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Duolingo provides written lessons and dictation, with speaking practice for more advanced users. It has a [[gamification of learning|gamified]] skill tree that users can progress through and a [[Vocabulary acquisition#Vocabulary acquisition|vocabulary]] section where learned words can be practiced. Duolingo launched Duolingo Test Center on July 22, 2014, now known simply as the Duolingo English Test (DET). It is an online language certification test that can be taken from home.<ref name="TechCrunch Article2">{{cite web | url= https://techcrunch.com/2014/07/23/duolingo-launches-its-language-certification-program/ | title= Duolingo Launches Its Certification Program To Take On TOEFL | publisher=Tech crunch | accessdate=December 27, 2014}}</ref> Duolingo has been used in schools. For example, in Costa Rica and Guatemala, Duolingo has been used in public schools as a pilot project run by the government.<ref>{{cite web |url= https://techcrunch.com/2015/01/08/duolingo-launches-free-language-learning-platform-for-schools/|publisher=TechCrunch|title=Duolingo Launches Free Language Learning Platform For Schools|date=January 8, 2015|accessdate=January 9, 2015}}</ref> After select users were invited to a closed beta test, Duolingo released the app for iOS devices on July 19, 2016, for desktop on March 2, 2017 and for Android on August 30, 2017.
Duolingo provides written lessons and dictation, with speaking practice for more advanced users. It has a [[gamification of learning|gamified]] skill tree that users can progress through and a [[Vocabulary acquisition#Vocabulary acquisition|vocabulary]] section where learned words can be practiced. Duolingo launched Duolingo Test Center on July 22, 2014, now known simply as the Duolingo English Test (DET). It is an online language certification test that can be taken from home.<ref name="TechCrunch Article2">{{cite web | url= https://techcrunch.com/2014/07/23/duolingo-launches-its-language-certification-program/ | title= Duolingo Launches Its Certification Program To Take On TOEFL | publisher=Tech crunch | accessdate=December 27, 2014}}</ref> Duolingo has been used in schools. For example, in Costa Rica and Guatemala, Duolingo has been used in public schools as a pilot project run by the government.<ref>{{cite web |url= https://techcrunch.com/2015/01/08/duolingo-launches-free-language-learning-platform-for-schools/|publisher=TechCrunch|title=Duolingo Launches Free Language Learning Platform For Schools|date=January 8, 2015|accessdate=January 9, 2015}}</ref> After select users were invited to a closed beta test, Duolingo released the app for iOS devices on July 19, 2016, for desktop on March 2, 2017 and for Android on August 30, 2017.

As of April 2018, Duolingo no longer uses a spaced repetition system.<ref>https://www.duolingo.com/comment/26739837</ref>


==Infrastructure==
==Infrastructure==

Revision as of 10:39, 8 April 2018

Duolingo
File:Duolingo logo with owl.svg
Type of site
Private
Available in
HeadquartersPittsburgh,
US
Founder(s)Luis von Ahn, Severin Hacker
CEOLuis von Ahn
IndustryOnline education, Professional certification, Translation, Crowdsourcing
ServicesLanguage courses, Duolingo English Test, Duolingo for Schools, Tinycards flashcard app
Employees95[1]
URLwww.duolingo.com
Advertisingyes
Registrationyes
Users200 million[1]
Launched30 November 2011; 12 years ago (2011-11-30)
Presentation at Wikimania about Duolingo

Duolingo (/ˌdjuːoʊˈlɪŋɡoʊ/ DEW-oh-LING-goh) is a freemium language-learning platform that includes a language-learning website and app, as well as a digital language proficiency assessment exam. As of November 2016, the language-learning website and app offer 68 different language courses across 23 languages, with 22 additional courses in development. The app has about 200 million registered users across the world.[1][4][5][6][7]

History

The project was started at the end of 2009 in Pittsburgh by Carnegie Mellon University professor Luis von Ahn (creator of reCAPTCHA) and his graduate student Severin Hacker, and then developed along with Antonio Navas, Vicki Cheung, Marcel Uekermann, Brendan Meeder, Hector Villafuerte, and Jose Fuentes.[8][9]

Inspiration for Duolingo came from two places. Luis Von Ahn wanted to create another program that served two purposes in one, what he calls a "twofer".[10] Duolingo originally did this by teaching its users a foreign language while having them translate simple phrases in documents, though the translation feature has since been removed.[11]

Von Ahn was born in Guatemala and saw how expensive it was for people in his community to learn English. Severin Hacker (born in Zug, Switzerland), co-founder of Duolingo, and Von Ahn believe that “free education will really change the world”[12] and wanted to supply the people an outlet to do so.

