DUOLINGO
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 December 2013, Duolingo offers Latin American Spanish, French, German, Brazilian Portuguese, and Italian courses for English speakers, as well as American English for Spanish, French, German, Portuguese, Italian, Dutch, Russian, Polish, Turkish, Hungarian, and Japanese speakers. It is available on the Web, iOS, and Android platforms.
Duolingo started its private beta on November 30, 2011 and accumulated a waiting list of more than 300,000 users.[3] Duolingo launched for the general public on 19 June 2012 and as of January 2014 has 25 million users, out of which about 12.5 million are active. In 2013, Apple chose Duolingo as its iPhone App of the Year, the first time this honor was awarded to an educational application.
Business model
Duolingo does not charge students to learn a language. Instead, it employs a crowd sourced business model, where members of the public are invited to translate content and vote on translations. The content comes from organizations that pay Duolingo to translate it. Documents can be added to Duolingo for translation with an upload account which must be applied for. On 14 October 2013, Duolingo announced it had entered into agreements with CNNand BuzzFeed to translate articles for the companies' international sites.
Levels and User Experience
Students are placed at a certain level in the program, corresponding to how much they have studied that language. A user's level is indicated by a number displayed on a medallion which contains a depiction of the flag of the country where that language is spoken. The levels of all languages any user is studying are displayed publicly to other users next to their username. In order to level-up, a student/user must either earn sufficient points by progressing through the Duolingo lessons, or by translating actual documents and earning a set rate of points-per-word (which increases with each Translation Tier they belong to in that language). Lessons typically comprise 14-20 questions/sentences and last between 4-7 minutes. Each completed lesson earns 10 experience points (XP) plus a bonus for any remaining hearts at the end of the lesson. In order to reach the next level, acquiring a set threshold of points is required, and the points-per-level increases with each level. At least 25 levels in each language exist. A partial list of point-thresholds necessary to "graduate" to the next level is as follows:
Level 2-3: 40 points
Level 3-4: 60 points
Level 4-5: 100 points
Level 5-6: 150 points
Level 6-7: 250 points
Level 7-8: 375 points
Level 8-9: 500 points
Level 9-10: 600 points
Level 10-11: 750 points
Level 11-12: 900 points
Level 12-13: 1000 points
Level 3-4: 60 points
Level 4-5: 100 points
Level 5-6: 150 points
Level 6-7: 250 points
Level 7-8: 375 points
Level 8-9: 500 points
Level 9-10: 600 points
Level 10-11: 750 points
Level 11-12: 900 points
Level 12-13: 1000 points
As the goal of Duolingo is to get people to learn the language, each unit (typically comprising between 1 to 9 lessons embedded in each) has a "strength bar" which corresponds to the computer's estimate of how strong certain words or constructions still exist in the user's memory. After a certain duration of time, strength bars fade, indicating a need for a user to refresh/re-study that lesson, or to "strengthen weak skills." Doing "Real-World Translation," however, also strengthens words, as the program keeps track of all words a user encounters when using the "Immersion" option to translate actual documents from the internet.
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