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 2023, 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 offers 43 different languages, 39 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 – What Languages Are on Duolingo?
As of February 2023, Duolingo offers the following languages for English speakers:
- Spanish – 33.4m learners
- French – 20m learners
- Japanese – 13.8m learners
- German – 11.9m learners
- Korean – 11.8m learners
- Hindi – 8.35m learners
- Italian – 8.16m learners
- Chinese – 6.28m learners
- Russian – 5.53m learners
- Arabic – 4.68m learners
- Portuguese – 3.46m learners
- Turkish – 3.05m learners
- Dutch – 2.06m learners
- Vietnamese – 1.94m learners
- Ukrainian – 1.71m learners
- Greek – 1.69m learners
- Polish – 1.65m learners
- Swedish – 1.61m learners
- Latin – 1.58m learners
- Irish – 1.44m learners
- Norwegian – 1.25m learners
- Hebrew – 1.09m learners
- High Valyrian – 911k learners
- Indonesian – 823k learners
- Danish – 716k learners
- Finnish – 706k learners
- Romanian – 682k learners
- Hawaiian – 636k learners
- Czech – 625k learners
- Welsh – 580k learners
- Haitian Creole – 498k learners
- Swahili – 477k learners
- Scottish Gaelic – 461k learners
- Hungarian – 453k learners
- Esperanto – 312k learners
- Klingon (beta) – 298k learners
- Zulu – 297k learners
- Navajo (beta) – 274k learners
- Yiddish (beta) – 251k learners
Changes in the rankings
Since I last updated the list in September 2022, there have been some interesting changes in the popularity rankings!
For instance:
- German has overtaken Korean as the 4th most popular language course
- Hindi has also made some ground, overtaking my beloved Italian to become Duolingo’s 6th most popular language
- Portuguese has leapfrogged Turkish into 11th place
- Ukrainian continues to surge in popularity, jumping from 19th to 15th
- Polish has climbed up to 17th, while Latin has dropped down to 19th
- Hebrew has passed the 1 million mark
- High Valyrian has made some huge gains, leaping from 28th to 23rd, and almost doubling its userbase
- Haitian Creole, now out of beta, has jumped from 34th to 31st, while Swahili has also gained a place
- Zulu, also out of beta, has made some huge gains in its user numbers, climbing from 32.1k to 297k
- Klingon, Navajo and Yiddish — which are still in beta — have all lost users
Duolingo offers English courses in 25 different languages, with another 3 currently in the ‘Hatching‘ phase of development (Punjabi, Tamil and Telugu).
Duolingo also offers Catalan and Guarani for Spanish speakers, as well as Cantonese for Mandarin Chinese speakers.
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)
Duolingo fictional languages
You’ll notice that a couple of Duolingo’s languages aren’t exactly ‘real-world’ lingos. These are High Valyrian and Klingon, taken from Game of Thrones/House of the Dragon 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!
RELATED: Duolingo + TV Shows = Fluency?
Duolingo beta languages
You’ll also notice that some of the languages are labeled as ‘beta’ languages. This means they are still in development, but are available to use.
The Duolingo courses that are currently in beta are Klingon, Navajo and Yiddish.
With a beta course, bugs and teething issues are to be expected as the guys at Duolingo apply the finishing touches.
That said, no course is ever complete (just look at all the changes Duolingo have made to the French and Spanish courses 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 learning paths, as well as a huge library of stories.
They also used to have audio lessons and podcasts, however, these have recently been removed. Podcasts are still available on podcast platforms but are no longer available within Duolingo itself.
After French and Spanish, the next best courses, in my opinion, are German, Italian, Portuguese and Japanese, as these are the only other courses that have stories.
RELATED: Duolingo Stories – The COMPLETE Guide – What You Need To Know
New Duolingo languages for 2023and beyond
In 2022, Duolingo launched Haitian Creole and Zulu. These are now out of the beta phase and are fully-fledged Duolingo courses.
Currently, Xhosa is the only language course showing as hatching on Duolingo’s official list of languages. It’s currently 6% done, so we may be able to expect it at some point in 2023.
