Duolingo is one of the best ways to get yourself started in a new language, not just because it’s free, but because there’s such a bountiful buffet of languages to choose from!
If you’re looking to learn a language from English then this is the article for you. English speakers have the biggest choice when it comes to languages on Duolingo — and the options are growing all the time!
In this article, we’ll go through every single Duolingo language. We’ll look at Duolingo’s fictional and beta languages, new languages coming in 2021, and we’ll also consider which courses are currently the best.
Let’s dive in!
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How many languages does Duolingo have?
Duolingo currently offer 40 different languages, 37 of which for English speakers.
Some of these are better supported than others, and this depends on the popularity of the language. As a general rule of thumb: the more learners a language has on Duolingo, the more content and features it will get.
RELATED: 28 Duolingo Tips That EVERY User Should Know About
Duolingo Languages List – All 37 Languages Ranked By Popularity
As of June 2021, Duolingo offer the following languages for English speakers:
- Spanish – 26.3m learners
- French – 16.4m learners
- Japanese – 10.2m learners
- German – 8.88m learners
- Korean – 6.39m learners
- Italian – 5.76m learners
- Chinese – 5.01m learners
- Hindi – 4.70m learners
- Russian – 4.01m learners
- Arabic – 3.09m learners
- Turkish – 2.37m learners
- Portuguese – 2.36m learners
- Dutch – 1.49m learners
- Latin – 1.36m learners
- Swedish – 1.20m learners
- Irish – 1.10m learners
- Greek – 1.04m learners
- Polish – 940k learners
- Norwegian – 930k learners
- Hebrew – 847k learners
- Vietnamese – 799k learners
- Finnish – 577k learners
- Hawaiian – 562k learners
- Indonesian – 526k learners
- Danish – 521k learners
- Romanian – 463k learners
- Welsh – 461k learners
- High Valyrian – 453k learners
- Scottish Gaelic – 428k learners
- Czech – 412k learners
- Swahili – 364k learners
- Ukrainian – 312k learners
- Hungarian (beta) – 305k learners
- Klingon (beta) – 292k learners
- Esperanto – 279k learners
- Navajo (beta) – 274k learners
- Yiddish (beta) – 259k learners
Duolingo also offer English courses in 22 different languages (with a further 5 currently in Phase 1 of development in the Incubator), as well as Catalan and Guarani for Spanish speakers.
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Duolingo fictional languages
You’ll notice that a couple of the languages Duolingo offer aren’t exactly ‘real-world’ lingos. These are High Valyrian and Klingon, taken from Game of Thrones and Star Trek respectively.
As you might expect, these aren’t as in-depth as some of the other courses and aren’t as well supported. But if you’re a fan of either of these franchises, they’re definitely worth exploring!
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Duolingo beta languages
You’ll also notice that some of the languages are labelled as ‘beta’ languages. This means they are currently in Phase 2 of development in the Incubator.
The courses that are currently in beta are Hungarian, Klingon, Navajo and Yiddish.
A beta course is a language that has been released to the public but is still in development. Bugs and teething issues are to be expected. Eventually, a beta course will enter Phase 3 of the Incubator, which is when it can be considered polished and ready-to-go.
That said, no course is ever complete (just look at all the changes Duolingo have made to the French and Spanish course over the years!) so expect updates to continue long into the future!
What are the best Duolingo courses?
In terms of support, the best Duolingo courses are currently French and Spanish for IOS users. These are the two most popular languages on Duolingo and, as such, receive the most updates and all the latest features.
They both have the longest and most regularly updated lesson trees, as well as a huge library of Stories. It gets even better for French users, who get access to Duolingo’s swanky new Audio Lessons, as well as conversation lessons.
Away from the app, French and Spanish also receive accompanying podcasts, which you can listen to on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and Google Podcasts.
After French and Spanish, the next best courses, in my opinion, are German, Italian and Portuguese, as these are the only other courses to have the Stories feature. The next language to be getting Stories will be Japanese, and this should (hopefully) be in 2021.
RELATED: Duolingo Stories – The COMPLETE Guide – What You Need To Know
New Duolingo languages for 2021 and beyond
So far Duolingo have released one new language for 2021: Yiddish, which was released at the start of April.
Judging by the Duolingo Incubator, the next language to drop could be Haitian Creole. It currently has 7 contributors working hard to get it released for 2021.
Other courses in the first phase of development include Māori and Tamil, but, unfortunately, there doesn’t appear to have been much progress on either. Māori was due to launch on February 21, 2021, but hasn’t been updated for over a year; and Tamil doesn’t currently have any contributors working on it.
Luis von Ahn announced at Duocon 2021 that the next 5 languages to launch on Duolingo will be:
- Tagalog
- Zulu
- Xhosa
- Mãori
- Haitian Creole
Which language will you learn?
Duolingo undoubtedly offer a brilliant selection of languages.
But which ones take your fancy? And which language should Duolingo add next?
Be sure to let me know in the comments!
I would love to learn Bengali
Klingon is Star Trek, not Star Wars. Two completely unrelated franchises.
Esperanto is also technically not a real world language, though unlike the others, it was invented to act as one.
Hey Levi! You’re absolutely right – good spot! I’ve updated the article. Cheers for letting me know!
Sorry to say but esperanto is a true language with more than 2 mill. native speakers.
Bulgarian please 🇧🇬
I would love Croatian and Icelandic. I’ve seen so many people begging for Duolingo to add Icelandic, starting from 5 to 6 years ago, and am sure there must be plenty of people who would welcome it.
What about Thai. Thailand is a country that I’m passionate about and really want to learn to speak Thai
I would live a course on Persian – with Roman alphabet words, not Persian alphabet.
Similarly I would a Chinese course with Roman alphabet words, instead of characters.
We need Icelandic pleeeease !
I am looking forward to Maori being added. Current platforms for learning the language are challenging and expensive and don’t include that feedback loop they duo lingo has
Here’s hoping the developers get onto it soon
Definitely looking forward to haitian creole, I’ve wanted to learn it for a long time, and haven’t found any courses on it (in my city).
I’d like to see Old English (Anglo-Saxon) added to Duolingo.
But in my view, they also need to flesh out the current language offerings.
I would like to learn Catalan. Very fascinating language based on Vulgate regional Latin spoken by ancient Romans in the area of Catalonia. Must be many people who would be interested when they visit Catalonia.