Duolingo, the app famous for having an owl mascot that hates you (and a few other things), has done yet another completely unexpected thing. Instead of Mexican takeout, you can now buy an owl-themed portable piano.

No, the minds behind the language learning app haven’t lost theirs. The service offers music lessons in addition to those French and German courses you’ve been neglecting since 2021. This new product is intended to help you get to your daily piano lesson by… well, making you carry around a piano.

The key to Duolingo

It’s not like the company could give each user a small Frenchman or Spaniard to amplify those lessons but a piano? That’s totally doable. Pre-orders for the small green musical instrument are open and will see buyers dropping nearly R4,500 on their new learning aid.

Duolingo’s instrument is made in collaboration with Loog, a company specialising in starter instruments for kids. It should prove very usable by fumble-fingered piano amateurs who failed to start lessons at age five as their mothers insisted. The battery-powered keyboard includes internal speakers, Duolingo integration, and “velocity-sensitive keys”. That probably doesn’t mean it screams in fear when you hurl it across the room but it’s nice to dream.

Buyers can also use it as a MIDI controller after connecting it to a source via USB-C and there’s also a headphone jack so they can conduct their lessons in public without inviting down the wrath of bystanders. Pre-orders are set to ship from November this year but it’s possible to immediately purchase the standard Loog piano, without the passive-aggressive owl, for the same price.