Duolingo is launching its math app to the public.
And months after a beta version was added to the app store.
Dubbed Duolingo Math, the math app is a subject expansion that Duolingo has made beyond its original language learning and literacy. And yes, it has funny announcements from Duo, the owl-turned-cube (along with other characters turned into math figures), by lead engineer Sammy Siegel.
Available today on iOS, Siegel says Android is on the radar once the app is product market-ready.
“Our mission has always been to provide high-quality, accessible education, and I don’t think that stops at language learning,” Siegel said in an interview with TechCrunch. “We’ve seen losses in math, education and the pandemic.” The engineer, who has been at Duolingo for four years, teamed up with four other colleagues to build the app with the goal of eliminating “math anxiety” for adults and children alike.
When they download the app, users can choose between an elementary version that introduces them to basic math concepts like multiplication and division, or an adult version, called Brain Training, which focuses on the same concepts. Brain training is optimized for training mental math skills. Think less about dividing for the sake of dividing and more about how to quickly calculate the tip at dinner when the waiter is hovering over your shoulder.
Although the app was originally developed for children, Siegel said the team recently introduced a more challenging adult-oriented version of the app. “We noticed in our measurements, [that] Mental training is slowly starting to grow at the elementary level, but I think it’s too early to tell exactly where those trends are going,” Siegel added.
In the future, Duolingo’s math app may start showing higher-level math, such as linear algebra or college-level math. Primary focused application is more about gaining confidence in the classroom. Siegel says the app is designed to include bite-sized lessons, interactive exercises, sketches, and the same kind of “fun and animation” that helped Duolingo scale to millions and millions of users.
Image Credits: Duolingo
The app, like the main language learning app, is free to use. Siegel says it will remain free for now, unlike Duolingo, which has introduced a subscription phase for the past few years.
As I said last year, language learning is a skill that benefits from a cultural context and context, while math is about the goal of getting one right answer. Siegel explained that the app has questions like proportional fractions that have different answers, and the user goes through the problems as they go through the questions.
Both disciplines require strategic thinking and the ability to apply tasks to find answers. Through the eyes of Duolingo’s impressive product, the team seems to think both issues could benefit from inspiration and attention – even if it takes enthusiasm to get there.
The merger aside, the expansion puts Duolingo squarely in line with math-focused edtech companies like Khan Academy, Brilliant.org, Photomath, Numerade, and the recently acquired Symbolab. CEO and co-founder Louis von Ahn says the majority of the company’s investment will be in language learning products for the next 3 to 5 years, complicating how this new bet pans out.
As mentioned in Duolingo EC-1, von Ahn said that he and co-founder Severin Hacker were considering making Duolingo a math app before finally settling on language learning.
“I love math, but if you learn math, math itself can’t make you any money,” von Ahn said in a previous interview. “You learn math to learn physics to become an engineer, but knowledge of English directly improves your earning potential in most countries around the world.”
