Summary
Duolingo has been a prime choice for language learning for years, and it recently began branching out into teaching other things, too. Now, it wants to make you better at one specific skill—chess.
Duolingohas announced its latest venture beyond linguistics: a comprehensive chess course designed to teach the game to people of all skill levels. All of us have played chess at some point or other in our lives, but that doesn’t necessarily mean we’re good at it—it is a complex game that requires strategy and, overall, a whole lot of thinking. What Duolingo wants to do here, then, is break it down into manageable, engaging components. Learning will be facilitated through a series of short, interactive puzzles. Examples demonstrated include exercises focused on specific piece movements, such as guiding a knight through its characteristic L-shaped path, and tactical situations, like executing a checkmate against a cornered king.
Duolingo’s bite-sized, gamified approach works well for languages and, so far, seems to work well for music and math too. So why wouldn’t it work with an actual game? In addition to puzzles, the course will also feature “mini-matches” and will also let you engage in full games against an AI opponent embodied by one of Duolingo’s characters. This character, called Oscar (he also shows up in the other courses, in case it sounds familiar), will also serve as a virtual coach, guiding you through lessons.
“The team’s approach was to make chess as accessible as possible,” stated Edwin Bodge, Duolingo Group Product Manager, when discussing the new feature withThe Verge. The course itself is intended to accommodate and help learn a wide spectrum of players, from complete beginners taking their first steps into chess to more experienced players looking to refine specific skills. You will reportedly be able to select lessons appropriate to your existing level of familiarity with the game. This part is cool—some people play chess semi-regularly and might want to get better at it, or you could be like me, someone who doesn’t know absolutely anything other than the movements each specific chess piece can make.
This is something Duolingo already does to a degree with some languages. If you already know some German and you want to get ahead of the German course, you can skip lessons and entire chapters by taking tests located at the end of each chapter. It’s not clear yet if it will work the same here or if Duolingo will make you choose your skill level from the get-go—the latter would probably be the best option, although it would depend on how the lessons are structured and whether you get different sets of lessons depending on your skill level.
This feature is initially launching as a beta for iOS users. A wider iOS rollout should follow within the next few weeks, as well as an Android rollout down the road. It’ll initially only be available in English, but it should also eventually come in other languages. It is pretty cool, and it’s probably something that could work out with other complex table games if Duolingo ever wants to do that.
