Duolingo, the most popular language-learning platform and most downloadededucation app in the world, announced today its launch in Thailand with a free English language course for Thaispeakers. Using Duolingo, Thai speakers can learn to read, write and speak English through fun, game-like lessons. Duolingo is available now as a free app on the App Store and Google Play, and on the web at Duolingo.com.
With more than 170 million users worldwide, Duolingo stands out for its free learning content, game-like approach to teaching, and bite-sized lessons that can be done in five to ten minutes per day. This appeals to anyone in Thailand who lacks time and resources to sign up for expensive language classes.
“Of the 1.2 billion people worldwide who are learning a foreign language, 800 million are learning English in order to improve their job prospects and gain access to better life opportunities,” said Luis von Ahn, CEO and co-founder of Duolingo. “We started Duolingo to make language education free and accessible to everyone, and are excited to now offer the first free online English language course for Thai speakers. We hope the course will help open up new educational and job opportunities for Thais, while providing a fun learning experience.”
The Duolingo English course for Thai speakers is the first free language-learning program of its kind in Thailand. Like most of Duolingo’s courses, this one was created by a team of bilingual volunteers. The team behind this course includes Songphon Klabwong, chief technology officer of a Bangkok-based software company, who was previously a lecturer of Computer Science at Rajamangala University of Technology.
“During the time I was teaching, I noticed that the language barrier among my students was one of the biggest challenges to their learning experience and encouraged my students to start learning English,” said Klabwong. “When I found out that Duolingo was developing an English course for Thai speakers, I was inspired by the company’s mission and decided to contribute to the course. I am hopeful that it will encourage more Thais to develop their English skills.”
For Thais who already read, write and speak English, Duolingo currently offers 22 language courses, with plans to add Japanese, Korean and even Klingon, the extra-terrestrial lingo from Star Trek, this year, too.
Based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in the United States, Duolingo has raised USD $83.3 million in venture capital from investors including Google Capital, Union Square Ventures, New Enterprise Associates, Kleiner Perkins, Hollywood actor Ashton Kutcher and internationally renowned author Tim Ferriss. While all learning content on Duolingo is free, the company monetizes through optional in-app purchases, ads at the end of lessons and a relatively low-cost English language certification test that is widely accepted at universities and organizations around the world.
Duolingo is available on Android, iOS, Windows devices and the Web with seamless switching between platforms.