Duolingo sees a spike in TikTok refugees learning Mandarin as they move to RedNote

Language-learning apps Duolingo and Drops say they have seen an increase in US users learning Chinese

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Language-learning app Duolingo has seen a surge in US users learning Mandarin. Photo: Shutterstock

Published: 11:22am, 17 Jan 2025

The threat of TikTok going dark in the US appears to have compelled some Americans to start learning Mandarin as they look to communicate on a rival Chinese app.

Many Americans are joining RedNote, also known as Xiaohongshu, as a potential TikTok ban looms in the US. As they hop from TikTok to RedNote, some of the so-called TikTok refugees are learning Mandarin to bridge the language divide on the Chinese app.

Language learning apps Duolingo and Drops said they had seen a jump in US users learning Mandarin on their platforms recently.

Duolingo said it had seen roughly 216 per cent growth in new Mandarin learners in the US compared to this time last year. The company said this was “a much bigger increase” than that of other languages, even when it came to some of its most popular offerings. Spanish, for example, saw just 40 per cent growth in the same period.

Duolingo also asked new users in a survey how they heard about the app, and said it had seen “a corresponding spike in people selecting ‘TikTok’ as their answer”.

Duolingo was the 18th most downloaded free app in Apple’s US App Store on Thursday.

Another language learning app, Estonia-based Drops, said it had seen an increase in Chinese-language learners too.

Frederik Cordes, general manager at Drops, said the app had welcomed “three times as many users learning Chinese during the past few days and five times more US-based users learning Chinese” than what it expected based on the previous two weeks.