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Part 1 of 3: Fastest growing Duolingo courses?

Lisa M. Beck

Subsections:

- Languages of the future

- Future languages for Duolingo

- Some findings on a subset

- The heads and tails of growth in courses for English speakers

A while back, I took an interest in finding out how many people were taking/subscribing

to/enrolled in (whatever you want to call it) the various courses Duolingo has to offer. My big

takeaway from it all was that Duolingo offers more courses than most people will ever have time

to learn. It is one of the reasons I decided to take a look at these numbers in the first place. I

knew that, eventually, I may wish to take other Duolingo courses and wanted to base my future

choices, to some degree, on the popularity of a language here at Duolingo.

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Languages of the future

As I collected numbers for various Duolingo courses, I realized, more than ever, how popular

Spanish is. I really shouldn’t have been that surprised because, after Mandarin Chinese, it is the

language spoken most by native speakers, and as far back as 2005, even surpassed German as the

most popular language to study in the United Kingdom. Furthermore, according to a report

published by the British Council, “Languages for the Future,” Spanish is among the top three

languages considered useful for economic reasons. And among the following languages: Arabic,

French, German, Italian, Japanese, Mandarin Chinese, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, and

Turkish, Spanish has emerged as the most important for the U.K. I would imagine that if it is

important to the U.K., it could also prove to be important to the U.S., considering that so many

(all but two) Spanish speaking countries are on its side of the pond.

But even more reason than that is the fact that Spanish speakers in the U.S. already comprise at

least 13% of the population. This, of course, varies by state as does the Hispanic population in

general. For example, 47.0% of New Mexico’s population is Hispanic. On the other end of the

spectrum is West Virginia where Hispanics only make up 1.3% of the population. These figures

represent current population figures — 2006 data for the percentage of those speaking Spanish

and 2012 data for the Hispanic population percentages.

By 2060, the Census Bureau predicts that 1 in 3 U.S. citizens will be of Hispanic descent. Unlike

other immigrant populations, they seem to be assimilating a bit better than most, so the need to

learn Spanish might not be as great as one would think. After all, there was a time when many

thought that learning German might be necessary due to the huge number of immigrants coming

from Germany during the 19th century. In the book, The Economics of Immigration: Theory

and Policy, Örn B. Bodvarsson and co-author Hendrik Van den Berg devote an entire chapter to

Hispanic immigration to the United States. In it, they report:

While fewer than half of all second-generation Hispanic immigrants live in households where

English is the dominant language, nearly 80% of third-generation Hispanics do. (p. 322)

In other words, the majority of second-generation Hispanics are still speaking Spanish at home.

This is not too surprising since my guess is that the majority of Hispanics that immigrate to the

U.S. weren’t exposed to a rigorous program of learning English before arriving. Plus, the U.S.

has a number of Hispanic communities where one can survive and thrive without knowing

English or knowing it that well. Having said that, good reasons exist as to why the majority of

third-generation Hispanics speak English instead of Spanish at home, primarily reasons related to

education. Though some public school districts offer bilingual education, my sense is that they

are few and far between. However noble these efforts may be, the lack of bilingual education

forces immigrants to learn English faster than they might otherwise. I also think that immigrants

see value in learning English and those who do are rewarded with tangible economic advantages.

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Hastening the language acquisition process is another form of assimilation — social assimilation.

Bodvarsson and Van den Berg go on to report:

Only 8% of first-generation Hispanics marry someone outside their ethnic group, nearly one-third of

second-generation immigrants do, and 57% of third-generation Hispanic immigrants do. (p. 322)

Despite the assimilation that appears to be taking place, learning Spanish still might be a good

idea. For starters, it has practical applications. As globalization continues, more employers may

need jobs to be filled by those who can speak, read, write, and understand more than one

language. So, if you know more than one, and especially a widely spoken one like Spanish, it

might make you more likely to be hired in an increasingly competitive job market. And, if you

live in the U.S., you have even more reason because 1 in 10 of your fellow Americans may be a

speaker of Spanish. Learning the language of another, whether literally or figuratively, goes a

long way in developing rapport and establishing bonds.

Though Spanish seems to be a good language to learn, especially if you live in the Western

Hemisphere, what about other parts of the world? Some are thinking that French might soon

surge in popularity. However, while it is true that many articles will tell you that French will be

the lingua franca of the future because of the population growth that is expected in sub-Saharan

Africa, most projections I’ve seen indicate we’re still a long way off from such development,

perhaps as much as 20 to 25 years away. See, “C'est impossible! French set to be the world's

most commonly spoken language by 2050 …” for one such article. Still others don’t even

include French in the top five (“What are the Top 5 World Languages in 2050?”).

