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US TikTok users have been learning Chinese on Duolingo in increasing numbers amid their adoption of a Chinese social app. called RedNote before the ban on TikTok. The US law, scheduled to take effect on January 19, unless we stop it Supreme Court will see TikTok removed from US app stores and prevent the app from running on users’ devices unless install a VPN client.
Instead of trying to work around the ban, however, more than 700 million TikTok users they moved to the social video platform RedNote (aka Xiaohongshu), causing a surprising cultural exchange between the citizens of the two countries – not to mention many requests for American users to help with the English tasks of Chinese users .
Although some TikTok refugees have since struggled with technical problems when they sign up for RedNote, and others are immediately booted for community violations, the intent of moving from one Chinese-owned app to another is intended to send a strong signal to the US government and the TikTok competitors like Meta that there is a demand. for the kind of social networking experiences that China creates and American companies have only succeeded in imitating.
The move also serves as something of an impulse check on whether or not US users are concerned about Chinese companies collecting their personal data for nefarious uses — one of the key factors that led to the TikTok ban in the first place. (As it turns out, many are not, as this migration shows.)
However, because Shanghai-based Xiaohongshu/RedNote is designed for a Chinese audience, the app’s default language is Mandarin Chinese. That prompted a surge in American users of language learning app Duolingo to take a crash course in Mandarin.
According to Duolingo, the app saw a roughly 216% increase in new Mandarin learning in the US compared to this time last year, with a sharp peak in mid-January when RedNote adoption took off. In addition, the company reports that in its survey “How did you hear about us” that new users are invited to answer, it sees a corresponding spike in people who select “TikTok” as their answer.
“Oh so NOW you’re learning Mandarin,” the company joked in an X position on tuesday He also posted a video on TikTok promoting the use of his app to learn the Chinese language. The short video showed the company’s green owl mascot at the airport heading to China, above text that read “me because I’d rather move to China and learn Mandarin on Duolingo.” The video currently has north of half a million likes. Another more recent video focused on teaching Mandarin phrases to “TikTok refugees” has more than 620,000 likes.
According to data from the app’s intelligence provider AppfiguresConsumer demand for Duolingo’s language learning courses has also affected the app’s install base.
The firm reports that the Duolingo app has seen a 36% increase in US downloads on the App Store and Google Play combined since January 3rd – an early sign that users may have tried different apps Chinese social media before the increase to join RedNote hit later in the month. .
A week ago, Duolingo was ranked in the 40s for Top Apps (minus games) and Top Overall (including games). As of now, it is 22nd in Top Overall and 20th in Top Apps.
