Comparison

Duolingo vs Watch and Learn

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

Duolingo

Learn languages, math, music, and chess through fun, bite-sized lessons. Build vocabulary, grammar, and real-world skills with a science-based methodology. Track progress and stay motivated with a global community.

Highlights
  • Bite-sized language lessons
  • Speaking, reading, listening, writing practice
  • Math skills development
  • Music reading and playing
  • Chess strategy and gameplay
  • Progress tracking and rewards
Features
Read full description

Learn a new language, chess & more with the world's most downloaded education app! Duolingo is the fun, free app for learning 40+ languages through quick, bite-sized lessons. Practice speaking, reading, listening & writing to build your vocabulary & grammar skills. Designed by learning experts & loved by hundreds of millions worldwide, our lessons make learning effective & fun and help you prepare for real conversations in Spanish, French, Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Italian, German, English and more. And now, you can learn CHESS on Duolingo! Whether you're a total beginner or looking to level up your game, you'll love learning chess the Duolingo way. Play matches and fun chess lessons for all levels, no matter the language - chess, ajedrez, xadrez, schach, Шахматы, الشطرنج. • Chess: Learn the moves, level up your game & play matches in our Chess course. Learn the basics, solve fun chess puzzles & improve your strategy with guided lessons. Whether you're new to chess or already play, our course is designed to help you have fun and build real skills. Checkmate! • Math: Forget lectures and math worksheets! Built by learning experts, our Math course makes math feel like a game. Boost learning and fight the summer slide with standards-aligned math lessons for elementary school, middle school, and high school students. • Music: Learn how to read music & play songs in our Music course, no instrument needed! Using an on-screen keyboard, you'll learn bit-by-bit. Whether you're learning a language for travel, school, career or your brain health, you'll love learning with Duolingo. Why Duolingo? • Duolingo is fun & effective. Game-like language lessons & fun characters help you build speaking, reading, listening, & writing skills, plus enjoy fun chess & competitive online chess in one app. • Duolingo works. Designed by learning experts, Duolingo has a science-based teaching methodology proven to foster long-term knowledge retention across language lessons & chess lessons alike. • Track your progress. Work toward your learning goals with playful rewards & achievements when you make practicing language lessons or chess online part of your daily habit. • Join millions of learners. Stay motivated with competitive Leaderboards as you learn languages & play chess online alongside our global community. • Every course is free. Learn Spanish, French, German, Italian, Russian, Portuguese, Turkish, Dutch, Irish, Danish, Swedish, Ukrainian, Esperanto, Polish, Greek, Hungarian, Norwegian, Hebrew, Welsh, Arabic, Latin, Hawaiian, Scottish Gaelic, Vietnamese, Korean, Japanese, English, & even High Valyrian! And now, learn Math, Music & improve your Chess skills with fun, bite-sized lessons. What the world is saying about Duolingo: "Far & away the best language-learning app." - The Wall Street Journal "This free app & website is among the most effective language-learning methods I've tried… lessons come in the form of brief challenges, speaking, translating, answering multiple-choice questions, that keep me coming back for more." - The New York Times "Duolingo may hold the secret to the future of education." - TIME Magazine "Duolingo is cheerful, lighthearted & fun." - Forbes "I Can't Stop Playing Duolingo Chess." - Wired If you like Duolingo, try Super Duolingo for 14 days free! Learn a language fast with no ads & get fun perks like Unlimited Energy & Monthly Streak Repair. If you choose to purchase Super Duolingo, payment will be charged to your Apple account, and your account will be charged for renewal within 24-hours prior to the end of the current period. Auto-renewal may be turned off at any time by going to your settings in the App Store after purchase. Any unused portion of a free trial period, if offered, will be forfeited when the user purchases a subscription to that publication, where applicable. Privacy Policy: https://www.duolingo.com/privacy Terms of Service: https://www.duolingo.com/terms

About

Watch and Learn

Learn new languages by watching films and series with synchronized subtitles. Tap on unknown words or phrases for instant translations and save them to flashcards for later study. Supports over 40 languages and offers pronunciation practice and knowledge tests.

Highlights
  • Watch films/series in foreign languages
  • Interactive subtitles with tap-to-translate
  • Save words/phrases to flashcards
  • Pronunciation support
  • Knowledge tests for vocabulary
  • Supports over 40 languages
  • Offline dictionaries
Features
Read full description

A convenient application for watching films and series in foreign languages with subtitles and learning new words and phrases. Just touch an unknown word or a phrase, get its translation and add a card to learn it later. WATCH - support all popular video formats without conversion - support of subtitles in srt format - download new subtitles from opensubtitles.org - set of interesting films with subtitles for most common languages - audio track selection and many other settings LEARN - intuitive control over the sets of words - ready-made card sets for the most popular languages (English, Chinese, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Japanese) - pronunciation support for words and phrases in foreign languages - knowledge tests for each set of words - export/import cards into csv format TRANSLATE - translate your own phrases and add them to the words sets - transcription for the most popular languages - speech to text function - just say unknown words and app will translate it - edit translations when needed - support over 50 off-line dictionaries - support of 40 languages AND ALSO - synchronization between all iOS devices via iCloud - support of iPhone, iPad and Mac DEVELOPERS LINK support@readandlearnapp.com Main supported video formats: MPEG-4/2/1, MJPEG, H.264, H.263, VP6, VP5, Theora, DV, MPEG-1/2/4, MJPEG, WMV, Cinepak, H.264, H.263, HuffYUV, Indeo3, Theora, Sorenson, VC-1, VP5/6/8/9, H.265, MOV, MP4, AVI, FLV and much more.. Supported languages: Afrikaans, Albanian, Arabic, Armenian, Azerbaijani, Basque, Belarusian, Bengali, Bosnian, Bulgarian, Catalan, Cebuano, Chichewa, Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Esperanto, Estonian, Filipino, Finnish, French, Galician, Georgian, German, Greek, Gujarati, Haitian Creole, Hausa, Hebrew, Hindi, Hmong, Hungarian, Icelandic, Igbo, Indonesian, Irish, Italian, Japanese, Javanese, Kannada, Kazakh, Khmer, Korean, Lao, Latin, Latvian, Lithuanian, Macedonian, Malagasy, Malay, Malayalam, Maltese, Maori, Marathi, Mongolian, Myanmar (Burmese), Nepali, Norwegian, Persian, Polish, Portuguese, Punjabi, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Sesotho, Sinhala, Slovak, Slovenian, Somali, Spanish, Sundanese, Swahili, Swedish, Tajik, Tamil, Telugu, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian, Urdu, Uzbek, Vietnamese, Welsh, Yiddish, Yoruba, Zulu.

