Duolingo is a free language-learning and crowdsourced text translation platform. The service is designed so that, as users progress through the lessons, they simultaneously help to translate websites and other documents. As of 13 December 2014, Duolingo offers Latin American Spanish, French, German, Brazilian Portuguese, Italian, Dutch, Danish, Irish and Swedish courses for English speakers, as well as American English for Spanish, French, German, Portuguese, Italian, Dutch, Russian, Polish, Turkish, Hungarian, Romanian, Japanese, Hindi, Indonesian, Korean and Czech speakers. It also offers many other combinations of languages. It is available on the Web, iOS, Android and Windows Phone 8.1 platforms.
Learning with Duolingo is fun and addictive. Earn points for correct answers, race against the clock, and level up. Their bite-sized lessons are effective, and they have a study to prove it.
According to an independent study conducted by the City University of New York and the University of South Carolina, an average of 34 hours of Duolingo are equivalent to a full university semester of language education.
Participants took one university placement Spanish language test at the beginning of the study and one at the end. The improvement of language abilities was measured as the difference between the initial and the final language test results.
The study concluded that a person with no knowledge of Spanish would need between 26 and 49 hours (or 34 hours on average) to cover the material for the first college semester of Spanish.
Since a one semester university course usually takes more than 34 hours of work, this study suggests that Duolingo is more effective than an average university course.
Each lesson includes a variety of speaking, listening, translation, and multiple choice challenges.
Instantly see which answers you get correct. When you miss a challenge, we’ll quickly show you how to improve.
Duolingo motivates you to stay on track by recording how many days in a row you spend learning a language.
Hearts keep your lessons alive! You lose them when you answer incorrectly. When you’re out of hearts, start over and try again.
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