How Long Does It Take To Learn Spanish With Duolingo?
Spanish is very well-spoken worldwide. In fact, Spanish is one of the most spoken languages, alongside English, Mandarin, and French. As a result, many people try to learn it. Many learners rely on classes or apps such as Duolingo to learn Spanish. However, does Duolingo work? And how much time do you require to learn Spanish with Duolingo?
Generally, it may take up to 30 minutes of lessons everyday for 10 months on Duolingo to achieve a higher-intermediate level of fluency in Spanish. Your results may depend on your total interaction time with Duolingo, your ability to practice with Spanish speakers, and your proficiency level.
This article discusses how long it takes to learn Spanish with Duolingo. Aside from that, we also look into some common questions about Duolingo.
What Is Duolingo?
Duolingo is an app to help you learn languages. It teaches many languages worldwide, including Spanish and even artificial languages such as Esperanto. There are freemium and paid versions of Duolingo, with the paid ad-free and allowing more customized access and control.
Duolingo is a web and app-based language-learning platform. With Duolingo, you can work on language drills and activities. You stand to improve your vocabulary, pronunciation, grammar, and listening skills.
Duolingo was the brainchild of Luis Von Ahn, a Carnegie Mellon University professor from Pittsburgh University, in 2009. His postgraduate student Severin Hacker was also a co-founder.
Duolingo’s language program could be described to be like a ‘tree.’ A tree is separated into main trunks, which represent the different skills to learn a language. These trunks then separate into branches, which cover the topics, sections, units, and skills you can work on.
Skills are usually vocabulary and grammatical, and topics may cover daily areas such as color, idioms, relationships, and more. Levels 1 through 6 make up a skill: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and Legendary. You may see yourself doing multiple-choice, speaking, interpreting, and matching exercises as you interact with the course.
You can learn hundreds of language courses at Duolingo. Spanish is among the most popular courses, but there are also courses such as French, Mandarin, and Hindi. There are also artificial languages such as Esperanto.
Duolingo comes in freemium and also paid versions. The paid version is ad-free and comes with more customized controls and functions.
Can Duolingo Actually Make You Fluent In Spanish?
Duolingo is proven in many studies to help with language learning and actually help learners to learn Spanish to a good proficiency. Duolingo learners have a good vocabulary range, beginner-advanced grammar skills, and the ability to speak with coherence, fluency, and accuracy.
You may find it a little unconvincing that spending time on apps and clicking about can help you learn Spanish. This is not uncommon since many people associate language learning with speaking it with someone.
However, Duolingo’s language programs were found to help learners develop proficiency. These programs are also effective in learning a language. Duolingo demonstrated this by conducting a self-issued study on people who took their Spanish and French programs.
In this study, Duolingo looked for students within their program that have finished up to unit 5 of their Spanish and French programs and sat them through the Versant Language Proficiency test. This test is not built or run by Duolingo but by Pearson Education, one of the world’s major language education providers.
These students are based in countries where Spanish and French are not spoken daily. They had no prior knowledge of French and Spanish when they started with Duolingo.
The results show that the students, on average, have a language proficiency of about A2, considered to be an ‘advanced beginner.’ Up to 33% achieved B level, while 7% of the students achieved C1, considered near-native-like.
The study reports language proficiency using the CEFR grading of six distinct levels. beginning with A1, A2, B1, B2, C1, to C2. A1 signals that you are a beginner, and C2 means you are technically native-like.
This test proves that Duolingo can help you to learn Spanish and develop fluency to converse and use it daily with Spanish speakers.
How Much Time Do You Need To Pick Up Spanish With Duolingo?
It may take up to 9 months to learn Spanish with Duolingo. This is because it takes about 120 hours of learning to complete Duolingo’s Spanish program, which is one of the most extensive language programs in Duolingo.
| Platform | Average Time Claimed |
| Quora | 12 months |
| 6 months |
Duolingo claims it takes up to 120 hours to complete its Spanish language program, which is half a semester in the university. Once you complete their Spanish program, the goal is to be at the B1 level, which is intermediate proficiency.
