A year on from last year's very successful Duolingo Westminster challenge, parliamentarians are once again being invited to learn, practice and live the benefits of day-to-day language learning.  

The Duolingo Language Challenge is back for 2026

And this time, it's bigger and better!
 
More than 200 Parliamentarians took part in the Language Challenge in 2025, inspiring passion for learning across the UK. From January, Westminster will compete alongside University staff and leaders, bringing MPs, peers, Vice Chancellors, parliamentary staff, and university staff together in a nationwide competition promoting the lifelong value of learning languages. 

• The top three MPs/peers and top 3 Vice Chancellors will share a £20,000 prize pot to donate to a charity or modern languages/study abroad department.
• The winning MP and Vice Chancellor will have Duo visit their constituency/university.
• The Top Ten parliamenentary staffers and university employees will each win a Duolingo gift pack.

And every participant will get a free annual subscription to Duolingo for taking part.

The 2026 challenge is open to MPs, peers, staffers with a parliament.uk email address and university employees with an .ac.uk email address.

To enter the challenge click this link. The challenge begins 6 January 2026.

As a reminder here's what happened last year

Launched on 1 January 2025, the 2025 Westminster Challenge aimed to turn good intentions into action. Duolingo's 2024 research, conducted by Savanta, had revealed that only 13% of current MPs speak a foreign language — a 35% decline in two decades — yet 74% expressed a desire to learn one, given the opportunity. The Westminster Language Challenge sought to meet that moment, offering a simple and accessible path through Duolingo.

Over a three-month period:

• 200 parliamentarians, including 80 MPs, actively took part;

• They completed more than 65,000 lessons, logging over 125,000 minutes of learning — the equivalent of 87 full days;

• Participants studied 26 different languages, ranging from Arabic and Ukrainian to Zulu, Latin, and Chinese​.

Twelve MPs completed a lesson every day of the Challenge, and a further 30 participated for 80 days or more — forming the kind of regular practice that supports language acquisition.

The top three performers — Cat Smith MP pictured above (French), Adam Thompson MP (Welsh), and Alex Mayer MP (German and French) — shared a £20,000 prize fund for their chosen charities, including Girl Guiding, BlueTonic, and Home Start. Lord Frost (below) was the highest-placing peer​.

What We Learnt

Beyond the impressive participation figures, the Challenge revealed a number of significant findings about language learning in the UK today, many of which tell a much more positive story than we’re used to hearing.

1. There is strong evidence of growing interest in language learning across the UK — particularly among younger learners.
Data from Duolingo shows that the UK ranks second globally for the number of users learning more than one language, challenging long-held assumptions about national apathy toward language study. Notably, those under the age of 22 are the most likely to be engaging with multiple languages — and doing so across an increasingly diverse linguistic spectrum. 

2. English is the third most studied language within the UK.
While unexpected at first glance, this reflects the reality of a linguistically diverse population. The most recent UK census reported that over one million people in the UK do not speak English well or at all. Duolingo is the world’s largest provider of free English instruction, and supports learners at all levels.

3. There is a notable difference between the language choices of MPs and the general public.
The most studied languages among MPs during the Challenge were French, Spanish, and German, consistent with traditional school curricula. However, among UK learners more broadly, there is growing enthusiasm for East Asian languages — including Japanese, Korean, and Chinese. This divergence highlights a generational and cultural shift in language preferences, driven in part by youth engagement with global media and digital platforms.

4. Motivation is often deeply personal — and highly practical.
Participants cited a variety of reasons for taking part. Some sought to reconnect with heritage languages, while others wanted to better serve multilingual constituencies or support family members. 

The 2025 winner, Cat Smith MP, said this:

“I didn't enjoy learning French at school so I was delighted to take part. By making learning a daily habit I found myself learning more in these few months as an adult than I ever managed in years at school. Now the competition is over I probably won't be spending so much time on Duolingo, but I will definitely keep it up. Sometimes my young son likes to ‘play Duolingo’ with me too. It’s been fun, and I’m so happy the Girl Guides in Lancaster and Garstang will benefit!”