Interest in Chinese surges on Duolingo ahead of looming TikTok ban

Duolingo reports that interest in learning Chinese (Mandarin) on the language learning app has increased by a whopping 216 percent among Americans compared to this time last year.

This surge in interest comes as TikTok faces a ban in the US that will take place on Sunday, January 19. With TikTok potentially shutting its doors, American users are turning to a similar app called RedNote (also known as Xiaohongshu), a Chinese social media platform.

Because the app is dominated by Chinese users, many of whom are overseas, most of its content is in Chinese — so American TikTok refugees are learning the language to better participate in the community.

The US government previously decided to ban TikTok because the video-sharing app allegedly collects data to be shared with Chinese authorities. TikTok’s owner ByteDance has consistently denied this.

It’s still possible that TikTok could remain active in the US if the app is divested and sold to a US owner. It’s also possible that president-elect Donald Trump could extend the January 20 deadline for the sale.