However, you cannot do Spanish lessons for 120 hours straight. That will probably burn you out real quick. This means we need to break the learning lessons down.
We took some time and looked online for the actual time people spent learning Spanish with Duolingo. Naturally, we went to see what was said on Quora and Reddit. We discovered roughly that it may take you around 9 months to learn Spanish with Duolingo.
Let’s take the average time claimed by these users and the number of hours Duolingo claims you need to spend to complete their Spanish programs. You are looking at completing 120 hours of lessons in about 9 months, which is 242 days.
That means you must spend about 30 minutes a day straight for 9 months on Duolingo to complete the Spanish program. This should help you to function at B1 proficiency in Spanish.
If 30 minutes a day is a little bit too much, consider lowering it to 10 minutes daily. However, that may increase the time you need to finish the program, stretching it slightly over two years.
Is Duolingo Good For Learning Spanish?
In general, Duolingo is a good way to pick up Spanish, allowing a beginner to take lessons for free. The lessons are based on real-world content and contain features to keep learners motivated. However, Duolingo may not be good for practicing speaking and does not take you very far up the proficiency level.
| Pros | Cons |
| Beginner friendlyVaried, real-world contentSpecial featuresGamification features add funFree, with upgrades possible | Not great for speakingHearts systemTakes you to the B2 level only |
Pros
Generally, Duolingo is a good tool for you to learn Spanish for various reasons:
Beginner Friendly: If you are familiar with using phone apps, or social media, you should not have issues navigating around Duolingo. The interface is direct and intuitive, and the choice of color and UI makes it fun and less intimidating.
The beginner courses also are simple to complete. They are designed to help you develop more confidence and enjoyment in learning the language.
Varied, Real-world Content: With Duolingo, you learn about many aspects of the language, such as names of objects or phrases and sentences to engage in conversation.
You also can choose to listen to podcasts in the language you are listening to so that you can experience immersing yourself in the actual use of the language.
This means the language items you learned in Duolingo are actually capable of helping you use the language in the real world, and not just grammar, grammar, and grammar.
Special Features: Duolingo may have more features than other language learning apps and services. There are two things that only Duolingo has for now: podcasts and audio lessons.
Aside from those, you also can speak into your microphone, and the app may pick up your pronunciation. This may help you to improve your pronunciation as well.
Gamification Features Add Fun: Duolingo likely understands that learning Spanish in isolation over an app may be boring and demotivating. This may explain why they add gamification features to the app. For every lesson and activity you complete in Duolingo, you will receive an XP score, which can be compared against other users in your league.
If you need that extra motivation to push you through your Spanish learning journey, Duolingo may work for you.
Free, With Upgrades Possible: The best thing about Duolingo is that it is free to start. You can start for free and take lessons and courses for free. However, free courses may have limitations, such as the need to see ads. You are also limited to several daily lessons and other control limitations.
Cons
Despite all its plus points, Duolingo does it its own set of shortcomings, including:
Not Great For Speaking: One of the best ways to learn and develop speaking skills in Spanish is to, yes, speak with a Spanish speaker. The speaker does not necessarily need to be a native.
With Duolingo, the best you can do is to speak to a microphone, with the app picking up if you pronounce the words right. If you rely on Duolingo only, you may not have much chance to practice speaking.
Hearts System A Little Demotivating: If you play video games, you may be aware of the heart system. If you make mistakes during a game, you may lose one heart, and when you lose all your hearts, the game is over.
The same thing applies to Duolingo. If you make mistakes to the point that you lose all your heart, you will have to pause and repeat the course again.
Takes You To B2 Only: Duolingo courses are designed to help you develop proficiency up to B2 only. Within the CEFR scale, B2 stands for being an advanced intermediate learner. At this point, you have proficiency in using Spanish with fluency. Still, you will definitely sound like a Gringo, a learner.
Suppose you want to progress to the C1 or C2 level. In that case, you will need to go beyond what Duolingo can offer and look for higher-level tutoring elsewhere.
