Characters / Duolingo

Characters found all across the Duolingo game.

---

Duo

The mascot of Duolingo, a cheerful little owl who likes to help people learn languages.

---

• Amazing Technicolor Wildlife: A bright green owl.
• Art Evolution: As you can see here◊, Duo started out as a 2D logo, then became a vaguely 3D and rather detailed owl, and then became more and more stylized to make him cuter.
• Big Anime Eyes: He has big eyes that make him extra cute and expressive.
• Break the Cutie: Sometimes, if you stay away from Duolingo for a certain amount of days, Duolingo will send you a message saying "You made Duo sad," with an image of Duo in tears.
• Cute Owl: He's an adorable, wide-eyed little owl.
• Feather Fingers: Defied. The Duolingo brand guidelines specifically tell artists not to give Duo fingers.
• Floating Limbs: Duo's feet move separately from the rest of his body.
• Keet: Duo has a very enthusiastic personality. He's often seen dancing or excitedly cheering the user on.
• Non-Giving-Up School Guy: Although Duo is not a schoolteacher, he still takes his job of teaching languages very seriously. For example, the joke ad for "Duolingo Push" shows Duo (depicted as a mascot suit) following real people around and constantly pestering them to do their lessons.
• The Owl-Knowing One: He's an owl who loves helping people learn new languages.
• Thousand-Yard Stare: Defied. The Duolingo brand guidelines warn artists not to show Duo's pupils centered in his eyes, because it makes him look "creepy."
• Virtual Paper Doll: You can buy three different outfits for him in the shop: a tuxedo, a track suit, and a superhero outfit. This feature is no longer available though - Duo would permanently stay on whatever outift he has been left with before the corresponding update.

Falstaff

A grumpy, anthropomorphic bear and one of the few characters outside of Duo to not appear in a story.

---

• Bears Are Bad News: Subverted, where at first he looks serious and intimidating but when you get an answer right, he would make a goofy smile.
• Flat Character: We don't know much about him. He's not in any stories and isn't generally included in Duolingo's statements about the other characters.
• Not So Stoic: He's super serious and stern looking but, sometimes, when you get an answer right, he gives you a cheery smile.

Duolingo Stories Characters

These are recurring characters that show up in Duolingo Stories. In general they have some consistent character traits, but the little details differ from story to story.

The Cast in General

• Big Anime Eyes: They all have giant eyes to match Duo's.
• Cast of Snowflakes: Done impressively despite the simple art style. The closest similarities are Eddy and Junior's square-like proportions, which is justified since they're father and son respectively.
• Five-Token Band: Some of the language courses have an animated character to pronounce the sentence, and react positively or negatively depending if you get it right. The team members clearly are of different races and represent different areas, which makes sense considering Duolingo is a mobile site used for learning languages all around the world. Lily is a white goth girl with dyed purple hair. Zari is a veiled Muslim girl. Lucy is a fat middle-aged Asian lady. Eddy is a blonde sporty white man. Bea is a black girl with an afro (formerly dreadlocks). Oscar is an Ambiguously Brown short chubby moustached man. Lin is a tomboyish Asian girl with a sidecut. Vikram is a Sikh Indian man. Junior is a little redheaded white boy. Falstaff is a bear.
• Floating Limbs: In their original designs, the characters didn't have hands or feet that were attached to their main bodies.

Bea

She's a laid-back young woman with a tendency to have quirky ideas. Her introduction post says that she's the Hermione of the group and that it's hard to keep up with her.

---

• Backseat Driver: In "The Taxi", Bea insists that the taxi driver should follow the directions from her phone, because it supposedly knows all the streets of all the cities in the world. When it turns out that the phone's directions are wrong, Bea sheepishly apologizes and admits that maybe her phone doesn't know all the streets after all.
• Barely-Changed Dub Name: She is Béa in the French course, and Bia in the Portuguese course.
• Control Freak: Downplayed, but present. In addition to "The Taxi" mentioned above, in "The List", she insists on only going to the destinations on her list, even when Lin wants to go other places. In "But I'm Driving!", Bea insists on driving Lin's motorcycle, and Lin calls her out for always wanting to control everything.
• Dinner and a Show: Implied. "Family Dinner" begins with Lin visiting Bea, and noting that she has a lot of food in her kitchen. When asked about it, Bea says that her family is coming for dinner next week, and that all of the food and wine are for herself.
  Bea: I have a very difficult family! I'm stressed!
• Early Installment Character-Design Difference: Her old design◊ has her hair down and wearing a sweater. Her new design has her hair put up, a sleeveless shirt and high-waisted pants. Lampshaded in the story "Did the Recipe Change?" The story is about how grown up Bea is, featuring Bea's new design reminiscing about her old design.
• Interspecies Friendship: Bea (a girl) appears to share a close bond with Duo (an owl).
• Lipstick Lesbian: She has a somewhat feminine style, and a few stories are about her trying to get a girlfriend. However, some stories show that she is bisexual, having gone out on dates with men before as well.
• Vague Age: "You're Getting Old" has her mention that she's "less than 30 years old", but both of her character designs don't have her look much older than a young adult.

