If 2020 was the year of isolation, fear, and awareness, 2021 is all about burnout and fatigue. Which is why language learning platform Duolingo revealed "I'm mentally exhausted" as the "Most 2021 Phrase."
Found in its popular Japanese course, the maxim reflects "the tone and overall feeling" of year two of an ongoing pandemic, a company press release said.
Most of the world continued to follow stay-at-home orders, delayed return-to-office plans, and tried to keep up with changing health policies. But, as Duolingo pointed out, 2021 wasn't all doom and gloom. Bright spots like vaccines, the Olympics, and "plenty of captivating TV" gave folks across the globe something to look forward to.
As did language learning. In 2020—when a Korean film won the Best Picture Oscar and the Summer Games were meant to be held in Japan—Duolingo found an increase in the study of Asian languages—a trend that continued this year.
According to the 2021 Duolingo Language Report, Japanese surpassed Italian globally to become the fifth most popular lingua franca to study, particularly in the US and UK. Korean—the seventh most-studied language in the world—became the fastest-growing in Brazil, France, Germany, India, and Mexico. Meanwhile, Chinese Mandarin overtook Russian and Portuguese for the eighth spot worldwide.
"The growth of interest in studying Asian languages shows no signs of slowing," according to Duolingo senior learning scientist Cindy Blanco, who tipped Japanese and Korean entertainment—anime, K-pop, Squid Game—as possible motivations.
Despite our mental fatigue, it's been a busy year for Duolingo. More than 700 million hours were spent on the app, with nearly 10 billion lessons completed and 15 billion words practiced. Unsurprisingly, English, Spanish, and French remain the most popular vernaculars to study globally. A number of countries, however, are also learning the lingo of Germany, Japan, Italy, Korea, Ireland, East Africa, and Sweden.
Like Spotify and Apple, Duolingo is offering users a deep dive into their individual activity. Anyone who's completed at least 10 lessons this year can see their personalized Year in Review snapshot in the mobile app and share their learner style directly on social media. "We hope this inspires [our users] to set new language learning goals in 2022," Blanco said.