On October 20-22 along the banks of Shanghai's Huangpu River, the 2026 Sustainable Global Leaders Conference returns once again. Nobel and Turing Award winners will take the stage to discuss the future and trends of technology, and the internet-famous professor who "rescues" people from anxiety and involution-era burnout, Ian Macfarlane, will hold a live dialogue with Xiang Biao.
Limited spots available, first come first served. Let us embark on this journey toward sustainability together! [Click to register] (Source: Duozhi) Nong hao~ Source | Duozhi Author | Feng Wei. Duolingo, Inc. (DUOL) has added another Chinese dialect.
This week, Duolingo, Inc. (DUOL) updated to version 7.144.0, officially launching a Shanghainese course. "50 units, covering daily conversations about food, clothing, housing, and transportation, to the Shanghai tones hidden in street corners and alleys, taking you through learning while exploring, understanding Shanghai, and trying to chat about Shanghai in the Wu dialect." "The course [for the first time] incorporates dialogue practice, allowing you to practice speaking in a more realistic context." "Learn Shanghainese on Duolingo, lao ling e!"
This Saturday, the official Duolingo WeChat account published an article detailing the specific content of the Shanghainese course: 50 units, continuing the gamified style, with dialogue practice included for the first time; eating coffee, cooking small dishes, chatting, strolling the streets... the example sentences in the course are very "Shanghai-flavored"; Shikumen, old villas, Xintiandi, Lujiazui, Huangpu River... the course content involves multiple real Shanghai locations; catching hints, showing off, eye-catching... the course content includes commonly used Shanghainese slang; currently, users can upgrade the Duolingo App to the latest version to experience it.
Alongside the course launch, Duolingo, Inc. (DUOL) is running marketing activities in Shanghai: appearing at the Shanghai Pudong Art Museum and Sinan Mansions; appearing on buses and bus stops; Duo has also independently opened a 1-square-meter unit, the Shanghainese Service Center; there are also a batch of Shanghainese-friendly stores where participants can join activities by saying a code phrase...
After the Shanghainese course launched, the first batch of participating users have already begun sharing their learning experiences. Unlike the previous Cantonese course, some participants feel that the newly launched Shanghainese course still has room for improvement in pronunciation, connected speech, and tonal accuracy: "A bit Yangjingbang," "Pronunciation is very strange," "Not very good at continuous tone sandhi." However, there are also many fun things. Beyond language learning, users have shared on social media the joy they experienced during the course: for example, after completing one lesson, they experienced the classic storyline of a full relationship confession in Shanghainese — sweet talk — drama — breakup. Students who have studied the Cantonese course on Duolingo can finally move beyond shrimp dumplings and choose xiaolong mantou when ordering.
Cantonese and Shanghainese, as the only two dialect courses launched by Duolingo, Inc. (DUOL), seem more like a combined attempt at market validation, cultural IP value, engineering feasibility, and Chinese localization branding. Among them, Cantonese was the experimental product to validate feasibility. In August 2022, Duolingo, Inc. (DUOL) launched its first dialect course for the Chinese market, the Cantonese course. Within one week of release, the course moved from beta to official version, and by December of that year, the number of learners exceeded one million. Currently, the Duolingo, Inc. (DUOL) course interface shows that the number of Cantonese learners is 2 million. Cantonese has approximately 120 million speakers worldwide, covering the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, Guangxi, Southeast Asia, and overseas Chinese communities in North America; learner motivations are diverse: workplace necessity in the Greater Bay Area, fans of Cantonese music and films, family heritage, cultural interest — not limited to local residents, it is a representative language among Chinese dialects that has learning demand in both domestic and overseas markets.
Yang Danchen, head of teaching for Duolingo, Inc. (DUOL) in China, revealed in 2022 why Cantonese was chosen as the first dialect course: "Over the past year or two, Cantonese has had the highest user demand on social media platforms. Many users commented, 'When I go to KTV, I really want to sing Cantonese songs,' 'When eating Cantonese food, I can order in Cantonese.' This represents that the culture behind the dialect is very attractive." "Cantonese is a very widely used dialect, not only in Guangdong and Guangxi, Hong Kong, and Macao, but many overseas Chinese also communicate in Cantonese."
After Cantonese proved the product logic of Mandarin native speakers learning Chinese dialects, Duolingo, Inc. (DUOL) chose Shanghainese rather than Hokkien or Sichuanese. The core logic may lie in urban IP value + user research data + local expert resources + potential for official city collaboration. On the user side, films and TV works such as "Blossoms Shanghai" and "B for Busy" continue to drive young people's interest in Shanghai-style culture and Shanghainese. Learner motivations are to understand films and TV dramas, experience urban culture, and come to Shanghai to live and communicate — belonging to interest-driven learning demand with high传播 potential. On the expert side, Shanghai has university scholars who have long been deeply engaged in Shanghainese protection and a mature textbook system. Although there are differences between new-school and old-school accents within Shanghainese, a mainstream version can be uniformly selected for the course, which is controllable. On the city side, Shanghainese is not just a dialect; it is a cultural symbol of Shanghai. At launch, it directly collaborated with the Pudong Art Museum and the Lujiazui East Bund cultural IP, with supporting offline exhibitions and riverside activities — resources that most dialects would find hard to obtain. For Duolingo, Inc. (DUOL), this is both a course and a branding attempt in a first-tier Chinese city.
Duolingo, Inc. (DUOL)'s exploration of integrating with local Chinese culture goes far beyond courses. Earlier this year, Duolingo, Inc. (DUOL) launched customized mahjong sets, keychains, and bracelets in China. The English mahjong set is limited to 200 sets, priced at 299 yuan. With all-English letter tiles, drawing, listening, and winning all require forming words and sentences. "Play a round of mahjong, and your vocabulary grows rapidly!" The Duo & Zai Jie bracelets are limited to 250 pieces each, priced at 99 yuan. Duo is the green version, Zai Jie is the purple version. Duolingo, Inc. (DUOL) emphasizes: green is fresh and healing, full of vitality at all times; purple is elegant and mysterious, with a calm aura. The beads are made of colored glass, and the pendant is alloy. The bead diameter is 10mm. To encourage Chinese users to actively check in, Duo has indeed done so much...
Comments