Eddy

Eddy is a physical education teacher, and Junior's dad. While he's not the brightest candle in the chapel, Eddy is fun-loving and tries his best to be a good parent. He also goes on many dates, but most of them aren't very successful.

---

• Afraid of Needles: "The Flu Shot" shows that even though he assures Junior he'll be fine during his shot, he's actually the one who is most afraid of needles. Junior was actually trying to ease him into getting his flu shot.
• Bumbling Dad: He tends to get into amusing trouble, such as flunking his first yoga class in "The Yoga Class" or getting stuck under the bed in "A Monster Under the Bed".
• Casanova Wannabe: Plenty of stories surround Eddy's attempts to get a date, or at least maintain a steady. He's never been able to keep a girl around for long. Sometimes there will be girls that enjoy their time with him, such as in "The Blue Duck".
• Casual Kink: "I Want to Be Like You" reveals that Eddy has a pair of leather pants and a whip in his closet, and he's very embarrassed to learn that Junior found them one day (although Junior now believes that his dad's a lion tamer).
• Didn't Think This Through: Eddy's main failing, aside from his competitive streak, is his assumption that he can do anything without first understanding the situation. When he can't hear the engine of the car his friend loaned him in "Car Troubles", he thinks that it needs gas; later, he's told by Vikram that it's electric, and that he just put gas in the trunk.
• Lethal Chef: In "Why Did She Break Up With Me?", Eddy surprisingly is a model boyfriend to his latest beau, Karla, but he makes one fatal mistake that costs him his relationship—he makes her dinner. Junior admits to his father that his cooking sucks. "Grandmother's Recipe" almost has Vikram and Priti subjected to it.
• Lovable Jock: Eddy usually takes the role of an overconfident, sometimes competitive goofball in his stories, but he's a friendly and helpful guy who always wants to be a good father to his son.
• Sports Dad: Being a gym teacher, he's really into sports, and tries to get his son, Junior, interested about them too.
  • When Eddy asks Junior about what sport he wants to practice, the boy reluctantly answers that he wants to try dancing. Instead of being disappointed like his son was expecting him to be, Eddy cheerfully says that dancing is a sport too. Then, he starts to dance in public, much to Junior's embarrassment.
  • Defied in "I Can Do It", when Eddy realizes that it may be too late for him to become an Olympic tennis champion, but Junior is just the right age to start training; Bea reminds him that Junior spends all day inside playing video games and only leaves the house to buy more games.

Junior

He's Eddy's eight-year-old son.

---

• Adorably Precocious Child: In "Junior's Interview", Junior goes to Bea's apartment after being told by his dad that she needs someone to water her plants while she's traveling. He shows up with a briefcase with his resume inside it. Bea decides to play along, asking him typical job interview questions. When she offers him one of her roommate's cookies the boy declines, saying that he doesn't eat during interviews. He also calls Bea his first client and, after she decides to give him the job, says that they'll talk about his salary later.
• Air Guitar: His lesson completion animation has him pretend to rock out with Duo.
• The Baby of the Bunch: He's the youngest member of the Duolingo cast.
• Barely-Changed Dub Name: He is Júnior in the Portuguese course.
• A Friend in Need: Junior takes the rap for his classmate Beatrice's prank gone wrong (putting a live frog on their teacher's desk). While he expects a Standard Hero Reward for doing so, Beatrice declines, since Junior had just kissed the frog a few second ago.
• Kids Shouldn't Watch Horror Films: Inverted. In "A Scary Movie", Zari is babysitting Junior, who asks her to watch a horror movie. She says that these movies aren't meant for kids. Junior claims that he's not scared of horror movies because he and his dad watch them all the time. In the end, Zari is the one who gets scared of hearing the boy talk about the movies' scary scenes.
• Laser-Guided Karma: In "The Cat Law", Junior uses the excuse of a cat sitting on his lap to get out of doing anything. At the end, Eddy orders pizza, and proceeds to go and eat it all himself because Junior can't get up.
• Missing Mom: While Eddy is always there for Junior in most of his Stories, Junior consistently doesn't have a mother present, and none of them give a concrete answer for what happened to her. In Duolingo lessons, you may get a prompt which shows Eddy, baby Junior, and an unknown woman as a family, but no details are known about her besides her appearance.
• Sweet Tooth: He does have a taste for junk food in general, but many stories will have him try to get dessert first. In particular, he loves ice cream.
• Vocal Dissonance: In some languages with few voice actors, such as Russian, the 8-year-old Junior is voiced by a fully adult man. With a deep, deep voice.

