When Duolingo Leagues End (& 5 Tips To Get Ahead)

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Are you trying to find new ways to get experience after Duolingo leagues have ended?

Welcome to the club! This language-learning platform is very popular, and its competition system is one of the best ones out there.

Getting a head start on everyone else can be very useful if you want to be the champion of the week on the leaderboards. However, reaching the top can be challenging.

But don’t worry, there are many ways to get extra experience, and you came to the right place to find them.

Below, I’ve prepared a small guide that will touch on some essential things you can try to maximize your experience points and keep rising through the ranks quickly.

When Duolingo leagues end, you can get ahead of the competition by repairing your lessons, strengthening your skills, and using Duolingo Stories/Events/Podcasts features.

Keep reading to become a rising star!

#1 Repair Your Lessons

You might already be familiar with this concept, but maybe you haven’t taken full advantage of it. Granted, repairing your “broken” previous lessons won’t give you as much experience as completing a brand-new one, but it’s still a fun and useful way of gaining a little XP.

If you’ve never given this a try, it’s really simple. Along your learning path on the app, you’ll often see that lessons you’ve already completed fully are broken. When you tap on them, you’ll be given the option to “Restore” them.

Doing this can help you remember some basics of the language you might have forgotten and, aside from giving you a head start when Duolingo leagues end, it’ll make everything look nice and tidy.

Now, is this the best way to gain extra XP on the platform? No. But if you’re trying to cover all bases and leave no stone unturned, you should definitely try this.

#2 Strengthen Your Skills

If repairing broken lessons isn’t your cup of tea, you can also try strengthening your skills every once in a while. This feature allows for a more personalized approach when it comes to learning, as the platform typically focuses on the areas it believes the user (you) needs more practice on.

This feature is a great way to keep gaining experience and preparing for the next challenge once Duolingo leagues end. Depending on how many lessons you complete, and how well you do in each one, you can gain anywhere between 3-10 XP per.

Solution: To access the practice (strengthen) lessons, here’s what you have to do:

  1. Launch Duolingo on your mobile device and then tap on the blue dumbbell icon at the bottom.
  2. Once you’ve done this, you’ll see a bunch of options pop up – I recommend starting with the “mistakes” section.
How to access the practice section on Duolingo
The more you practice, the more XP you can gain, and the better you’ll get at the language you’re trying to learn

#3 Use Duolingo Stories

Another great way to keep gaining continuous amounts of XP when Duolingo leagues end is by using the Duolingo Stories feature.

This section of the language-learning platform allows you to listen to nice, entertaining stories in whatever language you’re trying to learn. Checking the Stories section out is not only a great way to stay entertained and discover every nook and cranny of Duolingo but also a fast track to getting to the top of the leaderboard.

Please bear in mind that preparing this material is difficult, and requires the collaboration of hundreds of people. This is why, sadly, the feature is not yet available in all language combinations yet.

The Duolingo team is constantly working with professionals to add more languages every day, but as I said, it can be a long and difficult process, so please be patient.

Solution: To access Duolingo stories, you have to:

  1. Launch Duolingo on your mobile device and then tap on the blue dumbbell icon at the bottom.
  2. Find “Stories” and tap on that section to open a world of possibilities.
Steps to access Duolingo Stories
Duolingo Stories are great for staying entertained while you learn

#4 Attend Events

Out of all the ways to keep gaining experience once Duolingo leagues end, this is probably my favorite. Duolingo Events are a wonderful way of practicing the language you’re trying to learn while also getting the chance to meet new people from all over the world.

In a nutshell, these events are held by native speakers that want to help others get better in terms of fluency, vocabulary, and even confidence while speaking. The best part about this is that, while there are in-person options, there are also Zoom-based events that you can join from the comfort of your home.

Duolingo Events are probably the easiest and fastest way to rise through the ranks, as you can earn up to 250 XP per event that you attend.

Now, as remarkable as they sound, these events might not be for everyone, especially not for people who feel they learn best when having 1–1 lessons with a native speaker/teacher. So, if you fall into that category, you might want to look elsewhere for practice.

For many years, Duolingo offered private classes that you could hire with native speakers for anywhere between $10-15. But sadly, as of January 2023, they’ve been retired from the platform.

#5 Listen to the Podcasts

Yet another great way to keep improving when Duolingo leagues end is by listening to the podcasts made by the platform. Just like Duolingo Stories, this feature is meant to help students develop their listening skills while learning about interesting topics.

Granted, this isn’t a part of the actual platform, and you won’t get any XP for listening to them, but in a way, it can help you get ahead and beat everyone in the leaderboards.

How so? Great question!

Progressing through Duolingo’s leagues is all about the experience points you gain every day. The more you get, the higher your position, and the more advanced leagues you’ll be able to reach. If you hone your skills and get better at the language you’re trying to learn, you should progress through the lessons faster and get more answers right.

This will directly translate into you earning more points every day without having to spend as much time on the platform.

Now, in order to do this, you’ll need to be subscribed to a music streaming service, such as Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, or Spotify. Luckily, these 3 services are free to use (unless you want Premium features), so it shouldn’t cost you a penny to get started.

If you like learning while commuting to work, you can use Duolingo offline to practice on the road. And the same goes for podcasts, as you can download them to your library (only Premium subscribers).

Conclusion

That about covers it.

Learning a new language is all about constant practice, dedication, and a lot of patience. Trying to find ways to get ahead when Duolingo leagues end is commendable, and a huge stepping stone in your progress.

I hope this piece has helped you better understand how easy it is to keep gaining XP while you wait for the leaderboards to refresh and for new players to enter the competition. Remember that you can always attend Duolingo Events and practice correcting your mistakes to gain points while you learn.

Thank you very much for sticking with me all the way to the end. If this article proved to be useful and answered your most burning questions, you’ll be happy to know that there’s new content to learn from every week. While we put the finishing touches to our latest work, please check out our other already available resources below to become a Tech Detective yourself!

On the site, you can always find solutions for all sorts of common Tech-related issues, such as losing a bunch of progress on Duolingo, or noticing that Netflix’s dialog is too quiet.

I wish you nothing but the best.

— Craig.

Frequently Asked Questions

What’s the Highest Duolingo League?

As of today, there are 10 different leagues on the platform: Bronze, Silver, Gold, Sapphire, Ruby, Emerald, Amethyst, Pearl, Obsidian, and Diamond.

Each one has its own challenges, and as you progress through them, it gets increasingly harder to be in the Top 10 spots, which are typically the ones that get promoted to the next league.

How Many Languages Can I Learn on Duolingo?

At the time of writing of this article, you can learn 40 different languages on the platform.

Now, out of those 40, not all offer the same level of complexity and features. Typically, the most popular languages, such as English, Spanish, Italian, and French, are the ones with the larger range of learning options and resources.

How Long Does It Take To Learn a Language on Duolingo?

This varies greatly from person to person. Factors like age, previous level of proficiency in the language, complexity of the language, and time spent every day in the lessons play a huge role in determining this.

Some experts say that, on average, you’ll need to study a language for anywhere between 500-1,000 hours to become fluent. If you wanted to do this within a year, you’d have to study the language 5 days a week, 2–4 hours a day.

Do Schools Accept Duolingo Education?

Some do.

In fact, Duolingo offers an English Proficiency certification called DET (Duolingo English Test) that is accepted by several colleges in the US as proof of knowledge of the language.

It’s only a matter of time before other educational institutions join in and start accepting other certifications in different languages as well.