Duolingo achievements have become a big part of the Duolingo experience over the last few years. They give you something to work towards on top of your original language learning goals, and it’s super satisfying when you finally unlock them!
So in this article, we’ll take a detailed look at every single Duolingo achievement.
Let’s get into it!
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What are Duolingo achievements?
Achievements on Duolingo are fairly self-explanatory: they are rewards for accomplishing certain objectives.
If you’ve ever played on an Xbox or a PlayStation then you’ll already be familiar with the idea!
Video games tend to come loaded with a stack of quests to complete. Each time you complete one you get a reward. On Xbox it’s in the form of ‘Gamerscore’ and on PlayStation it’s in the form of a trophy.
On Duolingo it’s much the same, albeit there aren’t any points or silverware to be won. Instead, when you complete one of the objectives, it turns gold, just like the skills in your language tree!
How do you get them?
To unlock a Duolingo achievement, you need to complete the specified requirements. Some achievements are much easier to earn than others; some can be done in a matter of seconds, whereas others can take at least a year to complete!
To find your Duolingo achievements, simply head on over to your profile tab on the app or the website. Scroll to the bottom and you’ll find a big list of every achievement.
The ones you haven’t completed will specify the remaining requirements and have a completion bar showing how close you are to unlocking them. The achievements you’ve already earned will be gold.
Follow me on Duolingo!
Up for some friendly competition? Then be sure to follow me on Duolingo!
My username is DCiiieee 🙂
(If the link doesn’t work then just type my username into the ‘Search for friends’ bar on the app)
All Duolingo achievements and requirements
There are currently as many as 17 achievements to unlock on Duolingo. They are:
- Photogenic
- Weekend Warrior
- Friendly
- Strategist
- Winner
- Champion
- Unrivaled (previously called ‘Legendary’)
- Sharpshooter
- Regal
- Scholar
- Sage
- Wildfire
- Challenger
- Conqueror
- Page Turner [NEW]
- Nocturnal [added November/December 2022]
- Legendary [NEW – early 2023]
I say ‘currently’ as Duolingo are always experimenting with their features, so it’s likely that they’ll add (and remove) achievements in future. They might even change the requirements of some of the achievements as and when they release new features.
Now let’s explore each achievement in detail!
Photogenic
This is definitely one of the easiest achievements to unlock.
All you need to do is upload a profile picture. It doesn’t even need to be one of yourself. Just be sure to keep it clean and you’ll bag yourself an easy achievement!
Weekend Warrior
This is another pretty simple one, although it requires you to put in some graft on the days you might least want to!
To unlock Weekend Warrior, simply complete a lesson on a Saturday and a Sunday. If you’re determined to create a massive Duolingo streak then this shouldn’t be a problem, but if you struggle for motivation on the weekend, then you might need to force yourself onto the app.
Don’t worry though, I’m sure the owl will be more than happy to help!
Friendly
This is another super easy one that you can complete pretty quickly. All you need to do is follow 3 other Duolingo users.
If you’re starting from scratch then I can help you get a third of the way: my username is DCiiieee!
You can either click the link to be taken straight to my profile, or you can type my username into the ‘Search for friends’ bar. To do this, simply head over to your profile tab and swipe down to ‘Add Friends’.
Other ways to find friends include linking your Facebook profile, which will bring back all of your Facebook friends that have Duolingo accounts linked, and adding users from your weekly league. All you need to do is follow them and you’ll get the achievement!
Strategist
Strategist is another super simple achievement. Before starting a lesson, simply tap on the Tips button. You’ll then be taken to a special page which gives you hints and tips for the lesson ahead.
It’s worth noting, however, that some of the courses still don’t have Tips sections. If this applies to your course, then simply hop into a course that does have them. Off the top of my head, the courses that definitely have tips are:
- French
- Spanish
- Portuguese
- German
- Italian
- Japanese
Hopefully Duolingo will add Tips sections to all of their courses somewhere down the line, as they’re actually really helpul!
Winner
Now things start to get a bit trickier!
In order to unlock the Winner achievement, you need to finish number one in your league.
If you’re unfamiliar with the league system, then be sure to check out this article for everything you need to know.
Put simply, a league is just a big, weekly, randomly selected group of Duolingo users that battle it out to get the most XP. If you have the most XP in your league at the end of the week, you’ll finish top. This will earn you a bunch of gems (or lingots, depending on your device) promotion to the next league up, and, of course, the Winner achievement.