Screenshots

Duolingo4 screens
Watch and Learn4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is rating: Duolingo at 4.7 against Watch and Learn's 2.0. Duolingo also leads on update cadence (weekly vs every 7 months) and ratings volume (5.5M vs 6). Watch and Learn's advantage is iOS requirement (15.6 vs 17.0). On price, ads, in-app purchases and monetization model there is nothing between them.

Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. Duolingo sells 16 in-app purchases, starting at $9.99 per month and Watch and Learn sells 12 in-app purchases, starting at $1.49 per month. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

Duolingo holds the better App Store score, 4.7 against 2.0. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Duolingo has 5.5M ratings behind it against 6, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 65% of Duolingo's written reviews are positive against 50% of Watch and Learn's.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Duolingo ships an update weekly, Watch and Learn every 7 months. The most recent releases landed on September 25, 2026 and September 6, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard6 real differences · 5 level
Duolingo versus Watch and Learn: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterDuolingoWatch and Learn
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.7 (5.5M ratings) — better2.0 (6 ratings)
Positive reviews64.6% of reviews — better50.0% of reviews
Number of ratings5.5M — better6
Update frequencyWeekly — betterEvery 7 months
AdsYesYes
In-app purchasesYesYes
MonetizationFree with in-app purchasesFree with in-app purchases
Best chart rank#1 — better—
DevicesiPhone, iPadiPhone, iPad, iPod — better
Requires iOS17.015.6 — better
Further details — not scored
Size489 MB116 MB
Age rating4+9+
DeveloperDuolingo, IncAnton Ivanov

Customer experience

Duolingo

All ratings5,464,639 ratings
Positive94.2%
Neutral2.4%
Negative3.4%
Written reviews29,453 reviews
Positive64.6%
Neutral9.6%
Negative25.7%

Watch and Learn

All ratings6 ratings
Positive16.7%
Neutral16.7%
Negative66.7%
Written reviews2 reviews
Positive50.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative50.0%

Bugs and requests

Duolingo

Reported bugs

3 issues
  • Freezing or crashing during lessons
  • Incorrect translations or answers marked wrong
  • Inconsistent behavior of certain features like leagues

Requested features

5 requests
  • Add more languages, especially less common ones
  • Improve grammar lessons and explanations
  • Allow more flexibility in navigating the course content
  • Provide better feedback and corrections for mistakes
  • Sync progress and features consistently across app and web

Watch and Learn

Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.

In-app purchases

16 purchases

Duolingo

Subscriptions10
  • Super Duolingo7 Days trial$9.991 Month
  • Super Duolingo7 Days trial$12.991 Month
  • Super Duolingo14 Days trial$12.991 Month
Show 7 more
  • Super Duolingo2 variants$59.991 Year
  • Super Duolingo14 Days trial2 variants$79.991 Year
  • Super Duolingo14 Days trial4 variants$83.991 Year
  • Super Duolingo7 Days trial$83.991 Year
  • Super Duolingo7 Days trial4 variants$95.991 Year
  • Super Duolingo1 Month trial$119.991 Year
  • Super Duolingo7 Days trial$119.991 Year
One-time6
  • Chest of Gems$0.99
  • Barrel of Gems (1200)$4.99
  • Chest of Gems (1200)$4.99
Show 3 more
  • Cart of Gems (3000)$9.99
  • Barrel of Gems (3000)$9.99
  • Cart of Gems (6500)$19.99
12 purchases

Watch and Learn

Subscriptions2
  • Monthly subscription$1.491 Month
  • Annual subscription$14.491 Year
One-time10
  • The Snows of Kilimanjaro$0.99
  • The Little Shop of Horrors$0.99
  • Carnival of Souls (1962)$0.99
Show 7 more
  • House on Hounted Hill$0.99
  • The Stranger (1946)$0.99
  • Suddenly (1954)$0.99
  • Blood on the Sun$0.99
  • Detour$0.99
  • Plan 9 From Outer Space (1959)$0.99
  • Full version$19.99

Questions

Is Duolingo free?
Duolingo is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Watch and Learn free?
Watch and Learn is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Which has better reviews, Duolingo or Watch and Learn?
Duolingo is rated higher. Duolingo averages 4.7 out of 5 from 5.5M ratings, while Watch and Learn averages 2.0 from 6 ratings.
Do Duolingo or Watch and Learn have ads?
Both Duolingo and Watch and Learn show ads.
Which is updated more often, Duolingo or Watch and Learn?
Duolingo ships an update weekly, and Watch and Learn every 7 months. Most recently, Duolingo was updated on September 25, 2026 and Watch and Learn on September 6, 2026.

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