The project was originally sponsored by Luis von Ahn's MacArthur fellowship and a National Science Foundation grant.[13][14] Additional funding was later received in the form of investments from Union Square Ventures and actor Ashton Kutcher's firm, A-Grade Investments.[15][16]

Duolingo started its private beta on November 30, 2011, and accumulated a waiting list of more than 300,000 users.[17] On June 19, 2012, Duolingo launched for the general public. Due to popular interest, Duolingo has received many investments including a $20 million Series C round of investment led by Kleiner Caufield & Byers and a $45 million Series D round of investment led by Google Capital.[18] Duolingo has 95 staff members, of whom many were Google employees,[19] and operates from an office in the Pittsburgh neighborhood of East Liberty.[20][21][22]

On November 13, 2012, Duolingo released their iOS app through the iTunes App Store.[23] The application is a free download and is compatible with most iPhone, iPod and iPad devices.[24] On May 29, 2013, Duolingo released their Android app, which was downloaded about a million times in the first three weeks and quickly became the #1 education app in the Google Play store.[25] As of 2017, the company had a total funding of USD $108.3 million.[26] Duolingo received a fifth-round $25 million in July 2017 from Drive Capital, with the funds directed toward creating initiatives such as TinyCards and Duolingo Labs.[27]

Business model

Duolingo has a freemium business model and it uses advertising in both its Android and iPhone apps.[28] Duolingo courses include periodic advertisements which users can pay a subscription fee to remove. To earn money, Duolingo originally employed a crowd sourced business model, where the content came from organizations that pay Duolingo to translate it.[29] This business model was later discontinued, after it was decided the industry was too competitive (price-wise) with other services like Gengo and rapidly advancing neural machine translation technology, and too distant from its core goals.[27] In July 2014, Duolingo started a language certification service, Test Center, as a new business model. As of September 2017, 50% of Duolingo's revenue came from ads and 48% came from in-app purchases, with the remaining 2% derived from the Duolingo English test.[27]

Language courses

Courses for English speakers

As of March 29, 2018, 28 courses were available to the public in English, three of which are constructed languages. Ordered by number of learners, they are:[30][31][32]

Five courses for English speakers are currently in development (ordered by progression percentage towards completion):[35][36]

Unavailable courses in English

Catalan and Guarani are available as a second language for Spanish speakers. English is also available as a separate course for numerous other languages such as Dutch, Portuguese, Italian, and Russian.

Products

Duolingo provides written lessons and dictation, with speaking practice for more advanced users. It has a gamified skill tree that users can progress through and a vocabulary section where learned words can be practiced. Duolingo launched Duolingo Test Center on July 22, 2014, now known simply as the Duolingo English Test (DET). It is an online language certification test that can be taken from home.[38] Duolingo has been used in schools. For example, in Costa Rica and Guatemala, Duolingo has been used in public schools as a pilot project run by the government.[39] After select users were invited to a closed beta test, Duolingo released the app for iOS devices on July 19, 2016, for desktop on March 2, 2017 and for Android on August 30, 2017.

As of April 2018, Duolingo no longer uses a spaced repetition system.[40]

Infrastructure

Duolingo uses many services in the Amazon Web Services suite of products, including Amazon DynamoDB, Amazon Virtual Private Cloud, nearly 200 virtual instances in Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2), Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3) and Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS).[41] The server backend is written in the programming language Python.[42] A component called the Session Generator was rewritten in Scala by 2017.[2] The frontend is written in Backbone.js and Mustache. Duolingo provides a single-page web application for desktop computer users and also smart phone applications on Android (both Google Play Store and Amazon Appstore), iOS App Store) and Windows Phone platforms. 20% of traffic comes from desktop users and 80% from mobile app users.[41]