This one can be a bit tricky if you find yourself in a competitive league, so it can take some time to unlock. But so long as you show up every day and commit a healthy wodge of time to your lessons, you’ll be in with a good chance of winning.
Champion
Following on nicely from the last achievement, the Champion achievement requires you to make it all the way up to the Diamond League.
This achievement is the first on our list that is broken down into levels. There are 10 in total, which are as follows:
- Complete 10 lessons to unlock Leagues
- Advance to Silver
- Advance to Gold
- Advance to Sapphire
- Advance to Ruby
- Advance to Emerald
- Advance to Amethyst
- Advance to Pearl
- Advance to Obsidian
- Advance to Diamond
So basically each time you get promoted you will unlock part of the Champion achievement. It will turn gold once you advance all the way to Diamond.
If you’re starting from scratch, this will take you a minimum of 10 weeks, as Diamond is the 10th and final league. And to do it in 10 weeks, you will have to make sure you get promoted every single week. This can be tricky, but it’s not as tricky as actually winning a league. You simply need to finish in the top 10 every week and you’ll get promoted.
Unrivaled
This is the one that can elude even the most dedicated of Duolingo users. I’ve been using Duolingo every day for over 5 years and it took me ages to unlock it!
To unlock the Unrivaled achievement, you need to win the Diamond League.
The reason this is so challenging is because the XP totals are almost always enormous. Keeping up with those around you often encourages you to adopt some pretty bad habits, such as completing easy lessons over and over again in order to bag some easy XP.
However, it is possible to win it cleanly, but you might be waiting a while before the opportunity presents itself. When I finally won it, I only earned 1423 XP. To some, this might seem like a lot, but anyone who’s reached the Diamond League will tell you that it’s regularly up in the 4000 to 5000 XP range.
I’m not completely sure why I was in such a low-scoring league that week, but I have a couple of theories that might help you out.
The first concerns timing. I’m pretty sure that I didn’t do my first lesson of the week until very late on Monday evening. It could be that the keen beans on Duolingo tend to do their lessons as early as possible, and that the more laid-back bunch prefer to wait until later in the day.
My second theory relates to how much XP you average per week. I’ve found that the more I try to keep up with the other users, the harder my league is the following week. But whenever I take my foot off the gas, my league the following week is less competitive.
Again, these are just theories, but they are definitely worth keeping in mind as you hunt down the Unrivaled achievement!
Sharpshooter
This one isn’t too difficult, but you won’t be able to unlock it instantly.
To unlock Sharpshooter you will need to complete 100 lessons with no mistakes.
This is another achievement that’s broken down into levels. There aren’t as many as the Champion achievement though, and it can be completed much sooner. The five levels are:
- Complete a lesson with no mistakes
- Complete 5 lessons with no mistakes
- Complete 20 lessons with no mistakes
- Complete 50 lessons with no mistakes
- Complete 100 lessons with no mistakes
Fortunately, you don’t have to do all of this in a row. It’s just 100 lessons in total that you have to complete without making any mistakes. This might sound tricky but don’t be surprised if you unlock it fairly quickly, especially if you’re logging into Duolingo every day.
Regal
I’d say this is probably one of my favourite achievements as it encourages you to get into good habits.
To unlock the Regal achievement, you need to earn 100 crowns. It’s broken down into 10 levels, which are as follows:
- Earn 3 crowns
- Earn 7 crowns
- Earn 12 crowns
- Earn 18 crowns
- Earn 25 crowns
- Earn 35 crowns
- Earn 50 crowns
- Earn 65 crowns
- Earn 80 crowns
- Earn 100 crowns
I go into a lot of detail as to why I think Crowns are the best measure of your progress in Duolingo in this article. Put simply, the more crowns you have in a language, the more advanced you’re likely to be. This is because you have to keep pressing forward in your tree in order to keep unlocking crowns.
This is why I think Regal is a good achievement to gun for. Unlocking 100 crowns not only shows dedication, but you will also find yourself making good progress in your target language.
Naturally this can take a bit of time to unlock, but if you log in to Duolingo regularly it shouldn’t take too long.
Scholar
This is definitely another one of my favourite achievements, although this one will take you a lot longer than most to unlock.
To unlock the Scholar achievement, you need to learn 2,000 words in a single course. This one is also broken down into levels, which are as follows:
- Learn 50 new words
- Learn 100 news words
- Learn 175 new words
- Learn 250 new words
- Learn 450 new words
- Learn 500 new words
- Learn 750 new words
- Learn 1000 new words
- Learn 1500 new words
- Learn 2000 new words
The way it works is Duolingo will assess how many words you’ve encountered in a given course, and based on your performances will determine whether you have learned them or not. This is based on a strength meter, which you can find on the Duolingo website under the ‘More’ tab.
