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The Verge
12-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Verge
Duolingo is replacing hearts with energy
Duolingo is making a big change: it's moving on from hearts in favor of a new 'energy' mechanic. The idea is to switch from a system that punishes mistakes to one that's intended to feel more motivating — and a bit more gamified. Under the old system, you'd lose a heart if you made a mistake while doing a lesson. To earn hearts back, you could do things like watch an ad, pay for a full refill using Duolingo's Gems currency, or just wait for the hearts to refresh. Under the new system, you'll spend one unit of energy to complete an exercise, and a mistake will cost one energy. But you'll also get extra energy back at a randomized rate for completing multiple lessons right in a row. As a result, users should be able to do more lessons, and that's what's showing up in the data, Moses Wayne, a senior staff engineer at Duolingo, tells The Verge. 'We feel like this is a way that we can motivate you to focus on things you're getting right rather than penalizing for the things that you're making mistakes on,' Wayne says. He also says that 'we wanted to find a way to gamify the experience a little more.' A full energy bar is 25 units of energy (versus five hearts). Energy regenerates over time, like hearts do, Wayne says. You can also buy more energy with Gems, and subscribers to Super Duolingo and Duolingo Max will have unlimited energy, similar to how subscribers of those tiers have unlimited hearts, according to Duolingo spokesperson Monica Earle. Wayne points out that, under the hearts system, you could fail out of your first lesson of the day. 'In an energy world, that's really not going to happen because we're not penalizing you for mistakes anymore,' Wayne says. Duolingo's aggregate metrics show that, in general, people are able to engage 'a lot more' with Duolingo now than before. The change is rolling out first on iOS over the next weeks and months, and the aim is to bring it to Android later this year. If you happen to play Duolingo across iOS and Android right now, your Android app will stick with hearts, while the iOS app will stick with energy; they won't sync, Wayne says.
CNET
12-05-2025
- Entertainment
- CNET
Duolingo Is Bringing New 'Energy' to Language Learning
Duolingo is on CNET's list of the best language learning apps, and on Monday the free version introduced a new Energy mechanic that could propel your learning experience further. "We want to reward you for doing well and find ways to motivate you via this mechanic, rather than just penalize you for getting things incorrect while you're learning," Moses Wayne told me in an interview. Wayne is a senior software engineer at Duolingo, and he thought up the new system. "We think this is going to make Duolingo a lot more fun and a lot more fair." The new mechanic replaces the Hearts system in the free version of Duolingo. The Hearts system gave you five hearts per day, and if you got a question wrong in a lesson, you lost a heart. If you got five questions wrong, you couldn't continue. There was a way to practice past lessons to get hearts back, but you'd have to finish a whole lesson to get one heart back. The old system could slow your progress or bring it to a standstill if you continued struggling with a particular lesson. But the new Energy system should make it easier for people to keep learning. Some people who use the free version of Duolingo on iOS will see the new mechanic now, and others on iOS will see it soon. People on Android should see the change later this year. Duolingo Learning with Duolingo can give you energy With the new system, you start with 25 units of energy, and you still lose one unit when you get a question wrong. But you'll "recharge" energy over time, and you can earn energy by watching ads in between lessons. Some treasure chests in the app could reward you with energy, too. But the main way to earn back energy is by getting questions right. "If you get a lot of things right in a row, like maybe the five combo mark, the 10 combo mark ... there's this little animation that shows some numbers and tells you how much [energy] you've earned," Wayne said. Duolingo's intent is to motivate people to keep learning, even when they make mistakes. That way, you can keep pushing forward in your lessons. Getting a streak in Duolingo can replenish some of your energy. Duolingo "Making mistakes is part of learning," Wayne said. "This is allowing learners to engage a lot more with Duolingo." Read more: What You Need to Know About Chess Lessons on Duolingo Though this is a seemingly minor change, I think it'll be a huge help for people trying to learn a new language or how to play chess. When I used the app to learn a little Italian before traveling to Rome last year, I felt like the Heart system forced me to really focus on what I was learning. But I still got frustrated when I had to restart lessons, because I used up all my hearts. I was doubly frustrated when I used up hearts on lessons I didn't think would be particularly helpful for traveling, like the lesson on describing a scary hotel. If I hadn't been using the app with the goal of learning a language for travel, I might've bailed on it. But I imagine the Energy system will help alleviate some of the frustrations people might feel when they make mistakes in their lessons. And according to Duolingo, folks who've already used the new system have responded positively to the change. "A lot of people have been engaging a lot more with Duolingo," Wayne said. "We're already seeing learners do more in the Energy system than they were with Hearts." For more on Duolingo, here's our review, and here's what to know about chess lessons on the app. You can also check out our roundup of the best language learning apps.