Future languages for Duolingo

Regardless of what the most popular languages of the future will be, I happened to notice, in the

process of collecting numbers, that Duolingo has many more languages warming in the

incubator, so if you happen to be bored with what is already offered, rest assured, a language that

meets your fancy, may be about to hatch. You can view which ones are getting ready to break

their shells by visiting the “Duolingo Incubator.” For those of you who have been using

Duolingo for a while, you probably already know about the incubator, but for those who don’t,

you can read more about it by clicking on the link below:

Incubator

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Some findings on a subset

The numbers that I mentioned I took a look at were viewed a couple of months ago. I recently

looked at those numbers again and decided to compare the numbers I saw today with those I

viewed back in August. What I discovered is that Spanish is becoming increasingly popular

worldwide. (During the past two months, it was the fastest growing language for both Russian

and German speakers.) English has always been the most popular course at Duolingo, across the

multitude of foreign languages Duolingo offers, but other courses have taken a sharp rise

recently. Some of those that have taken an upward trajectory in terms of popularity are listed in

the chart below (in order of growth beginning with the highest amount in terms of percentage):

It is important for you to know that I did not look at every language Duolingo offers. For the

most part, I only collected numbers for the following 33 courses, covering 11 languages:

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The languages you see above in each column are not an all-inclusive list and are presented in order of popularity

(down and across for total number enrolled in languages listed) at the time the table was created (August 10, 2016).

Duolingo offers several others in addition to what you see above.

So, when I make a statement such as “fastest growing,” I am specifically referring to just the last

two months and specifically to rates of growth for the languages you see in the preceding table.

Before moving on to the courses Duolingo offers to English speakers, here are a few more charts

you may find interesting:

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The source for figures on total number of speakers comes from the Wikipedia article, “List of

languages by total number of speakers,” and/or individual pages from the source from which

it was derived — Ethnologue, a web-based publication that contains statistics for languages.

Keep in mind that Ethnologue compiles a list of speakers worldwide and therefore, it should not

be surprising that in many instances the figure for total number of speakers is more than the

population for the country or region in which the language is primarily spoken. For a full listing

of the countries Ethnologue uses in its surveys, visit the website and conduct a search for the

language of interest. To see an example, this link here will take you to an information page on

Arabic. The list of countries included in its figure for total number of Arabic speakers is placed

at the end of the page.

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As I mentioned before, oftentimes the population for a country/region was less than the total

number of speakers reported by Ethnologue. Again, Ethnologue reports total number of speakers

worldwide. Even so, the number of speakers worldwide and the population for a country/region

were relatively close most of the time. The numbers for Spanish and Swedish were the closest of

all. Sometimes the discrepancy in figures appeared to be easily explained. For example, the total

number of Turkish speakers worldwide was reported as 71 million, and the population figure

from the source I used reports a population of 78 million (at the end of 2015). The fact that not

everyone in Turkey speaks Turkish, however, makes those figures seem reasonable. In fact,

according to one source, 11.97% of Turkey’s inhabitants speak Kurdish. Conversely, the

figures for all but Turkish and Swedish showed slightly higher numbers for speakers than

inhabitants. This is due to the fact that not everyone in these countries/regions speaks the official

or main language and in addition to that, several speakers of the languages typically associated

with these regions/countries are found in other parts of the world. For example, in theory,

diasporas and expat communities should also contribute to the total number of those considered

as speakers of a language. Ethnologue gives numbers for what is known as L1 speakers which is

what is invariably referred to as the first language, native language, or mother tongue of a

speaker. So, logically, one would assume that the methodology would dictate that a Syrian

refugee in Turkey whose first language was Arabic, would be considered an Arabic speaker and

an English speaking American living in Munich or Paris would be considered a speaker of

English, regardless of how many additional languages the refugee or American might know.

However, I am not privy to Ethnologue’s collection, tabulation, or estimation methods. A search

of “methodology” and “collection methods” via the search feature on its website was fruitless.

Therefore, I cannot say with certainty how refugees, expats, workers on assignment, and the like

are tabulated. My guess is that they would be included but perhaps slightly underrepresented due

to the difficulties one might expect would be inherently associated with the collection of

information for such groups.

As of this writing, I am not aware of any country where only one language is spoken (with

perhaps the exception of North Korea). Because of that, any of the percentages you see in the

chart below include numbers for speakers within and outside of each individual country/region.

You should also know that Ethnologue gives numbers for L1 speakers as well as L2 speakers

(languages other than one’s first), and even categorizes languages beyond those two levels, but

the numbers I used were for L1 speakers.

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Some additional notes should be made about the table above. For example, despite the fact that a

number of people in the Spanish speaking countries of South America speak indigenous

languages such as Quechua, Guarani, and Aymara, Spanish also showed a slightly higher number

of Spanish speakers than inhabitants. In fact, during the last decade, the number of those

speaking these languages has been reported as 8.9, 4.9, and 2.8 million, respectively, but the

number of Spanish speakers living outside of Spanish speaking countries appears to have offset

any deficit posed by indigenous speakers. Incidentally, Duolingo offers a Guarani course, a

course that entered Phase 2 (aka “beta”) just four months ago, but already has 21,000 enrolled in

it. Keep in mind that it is currently only offered to Spanish speakers, but if your Spanish is pretty

good, you might want to check it out.

