Duolingo 2025: Chinese, Korean and Portuguese Lead the Fastest-Growing List
Duolingo's 2025 report puts English first in 154 countries, Chinese fastest-growing in 12 and Portuguese first in both China and India.
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Duolingo's 2025 Language Report describes a year in which the top of the ranking barely moved and the growth underneath it did. English remains the most-studied language and gained ground, ranking first in 154 countries, an increase of 14% over 2024; Japanese moved to fourth and Korean to sixth. The more interesting movement is in the fastest-growing lists, which the report gives country by country: Chinese is the fastest-growing course in 12 countries, Korean is second-fastest in 7, and Portuguese leads in both China and India. The report covers learners who studied on Duolingo between October 2024 and September 2025, aggregates by country, excludes under-13s, and does not publish learner counts behind any rank.
Key findings
- English is the most-studied language in 154 countries in the 2025 report, 14% more countries than in 2024, and it is outside the top two in only 25.
- Japanese moved up to 4th place globally, past German, and Korean to 6th, past Italian.
- Chinese is the fastest-growing course in 12 countries, including Brazil, France, Germany, Mexico, Poland, Spain and Türkiye, and the second-fastest in the United States.
- Korean is the second-fastest-growing course in 7 countries, and Portuguese is the fastest-growing in China and India and second-fastest in Indonesia, Japan, South Korea and Türkiye.
- Japan tops 2 separate lists, the countries with the most learners studying three or more languages and the countries whose learners spend the most average time per day.
Background
Language-app rankings are usually reported as a single global order, but the order is a poor guide to where demand is changing: a language can hold first place in most countries and still lose share, while a smaller language can double inside a handful of markets [1]. Duolingo publishes both views, a global ranking of languages studied and, for selected markets, the courses growing fastest over the year, along with a polyglot list for countries whose learners take three or more languages. That combination makes the 2025 edition useful for anyone watching which languages learners are adding rather than which one they start with.
Data and method
All figures come from the 2025 Duolingo Language Report and its "About the data" section [1]. The report covers learners who studied languages on Duolingo between October 2024 and September 2025, aggregated by country or by language to protect privacy. Country aggregations follow a published list of internationally recognised, independent, self-governing entities; age and motivation data are self-reported; learners under 13 are excluded from all analyses; and rankings exclude countries with fewer than 5,000 Duolingo learners.
Three definitions. A rank statement such as "154 countries" means the number of countries where that language is the most-studied course by the report's own measure, which is not published in absolute learner numbers. A fastest-growing statement means the course with the largest growth in that country over the year, and the counts here are counts of countries named in the report's prose, not independently measured growth rates. The polyglot list ranks countries by the share of their learners studying three or more languages, and the serious-learner list by average time spent learning.
The sample is therefore the whole Duolingo learner base rather than a survey; the report gives no total, no per-country learner counts and no growth percentages for the fastest-growing lists. All figures are aggregated by country or language, no individual learner is identifiable, and no group smaller than the 5,000-learner floor appears. The counts of countries in the fastest-growing lists are my own tallies of the markets the report names.
Results
English's lead widened. The report puts English first in 154 countries, an increase of 14% over the previous edition, and says that only 25 countries now place English outside their top two.
Figure 1. Countries where English is the most-studied language, out of the roughly 195 implied by the report's own 79% share, n = countries ranked. Source: Duolingo 2025 Language Report [1].
The report also states that English is the most-studied language in 79% of all countries. Those two numbers do not quite sit together: 154 countries is 79% of about 195, so the base behind the percentage is larger than any country count the report prints. The report does not publish how many countries it ranks, which is why that figure has to be inferred rather than quoted, and why the dot chart above is labelled as approximate.
The fastest-growing lists are where the movement is. Chinese is the fastest-growing course in 12 countries, among them Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, France, Germany, Indonesia, Mexico, Poland, South Korea, Spain, Thailand and Türkiye, and second-fastest in the United States. Korean is second-fastest in 7 countries. Portuguese leads in China and India and is second in four more.
Figure 2. Number of countries where each course is the fastest-growing or second-fastest in the 2025 report, n = countries named in the report. Source: Duolingo 2025 Language Report [1].
| Course | Fastest-growing in | Second-fastest in |
|---|---|---|
| Chinese | 12 countries | 1 country (United States) |
| Korean | 0 countries | 7 countries |
| Portuguese | 2 countries (China, India) | 4 countries |
Read the table as a tally of markets, not a growth rate: the report names the countries where each course grew fastest but publishes no percentage for any of them.
The polyglot and study-time lists point the same way. Japan now tops the list of countries whose learners study three or more languages, ahead of Australia, Finland, Germany and the United Kingdom, and it also holds first place for average time spent learning, ahead of Hungary, Belarus, Russia and Germany. Germany is the only country in both top fives. The report adds a smaller observation for its newer subjects: more than 19% of learners studying Latin also study chess, 14% also study math and 13% also study music, which is the report's evidence that learners are broadening beyond a single course.
Limitations
Four limits apply. First, the report publishes ranks, not quantities: there are no learner counts behind "154 countries" or behind any fastest-growing claim, so a country where a course grew fastest may still have a small base, and the lists cannot be weighted by size. Second, the data describe Duolingo's own learners, who chose a free app, and the report excludes countries with fewer than 5,000 learners, so small markets and learners who never use an app are absent; the ranking is of app demand, not of language learning in a country. Third, age and motivation data are self-reported, under-13s are excluded, and the fastest-growing lists are selected by the company rather than drawn from a published table, so which markets appear is a presentation choice as well as a finding. Fourth, the window is a single twelve-month period ending in September 2025, and one year of app growth says nothing about proficiency, persistence or whether learners stayed.
What this means for learners
A fast-growing course is a signal about what other people are choosing, not about what will work for you: the report can say that Portuguese is the fastest-growing course in China and India, but it publishes nothing about how well those learners progress. If you are choosing a language for work or study, check the requirement that applies to you first, and treat app popularity as a tiebreaker at most. For English specifically, the numbers describe how many countries put it first, not how well anyone speaks it, and the gap between starting a course and speaking is where practice with feedback matters most. Hibay offers spoken practice with feedback between sessions, though its feedback is not a proficiency score and does not predict one.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the most studied language on Duolingo in 2025? English, which ranks first in 154 countries, 14% more than in 2024, and is outside the top two in only 25 countries (see Results).
Which languages are growing fastest on Duolingo? By the report's country lists, Chinese is the fastest-growing course in 12 countries, Portuguese in 2, including China and India, and Korean is the second-fastest in 7 (see Key findings).
Is Duolingo's language ranking a measure of how many people speak a language? No. It measures demand inside one app's learner base over a twelve-month window, excludes countries with fewer than 5,000 learners, and publishes ranks rather than counts (see Limitations).
How to cite
Hibay Product Team. (2026, November 2). Duolingo 2025: Chinese, Korean and Portuguese Lead the Fastest-Growing List. Hibay. https://www.hibay.ai/en/news/duolingo-2025-fastest-growing-languages
Figures are from the public sources listed below and may be cited with attribution.
References
- Duolingo. 2025 Duolingo Language Report. https://blog.duolingo.com/2025-duolingo-language-report. Accessed 2026-11-02.