Education / Language learning services
Duolingo: Producing learning content
- Company
- Duolingo
- Country
- United States
- Adoption stage
- In operation
- Source published
- Date basis
- The date the source was published. It can differ from the date adoption started.
- How the source was checked
- Read the full source text
The work problem
Duolingo used to have people write the content of every language course from scratch. Building the first 100 courses therefore took about 12 years. Many learners who wanted to study a popular non-English language had no course available in their own interface language.
Technology and data
The company created an approach it calls shared content internally. It builds one base course whose quality is assured, then adapts it quickly into many languages. Steps that generate and validate content with generative AI were added on top of this. Internal authoring tools were reworked at the same time. Jessie Becker of Duolingo said that being able to create and validate content with generative AI let the company put human expertise where it has the greatest effect.
Results
Duolingo released 148 new language courses at once. The company said the first 100 courses took about 12 years, while this time it built and shipped close to 150 courses in about one year. As a result seven languages, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean and Chinese, can now be learned from all 28 interface languages. The new courses include features such as Stories for reading and DuoRadio for listening.
Limits and open questions
The figures disclosed are the number of courses and the build time. Whether learning outcomes or completion rates improved at the same rate is not in this source.
Sources
- Duolingo Launches 148 New Language Courses - Duolingo, Inc.investors.duolingo.com, Accessed
Compiled from public sources. These are not results from ATF Works customers.