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Duolingo: What parents need to know

Duolingo is the most popular language-learning platform in the world, offering interactive courses on over 40 languages.

Duolingo logo

What is Duolingo?

Duolingo is the world’s most popular language-learning platform, offering over 40+ language courses, as well as maths and music lessons.

The platform is available on iOS, Android and desktop, and PEGI have rated it as being suitable for anyone aged 3+. With a clean and colourful design and the interactive game-like lesson structure, Duolingo does have a family friendly appearance and is more attractive to children than many other learning tools.

How it works

On Duolingo, users choose the language they would like to learn, and then begin a course of lessons, with each lesson taking around 5 minutes to complete. These lessons can involve interactive games, listening, speaking, or reading questions.

Different incentives are in place to motivate users to complete lessons, such as a streak that grows for every consecutive day a lesson is completed, and leaderboards with other users on it, with leaderboard points being earned by completing lessons.

In addition to leaderboards, other social features also exist, such as forums and the ability to follow other users.

A Duolingo course is split into multiple different sections and units, which progressively get harder, and it can take months to complete an entire language course.

Duolingo can be used for free, but a premium subscription also exists. This subscription, called Super Duolingo, starts at £4.99 per month, or £48 per year. A family plan also exists, which costs £89.99 per year for up to six people, or £1.24 per month per person.

Super Duolingo removes adverts from the app, and takes away the lives feature, meaning users can make as many mistakes as they like without having to pause their learning and wait to be given more lives.

Duolingo parental controls

Child accounts exist for Duolingo. Anyone under 13 years of age that attempts to create a Duolingo account will be asked to enter their parent’s email address, and then will automatically be set up with a child account. These accounts do not have access to social features such as leaderboards or adding friends.

There is no age verification for Duolingo, so it’s best if you help your child create their account and check that the correct age has been entered.

Benefits of Duolingo

  • Learn a new language from a choice of 40+ languages
  • Child accounts exist to keep under 13’s safe
  • Easy and engaging interface for children
  • Maths and music lessons on app also
  • Does not require a paid subscription

What to watch out for

Child accounts restrict the social aspects of Duolingo, but if your child is aged 13 or older, they will be able to follow other users, and other users can comment on your child’s updates. Strangers seeking to do harm could use this feature to try and get your child to talk to them on other platforms, and this poses a risk for children. Encouraging your child to talk to you about their digital life will help you stay aware about anyone contacting them online.

The game-like nature of Duolingo could also cause children to spend excessive amounts of time on the app. Users are given challenges that incentivise using the app, such as a goal to complete a certain amount of lessons within one week, so monitoring their screen time is recommended.