Scientists on Reddit

Luis von Ahn

Computer scientist, creator of reCAPTCHA and Duolingo

How we know it's theirs

The 2013 r/IAmA AMA, posted from this account

We retrieved 70 posts and 854 comments from u/vonahn, dated 2012 to 2025, most often in r/duolingo, r/IAmA and r/AskReddit.

Best moment

A redditor posted in r/AskReddit

Has anyone here completed a language in Duolingo? How well versed in the language were you, by the end?

u/vonahn replied

Read all of itShow less

When I had done about half the course, I went to Brazil to give a talk about Duolingo (in English), and the first question I got afterwards was what language I was learning myself. I made the mistake of saying Portuguese, and they proceded to ask me all other questions in Portuguese. This was the first time I ever spoke it with a real human, and it was in front of an audience of more than 1k people! I was terrified. But in the end it worked out pretty well. I was able to understand 100% of what they asked, and answer most things in Portuguese (though I sounded very broken).

Excerpt

More moments

A redditor wrote in r/IAmA

On “IAmA scientist and entrepreneur named Luis von Ahn. I’m the CEO/co-founder of Duolingo, a totally free way to learn languages. I won’t rest until people stop paying for crappy language learning software. I also developed CAPTCHA and reCAPTCHA, those squiggly characters all over the web -- sorry! AMA”

Thanks for doing the AMA. I am a big fan of Duolingo. How many languages can you personally speak?

u/vonahn replied

I'm perfectly fluent in English and Spanish. Learning Portuguese, and failed at learning French in high school (though, in my defense, I only took it cuz I had a crush on a girl).

A redditor wrote in r/IAmA

Is Duolingo actually making enough money the way it works now?

u/vonahn replied

The other day we found a quarter under the couch. I think that's the entirety of our revenue so far.

A redditor posted in r/duolingo

I find it slightly annoying that Duolingo always has the first word capitalised on these matching exercises, making it super obvious what the first word of the answer is.

u/vonahn replied

I hate that too! Unfortunately whenever we try removing it, more people complain and our metrics go down :/ Sometimes you just can't win.

--Luis (CEO of Duolingo)