If you’re looking to learn Yoruba then you may be wondering if the popular language learning platform Duolingo has a Yoruba course.
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Does Duolingo Have A Yoruba Course?
Despite the importance and long history of the Yoruba language, Duolingo doesn’t currently have a Yoruba course.
Yoruba is a fascinating language with a long and rich history. Today it is spoken by approximately 40 million people, mainly in Nigeria.
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 Yoruba Not On Duolingo?
It’s hard to say exactly why Duolingo hasn’t yet produced a Yoruba course as Yoruba is one of the world’s most spoken languages with 40 million speakers.
Duolingo has produced courses on much smaller languages in the past (in terms of number of speakers).
They even have courses on small minority languages such as Scottish Gaelic which only has 57,000 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 Yoruba course is that there isn’t enough demand.
Yoruba 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 Yoruba (you wouldn’t be on this page if there wasn’t!).
Duolingo is currently working on other languages which they believe will be more popular with their users.
Demand for Yoruba is building especially as Nigeria is one of the most populous countries on Earth.
Nigerian people can be found all over the world and more and more people are becoming interested in the culture and language.
African languages in general are very lacking on Duolingo. There is currently only one African language available for learning (Swahili).
Again, the reason for this is probably because there isn’t enough demand.
When Will Yoruba 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 Yoruba isn’t a course they’re working on.
This means that Duolingo Yoruba 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 a Yoruba course.
Alternatives To Duolingo To Learn Yoruba
Whilst Duolingo is a fantastic resource for learning a new language, don’t let their lack of a Yoruba course stop you from learning the language if you want to.
There are plenty of fantastic courses out there for Yoruba – both free and paid.
Free Alternatives For Learning Yoruba
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 Yoruba courses that will teach you the alphabet, vocabulary and phrases in Yoruba.
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.
Drops
Another great resource for learning Yoruba is the language app ‘Drops’.
The app focuses on building up your vocabulary and features a range of fun vocabulary lists including food, numbers, weather, health, transport and so much more.
The lessons are fun and immersive, you’ll learn lots of new vocabulary and the app uses visual associations to help you learn new words.
Drops states their course will teach you 2,000+ Yoruba words.
You can use the app for 5 minutes a day for free (you do have to pay for unlimited access).
YouTube
YouTube is a fantastic resource for learning any language and the best part is that it’s absolutely free.
There are lots of great videos on YouTube that will teach you Yoruba. I’d recommend checking out the channel ‘Yorùbá Lessons with Adérónké̩’.
This channel has hundreds of videos on Yoruba that cover topics like grammar, phrases and verbs.
Check out one of their most popular videos below:
Paid Alternatives For Learning Yoruba
Yoruba Textbook
If you’re looking for a standard textbook to help you with Yoruba then the Colloquial Yoruba book is one of the best out there.
If you also want to be able to read and write in Yoruba 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.
uTalk Yoruba
The online platform uTalk offers a Yoruba 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 Yoruba vocabulary and get you speaking the language straight away.
Thanks for reading this post on whether Duolingo currently has a Yoruba course.
Even though Duolingo doesn’t currently have a Yoruba course, there are still lots of other ways that you can learn Yoruba.
Check our other Yoruba content here.
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