Duolingo Adds Beta Support For Dutch And Irish Languages In The Latest App Update

Irish is hard. Like, really, really hard – as someone who can generally fake his way through Latin-based languages, I was completely lost when I went to Ireland and found that all the road signs were in what I had previously thought of as “Gaelic.” It’s a good thing that English was also on the signs. But if you’re interested in learning it (or if your Republic of Ireland education demands that you do) you can now get some practice in Duolingo, along with Dutch. Which, frankly, makes a lot more sense as an addition. Both are marked as “Beta” courses on the website.

  

Dutch is spoken by approximately 23 million native speakers in The Netherlands, Belgium, and certain areas of the former Dutch colonial empire in South America and the South Pacific. Irish (also known as Irish Gaelic outside of Ireland) has an estimated 130,000 native speakers in Ireland, with most daily speakers living in western coastal regions. While Duolingo focuses on support for English-speakers learning other languages, Dutch speakers can also learn English via the tool. Irish speakers cannot, but the vast majority of native Irish speakers are bilingual in any case.

For those who are new to Duolingo, it’s a free service that translates basic secondary language learning techniques into a mini-game style format, allowing users to gradually learn vocabulary and syntax at their leisure. Though some users do swear by Duolingo as a way to gain second-language proficiency, I’ve found that it’s best used as a basic travel trainer or refresher. Duolingo currently offers 14 languages for English learners (though some aren’t completely ready), and English to learners who speak 22 other languages, plus a few more non-English courses.