The reason I like Scholar so much is that, when it comes to language acquisition, I’m very much of the same opinion as polyglot Steve Kaufmann: the more words we know in a language, the more proficient we are.
This is one of the central pillars on which his language learning software, LingQ, is built. The goal at LingQ is to learn as many new words and phrases as possible, and this is how they measure your progress.
Scholar is therefore another solid achievement to set your sights on. If you can make it all the way to 2000 known words in your target language, then you’ll be well on your way to fluency.
Sage
This one can also take quite a bit of time to complete.
To unlock the Sage achievement you need to earn a mega 30,000 XP. As you might expect, this one is also broken down into levels, which are:
- Earn 100 XP
- Earn 250 XP
- Earn 500 XP
- Earn 1000 XP
- Earn 2000 XP
- Earn 4000 XP
- Earn 7500 XP
- Earn 12,500 XP
- Earn 20,000 XP
- Earn 30,000 XP
This might seem like a lot — and, to be sure, it is — but it doesn’t have to take that long to achieve. If you think that one lesson, with a perfect combo bonus, is worth 15 XP, then it would take you 2000 lessons to achieve. If you aim to do 10 lessons a day, then you could do this in 200 days.
Then of course there are things like XP Ramp Up, in which you can earn 40 XP in a matter of minutes, and XP Boost, which doubles your XP for 15 minutes. So while it’s not an achievement you’re going to unlock in a few days, it’s not as daunting as it may first appear.
Wildfire (+ Streak Society)
Wildfire is definitely up there with my top achievements.
To unlock Wildfire, you need to complete a 365-day streak. This means you have to hit your daily XP target on Duolingo every day for 365 days in a row.
As you might expect, it’s also broken down into 10 levels, which are:
- Reach a 3-day streak
- Reach a 7-day streak
- Reach a 14-day streak
- Reach a 30-day streak
- Reach a 50-day streak
- Reach a 75-day streak
- Reach a 125-day streak
- Reach a 180-day streak
- Reach a 250-day streak
- Reach a 365-day streak
A whole year of Duolingo might sound a bit mad, but, as far as I’m concerned, this kind of consistency is an essential part of learning a language. It’s all about showing up every day and immersing yourself in your target language, even if it’s for just 5 minutes at a time.
Obviously this achievement can’t be unlocked overnight if you’re just starting out, but don’t be discouraged — you have to start somewhere! As one of my favourite quotes goes: The giant pine tree grows from a tiny sprout; the journey of a thousand miles starts from beneath your feet. ~ Lao Tzu
Better still, when you finally unlock Wildfire, you will become a member of Duolingo’s most exclusive club: the Streak Society. You don’t get any fancy new features or goodies for this, but you do get some swanky spotlights on your profile page, letting everybody know that you’re a proper streak freak!
Challenger
This achievement is pretty unique in that it’s a mobile exclusive.
To unlock Challenger, you need to earn 5000 XP in timed challenges. These can be accessed via the League section of the app.
Challenger is broken down into 5 levels, which are:
- Earn 40 XP in timed challenges
- Earn 120 XP in timed challenges
- Earn 500 XP in timed challenges
- Earn 1000 XP in timed challenges
- Earn 5000 XP in timed challenges
This is a fairly new achievement and, compared to some of the others, shouldn’t take all that long to complete. (Although I’m still only on level 3!).
XP Ramp Up is the timed challenge for IOS users, and, as I mentioned earlier, you can rack up 40 XP in a matter of minutes. As such, you only need to ace 125 of these to turn the achievement gold.
However, it’s worth noting that XP Ramp Up tends to cycle between a couple of different formats. The Lightning Round tends to be the more lucrative of the two, as the other format takes on a slower tiered system. So if you’re going for the Challenger achievement, it’s worth holding out for the Lightning Round and sinking your minutes into that.
In theory, this will be much easier to complete in the early stages of your language learning journey. This is because the questions will be much easier and the time limits will be the same as if you were answering the harder questions. So be sure to give them a go from the outset!
Conqueror
I’ve saved this one til last as this is, in my opinion, the ultimate achievement — and I’m still some way off completing it!
To unlock Conqueror, you need to earn 5 crowns in every skill in a course. This is a mammoth task, especially if you’re working through one of the more popular languages, such as French or Spanish.
