Unacademy CEO 'trashes' language learning app Duolingo: ‘The problem with Duolingo is …’, says Gaurav Munjal

Unacademy CEO Gaurav Munjal recently took to X (formerly Twitter) to critique the language-learning app Duolingo, sharing his personal dissatisfaction with its effectiveness. “I completed a 100-day streak on Duolingo for Spanish a few months ago, but I still couldn’t speak or write even a few sentences in Spanish,” Munjal wrote. Citing this experience, he revealed the inspiration behind developing Airlearn, a new platform designed to tackle the shortcomings he identified in traditional language-learning tools.
He said that the Airlearn app is a “Language Learning Product that actually helps you learn the Language instead of being a status symbol for a virtual reward which is the Streak.”


He said that the first problem with Duolingo is the over simplification of the problem statement. Duolingo does not teach you basic concepts of grammar. “It just makes you do the exercises with the hope that you’ll learn them on your own.”
“Whereas Airlearn’s Teaching Slides make sure that you know the Concept first. Our Users love these Slides,” he pointed.
He further added “We believe that AI will change personalised tutoring. But it won’t be just about gamification or make you do exercises. It will be about teaching you like a Tutor sitting in front of you will teach. And that’s the design principle we follow while building Airlearn.”
In the posts, Munjal also shared multiple screenshots of users’ reviews of Airlearn claiming “Everyday we are making more and more people switch from Duolingo to Airlearn.”

Earlier this month, Munjal shared an X post where he revealed that 1 million lessons were completed on Airlearn in October this year. He said that the majority of the Users are from the US, while “Spanish and French are the most popular languages.”
In August this year, Munjal faced criticism for announcing that there would be no employee appraisals this year while sporting a pricey Burberry T-shirt worth nearly Rs 33,000. This announcement, made during a virtual town hall meeting was captured on video and subsequently shared on Reddit, sparking a debate about optics and employee morale.