If you’re looking to learn Amharic then you may be wondering if the popular language learning platform Duolingo has an Amharic course.
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Does Duolingo Have An Amharic Course?
Despite the importance and long history of the Amharic language, Duolingo doesn’t currently have an Amharic course.
Amharic is a fascinating Semitic language with a long and rich history. Today it is spoken by approximately 25 million people, mainly in Ethiopia.
Many people who are looking to learn a new language use Duolingo, a fun language learning platform that features bite-size lessons on various languages.
Duolingo is known to be a fun, free and easy way to learn a new language.
Why Is Amharic Not On Duolingo?
It’s hard to say exactly why Duolingo hasn’t yet produced an Amharic course as Amharic is a very widely spoken language with 25 million speakers.
Duolingo has produced courses on much smaller languages (in terms of number of speakers).
They have courses on small minority languages such as Hawaiian which only has 24,000 speakers total!
Additionally they have made a High Valyrian course of which there are no native speakers as this is a fictional language.
By this standard, it’s definitely not the number of speakers of the language that is a problem.
Less Popular Language
One reason why Duolingo may have not yet produced a Duolingo Amharic course is that there isn’t enough demand.
Amharic isn’t a popular language for native English speakers to learn. Relatively few people are interested in learning the language compared with other languages and Duolingo produces courses based on demand.
This is a shame because it’s certain that there is some demand for English speakers wanting to learn Amharic (you wouldn’t be on this page if there wasn’t!).
Interest is growing in Amharic and more people are wanting to learn it than ever before.
Duolingo is currently working on other languages which they believe will be more popular with their users.
When Will Amharic Be Available On Duolingo?
The Duolingo Incubator is a feature where you can see what languages Duolingo are currently working on producing a course for.
The Duolingo courses are created by volunteers. You can contribute to a course on the Duolingo Incubator page if you’re fluent in more than one language.
This page simply shows which courses are currently being produced so you can apply to help build a course if you want to.
Having checked the Duolingo Incubator, I can see that currently Amharic isn’t a course they’re working on.
This means that Duolingo Amharic isn’t going to be released any time soon as they’re not even working on producing a course.
Within the incubator, on their language list they do say ‘more languages will be available for teaching soon’ however it is unclear how long we may be waiting for more courses to be added.
How Do Duolingo Decide On Which Courses To Create?
Duolingo themselves state that they decide on new courses based on the Duolingo forums.
They suggest the best way to get them to add a new language is by visiting their forum section and searching for suggestions that have been made in the past.
You then should add an upvote or comment to these posts. The more upvotes the more likely Duolingo will take notice and build a course.
If you want to help then you can upvote this Duolingo forum post to show Duolingo that people want an Amharic course.
Alternatives To Duolingo To Learn Amharic
Whilst Duolingo is a fantastic resource for learning a new language, don’t let their lack of an Amharic course stop you from learning the language if you want to.
There are plenty of fantastic courses out there for learning Amharic – both free and paid.
Free Alternatives For Learning Amharic
Memrise
Memrise is an online language learning app that uses fun games to help its users learn their chosen language.
They have tons of free Amharic courses that will teach you the alphabet, vocabulary and phrases in Amharic.
It’s really interactive and gradually introduces new words slowly so you have time to consolidate them all. There’s also plenty of opportunities to practice what you’ve learnt.
Amharic Teacher
A great place where you can get free Amharic lessons is the website Amharic Teacher.
This website has tons of free lessons including audio by a native Amharic speaker.
They cover topics including the alphabet, numbers, animals and much more.
Paid Alternatives For Learning Amharic
uTalk
The online platform uTalk offers an Amharic course.
They focus on game-based learning and state that their course uses native speakers and features more than 2,500 everyday words.
The course will teach you a range of relevant Amharic vocabulary and get you speaking the language straight away.
Amharic Textbook
If you’re looking for a standard textbook to help you with Amharic then the Learn Amharic book is one of the best out there.
If you also want to be able to read and write in Amharic then you’ll need a textbook like this one.
It’s a great reference point and explains the language in clear, easy to understand terms.
Thanks for reading this post on whether Duolingo currently has an Amharic course.
Even though Duolingo doesn’t currently have an Amharic course, there are still lots of other ways that you can learn Amharic.
Check our other Amharic content here.
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