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Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, you will notice that I lump Spain and Equatorial

Guinea into the category called “Latin America.” By definition, Latin America does not include

Spain or Equatorial Guinea, but rather than refer to this region as Latin America plus Spain and

Equatorial Guinea, or Latin America plus two, minus Brazil and Guyana and French Guiana and

Suriname (and all the English speaking countries of the Caribbean), and Belize, whenever I refer

to Latin America in this post/article, I’m referring to Spanish speaking Latin America as well as

Spain and Equatorial Guinea.

The figures for total number of German speakers and the latest population figures I found for

countries where German is known to be spoken vary a bit more than the others, but many of

these countries only have a small portion of German speakers. For example, of the countries

where the German language has a sizeable presence — Germany, Austria, Liechtenstein,

Switzerland, Luxembourg, Belgium, Italy, Poland, and Brazil — five of them (more than half)

have 2% or less speaking German.

The table below shows you where speakers are if they don’t reside in the country where the

language is predominantly spoken:

As a chart of comparison to those charts showing numbers of Duolingo users, the one below

shows ratios of some of the more popular languages offered at Duolingo (independent of

Duolingo enrollment):

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The chart below may leave you a bit in the dark without the underlying data to accompany it, but

it may help to read the caption given underneath the chart. In essence, this chart shows what kind

of impact the number of Duolingo users may be having on a language or what kind of dent they

are making into that language, by sheer percentages alone. For anything below the axis, I would

say that the numbers aren’t making that great of an impact at the moment, but those above it are

somewhat significant.

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Take for instance the column for the Arabic speakers who are studying Swedish through

Duolingo (.1 million). Compared to the Arab population, that number is pretty insignificant, but

when compared to the number of Swedish speakers, it’s something to take note of. Interestingly

enough, one source (the Wikipedia article on the Arab diaspora) reports that as of 2012,

Sweden was home to more than 100,000 Iraqis and, coincidentally, that is about the same

number who are learning Swedish via Duolingo. This piqued my curiosity and a cursory Google

search led me to the article, “Which countries study which languages, and what can we learn

from it?” The article’s section on “Why is Swedish the top language in Sweden?” contains some

related additional details that you may find worth reading.

The heads and tails of growth in courses for English speakers

As for languages with the greatest growth for English speakers, Russian and Polish currently top

the list. Portuguese, on the other hand, doesn’t seem to be growing as much as the other

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languages. I find this somewhat odd considering that the Olympic games were held in Rio de

Janeiro just this past summer. For those who don’t know, Brazil is the largest Portuguese

speaking country in the world. 77% of the world’s Portuguese speakers reside there and no other

country in the world, to include Portugal itself, even comes close. I suppose a two-week sporting

event, despite its international renown and prestige, may not be enough to inspire others to learn

the host country’s language, but still, I would think it would have some influence. It’s too bad

that I didn’t collect these numbers before August to see how numbers compared before and after

the Summer Olympics. Then again, Duolingo, as good and as free as it is, isn’t the only way to

learn a language, but I think it is reasonable to assume that interest, growth, and popularity seen

at Duolingo might also be reflective of worldwide trends in general.

To put that graph into perspective, however, here’s one that shows you the popularity of these

courses by the numbers:

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As you can see, the easier languages and the courses that have been out for a while have the

greatest number of users. Therefore, it makes sense to see larger growth in some of the languages

with a smaller user base. Below is a list of some of the courses and the date they entered Phase 2:

Turkish: March 23, 2015

Ukrainian: May 21, 2015

Russian: November 2, 2015

Polish: December 10, 2015

The others have been out for a while. Thanks to scarcerer, who gave me the link to a page with

release dates, I was able to revise this section and revamp the chart you see above. I should

mention that in the early days of Duolingo, there does not appear to be a hard and fast Phase 2,

but this only affects Spanish and German. The English course for Spanish speakers appears to be

the first course to have a distinct three-phase stage of development; the first one for English

speakers was the French course. The Spanish and German courses for English speakers were

launched June 19, 2012, the same date that the French for English speakers course entered Phase

2. For the other release dates, see the link scarcerer provides below and give him an upvote or

a lingot if you find it helpful.

As for the two preceding charts, whether you count by day or by total number of users, the order

is roughly the same. I think it is quite interesting, however, that Russian actually shows more

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users per day since entering Phase 2 than does Portuguese, especially considering that

Portuguese is a Category I language and Russian a Category IV, according to the Foreign

Service Institute. Clearly, English speakers aren’t afraid to take on a challenge.

For those who don’t know, courses in Phase 2 are open to enrollment. If you’re easily frustrated

and like everything to be perfect from day one, I don’t recommend enrolling in one at that stage,

but, if small glitches, bobbles, and inconsistencies don’t bother you, you will still learn and at the

same time it gives you the opportunity to contribute to the course’s development by reporting

problems you see along the way.

Again, Part 2 focuses more on worldwide trends. These trends focus on internet access, regional

comparisons, the possible effects/limitations of various factors (e.g., standard indicators used to

assess a country’s development), as well as references to a couple of tools you can use to conduct

your own studies with. Links to several other publications worth reading are also included.