Duolingo Blog
Duolingo's company blog covers its language-learning product, AI features, engineering migrations, cloud costs, and company culture.
What HN says
HN links it for product and engineering announcements, such as the music course. Commenters also debate how effective Duolingo is for learning a language.
Stats for nerds
87HN people shared it
81linked in comments
676story points
Mar 2026last shared
Top posts on HN
- 1How we invented new ways to teach Japanese2 people · 255 points · first shared 2017 · 139 comments on HN
- 2How Duolingo achieved a 50:50 gender ratio for new software engineer hires1 person · 57 points · first shared 2018 · 107 comments on HN
- 3How Duolingo models language learning4 people · 50 points · first shared 2016 · 2 comments on HN
- 4Rewriting Duolingo's engine in Scala5 people · 46 points · first shared 2017 · 1 comments on HN
- 5Duolingo Helps Student to Propose to His American Girlfriend1 person · 24 points · first shared 2013 · 1 comments on HN
- 6Request Tracing at Duolingo1 person · 24 points · first shared 2021 · Discussion on HN
- 7Migrating Duolingo's Android app to 100% Kotlin3 people · 21 points · first shared 2020 · Discussion on HN
- 8Flipping Duolingo: filling a gap in support for right-to-left languages1 person · 13 points · first shared 2016 · Discussion on HN
- 9Duolingo: We reduced our cloud spending by 20%3 people · 12 points · first shared 2024 · 2 comments on HN
- 10Ten things all languages have in common1 person · 12 points · first shared 2022 · 12 comments on HN
What HN people wrote when they linked it
- nakamoto_damacyOct 2025
They = Hebrew, Aramaic and Arabic
---
## 1. “They all kept the triconsonantal root system — where word meaning is based on three core consonants (like K-T-B = “write” → Hebrew katav, Arabic kataba, Aramaic ktav).”
*Source evidence:*
* The article “Triliteral Roots / Consonantal Roots” states that many Semitic languages (including Arabic, Hebrew) have roots typically made of three consonants (triliteral) and that words are formed by inserting vowels, etc. ([Transparent Blogs][1]) * A source says: “Both Hebrew and Arabic rely on a triliteral root system, meaning words are formed from three core consonants. Example of the root K-T-B…” ([Biblical Hebrew][2]) * Another general description: “The roots of verbs and most nouns in the Semitic languages are characterized as a sequence of consonants ... such abstract consonantal roots are used…” ([Wikipedia][3]) So this claim is well supported.
*Arabic translation of the claim:*
> احتفظت جميعها بنظام الجذر الثلاثي الحروف — حيث يعتمد معنى الكلمة على ثلاثة حروف صامتة أساسية (مثل ك-ت-ب = “كتب/يكتب” → العبرية כתב (katav)، العربية كتب (kataba)، الآرامية כתَب (ktav)).
*Hebrew translation of the claim:*
> כולן שמרו על שיטת השורש התלת-עברי — שבה משמעות המילה מבוססת על שלושה עיצורים ל־(למשל כ־ת־ב = “כתב” → עברית כתב ( katav ), ערבית كتب ( kataba ), ארמית כתב ( ktav )).
*Citations (for this claim):*
* Semitic linguistics: “The roots of verbs and most nouns in the Semitic languages are characterized as a sequence of consonants …”…
- skrebbelJan 2018
> English is far from the best candidate.
It's also the only candidate. English is the most commonly learned foreign language by far[1], and I don't foresee any major economic movement to change that.
English has a momentum no other language have ever had. There is no language that has a larger body of knowledge online than English. Virtually all cross-border hobbyist communities, expert platforms, etc (eg Stack Overflow) are in English. People all over the world use English to communicate, even when nobody in the group has English as their native language. I was a member of a European student network called BEST, which had 0 member universities in English-speaking places and still the entire thing was in (bad) English. The entire EU is running on English informally, and I bet formally too a few decades from now (and not because we like the Irish so much). My startup has some customers in the UAE, in India and in Pakistan - their sites main (and sometimes only) language is English. The list goes on and on.
Chinese would've had a chance if they weren't so isolationist. Call me when the first Chinese language TV show gets popular outside China and Taiwan. I bet English language TV shows will be popular in China long before then (if they aren't already - I honestly don't know).
Like it or not, English has won.
[1] There's a bunch of sources, I liked this Duolingo post: http://making.duolingo.com/which-countries-study-which-languages-and-what-can-we-learn-from-it
- 3PSMar 2026
Duolingo | Full-time | Multiple roles | $177K-$240K for NY roles | NY and London | Hybrid
Our mission is to develop the best education in the world and make it universally accessible. Our culture is eng-driven, friendly, and very data-driven thanks to our large userbase. Check out our blog to see what engineering at Duolingo can look like: https://blog.duolingo.com/hub/engineering/
Tech stack: (frontends) Swift/Kotlin/TypeScript, (backend) Python/Kotlin/Postgres/Dynamo, (infra) AWS/k8s/Terraform.
We're always hiring for engineers. A few roles below:
Senior Engineering Manager, Chess (NY)
https://careers.duolingo.com/jobs/8385137002Senior Android Engineer (NY)
https://careers.duolingo.com/jobs/8217266002Senior iOS Software Engineer (NY)
https://careers.duolingo.com/jobs/8318257002Engineering Director (London)
https://careers.duolingo.com/jobs/8444624002Senior Gameplay Programmer (London)
https://careers.duolingo.com/jobs/8424809002Base salary: $177-240K for the NY-based roles, unsure about the London-based roles.
Perks: free lunch, 2-week winter break + 20 days of flexible time off.
- rgovostesFeb 2020
I've been reading similar anecdotes lately trying to gauge whether I could reach B1 in a Romance language in a few months of study.
What I've found is a lot of pessimism about how well Duolingo teaches you a language, with many arguing it's a waste of time altogether.
I'm surprised that could be the case though. They have data from millions of language learners processing through their lessons, and looking at their making-of blog (https://making.duolingo.com), the product seems data-driven. They do A/B testing to see the efficacy of new features they roll out. Aside from that, they combine reading, writing, speaking, and listening exercises, and have made some innovative features like chat bots. One language tree includes a few thousand words.
If anything, I would expect Duolingo to be vastly more effective than other methods.
- rcarrNov 2022
800+ day streak here and top 2% user according to last years statistics. I have taught myself Spanish using just Duolingo to a pretty decent level where I can now follow along with a decent amount of TV.
I have been using the new path for the last few months and can categorically state that it is much more effective for learning. Duolingo are aligning themselves with proper educational frameworks, baking in scientifically proven spaced repetition and paving the way for more diverse modes of communication such as email conversations and stories with interconnected plot lines. More information can be found in these blog posts:
https://blog.duolingo.com/new-duolingo-home-screen-design/
https://blog.duolingo.com/how-are-duolingo-courses-evolving/
https://blog.duolingo.com/duolingo-advanced-stories/
- cschillerMar 2025
Hi Jztan, glad you're exploring this space! I'm the co-founder of MobileBoost, and I'd love to introduce our product, GPT Driver (https://www.mobileboost.io/).
We started two years ago with an AI-native approach, which is particularly useful for handling dynamic flows, hard-to-locate UI elements, and testing across multiple platforms and languages. Our main objective is to reduce test maintenance effort.
Duolingo recently shared their experience adopting our tooling: https://blog.duolingo.com/reduced-regression-testing/
We offer: a Web Studio – A no-setup-required platform with all tooling preconfigured. SDKs – Directly integrate with existing test suites (Appium, XCUI, Espresso).
Happy to answer any questions!