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Duolingo Leagues have become ane of the biggest and most heady features in Duolingo. They add a competitive and motivational edge to your linguistic communication learning experience, which can push button you lot fifty-fifty harder to consummate your daily lessons.

Merely what exactly is a Duolingo league? How many are there? What's then special about the Diamond league? Are people cheating? And does your Duolingo league really thing?

Let's take a look.

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What are Duolingo Leagues?

A Duolingo league is basically a weekly leaderboard containing xxx random users from across all platforms, including IOS, Android and desktop.

The leagues are ranked on XP — the user with the most XP at the end of the week will terminate acme of the leaderboard, win a bunch of gems (or lingots) and get promoted to the next league up.

Users that terminate 2nd or 3rd will also receive some gems (admitting a smaller amount) and get promoted.

The promotion zone covers the top ten finishers (except in the Obsidian league, where it only covers the top 5) and so although 4th through to tenth won't receive any gems, they volition go promoted to the next league.

11th through to 25th will remain in their current league for some other week.

Anyone who finishes 26th or lower — in what is known as the Demotion Zone — will be relegated to the previous league.

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How many leagues are there in Duolingo?

In that location are currently 10 leagues in Duolingo.

When the league system offset launched there were only 5, with another batch of five being added in a subsequent update.

The leagues are the same across all language courses. And so whether y'all're learning Spanish or Hawaiian, you lot'll compete in the aforementioned 10 leagues as anybody else.

All Duolingo leagues in society

From bottom to top — with 1 being the lowest and 10 being the highest — the ten Duolingo leagues are:

Bronze
Silver
Gold
Sapphire
Ruby
Emerald
Amethyst
Pearl
Obsidian
Diamond

Bronze is the starter league. From in that location, the goal is to work your way upward through the leagues all the way upward to Diamond — Duolingo's acme league.

Duolingo Diamond League

The Diamond league differs to the other leagues in a couple of ways.

Only three users can be relegated and there are no promotions (as in that location'south no where else to get!).

Diamond is usually the near competitive of the ten leagues. Although only three users can be relegated, you have to be on your A-game to stay in the league for another calendar week. XP totals are usually really high—frequently in the thousands—so you may need to practise more lessons than usual to avert getting demoted back to the Obsidian league.

Winning the Diamond league is even harder. I've been using Duolingo every day for nearly 5 years and I've only recently won information technology for the first fourth dimension!

And what do you become if you win the Diamond league? A swanky achievement, some gems and a pat on the dorsum from the owl. Later that, the league resets, and you have to do it all again (if you lot can muster the energy!).

The Diamond Tournament

As of November 2021, Duolingo take added an extra incentive to Diamond League participants.

Those who stop in the top x of the Diamond League will now qualify for the Diamond Tournament.

This is still a very new and developing feature, so we don't still have a complete agreement of how it looks or will wait further down the line.

From the image above and this Reddit post, the Diamond Tournament is a 3-week competition. To win, you but need to stay in the tournament for the total 3 weeks.

Later each successful week, you will earn a 'piece of the Diamond'. Earn all three and you win.

Duolingo bots — are people cheating?

Something that gets a lot of discussion in the forums is whether people are cheating.

All likewise oft (and this isn't just limited to the Diamond league) at that place are users that tiptop the leaderboards with seemingly impossible XP totals. These are often accumulated in brusque periods of time past profiles that haven't used Duolingo for that long.

Needless to say, it gets people wondering.

While this hasn't been proven, information technology seems likely that some users are using dodgy algorithms to hack their way upward the leaderboards.

There are enough of examples of this in the Duolingo forums. In this 1 a user was accumulating XP at a rate of 19 XP every 30-35 seconds, while in this one a user went from 400+ to 700+ in simply 5 minutes.

Unless they're superhuman, these totals seem pretty incommunicable!

I've no thought why people would resort to cheating on Duolingo. After all, the whole point of Duolingo is to acquire a linguistic communication — not to finish pinnacle of a leaderboard having done absolutely no language learning at all.

Does your Duolingo league affair?

To be certain, I'm a big fan of the Duolingo league arrangement.

It adds a competitive layer to an already brilliantly gamified process and gives you extra incentive to show upward and complete your lessons.

As far every bit I'm concerned, it fits Duolingo like a paw fits a glove.

Merely that doesn't mean I think you should make a large deal out of which league you're in or your position in it. Here's why:

XP is a flawed idol

The league organization encourages you to focus on earning as much XP as possible. This would be fine if more XP equalled more than progress in your target linguistic communication. But it doesn't.

