Strange Duolingo Sentences

About

Strange Duolingo Sentences is a gimmick Twitter account that collects Duolingo translation prompts that appear menacing, unsettling, sociopathic or outright weird. The launch of the account in January 2022 was preceded by many social media posts sharing such sentences going viral in previous years.

History

Precursors

Before the launch of the gimmick Twitter account Strange Duolingo Sentences (@DuolingoStrange), multiple screenshots of weird translation prompts offered by the language learning app Duolingo were shared by users online. On December 30th, 2012, gimmick Tumblr^[1] account wtfduolingo was launched, sharing multiple offbeat prompts in the 2012-2020 period (examples shown below). For example, a screenshot shared^[2] by the account on July 10th, 2018, gained nearly 600 likes and reblogs in three years.

On February 2nd and November 3rd, 2021, Twitter^[3][4] user @coolauntV shared several screenshots of weird translation prompts offered by Duolingo for her course in Norwegian. Both posts went viral, gathering over 12,800 retweets and 101,400 likes and 47,900 retweets and 328,800 likes in one year and three months, respectively (shown below, left and right).

Strange Duolingo Sentences

On January 26th, 2022, the gimmick Twitter^[5] account Strange Duolingo Sentences (@DuolingoStrange) was launched, with its first post,^[6] shared by the account on the same day, gaining over 1,300 retweets and 9,700 likes (shown below).

In the following days, multiple tweets made by the account went viral. For example, two screenshots shared^[7][8] by Strange Duolingo Sentences on January 28th gained over 13,300 retweets and 157,500 likes and 18,600 retweets and 190,100 likes in three days (shown below).

Highlights

In late January 2022, GIFs and videos based on the image of the Duolingo character Oscar offering the prompt "Please take a shower immediately" went viral. For example, on January 30th, 2022, gimmick Twitter^[9] account @TheFunny_mp4 shared a reaction video based on the image, which gained over 531,000 views, 6,300 retweets and 54,000 likes in less than 24 hours (shown below).

pic.twitter.com/6Nao9XXOM6

— The Funny (@TheFunny_mp4) January 30, 2022

Features

Strange Duolingo Sentences archives Duolingo translation prompts and other Duolingo content that appears weird and offbeat, with many posts submitted by Twitter users.

Traffic

As of January 31st, 2022, five days since the account's launch, @DuolingoStrange had over 151,000 followers.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References