I’m really excited by the ways Duolingo’s reach is evolving with the introduction of our Math and Music courses. We’re now poised to grow from a language learning app into an education company, and that has the capacity to truly increase our impact on the world. After 10 years of working on language, making learning a fun, daily habit, we knew these new courses would benefit from some tried-and-true features: 🔥 Streak, for the motivation to keep coming back every day 🛡 Leaderboards, which give a sense of achievement—and competition 👯♀️ Social features, that make solo learning into a team sport Of course, not everything we created for language can simply be ported over to new subjects. We are continuing to develop new features, as we figure out what the equivalent of Stories might be for Math, or Match Madness for Music. The new subjects also created unique challenges for the overall design of the app. Here are 2 that stick out: 🎼 Re-orienting for Music: Duolingo has always been an app that is vertically-oriented… until we needed to put a piano keyboard on screen. That requires you to hold the phone horizontally, and this changed our entire visual language! 👉 Non-verbal communication: Both Math and Music required us to expand the gestures learners could use in the app. For learners working out math problems, we introduced the ability to write with your finger. For Music, we needed to incorporate new interactions that helped teach rhythm, which is a crucial part of music. Tackling these challenges has been fun and exciting, and it is inspiring to watch these newborn courses start to take off. We’re seeing a growing number of multi-subject users—those who are learning a language plus math or a language plus music. Interestingly, these people seem to use the app more regularly than single-subject users (possibly because they can take a break from one when it gets challenging by switching to the other!). There are more amazing developments on the horizon. But what’s clear is that if we can do even half of what we’ve done with language with these new subjects, we’ll have put our mark on the world of education as a whole. Want to help Duolingo reach more learners? We're hiring for Product Managers in our NYC and Pittsburgh offices: https://lnkd.in/deC2Rctf #duolingo #edtech #learnings #productmanagement #productinnovation
Duolingo
3mo
waiting for the app to be sensitive to feathers as well as fingers 😒
Somesh Yadav
3mo
When will it be launched on Android?
Rohan Mohana
3mo
Love everything Duolingo is putting out! Venturing into the larger edtech space (beyond just language learning) makes a ton of sense. I’m excited to see how you’ll tackle other subjects. Hoping to see some courses in the natural sciences make their way into the app! Duolingo has been instrumental in helping me homeschool & bond with my 5y/o kid learn (who loves languages) as we co-learn together. Keep doing everything you’re doing! 🙌🏽
Music courses in Duolingo are absolutely a game-changer! But I have an idea to make it better. Current features let the user practice the song partially in the prep step and make you repeat your mistakes only. It doesn't give the user the option to choose to practice certain and user-chosen (customized) parts of the song before moving to the real/graded song. Basically, users should be able to choose which parts of the song they will practice before moving to the step where the song is graded. Not sure if it will be prioritized ever but I think it is needed especially if songs become more complicated.
April McMillan
3mo
I love where Duolingo is heading. I'm one of your multi-subject users and currently taking Spanish, French, Math, and Music. As a former piano teacher, I was curious where you'd take Music. But I think one day offering products or compatibility with products that would allow people to learn on actual keyboards (whether Bluetooth or USB or whatever) would be nice — to really get that muscle memory necessary for musicians. Or maybe other instruments, like guitar? So excited!
Pasha Melis Dodd
3mo
It's amazing how far Duolingo has come with all these advancements that you are sharing. However I believe it is very unfair for the users who have different operating systems on their devices like "Android". Many users have been waiting since November to be able to enjoy Music and Math lessons. Yet, there hasn't been a single announcement or let alone an acknowledgement of this situation. Every single member of the Duolingo team seems to turn a blind eye whenever someone comments about the Android devices. How is it that you are proudly sharing all of the new features here on a professional platform while at the same time disregarding a huge portion of complaints from nearly half of your users? And to consider the Super Users, it should be their right to know what they are paying for and for how long they can have the features of the app just like ios users. Announcements are always made ahead of time for ios users and in that way those users know what to expect and in which time period. However, Android users are not considered as much as ios users. Once a feature is available it'll just be announced on the day or even later. There is a clear discrimination and above all a lack of respect in customer service!
Sielecas Sharpe
3mo
I love the music 🎼 course! I have never played the piano 🎹 and Im amazed that Im reading notes and playing music! Each song gets a little more involved than the last and I dont move on until I have gotten all 3 stars ⭐️ ⭐️⭐️. I do swich between the music math and language. When Chinese is kicking my feathers, I switch to music to kind of relax before I go back to it. 👍🏾 I would love to see sign language added at some point to support our def community and so more people can communicate with people who are hearing challenged/disabled.
Jahdunsin Osho
3mo
Really glad to see Duolingo adding non-language courses and trying to make it fun. One of the challenges students face in many African schools is the dependence on traditional teaching methods, which, to be fair, are long overdue for an update. 😅 Duolingo’s approach to learning really inspired our choices in design and user experience in Edubaloo. For example, we observed that students tend to start preparing for their examinations close to the exam date, so we implemented a streak feature to help our users build consistent habits over time. Duolingo is really creating a ripple effect and inspiring a shift in how people learn around the world. So please, keep em coming!
I feel like this would benefit from removing the piano feature and focus more on music theory. You can't learn to play an instrument on a screen, but you can learn the theory behind music with one
Head of Product at Duolingo • Hiring
3moFor everyone that asked about Android: We're working on it! :)