While Duolingo is commonly known for learning popular languages, some underrated languages on Duolingo are also worth learning. 

Duolingo offers language courses for almost all of the top 10 languages, except for Bengali and Cantonese, however, Mandarin Chinese is a course on Duolingo.

These are good languages to learn because they are spoken by the most amount of people in the world. But what about other languages that Duolino offers?

There are underrated languages such as Latin that are available to be learned on Duolingo, as learning Latin will significantly boost your understanding of grammar in a huge range of languages. I will talk more about the benefits of learning Latin in another post, as that is probably not such an underrated language.

The underrated languages I will be discussing with you in this post are:

High Valyrian

Navajo

Irish, and

Welsh

Learn High Valyrian On Duolingo

Fast facts:

• The High Valyrian language is a constructed language (also known as a conlang)
• It  is used in the TV shows Game of Thrones as well as House of the Dragon
• There are around 800,000 active learners, with another 2.4 million people showing interest in learning it
• Learning High Valyrian still has transferable skills for learning other languages

While High Valyrian isn’t actually a real language, this might be one of its strengths rather than weaknesses.

If you want to learn a language but want to do it purely for fun, perhaps a fictional language is what you need. While we don’t talk about the last season of Game Of Thrones, the language has got (pun intended) some popularity from its usage in this show. At the time of writing, there were just over 800,000 learners of High Valyrian on Duolingo alone. Part of its success is the fact that it is also used in the TV show House of the Dragon, where it is put on display. 

While you may not find many other learners of the language in real life, there are still some benefits to learning the language. High Valyrian is known as a conlang, or Constructed Language. What this means is that the language has been created, (in this case by David J. Peterson), and is more logical than natural languages.

In its own right, High Valyrian is a beautiful language, and by learning the language, you will still be practicing skills of language learning. This includes grammar, vocabulary, and fluency skills.

Some might say that it’s a waste of time to learn a fictional language, however, that’s part of its beauty. Because it is a fictional language, there’s a bit less pressure on how seriously to take your learning. This means if you’re a little time-poor, it’s not such an issue as you can learn it as slowly as you like.

This also means you are much less likely to have your friends and family ask you to talk to someone in High Valyrian, so this is much more of a ‘fun’ language to learn than for a career progression or to travel to Essos for a holiday.

All in all, there are many benefits, without some of the pressure of learning a language to be used in everyday life. This puts it right at the top of underrated languages that can be learned on Duolingo.

Learn Navajo On Duolingo

Fast facts:

• The Navajo language is an Indigenous Native American language
• The language is deeply connected to the culture
• There is sadly a lack of resources for learning this language
• There are only 170,000 native speakers of Navajo
• Learning this language can help you gain more connection to Indigenous Native Americans

Navajo (sometimes spelled Navaho), is a Native American language from the South West of the United States. This is an incredibly amazing language that is quite underrated, both on Duolingo and in general.

The fact that you can learn a Native American language on Duolingo is amazing by itself. While it is not nearly as old as any of the oldest languages on earth, there is still an incredible culture to be learned alongside this language.

As with any language, you are not only learning different words, you are learning a different way of viewing the world. This is the culture that you are picking up from your new language. The Navajo language is intimately intertwined with its culture, which means you are sure to gain great insight into their culture. This is particularly impactful for those living in North America, as there is a deep connection to be made there.

As of the 2019 census, there are only 170,000 native Navajo speakers, which is really not all that many. Unfortunately, Navajo is also considered to be one of the hardest languages to learn in the world. This is partly because of the grammar and pronunciation, but also because of the limitation of available learning resources. 

Despite the relative lack of resources, starting with Duolingo is certainly viable, and certainly puts this language on the list of underrated languages available on Duolingo.

Learn Irish On Duolingo

Fast facts:

• The Irish language is also known as Gaelige
• It’s the official language of Ireland, but most people speak English
• There is a strong cultural connection to the language
• There are only about 20,000 – 40,000 native Irish speakers in the world

Irish is the next underrated language that Duolingo offers language learners. This language is also known as Gaelige. This may result in some confusion between the Gaelige (Irish) language and Scottish Gaelic. This confusion may be in part because both languages are part of the Celtic language tree, alongside Welsh, which will be discussed next.

Irish is the official language of Ireland, alongside English. Unfortunately, the vast majority of the inhabitants in Ireland speak English, which means that Irish can be a little overlooked as a language to learn. Something that may make Irish more appetizing for language learners is that by learning Irish, the other languages within the Celtic tree are more accessible.

Similar to Navajo there is deep cultural insight that can learned from the Irish language. Despite being perhaps a more overlooked language, Irish should certainly be on the list of overlooked languages that Duolingo offers.

Learn Welsh On Duolingo

Fast facts:

• The Welsh language is also known as Cymraeg
• Around 500,000 people speak Welsh every day
• Welsh is the official language of Wales

Welsh is another language that is spoken in the British Isles, alongside English, Irish, and Scottish, to name a few. 

While the number of speakers of Welsh is not as low as the other languages, this is still an underrated language on Duolingo.

Part of the reason for this is that there are few places in the world where Welsh is spoken: you’re looking at primarily Wales and perhaps England. 

Happily, the number of Welsh learners in schools is increasing rather than decreasing, which means that in the future there will be more speakers than there are now. At the moment, there are around 500,000 speakers of Welsh who use the language every day. 

Welsh is also part of the Celtic language, which can add to its appeal. Interestingly, Welsh uses the same alphabet as the English language, but there are several variations in the letters that are used. This means that the Welsh language has a more distinctive sound compared to English.

While this language does appear on the list of underrated languages on Duolingo, this isn’t to say it’s a difficult language to learn. Welsh is in some ways easier to learn because its spelling is much more consistent than English. In addition, there is a good amount of language learning material for learning this language. This means if you’re not sure about the next language to learn, perhaps Welsh should be high on the list!

How To Learn An Underrated Language

Using Duolingo to learn a language is fairly straightforward. Their courses are relatively applicable to everyday speaking, with the possible exception of the earlier levels: you probably won’t need to use sentences like “The man is eating bread” all that often, however, it is the beginning of vocab learning.

Alongside learning the language on Duolingo, I would highly recommend that you use a pronunciation website called Forvo. This website provides pronunciation for quite a lot of languages, including both the Welsh and Irish languages. Unfortunately, there isn’t any pronunciation for High Vylrian or Navajo.

Besides using Forvo and Duolingo, I would also recommend that you use Anki to assist with your vocabulary retention. There are some premade decks that cover a wide range of topics, including languages, geography, and medical terminology. Using Anki to help you learn a language is highly, highly recommended. There’s a lot more that can be said about using Anki, that can be found here.

Conclusion

While there are many ‘mainstream’ languages available on Duolingo such as Mandarin or Spanish, there are many underrated languages on Duolingo as well. If you’re ever unsure about a new language to learn, why don’t you consider the Irish or Welsh language?

There are many advantages to learning a language, even if it does have a smaller base of speakers. You can still learn quite a bit, including the cultures of other people groups, or in the case of the High Valyrian language, you can learn how constructed languages operate.