Prior to Duolingo closing the Incubator, Māori and Tamil were in the early stages of development. Māori had been due to launch on February 21, 2021, and Luis von Ahn announced at Duocon 2021 that it would be one of Duolingo’s next 5 languages.
However, like Tamil, there is currently no indication that either will launch any time soon.
duolingo tagalog
Tagalog is one of Duolingo’s most requested languages.
And given that it’s thought to be spoken by roughly 82 million people, it’s easy to see why!
However, despite von Ahn stating that Tagalog will be one of Duolingo’s next languages, Duolingo doesn’t currently teach Tagalog.
As of February 2023, Tagalog is only available as a base language for those who want to learn English.
Which language will you learn?
Duolingo offers an amazing choice 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.
That is simply false. There is no country or region where that is anyone’s first language.
Google definition: “an ARTIFICIAL language devised in 1887” so it is not a real language but it is an auxiliary language so it allows people from different regions to communicate
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.
Yes Croatian! (Hundreds of times more speakers – not to mention tourists there)
I agree. I would also like to learn Croatian. (Or Bosnian).
What about Thai. Thailand is a country that I’m passionate about and really want to learn to speak Thai
Yes Thai please!
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.
If only we had it in Arabic script I would be very happy already. Its not very hard to learn and it helps a lot to be able to read things.
I would also love to learn Persian on Duolingo. I started about 30 years ago with a private tutor but I could not continue then. I have been looking for a course but they are hard to find in my country.
I would definitely prefer that the course would teach the Persian alphabet because it is the way the language is written and I would like to be able to read the language, not only speak. The letters are not so hard to learn as far as I can remember from the last time I tried. 😊
We need Icelandic pleeeease !
YESS, the Latin of Germanic languages!
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.
Bulgarian for me too! It’s an EU language on top of that.
Lithuanian would be fantastic! There are very few options for online learning and over 3 million native speakers. It is a beautiful country. Before I visited I needed to cobble together YouTube videos to build a small vocabulary.
Hey! I want you to tell the contributors that I want Estonian. It is a real-world language and is popular in Estonia.
I see Tagalog is in the pipeline – Tagalog is specific for the north of the Philippines and yes, including capital Manila.
More useful however would be Filipino, which acts more like a lingua franca and is still developing.
Last but not least: if you want to give credit to learning 2000 words in one course, a course should contain 2000!
I took Indonesian and it stops on 1800. 🙁
Thai? Yes please!
Cebuano? Double yes!!
Chinese stops at 1932 words. They should add the 68 words so we can receive our badges. Also it would take away the perception that Duolingo is not paying attention to us.
I would love to continue learning Tagalog as a way of connecting with my family. What I know thus far was taught by my mother (may she rest in peace). I would like to continue that learning and maybe even learn about the different dialects (Ilocano/Bisaysan/etc.) spoken in the Philippines. If there is anything I can do to get the ball rolling faster, I wouldn’t hesitate to do it.
Mahal na mahal kita, nanay. Nasa ang puso ko iyo.
I wish urgently to learn Tagalog.
Can’t wait for Zulu to land, looking forward to learning it!
I’d love to learn to speak Bemba. Spoken in most of Zambia.
JJ
Please, Duolingo, bring European Portuguese to the app.🌈
You’d think they would have by now. After all, they have most of the content they need with having the Brazilian Portuguese already, it wouldn’t take a lot to make the European course.
Would love to see Icelandic, the Latin of Germanic languages!
As a resident of Ethiopia, it would be amazing if Duo offered Amharic. Or English for Amharic speakers. It would be immediately applicable in my context. There is currently no online platform that offers it.
I’d love to see Cornish on Duolingo!
Interest in Cornish seems to ebb and flow. Much interest in it at the moment.
I’d like to learn Cantonese and Teochew rather than Mandarin Chinese
I need to learn Bemba from Zambia
Please add Hrvatski
I’m hoping for Tagalog and Cebuano languages to come out soon.
