Incubator

The Duolingo Incubator is where bilingual volunteers from around the world connect to build new language courses for Duolingo. Anyone who is fluent in two or more languages can apply to help make new courses through the Incubator.

Only courses that are currently available or being created are publicly visible. Other courses may have applicants but are not shown until the Duolingo staff decide to begin making the course.

Many current courses will eventually have a "reverse course"; for example, the English for Hindi speakers course will eventually be joined by a Hindi for English speakers course. This process is already underway for a number of other courses such as Dutch for English speakers (preceded by English for Dutch speakers).

A list of currently available and incubating courses is maintained on the language courses page.

Incubation phases

Duolingo courses are classified into three different phases (1 through 3) depending on how far they are into development and testing.

Phase 1

Courses in Phase 1 are in the process of being created. Course creation involves translating thousands of words and sentences between the language the course teaches and the language it teaches from and arranging those words and sentences into lessons and skills. For some courses it may also involve translating Duolingo's user interface into the language being taught from and/or obtaining a speech synthesizer for the language being taught.

Phase 2

Courses in Phase 2 are available to the public to learn, but are considered to be in beta; specifically, they may contain some mistakes or may not accept all correct answers to exercises. Users who take beta courses are encouraged to report any such errors or omissions using the in-lesson report button.

Phase 3

A Phase 3 course is a course that has met certain quality criteria, such as a low rate of error reports. Such courses are considered to have "graduated" from beta. Errors can still be reported, but most of the rough edges have been smoothed and most people will find it easy to use the course.

Course contributors and moderators

A course contributor is a bilingual volunteer who helps create a Duolingo language course. The basic requirement for contributing to a language course is fluency in both the language being taught and the language being taught from. On top of that, contributors are expected to be passionate and committed to their course and to language education in general. More information about qualifications is available on the course contributor application form.

A course moderator is a course contributor who is given additional duties, such as managing the activities of the other contributors and creating translation guidelines. See the Incubator application and the Moderator page for more information on course moderation.

Course contributor's interface

Phase 1

Course progress: In stage one: translating all interface strings, completing all word images, and completing all words, i.e., translating at least three sentences for each word.

Translation notation: The Incubator uses a special notation to specify multiple possible translations of a sentence using just one string. For example, if a translation of a sentence in the Incubator is specified as "[He/She] went to the park" then both "He went to the park" and "She went to the park" will be accepted as answers.

Hints: Every word should have “hints”. These are the translations you would get from a bilingual dictionary. Duolingo shows “hints” to students when they hover over or tap on a word during a lesson.

Localizing the user interface: In addition to creating the language lessons, you’ll need to translate the Duolingo user interface to the language your users will learn from.

Word images: On Duolingo, we sometimes present exercises that involve images. These exercises require a "hint phrase" that we give to the student in their native language so they know what the images are supposed to represent. We already have the accepted translations for these exercises, but you will need to give the best hint phrase to indicate what the images represent. Your hint phrase should generally be the translation of the best accepted solution to these exercises, which are all provided.

Images from Inside of the Incubator's Phase 1 (Duolingo 2014):

• Duolingo Incubator Phase 1 Overview
• Duolingo Incubator Phase 1 Course Editor 1
• Duolingo Incubator Phase 1 Course Editor 2
• Duolingo Incubator Phase 1 Course Editor 3
• Duolingo Incubator Phase 1 Localization
• Duolingo Incubator, Phase 1 Localization 2 of 2

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Note: (Incubator images and text posted with permission from Luis voh Ahn, and Kristinemc Feb 26, 2014).

References

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