram and like spelling there’s also like math chest and music. This app is insanely good. I do recommend for any language learners math learners or just anything or if you want to get better at a home language. I use this app for about over a year. And it’s been amazing. I’ve learned so much from one of my teachers who lived in Japan used this app and she said it was amazing. She learned so much, and she was able to speak more Japanese and actually communicate with the people there I highly recommend it for language learners and just really anything else. This app is so good. Please try it like you will not regret it. The ads are the annoying part, but there is a skip button. I do recommend like super Duolingo or the family trial at like five people I’ve never experienced bugs either glitches or lags. Another annoying part is your streak. If you miss your streak, you have to pay gems or buy gems. If you don’t have enough to save your streak or your streak restart so I do recommend doing your lesson every day and those cute like a little widgets but when you do your lesson and stuff and I absolutely love this place including the app like I recommended 100% you really need to try this if you’re learning anything
Careful: Habit forming.
Sun Apr 12 2026 tfowler13I have used this app over ten years to help me learn Spanish. I have also expanded, recently, to include chess. I have not achieved fluency but I am slowly developing an ear for the language spoken at a variety of speeds and in a variety of voices. Gaming is a useful motivator at some stages of learning and for various users. I prefer to go slowly and listen until I can begin to hear an exercise as I might listen in a live conversation. It is adaptable to many motivations and learning styles. It is a very well thought out teaching and learning program. There are obviously some good professional language educators involved. I have been very impressed and I cannot think of a better way to start my day than a quick Spanish lesson. But then I am sucked in. If you are over 70 and would like to find a stimulating mental activity that not only provides a good exercise, but it also helps you to become able to communicate with your neighbors. Fluency? I’m not sure what it means but I do know that I am less overwhelmed by conversations in Spanish and I find that most native speakers are more than willing to slow down and be helpful . Now chess is another bonus. I have always wanted to be able to join my grandchildren in a game. Chess exercises deserve a few more points if I am to invest more of my Duolingo time. I’ve only been at it about a week but I will soon achieve what I think will be true fluency in chess. I decided only a few years back to begin paying. I’m glad I did.
Great app
Sat Aug 03 2024 Hamood HaderThere’s nothing to criticize about this app. Like, even Karens (who would want to speak to every manager in the world) can’t complain to the manager of this app about any feature. It’s free, it’s fun, it’s cool, and it congratulates you for getting a question right. First, you have daily streaks. All you have to do is do a 5-minute lesson in a span of 24 hours every day, then your streak will reach one week, than one month, then eventually, one year. Also streak freezes exist; if you forget to do your daily Duolingo lesson, and you have a streak freeze equipped, then the daily streak won’t reset to zero. Instead, it stays the same until you come back again to do your lesson. Then, you have Super Duolingo, which brings features like: infinite hearts, you don’t have to pay gems to do legendary levels, and even a new app icon. You can actually get free super Duolingo for three days when your daily streak reaches a multiple of 25 (I think). There’s even MORE; different character voices for questions brings diversity. The animations are kid-friendly and are also pretty diverse as well. When you complete a lesson, it gives you the time you took, the amount of XP you got, and the percentage of right to wrong answers. Overall, I his app is great and if anyone wants to learn a language, than this app should probably be the first choice. Wait, there are even more apps. Well, apparently, there is a math app, and an alphabet-learning app for kids to practice with. News came out of the orange.
This is great
Sat Jan 15 2022 Mia_chanpionMy mother is from Russia but moved to America. She always wanted to tech me and my brother Russian but her or the teachers weren’t enough. I know it’s easier to learn another language when you’re a little but I didn’t get that opportunity neither did my brother. So when I heard about this app from a friend I thought what the heck might as well. And it shocked me how good this was. Although the price is expensive for plus part it’s definitely worth buying or if you don’t want to spend money on an app you can very much get along with us without it. Yes there are some restrictions if you don’t have it but as far as I know as I just started only a few days ago there’s a girl there seems to be no restrictions that could drastically decrease your learning. Although it is extremely helpful that I do have a mother who can help me with Russian this app has taught me more and then all of my teachers combined. And I’ve only had this for less than a week, and I’ve been the lessons that in range from months to years. I highly recommend this app and you should also learn his friends just saying. I only really have a few complaints. They should have different thing for female men or children (some languages have more feminine or masculine words that would be weird if a person of a different gender said it) and definitely more interactive things, and by interactive I mean teach us how to pronounce it just maybe explaining social rules of speaking because maybe some other languages have different grammar.
There are a lot of issues, but it’s still good
Tue Nov 19 2024 YUKI loves MhaDuolingo is still a really good app to learn any language. I’m doing really well learning my language but sometimes they’re wrong like the symbols and everything. I’m not sure if this is in every language I’m only taking Japanese but the symbols are wrong. It’s telling me my answer is wrong every time I do the same question every day and it’s always wrong, there’s supposed to be this other thing I was supposed to, but that wasn’t an option to choose. That’s why I can’t do Duolingo lesson anymore and I only have a streak it is just so hard to use this app when they are like a lot of issues that are keeping me from moving onto the next level every time it’s the same questions over and over and over again sometimes there isn’t even an option and they’re saying the audio wrong. I just can’t get my legal straight back because of all these issues so if you could please see this review and fix it that would be super nice because I actually still want to learn Duolingo learn Japanese music and maybe math learning a different language would be good for one of my classes in school so I’m really hoping that you guys can fix this, but still if some other readers reading this lead this to the support team that’s gonna fix this, but if you are just the person who wants to download this app download it not really big but they’re stopping me from moving onto the next level so you should still download the app though download