As information technology is, the easiest and quickest way to earn XP is to consummate the easy lessons. This is considering y'all accept less chance of losing your hearts (and therefore your licence to larn) and the amount of XP on offer in the easy lessons is exactly the same as in the harder lessons.

As such, if your priority is staying in or winning your league, you will naturally gravitate toward taking shortcuts. And this will be to the detriment of your target linguistic communication. Rather than making progress and expanding your comfort zone, you'll coast in the easy lessons because that's the only way you can guarantee doing well in the leagues.

Some users have an unfair advantage

Another reason you probably shouldn't worry nearly your Duolingo league is that some, similar me, take an unfair advantage.

Every bit an IOS user and Plus fellow member learning French, I have access to some XP-boosting goodies that make it much easier for me to climb upward the rankings.

One of which is an XP Boost, which I receive after earning my first crown of the mean solar day. This gives me double XP in all of my lessons for the next 15 minutes. So rather than the usual maximum of xv XP per lesson, I get the opportunity to earn thirty XP per lesson.

And if I complete another crown while my boost is active, I can earn every bit much as 50 XP in a single lesson.

I never used to become these boosts when I was learning Italian or Russian, and then I tin can only conclude information technology's a language-specific thing, perhaps express to languages like French and Castilian. (Let me know in the comments if you get XP boosts in your linguistic communication!)

Another big reward I get as an IOS user is XP Ramp Up. This is a timed challenge available via the League tab that gives me the opportunity to earn 40 XP in under 2 minutes.

Because I'm still in the early stages of the French class, the questions I get in XP Ramp Up aren't that difficult and I find myself earning the 40 XP mostly. As such I tin can ordinarily rack upwards 200 XP in under fifteen minutes.

Sadly Android and desktop users don't get access to XP Ramp Upwards, so it can be difficult for them to fairly compete with IOS users.

And and so in that location's Duolingo Plus. The big advantage of Plus is that it removes the heart system, meaning I can just plough on for every bit long as I want, racking upwards XP without having to worry about losing my licence to learn.

Force per unit area and burn-out

It's a tiring old business trying to win (or even stay in) your Duolingo league, particularly in the higher ones. The XP totals are often astronomical, even without the cheaters.

So when your league becomes a priority, this tin can put enormous pressure on you to rack up huge XP totals in a short corporeality of time.

This is exhausting and unsustainable in nigh cases. If you begin to associate Duolingo with fatigue, then, over time, y'all'll exist less inclined to show up and complete your lessons. And this isn't proficient for your language learning prospects.

Sadly, I see this happen all the time: users racking up loads of XP for a few weeks, and then disappearing altogether. This is what happens when the need to be the best overtakes the want to larn a language.

Do this instead

When it comes to Duolingo success, the most important matter (in my experience, at least) is to not lose sight of why you started using it in the commencement place.

I tin pretty much guarantee y'all didn't sign upward because of the league system. Virtually likely you signed upwardly because you wanted to acquire a language.

And so focus on that, and nothing more. It'due south easy to go caught upward in the gamification of Duolingo, thinking that in that location'southward a correlation between those who stop summit of their leagues and their ability in their target languages. Simply as we've but seen, information technology'south rarely this clear-cut.

My advice is to take the league system lightly. Don't prioritise it. Simply encounter information technology every bit a bit of fun that adds to your motivation.

In my experience, it'due south improve to prioritise other things. On Duolingo, I believe your Crowns and your streak should exist your main focus. Collecting Crowns shows y'all're progressing in your target linguistic communication, and a solid streak shows y'all're developing a strong language-learning addiction.

And don't forget that fluency in your target linguistic communication will depend as much on what y'all practise away from Duolingo as what you do on information technology.

A quality VPN, such every bit NordVPN, will open the doors to an well-nigh countless supply of movies and Television set shows in your target language.

RELATED: Duolingo + TV Shows = Fluency?

Benny Lewis's Linguistic communication Hacking books — available in French, Spanish, German and Italian — will get yous speaking confidently in next to no fourth dimension.

And LingQ will help you turn your favourite content — such equally books, blog posts, vocal lyrics and even Netflix shows — into your most effective lessons, taking your reading and listening proficiency to the next level.

Information technology's here that the learning takes place — not at the top of your Duolingo league. Don't forget that!

Have your say!

The league system is undoubtedly a huge part of the current Duolingo experience.

But what do yous think of information technology?

Does it motivate y'all to exercise your daily lessons?

Has it helped yous progress in your target language?

Are there any changes you lot'd like Duolingo to make?

What are your thoughts on the 'cheating' debate?

Let me know in the comments!