Pittsburgh-based edtech company Duolingo Inc. released its fourth-annual language report on Monday, and, much like last year's report, global trends are influencing the types of lessons that Duolingo's tens of millions of users are taking.
"This year, we saw significant shuffling of the global top 10 list, generational divisions in language interests and proof that world events continue to influence learning patterns," Cindy Blanco, senior learning specialist at Duolingo, said in the report she authored.
Like last year's report, the Russian invasion of and war with Ukraine is causing increased interest from around the world in learning the Ukrainian language. Duolingo (NASDAQ: DUOL) said this is an action its users are doing as part of an effort to show solidarity with the country and its people.
At least 37% of new learners globally said they are studying Ukrainian to connect with people, Duolingo noted, which is much higher than the 17% of English learners and 18% of French learners who are studying for this reason as well. The U.S., the U.K., Poland, Russia and Ukraine are the top five countries where Ukrainian is being learned.
Somewhat related to this, Portuguese cracked the top 10 list of most popular languages after nudging out ahead of the number of people who are studying Russian. Duolingo said the latter has taken a disinterest in being learned by its users as a result of the ongoing war.
Meanwhile, the study of Korean climbed to spot No. 6 globally, overtaking No. 7 Italian. The growth of those who are studying Korean has been explosive in India, climbing 75% year-over-year.
There also are some generational habits worth pointing out, Duolingo said.
Those from the Baby Boomer generation — people born between 1946 and 1964 — are more likely to have a longer running streak of days in a row where they've completed a lesson on Duolingo's platform compared to those who are in younger generations. People who are part of Generation Z — those born between the late 1990s and early 2010s — have indicated that they're studying a language on Duolingo more for political solidarity or to complement personal interests like travel compared to other age groups, Duolingo said.
However, some trends are much harder to break year-over-year.
Just like last year, English, Spanish and French, respectively, remain the most popular languages being learned on the platform. A total of 122 nations had English as the most popular language being learned among a given country's populace, which increased by three countries compared to last year's figure.
"In many parts of the world, English is important for economic and educational success, and learners in Asia are especially committed to supporting their education through English learning," Blanco said. "In fact, a large percentage of English learners in India (40%), Vietnam (50%) and China (54%) all cite education as the primary motivation for their language study. And of our largest markets, English learners in India complete the most lessons daily.
Rounding out the top 10 languages learned on Duolingo include No. 4 German, No. 5 Japanese, No. 8 Hindi and No. 9 Chinese.
