What is the #1 language app?

Duolingo averaged 140.6 million users a month in that quarter, and its shareholder letter calls the app “the world’s most popular way to learn languages”. [1] These are the company’s own figures; we found no comparable user counts published by other language apps. Duolingo’s strength is getting you to practice every day. It is weaker on long listening and reading and on grammar explanations, and it does not put you in conversation with a person.

For listening and reading at your level, LingQ and Dreaming Spanish give you hours of material. Babbel and Busuu teach structured lessons with grammar. For speaking, there are Pimsleur’s audio lessons, conversation practice in Speak, or a tutor booked through italki.

Games played in the language you are learning give you a reason to understand it, because you move forward by following what the characters say. Newcomer and WonderLang work this way, and our roundup of language-learning RPGs lists the others. One of them is ours, Second Language. It is free, teaches Spanish, Mandarin Chinese, and English, and its intro course covers about 250 words in 5 to 10 hours.

Using two apps works too: Duolingo for the daily habit and one of the others for what it leaves out. Our guide to Duolingo alternatives compares most of these apps by price, languages, and who it suits.

Why we built Second Language differently

Duolingo’s success shows how much a daily habit matters, but we think there is more room in language-app design than drills and streaks. Second Language keeps the short, game-like exercises and puts them inside an open-world RPG: you explore, talk to characters, and every quest is in the language you are learning. If a world to explore keeps you coming back better than a streak does, it is worth a try.