Last week, Spotify took over large swathes of social media with its annual Wrapped. Apple Music did the same thing, to slightly less acclaim. Now educational app Duolingo is taking a crack at summing up the year it had, providing each of its users (that completed more than ten lessons in 2021) a roundup of how they did.
The feature, called Year in Review, sums up how many words were learned, how many minutes were spent submerged in a language you’ll likely never seriously use, and how much XP was earned. Because it’s all about seeing those bars fill up.
Disappointing Duolingo
In addition to giving its users some personalised information, the owl-helmed language app also shared more general data. Its “Most 2021 Phrase” is one that most of us can get behind. That phrase is, “I’m mentally exhausted”, which shows up in the Japanese course. And, you know, in everyone on the planet this year.
The most popular Duolingo languages (in the States) are Spanish, English, French, Japanese and German — which makes plenty of sense. But new languages are being adopted for strange-ish reasons. According to the app’s second Language Report, interest in Korean as a language is on the rise. Because, perhaps not all that weirdly, of Squid Game. Turns out those creepy nursery rhymes really sparked something.
Other Duolingo research saw films Money Heist and Emily in Paris cause an uptick in Spanish and French respectively. Hopefully, once the app launches its programs for South African languages in 2022, we’ll see similar increases when SA does something entertainingly newsworthy.