Duolingo

One of our company principles is Make it Fun. Today, I have an extra fun update to share. :) We’re rolling out Avatar Suits to current iOS users, and it’s only available for a limited time! Avatar Suits are a way to personalize your Duolingo avatar – you can unlock 6 unique looks. We created this feature because learning is more engaging and fun when it feels personal. I’m curious to hear which avatar suit is your favorite. I like the hot dog best.

We just launched Avatar Suits, a new way to personalize your Duolingo avatar. For a limited time, current iOS learners can unlock six unique suits. It’s a fun way for our learners to express their personalities while learning. You’ll have 21 days to redeem all six suits. After that, they’ll be gone. I went with the Piñata. I’m curious to see which one is the most popular!

If people don't show up to learn, no one learns a thing. Sounds obvious. But I don’t think the education world has fully reckoned with it. Teaching has to be engaging. You can have the smartest person in the world explaining something to you, but if they aren’t engaging, your mind will drift somewhere else. For example, if given the choice between playing Clash Royale and listening to Richard Feynman explain physics, I’m probably choosing Clash Royale. Not because I want that to be true. But because Clash Royale is engineered to be incredibly engaging. At Duolingo , we spend a lot of time thinking about this. The unique challenge we face is: we actually have to teach you something. Unlike pure entertainment apps or social media platforms, we have constraints. We can’t just show you celebrities, cats, or someone chopping wood for three hours to keep you watching. Our product has to balance two things: 1. Are people actually learning? 2. Is this engaging enough that people come back tomorrow? That balance is much harder than it looks. But I think it’s one of the most important product challenges in education. We’re building toward a future where learning competes with entertainment and social media, while still leaving you with something real and meaningful.

🚀 Duolingo 's European Business Development team has been on a strong run lately — including recent partnerships with Airbnb and Revolut 🏡 With Airbnb, we launched "Bilingual Breaks" — a travel x learning partnership rewarding Duolingo learners in the UK and Germany for starting and maintaining a learning streak before their trips 💳 With Revolut, Super Duolingo is now an embedded subscriber benefit across 27 countries These collaborations are a great example of the kind of work our team does: 🤝 partnering with category-leading brands to drive real business impact 📈 building strategic growth, brand, and monetization opportunities at scale And there’s a LOT more in the pipeline, so we’re hiring for an open BD role in London and looking for smart generalists with experience in: • BD / strategic partnerships in consumer tech • management consulting • investment banking or other highly analytical roles If this sounds like you, apply via the link in comments 👇

Proud to work at a company that keeps raising the bar on what free education can look like. Starting this week, Duolingo 's advanced language learning content (B2 level on the CEFR scale) is available for free across nine languages. Learners can now build job-ready proficiency without hitting a paywall. Two things worth calling out: 1) We are about real learning. B2 content includes lessons without translations, complex scenarios, and specialized vocabulary. Features like Advanced Stories and DuoRadio build genuine reading and listening comprehension. 2) Free means free from day one. Most competitors gate advanced content behind a subscription. Duolingo is now the only free app offering this level of learning across nine languages at no cost. Research shows a second language can meaningfully boost employability, so removing that barrier matters. Learning in general used to require years of expensive classes or immersive experiences most people couldn't access. Excited that Duolingo is changing that! https://lnkd.in/eyhBW2hJ

There are product milestones that feel big internally, and then there are ones that you know will actually change things for a ton of people. This is the second kind. We just expanded our top nine language courses to reach a Duolingo Score of 129: English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Japanese, Korean, and Chinese. This isn't just for English speakers. It's available across almost every language interface we offer, meaning learners from dozens of language backgrounds can access this level of content for the first time. What does that actually mean? A Duolingo Score of 129 is the threshold where you can get a job in another language. Not just follow a conversation or order food, but actually work in it. Most of our courses used to stop at a Duolingo Score of 59, which is basic proficiency. Getting someone to 129 requires completely different content: advanced comprehension, nuanced grammar in context, and complex expression across topics. Manually building that at scale across nine languages would have taken over a decade. Our team found ways to use AI tools, shared content systems, and improved internal processes to unlock what we could actually build. And we did this without changing the quality bar our learning scientists and curriculum experts set. So who does this matter for? That’s what fires me up. - It’s for the Ukrainian speaker who just arrived in France and can now navigate the administrative system. - It's for the Turkish speaker studying German who can now work at a shop in Berlin. - It’s for the English speaker who can now use Japanese in a professional setting. This is the kind of outcome that only makes sense if you're building for the mission and not just the metrics. I’m really proud of our team and this achievement.

Tabling at a conference with 2k+ attendees is exhausting and exhilarating in equal measure, as I’m sure my fellow exhibitors will attest! It’s been non-stop here at IATEFL #IATEFL2026 as I spread the word about the Duolingo English Test ; I love seeing people’s faces light up when I tell them that it only takes an hour to complete! (They like our stickers, too 🤗💚💅🏻)

We’re live with Basim B. and John Woodcock from Duolingo HQ in Pittsburgh and our London office! Ask me anything! Lee Harris Tamsin Thomas Michael Lynas

I've been at Duolingo for about 2 years now. This is the capstone work I'm most proud of. We delivered what would have taken 10+ years in less than 2. We operationalized AI, at scale, while companies have been struggling to find a path to this level of impact. Leading the teams that delivered this has been one of the most satisfying career experiences I've had (and that includes electing 2 presidents and turning around the NYTimes). Ultimately, I'm most proud to think of the millions of learners in the world who now have access to high quality language education for free. And all that this will unlock for them for years to come. We've got more in store for you, learners!