Duolingo wants to teach more than languages and its starting with maths and music

At yesterday’s Duocon event, Duolingo announced that it was branching out from its traditional language lessons into maths and music instruction. The company said that it will continue to use its bite-sized lessons, gamified features, and array of characters to help learners improve their skills in the two subjects.

Learners will be able to access the maths and music lessons just like they access different languages, the courses will be baked right into the app rather than live in their own separate bubble. Similar to the languages, you can use the new courses to keep your streak alive, complete quests, and climb the leaderboard.

Initially, the new courses will be arriving globally in English and Spanish on iOS devices (this is not the first time the company has prioritised Apple customers). Luckily for Android users out there, the company promises that the courses will roll out more widely ‘soon’.

The company hasn’t shared too many details about how complicated the courses get but it’s likely in the case of the maths course that it will stick to the basics. The company said that beginners will be able to learn maths from the course and those who already know their maths can use the course as ‘extra brain training.’

While pretty much everyone gets a decent maths education at school, at least on the basic topics like arithmetic and geometry, the ability to read music notation is not so widespread. For this reason, the music course could be more interesting for adults looking to pick up a new skill.

Aside from maintaining your streak with these new courses (don’t feel like learning a language today? Do some maths instead), XP Boosts also work in these subjects.

With Duolingo expanding into new territory, it raises the question about whether the company will add more topics and become more like Khan Academy. The company addressed this saying that right now it’s focused on these two courses but that ‘this is just the start'. Eventually, it wants to make it into a central app where you can learn any subject.

Source: Duolingo