Conqueror is broken down into 5 levels, which are:
- Earn 1 crown in every skill in a course
- Earn 2 crowns in every skill in a course
- Earn 3 crowns in every skill in a course
- Earn 4 crowns in every skill in a course
- Earn 5 crowns in every skill in a course
So far I’ve managed to reach level 2 of my Conqueror achievement. This is from my Italian tree, which I completed some time ago. I’ve turned the vast majority of the skills gold, with only 12 left to finish.
As you can see, even as someone who’s been using Duolingo for many years, the Conqueror achievement is still a tall order. And this is just for the Italian tree, which is nowhere near as big as the French or Spanish trees!
The best way to unlock this achievement is to just remain consistent and to keep showing up every day. If you’re really committed and determined to turn it gold, then there’s no reason why you can’t get it done around the time you unlock Wildfire. But again, this will depend on the course that you take and how much time you’re willing to commit.
If you’re anything like me, then you could be at it for a while!
Page Turner
Page Turner is a new achievement that started appearing for some learners at the end of 2021.
A lot of learners still don’t have access to it — myself included!
As such, there isn’t much I can tell you about it, other than you’ll need to read a load of stories in order to unlock it.
Stories are only currently available in a few of Duolingo’s language courses — Spanish, French, German, Japanese, Portuguese and Italian — so if you’re not learning one of these languages, you won’t be able to unlock it.
(Unless, of course, you just switch over to one of these courses for a bit).
Once I know more about Page Turner I’ll be sure to update the article!
Nocturnal
Nocturnal started appearing towards the end of 2022.
As the name suggests, to unlock Nocturnal, you’ll need to schedule some Duolingo sessions for the end of the day.
To rise through the tiers, you need to complete your lessons between 10pm and 11:59pm.
As of March 2023, Nocturnal is still being rolled out to all users. It was originally only on Android, but it’s now starting to appear on IOS devices as well.
Legendary
Legendary is the latest achievement to start popping up on our achievement lists, first appearing at the beginning of 2023!
Although it’s a bit confusing, as Legendary was originally the name for the Unrivaled achievement.
Now, though, Legendary means something completely different. It’s no longer about winning the Diamond league — now it’s all about completing legendary levels.
On the new learning path, legendary levels become available once you’ve completed an ordinary level. If you’re a free member, you’ll have to part with 100 gems to tackle them. For Super members, they’re free.
To progress through the Legendary achievement tiers, simply complete as many legendary levels as you can. For each level you complete, you’ll move one step along your progress bar.
Do your Duolingo achievements matter?
I’m a big fan of Duolingo achievements. After all, Duolingo have tried to turn language learning into something of a game, so it makes sense to include these little objectives to accompany the learning process.
Some of the achievements are definitely more worthwhile than others. Most of the easy ones are pretty inconsequential; your profile picture, for instance, isn’t going to have any bearing on your ability to learn your target language!
Others, however, are definitely worth going for. As I mentioned, I really like the Regal, Scholar and Wilfire achievements as they encourage good language learning habits. If you make a point of unlocking these achievements, then you will almost certainly be making good progress in your target language.
Ultimately, like all of the gamified systems and features on Duolingo, it’s best to take the achievements lightly and see them as a bit of fun. Don’t obsess over them too much, especially the ones that relate to your XP and League. When anything other than learning your target language becomes the priority, the quality of your learning experience will significantly decline. That’s something to keep in mind!
Have your say!
So what do you think about Duolingo achievements?
How many have you unlocked so far?
Do they motivate you?
What’s your favourite achievement and why?
As always, let me know in the comments!
I have 41305 XP in total, Matt!
Wow that is great news hi I am Taytan. Please can you tutor me and be my best friend in the world? Thank you for your kind words and comments bye. I love you Matt.
Great read!
I wish we could msg people….especially if you’re a plus member.
One time my sister and I changed our pictures out with notes. 😂
Happy New Year! 🎉
Hi Matt,
I agree in nearly everything you wrote about the achievements. I made the same experiences, especially getting the legendary achievement ( late on monday is the best time to be in a “lower” XP-group ). Normally I am in groups with “keen beans” and there you need momentary around 10000XP at minimum to be the top scorer.
