duolingo

Duolingo is an American[3] educational technology company that produces learning apps and provides language certification.[4] History Brand The idea for Duolingo was formulated in 2009 by Carnegie Mellon University professor Luis von Ahn and his Swiss-born post-graduate student Severin Hacker.[5][6] Von Ahn had sold his second company, reCAPTCHA, to Google and, with Hacker, wanted to work on an education-related project.[7] Hacker believed that "free education will really change the world"[8] and wanted to provide an accessible means for doing so. He was recognized by the National Inventors Hall of Fame for his contributions to language learning and technological development.[9] The Duo mascot is a green owl because Hacker hates the color green.[10] The project was originally financed by von Ahn's MacArthur fellowship and a National Science Foundation grant.[11] The founders considered creating Duolingo as a nonprofit organization, but von Ahn judged this model unsustainable.[12] Its early revenue stream, a crowdsourced translation service, was replaced by a Duolingo English Test certification program, advertising, and subscription.[13] YouTube channel The channel was created on November 27, 2011, and uploaded their first video two days later, titled "Duolingo Intro".[14] In 2019, the channel started to gain popularity due to memes about the company, such as the mascot itself. Ever since, the company has released announcements for new updates and services, stories showing learners learning foreign languages through Duolingo, and meme videos.[15][16] Reception A 2022 study on adults using Duolingo as their only language learning tool, published in the journal Foreign Language Annals, found that participants who completed a course had similar reading and listening proficiency to university students after four semesters of study, concluding that Duolingo could be an effective tool for language learning.[17] Another 2022 study of Malaysian students learning French, published by the National University of Malaysia Press, found that the app facilitated the acquisition of vocabulary and concluded that it was "well suited" for beginners in this regard.[18] Marketing stunts Duolingo is well-known for their marketing stunts. An example of this is on February 11, 2025, where the company announced through Twitter that their mascot, Duo the Owl, has died.[19][20] subscriber milestones 100,000 subscribers: April 2019 200,000 subscribers: September 21, 2020 300,000 subscribers: August 21, 2021 Trivia Duolingo is a fan of Gawr Gura of hololive, since when Gura uploaded a stream of learning Japanese with the app, they commented "💚💚💚💚" underneath.[21]