Recognition and awards

In 2013, Apple chose Duolingo as its iPhone App of the Year, the first time this honor had been awarded to an educational application.[43] Also, Duolingo won Best Education Startup at the 2014 Crunchies,[20] and was the most downloaded app in the Education category in Google Play in 2013 and 2014.[44] In 2015, Duolingo was announced the 2015 award winner in Play & Learning category by Design to Improve Life.[45]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c "Duolingo moving to East Liberty, plans to add employees". The Business Journals. Retrieved 24 March 2016.
  2. ^ a b Rewriting Duolingo's engine in Scala
  3. ^ "Duolingo". Ranking. Alexa Internet. Retrieved 25 March 2018.
  4. ^ "100M users strong, Duolingo raises $45M led by Google at a $470M valuation to grow language-learning platform". Venture beat. Retrieved 21 June 2015.
  5. ^ "Duolingo – Learn Languages for Free". Windows phone. Microsoft. Retrieved 21 November 2014.
  6. ^ Guliani, Parul. "Duolingo Looks To Dominate The Mobile Education Market With New Flashcard App TinyCards". Forbes. Retrieved 17 February 2017.
  7. ^ "By the Numbers: 16 Amazing Duolingo Stats and Facts (October 2017)". DMR. Retrieved 6 November 2017.
  8. ^ Siegler, MG (12 April 2011). "Meet Duolingo, Google's Next Acquisition Target; Learn A Language, Help The Web". TechCrunch. Retrieved 21 November 2014.
  9. ^ "The Duolingo Team". Twitpic.
  10. ^ Mayer-Schönberger, Viktor; Cukier, Kenneth (2014). Learning with Big Data: The Future of Education. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. pp. 9–10. ISBN 978-0-54435550-7.
  11. ^ "What Happened to Immersion?". duolingo.
  12. ^ Olson, Parmy. "Crowdsourcing Capitalists: How Duolingo's Founders Offered Free Education To Millions". Forbes.
  13. ^ "Online Education as a Vehicle for Human Computation". National Science Foundation.
  14. ^ "Learn a language, translate the web". New Scientist.
  15. ^ Todd, Deborah M. (3 July 2012). "Ashton Kutcher backs CMU duo's startup Duolingo". Pittsburgh Post Gazette. Retrieved 13 July 2012.
  16. ^ "The Daily Start-Up: Kutcher-Backed Language Site Duolingo Finds Its Voice". The Wall Street Journal. 19 June 2012. Retrieved 13 July 2012.
  17. ^ Adi Robertson (16 December 2011). "Duolingo will translate the internet while teaching languages". The Verge. Retrieved 3 February 2016. {{cite news}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  18. ^ "We have a blog!". Blog. Duolingo.
  19. ^ "The Google effect: How has the tech giant changed Pittsburgh's commerce and culture?". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. 7 December 2014. Retrieved 11 January 2015.
  20. ^ a b Luis. "Duolingo turns two today!". Retrieved 21 November 2014.
  21. ^ "Duolingo launching on Android; plans move to bigger office". Biz journals. 29 May 2013. Retrieved 21 February 2014.
  22. ^ Hartmans, Avery (23 March 2016). "Duolingo moving to East Liberty, plans to add employees". Pittsburgh Business Times. Retrieved 17 February 2017.
  23. ^ Frederic Lardinois (13 November 2012). "Language Learning Service Duolingo Launches Its First iPhone App". TechCrunch. AOL. Retrieved 18 April 2016.
  24. ^ "Duolingo – Learn Spanish, French, German, Portuguese, and Italian for free". iTunes App Store. Apple. Retrieved 29 April 2013.
  25. ^ Farber, Dan (11 July 2013). "Duolingo brings free language courses to the iPad". C net. Retrieved 21 February 2014.
  26. ^ Lardinois, Frederic (25 July 2017). "Duolingo raises $25M at a $700M valuation". TechCrunch. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |dead-url= (help)
  27. ^ a b c Elaine, Ramirez. "Duolingo Is Launching A Korean Course To Cash In On Asia's Booming Language Market". Forbes. Retrieved 11 October 2017.
  28. ^ "Crowdsourcing Capitalists: How Duolingo's Founders Offered Free Education To Millions". Forbes. Retrieved 22 December 2015.
  29. ^ Simonite, Tom (29 November 2012). "The Cleverest Business Model in Online Education". Technology review. Retrieved 21 February 2014.
  30. ^ Allan, Patrick. "Language Learning Showdown: Rosetta Stone Vs. Duolingo". Lifehacker. Retrieved 11 October 2017.
  31. ^ Fisher, Stacy. "Duolingo Review". The Balance. Retrieved 11 October 2017.
  32. ^ "Language Courses for English Speakers". Duolingo. Retrieved 6 October 2017.
  33. ^ "Duolingo now supports Chinese, but it probably won't help you become fluent". The Verge. Retrieved 21 March 2018.
  34. ^ "High Valyrian for English speakers" (status report). Duolingo. Retrieved 3 March 2017.
  35. ^ "Incubator". Duolingo. Retrieved 28 May 2015.
  36. ^ "[WIS] Weekly Incubator Summary: 2018, Week 05". Retrieved 7 April 2018.
  37. ^ Template:Cit web
  38. ^ "Duolingo Launches Its Certification Program To Take On TOEFL". Tech crunch. Retrieved 27 December 2014.
  39. ^ "Duolingo Launches Free Language Learning Platform For Schools". TechCrunch. 8 January 2015. Retrieved 9 January 2015.
  40. ^ https://www.duolingo.com/comment/26739837
  41. ^ a b "AWS Case Study: Duolingo". Web Services. Amazon. Retrieved 28 March 2015.
  42. ^ "What language is Duolingo written in?". Quora. Retrieved 21 February 2014.
  43. ^ "Duolingo snags iPhone App of the Year". Gigaom. 17 December 2013. Retrieved 21 February 2014.
  44. ^ "Google Play reveals the most downloaded apps, games and entertainment content from 2014". The Next Web. 11 December 2014. Retrieved 29 December 2014.
  45. ^ "Duolingo-Index: Award 2015 Winner (Play & Learning Category)". Design to Improve Life. Design to Improve Life. 27 August 2015. Retrieved 28 April 2016.

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