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Language is the basis of communication and marketing. Learning a new language brings with it many challenges, also in the field of diversity. Duolingo believes that it is all part of it and presents it straight to the point.

While some (American) companies have now started to follow the anti-woke trend, Duolingo simply continues to be very diverse. On their website they proudly, extensively and colorfully mention that they implement “LGBTQIA+ representation” in their storylines and characters. For example, we saw that ‘he’ has an American husband, Mario and Arturo have a daughter together who lives in Australia and that Amanda loves her difficult wife Pina.

But Duolingo goes a few steps further: a look and a compliment.

The app

Duolingo is an American app that allows users to learn languages ​​for free through self-study. The website was created in 2011, and was initially intended to translate texts through crowdsourcing. It was designed in such a way that, as the users progressed through the lessons, they helped translate websites and other documents. The design has a strong ‘gamification’ element.

If you use English as your base language, you can learn about 40 languages. The freemium model is used by 500 million people, while almost 5 million students use an ad-free paid version. In 2013, Apple named Duolingo iPhone App of the Year, the first time this honor was awarded to an educational app.

The chapters in such a course are divided thematically: for example, it covers health, cuisine, geography, the universe and magical subjects (trolls, wizards, witches!). And suddenly a chapter about LGBT. The whole spectrum is covered, and the student cannot miss it.

How?

They start the course by establishing that ‘gender’ is a controversial subject. They add that the dog is also ‘homosexual’, and that a gay man gloats because a woman thought he was straight.

And Duolingo is already assuming toilets to be gender-neutral.

Queer

They also talk about ‘queer’ and that is, funnily enough, literally translated as ‘skeiv’. They fight for homosexual rights and ‘they say’ that 1 in 10 Norsemen is queer. And that is quite conservative, especially in the current era where GenZ and Millennials quickly identify themselves as ‘queer’.

The ladies

As to the L, a girl says that she always knew she was a lesbian, and her mother always knew it too (that’s what mothers are like) – and that is ‘awesome’. Mom also talks about her daughter’s relationship with others.

The ‘nicely done’ can refer to the course progress, to the mother, and to that relationship. But maybe I’m being too enthusiastic now.

Transgender

Then there is the T: both a trans man and a trans woman present themselves, the woman also talks about her experience, and there is also a heavily mustachioed cousin who ‘comes out’ as a trans man.

Please note: as a student you literally say that you are a trans man or woman. Diversity and inclusivity, I tell you. And you can’t get around it, because then your lesson won’t go any further. So there.

Bi

Finally, there’s someone who is (very original) ‘bifil’, a gay man comes out of the closet to his mother, and in the French course we see that this bifil man (see the avatar) just wants to try on a dress. Bien pour toi!

By the way, I don’t think this is set up like this for all languages. In Italian, this wasn’t mentioned at all, and my husband is already well advanced in his Spanish course and it hasn’t been discussed there either. It was recently announced that Duolingo is under scrutiny in Russia by media watchdog Roskomnadzor for “spreading LGBTQ+ propaganda” – so I can assume that it also occurs in the Russian course. But then it could already be about a man in a pink sweater, of course. Or simply that the Russians had seen that it was discussed in another language. They like to look beyond the border, there.

Duolingo: good job

Duolingo thinks that it is all part of it and tells it straight to the point. The question is whether they do that in all languages, but in any case they are doing a good job. As a marketer you can at least take an example from this market leader. They score a 9½ for casualness plus straight-to-the-point-of-being-an-ally-outside-Pride. I also take into account that their internal policy fits in neatly with this.

Alfred Verhoeven is a marketer and is in the final phase of his PhD research Marketing the Rainbow.
He previously wrote for ILOVEGAY about From Representation To Respect, The Musk Effect, Pride Month, The Oldest Rainbows, The Dutch Rainbows, The Belgian Rainbows, The Chinese Rainbows, Super Bowl Ads: What Would Jesus Do?, Get woke, go broke, Spain has 6.8 billion reasons to love rainbow tourists, Everyone’s gay in Amsterdam, Gay Capital, The Ideal Traveler, Abercrombie & Fitch : The Rise & The Fall, Barbiemania, Bud Light and the 4 bln dollar woman, Pronouns, About those rainbows, Alphabet soup, M&M’s and the lesbian invasion, The Men from Atlantis, 5 Bizarre LGBT Videos, TRANSparency, Transgender persons as a target group, 5 videos that went viral, Cultural sensitivities and social involvement in marketing, and 4 reasons to practice diversity.