Regards
Sepp (Germany)
I am striving for Scolar right now. I studied 185 days took a break and am now at 85 days. I really wish my total days showed up. It was difficult around Thanksgiving and Christmas to maintain 50-100 xp per day. I probably should have backed it off to a modest 12 to keep my consecutive days growing. Live & Learn:)
Hi Matt,
I’m using Duolingo on iOS, I noticed that the Conqueror achievement is unfortunately no longer available.
I enjoyed trying to get it.
Fefe
The conqueror badge disappeared today or maybe the day before? I literally just finished Spanish today, or at least got one crown per lesson today. How could they possibly take the badge way the day before I achieve it? Not cool.
Thank you for the info. Do you have a list of the rewards you get when you Finish a Lesson?
Hi thank you for this guide, very interesting and useful!
I’m a bit annoyed that I don’t have the strategist achievement even if I have read many tips! How come?! 🤔 🤓😄
No matter how much learning I do on the Finnish course – which I’ve made all the way through to the end, have 210 crowns and have turned all sections “Legendary” – my “Scholar” tally shows on my Achievements as 1007/1500 and although I keep at it every day the number hasn’t shifted in months. Yet when I check my Finnish Words Learnt tally it tells me 1540. So frustrating that this doesn’t reflect in my Achievements, as this is the only one so far not achieved :-/
I finished all achievements that have went (thankfully even the conqueror.) But now they are not there! Is it because I am stuffed with the league awards? And page Turner achievement is gold on my mobile but not in my iPad? Bug?
page turner is gone now, conqueror is gone, and so is strategist on my account
Swedish also has tips, and they are *very* helpful, as some of the material would be horribly confusing otherwise (especially as regards third person pronouns).
I’ve broken the amount of XP in 1 day! 18,000 XP in 1 day! Woohoo!
Sadly, I did all this to try and finish 1st in my league. All that in 1 day and I still didn’t come first!
Sad life.
Conqueror badge is gone, that’s true, but as a curious fact: I had level 5 at one point in Spanish, and I kept that even when they added more units that I obviously was at level 0 in. It’s hard to see how they would define the levels with the new home page, though.
But I’m actually here because I just noticed I have a Nocturnal badge for doing lessons after 10pm (local time). It must have dropped yesterday because I’m already at 1/3 for level 1 (and it’s 2pm now so it must have been active last night).
Hey! Could you please update this with information on Nocturnal too? Thanks in advance 🙂
I now managed to finish Nocturnal. There are ten levels, and the goals are 3, 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 75, 100, 150, 200 “lessons”. Most activities that will keep your streak alive also count for this, including doing “Practice Your Mistakes.” The exception is alphabet practice — those count for streak, daily goals (lessons, lessons > 90% and perfect lessons, listening) and the Android Early and Late Chests, but not for Nocturnal. But they may fix that. (This is on Android, I still don’t have Nocturnal on web).
The “Match Challenge” timed lessons also count for Nocturnal; I admit that at that time of night I just went and did those “straight timed” ones (16 questions in 1:30 for 40xp). You can do a lot of those in the 15 minutes of double XP from an Early Chest, so I finished this week on almost 9000 XP. Back to actual learning now.
I had to get over 12,000 XP to earn Legendary. Somehow, my competitiveness just switched on that week. I feel kinda bad about the person that came in second. They were pushing hard, as well. Kisan, if you see this, I have MAD RESPECT for you!
There’s a new one called Quest Champion where you complete 10 quests in level 1.
Some achievements are no longer available, such as Regal and Conqueror.
At first, Nocturnal was only available for Android, but around the beginning of 2023, it was available for iOS!
My bedtime is 9:00 PM, so I’m sadly not able to earn the Nocturnal achievement.
Hello, Cullen,
You can get your parents to do it for you while you’re in bed. That’s what I do.
Hello Matt
I am trying to unlock my Page Turner achievement but have been stuck on 104 stories for weeks – even though I have done at least six stories since noticing that I was only one away from the 105 achievement!
Is it because I am on the free version, or do I need to reinstall Duolingo to shock it into action?
Many thanks for any suggestions.
Great article! Thanks for sharing.
I’ve earned: Sage, Challenger, Champion, Sharpshooter, Winner, Legendary, Friendly, Weekend Warrior, and Photogenic.
I’m working on: Wildfire (lv 9), Quest Champion (lv 4), Nocturnal (lv 7), Scholar (lv 7), and Page Turner (lv 2). I’ve never seen the Strategist, Conqueror, or Regal achievements mentioned here.
Also, for the Legendary, mine doesn’t say anything about earning crowns or completing levels. It just mentions winning the diamond league. I have earned legendary in all my past levels, though.