On Tuesday, Duolingo announced the launch of its new subscription level, Duolingo Max, which includes two new features powered by OpenAI’s GPT-4 artificial intelligence. Users can unlock these features by paying $29.99 per month or $167.99 per year.
New features called “Role Play” and “Explain My Answer” are designed to improve French and Spanish conversation skills practice for English speakers on iOS.
Duolingo’s “Role Play” feature: real-time conversational practice
Duolingo Max offers two new features using OpenAI’s GPT-4 technology, one of which is role-playing, which allows users to practice real-world conversational skills with an interactive AI chatbot. Users can chat with characters in the app and receive AI-powered feedback on the accuracy and complexity of their responses.
The role-play feature is a real-time conversational practice that helps users improve their conversational skills in a meaningful context. Human experts overseeing this tool write the scenarios that users see in the role-play and ensure that the initial prompt aligns with where the user is in their course. The experts also write the initial message in the chat and tell the AI model where to take the conversation.
Duolingo’s Explain My Answer Feature: Detailed Clarifications on Wrong Answers
The other new feature available with Duolingo Max is “Explain my answer”. This feature gives users the opportunity to learn more about their answer in one lesson, whether their answer is correct or incorrect. Users can tap a button after certain exercises to enter a chat with Duo, Duolingo’s mascot, for an explanation as to why their answer was correct or incorrect, and to request additional examples or clarification.
The Explain My Answer feature is designed to help users when they make a mistake and aren’t sure what the correct answer would be. It can also help in cases where they make the same mistake again and are not sure why. This feature helps users better understand the lessons and allows them to improve their understanding of the language.
Availability and cost of Duolingo Max
As mentioned at the beginning, the only courses that can use these two new features are Spanish and French for English speakers on iOS. The company plans to roll out the new features to more courses and platforms soon, according to its announcement on Tuesday.
Duolingo Max is a tier above the Super Duolingo subscription and comes with unlimited hearts, no ads, and personalized review through the app’s Practice Hub. The cost of Duolingo Max is $29.99 per month or $167.99 per year. Those who are eligible to try Duolingo Max can find it in the Buy tab at the top of their screen.