I would love to see more European languages, like Croatian, Icelandic, Hungarian, Romanian…
Hungarian and Romanian are now available
I understand that Duo addresses more European languages but why not to add Persian , Uzbek, other Indian languages?
I would LOVE sindarin or qenya from tolkien….. maybe even the divine language from 5th element.
Armenian, Icelandic and Thai would be excellent. Personally, I would also like to see Dzongkha, Nahuatl and Quechua although I doubt they would be so popular. It would be great if Duolingo also extended some of the shorter courses such as Finnish and Latin., particularly Finnish as it is such a difficult language.
Afrikaans please.. I visit my old army mate at his farm in South Africa often and would love to be able to listen and contribute to their conversations.. Just finished Ukrainian as well but have noticed certain words and ways of saying things are not included.. Which leaves me really good at Ukrainian but unable to say I was hurt or needed an ambulance or police, I couldn’t describe an emergency or conflict because that stuff has been left out… I’d love it to have more added to it.
I am interested in Jamaican Patois. Any discussion on this? I am currently taking Arabic, French and Spanish.
I can see in not alone in going Croatian can be added soon. I know several potential users if Croatian is added.
I’m most desperate for Classical Greek as I learnt some at university and would love to pick it up again!
There have been some great suggestions in the comments. Cornish, Catalan and Basque would be fantastic, and Maori is well overdue.
I have long been looking for a way to learn quechua or aymara and would be happy to have them on Duolingo
I would like the Indian languages of Punjabi and Paadi to be added. Also I would like the German course to have audio lessons and podcastsz
Serbian please🇷🇸. More than 15milion native speakers.
I would definitely be interested in learning Breton!
Please add Ukrainian taught by Polish! There is a huge necessity to learn the language of refugees who came to Poland. And the knowledge of English is quite poor at the generation 45+ due to the communist times. Moreover, Ukrainian is similar to Polish, so it get us frustrating if we cannot translate exact meanig of words in different cases or gender, as they are at both languages.
Please add Slovak!
Yes I want to learn Slovak
Please add Kabyle a marvellous Berber language from North Africa ( Algeria) it’s native to about 8 million people.
Algerian Arabic would be also an excellent option to study.
How about another language not related to any other on Duolingo. Or any other period. Please make an euskera course. It’s a real language and one of the oldest still spoken. But I think the Disney movie Zombies has a zombie language so that would be cool too…
I want Kannada language on Duolingo app which is spoken by 50 million+ people in India.
already mentioned a couple of times here, I’d really like to see Bulgarian added!
Samii, tofa, maori, anglo-saxon, bulgarian, lithuanian, estonian, vepsian, cree, somali, amharic, georgian, armenian, coptic, belorussian, abkhazian,svan, laz, mingrelian, urdu, wolof, basque, xhosa, mayan, and ainu are all languages i’d like to see added.
How about Toki Pona?
I’d like Lithuanian, please. I have also noticed that, whilst Duolingo put the Spanish flag for Spanish, they don’t pronounce the words as they do in Spain. And for foreign speakers wanting to learn English, Duolingo have put the incorrect flag there. Only minor quibbles, but I thought worth mentioning.
i would love to learn Croatian. it is similar to Polish so it shouldn’t be too difficult to add
I would love to see Bulgarian
Hello!
I would love to see and learn the Samoan language on here. I would even than pay for the Super Max yearly family membership for that!!! That is how excited I would be.
Please I beg beg beg pretty please for the Samoan language, America Samoa, to be on Duolingo as soon as humanly possible. I will pay for maximum membership, please.
Samoan, please ♥️ 🇼🇸
Yeah that would be super cool. I also think Yucatec Maya would be a great language to add
I would really like to see Greenlandic (or any other member of the Eskimo-Aleut language family) as well as Armenian. For Armenian, there is already AYOLingo though.
Greenlandic has a really nice sound to it and my feeling is that many language geeks would appreciate having a go at learning it.
Like others above, I’d like to request Icelandic. But there doesn’t seem to be a way to do so. This very helpful blog is maintained by a fan (cheers, Matt), not by Duolingo itself. Are the people who make the decisions listening here?