Duolingo lets you chat, play games with AI characters while learning French or Spanish

Whether you’re due for a vacation or have a personal goal of watching anime without the subtitles, Duolingo makes it incredibly simple to learn a new language. Well, if not learn, at least get your basics in place. With its interactive features however, the notorious ‘green owl’ also has a bunch of animated characters to help you master your skills with every lesson.

At its annual Duocon conference, the language-learning smartphone app introduced new AI features for these characters to help you learn better.

Duolingo AI features: What's new?

Duolingo, during its event, showcased two AI features – Video Call and Adventures – that are built to boost your language skills. Here’s everything it can do.

Video Call: According to the brand, the Video Call feature marks a big leap for the app, as it allows ‘spontaneous’ and ‘realistic’ conversations with Lily, a popular Duolingo character.

Users engaging in Video Calls with Lily can have natural conversations in an interactive practice environment. What’s more, the feature will adapt to your skill levels, allowing you to practice in either basic, intermediate or advanced modes. According to Duolingo, the primary aim behind this is to simulate real-world conversations.

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Adventures: Adventures, on the other hand, is an exploring game introduced by the app for users to apply their language skills in specific scenarios. The game will include Lily, along with other popular characters like the mascot Oscar in a Duolingo universe, and will feature interactive storylines. The game will take the user through real-life situations and urge them to complete tasks like solving problems in a school or ordering coffee, among others.

The company, at the event, mentioned how the game will ‘build up vocabulary’ for users as it progresses and will be available for both Android and iPhone users.

Who can make the most of the new Duolingo features?

The new features will be available for Duolingo Max subscribers. Apart from this, they are currently only available for English speakers learning French or Spanish and vice versa. For now, the platform hasn’t mentioned if it will extend the feature to regular subscribers or support more languages on the app. However, you can always subscribe to Unboxed by Croma for regular updates, as well as other launches and tech tips.