In the UK, the most popular languages on Duolingo are:

The Most 2021 Phrase is “I’m mentally exhausted.”.

Family and culture have grown as important motivators for UK learners, whilst travel fell further in 2021.

Spanish remained the UK’s most popular language, followed by French, German, English and Italian, with Korean, Russian and Chinese all showing significant increases in new learners.

The 2021 report, which has been informed by data from over 500 million downloads worldwide, including 20 million in the UK, also reveals: Research conducted by Duolingo has revealed that culture was the main driver for the growth in language learning.Īround a quarter of Britons (26%) have been influenced to learn a language by key cultural moments, such as the Tokyo Olympics, Euro 2020 and TV shows such as Netflix’s, Emily in Paris, Lupin and Squid Game.

I predict we’ll see Japanese and Korean increase even more in popularity next year.”

Both point to a fundamental change in learner motivations and a real shift in what the UK wants to learn. “Second is the increasing popularity of Asian languages driven by the interest in Asian culture.

We’re almost at 2 million learners, which I expect we will pass before Christmas. Welsh remaining in the top three fastest growing languages and the 7th most popular overall is a remarkable achievement. It is expected that the number of Welsh learners on the app will pass the 2 million mark before Christmas.Ĭolin Watkins, UK Country Manager at Duolingo said: “From a UK perspective, there are two key takeaways for me. Japanese has overtaken Welsh to become the UK’s fastest-growing language in 2021, a new report has revealed.Īccording to Duolingo’s 2021 Language Report, Welsh is now the second fastest-growing language in the UK, after being pipped for the top spot by Japanese.Ī Welsh course was introduced to the popular language learning app six years ago, and it ranked as the fastest growing language in the UK in 2020, ahead of French, which came in second and Japanese, which came third that year.

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