January is almost over, which means it’s time to check in on those New Year’s resolutions! January 13th was Quitter’s Day—the day most people give up on their New Year’s goals—but at Duolingo, we don’t believe in celebrating that kind of attitude. Instead, we wanted to know which learners were crushing their resolutions this early in the year!
To see how learners all over the world were doing, we looked at learners who had a streak of 14 days or longer as of January 14, 2023. This meant that we could see which learners haven’t skipped a day of practice since January 1!
Here’s what we found:
Learners in Japan are committed to their goals
In fact, more than 80% of learners in Japan had 14-day streaks (or longer!). This made Japan #1 in the list of countries committed to learning a new language. The 2022 Duolingo Language Report showed that Japanese learners were the most “studious”—meaning most time spent learning per learner—and it looks like they are starting 2023 off strong!
Close behind Japan are Czechia, Finland, Belarus, and Germany. In 2022, we found that Finland was home to the most polyglot learners (studying 3 or more languages), so kudos to those learners on their strong study ethic across a variety of languages!
The most committed learners are studying for family and culture
On Duolingo, we offer more than 40 languages, ranging from those that are popular to study for school, like Spanish and French, to less-commonly-studied languages, like Yiddish and Scottish Gaelic. Our data shows that learners enrolled in Scottish Gaelic, Welsh, and Yiddish courses are the most committed to their daily practice! These languages are often studied to help learners connect to family and culture.
Dedicated learners are also studying three major Nordic languages: Norwegian, Swedish, and Danish. These three language courses have more than 70% of learners with unbroken streaks this year!
And finally, close behind Swedish is Ukrainian. In 2022, more than 1.3 million people around the world started studying Ukrainian on Duolingo, and we’re so happy to see these learners remain committed to their lessons.
Boomers don’t break their streaks
In the (very low stakes) battle of younger versus older learners, the Boomers came out on top! We found that more than 79% percent of learners 50 and up had streaks of 14 days or longer, while this number drops to 67% for learners 23-29. Gen Z learners (and younger) should probably stop dismissing Duo’s reminders, given that only 55% of high schoolers have kept up their daily practice 👀
Keep the flame alive!
It’s not too late to reset your learning goal! And it’s not a contest, but if you need a little help staying motivated, we came up with 23 ways to keep your streak alive… and crush the competition.
