So what makes Duolingo so successful? And is that a good thing? We could claim that Duolingo has fulfilled its initial goal and revolutionized language learning across the world − or at least helped it along the road it was already on. Currently, Duolingo is the most downloaded education app in the world, with over 500 million registered users and is only growing. Officially, Duolingo has been around since 2012 and has grown since then massively. According to von Ahn, Duolingo was founded on the idea that free education would change the world.Īlthough this might have been true in the beginning, some of the founder’s statements later on will be diametrically opposite to what the app claims to be – the world’s greatest way to learn a language. Originally from Guatemala, Luis von Ahn saw first-hand how difficult it was to learn English for his paisanos and the difficulty of life actually drove him out of Guatemala, never to return. He actually sold his company, reCAPTCHA, to Google in order to work on something related to education alongside his post-graduate student Severin Hacker. Luis von Ahn, whom you may know as the creator of the annoying ‘prove you’re human’ letters and numbers was the professor at the said University. The idea for the language learning app first hatched in 2009 at the Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. To begin, let’s dive first into the idea and the history behind Duolingo. We’ll also see what happens when a Spanish language graduate gives Duolingo a go? In this post we’ll discuss whether Duolingo is the world’s best way to learn a language, as it claims to be. How many people do you personally know that are using this app to learn the desired language? Maybe you’ve even tried it yourself and are still unsure whether it really works or not? This is actually how Duolingo came to be in the first place. This, and the instant gratification culture, are the main reasons why, whenever we want to learn something new, we want to do that for free. Travel, work, or − pandemic, reasons are countless in the modern, ever-changing world.Īnother thing that the vast majority of people have in common is that there simply isn ’t that much money left at the end of the month for leisure activities. It ’s no secret that nowadays people are in more need of learning a language than ever before.

Duolingo education