I’ve been a big fan of Duolingo since its early days, and I’ve already used it for Irish, Dutch, Spanish, and Italian. The Duolingo experience is an ideal way for me to “get my ear in” before I travel abroad somewhere, so I’m constantly adding other languages to explore too!

Exploring Italian on Duolingo. I think I will wait until I get a bit more fluent before sharing my skills on LinkedIn, but I like it! Social is a key part of the Duolingo experience.

I use Duolingo on my laptop and smart phone, and have even tried it on Google Glass!

Duolingo takes advantage of voice-enabled devices of course, although it can be used without that feature.

Now, I’m especially thrilled that my own national language, Irish (Gaeilge), is doing so well on the platform and receiving such high-level recognition.

Duolingo’s got it all going on really from a UX perspective: it’s free, fun, global, local, social, all about mobility from the cloud, includes gamification, is powered by the crowd, packs voice interaction, and now it’s got… chatbots, which are ideal for that language conversational interaction! Duolingo’s all wrapped in a simple yet funky, colourful, visual look and feel that appeals across all ages, too.

A Duolingo bot can be unlocked to practice your language skills “for real” after a certain level. Not available in all languages, but it’ll get there as that technology matures globally I guess.

Chatbots are an ideal way to engage with a language-learning app, delivering a conversational UI for conversational solutions. Of course, text input and gestural interactions are also available.

Duolingo is being used by so many people and for so many things! I know people who use it to learn French, German, Spanish, Italian, Vietnamese, Irish, Romanian, and more, be it out of love of learning new languages, getting the hang of some phrases in advance of foreign travel, strengthening the kids’ school language learning, just wanting to converse with others in their own language on a more casual basis, or simply out of plain old curiosity. For many, Duolingo is the “only game” in town.

I’ve now realized that Duolingo is a UX storyteller’s dream! Duolingo’s approach resonates with so many that you can weave almost any narrative you like about how ideas, innovation, trends, technology, design, and people collide in a big-hearted way, worldwide.

This TED talk with Luis von Ahn about large-scale online collaboration will help you get your head around what Duolingo is about. But, honestly, the best way to experience Duolingo is to … start that conversation yourself!

Duolingo explains as you learn: Noun gender in Spanish is covered as you use your own voice on a smartphone, for example.

Hey kids, you talkin’ to me? Italian lesson with voice input enabled.

More carrot than stick with the Irish lesson. There’s a change! Listen and then drag and drop the words to translate. Nice!

Activity stream showing my Duolingo progress.

Hey You! Your friendly Duo reminder on the smartphone!

Bring the Bitterballen. Learning with others can be fun too. Duolingo lets you try group learning as well as learning on your own.