Lily

A goth teen, and Zari's best friend. She works part-time at a clothes store, even though her customer service is not the best. Apparently, the customers like her unpleasant attitude towards them, and that's why she hasn't been fired yet. Some stories feature her babysitting Junior as well.

---

• Barely-Changed Dub Name: She's Lilli in the German course, and Lili in the Portuguese course.
• Calling Parents by Their Name: She's insistent on referring to her mother only by her government name.
• Celeb Crush: The first episode of Living with Lily shows her having a crush on Harry Styles.
• Dreary Half-Lidded Eyes: Her eyelids are often lowered, showing boredom and snideness.
• Emo Teen: Sort of.
  Lily: I just want to stay in bed and think about the injustices of life.
  Lily's mom: Teenagers are so dramatic!
• Fangirl: She's a huge fan of singer-songwriter Angélique Kidjo, looking excited and blushing when Kidjo is announced as a special guest at Duocon 2022.
• Kindhearted Cat Lover: Gloomy as she usually is, she is visibly fond of her pet cat.
• The Living Dead: In "The Audition", Lily goes to an audition for a School Play with Zari to provide her emotional support. After finding out that the play is going to be directed by their art teacher, Lily gets nervous and faints. Some time later, Lily wakes up and is told that she got the role of a corpse, because she looked so good laying on the floor. Being somewhat a goth, she likes the idea.
• Odd Friendship: She and Zari are very close despite their polar opposite personalities.
  Zari: I'm here for emotional support!
  Lily: I don't have emotions.
• Perpetual Frowner: None of her Stories or in-game appearances ever give her so much as a smirk. You can definitely tell when she's happy about something, but most of the time she has a bored look on her face.
  • Subverted in the ad for the Family Plan, where when they start driving, she is seen with a smile on her face.
• Quirky Girl, Quirky Tux: In "A Pink Dress", Lily balks at the dress code for her aunt's wedding, since it requires either a pink dress or a black suit, and she feels uncomfortable wearing the dresses that her mother picks out. Eventually, she picks a black suit for herself instead, and they both agree that it's perfect.
• Sarcastic Clapping: During the lessons, the characters who are "speaking" the phrases have different animations depending on whether the player got the answer right or not. Lily's reaction to a right answer is clapping slowly with an uninterested look in her face. She repeats this when a lesson is successfully completed.
• Sweet Tooth: Pie is one of the very few things that makes her happy.
• Ultimate Job Security: Justified. In "I'm the Manager", Lily's boss says that she never tidies up the store, always puts on some loud music so she won't hear the customers, and is overall mean to them. Then he says that he doesn't know why, but all the buyers love her. They think that she's great and love her music, and buy many things because of her. So, instead of being fired, she gets promoted to manager. Lily's first act as the new manager is to go home, because she, as the manager, decided that she is not going to work that day.
  Customer: Excuse me, do you have this shirt in another color?
  Lily: No, leave me alone.
  Customer: What a funny girl! See you soon!
  Lily's boss: See? That's what I'm talking about.

Lin

A somewhat quiet college girl, and Lucy's granddaughter.

---

• Butch Lesbian: Lin is tomboyish and dates women, as shown in the story "The Ex-Girlfriend".
• Generation Xerox: She looks a lot like a younger version of her grandmother.
• Insufferable Imbecile: She has been shown to do a great deal of obnoxious things in late stories, such as disturbing others in the cinema, destroying laptops for the warranty, or inviting her friends to others' places without permission.
• Lazy Bum: Her unwillingness to do things, dependence on others and tendency to be late is abundant throughout stories.
• Ma'am Shock: One story has her be conscious of her age when trying out skateboarding. When a little kid apologizes to her and calls her "ma'am", it only makes her even more conscious.
• Raised by Grandparents: Seems to be the case. A lot of Lin's childhood memories involve Lucy, and Lin lives with Lucy at present.

Lucy

Lin's grandmother, and a Cool Old Lady.

---

• Barely-Changed Dub Name: She is Lucie in the French course.
• Big Ol' Unibrow: Her sprite is one of the few that shows eyebrows at all, but hers are usually depicted as one singular eyebrow in the middle of her head.
• Retired Badass: In "A Love Story", it's revealed that she and Lin's grandfather used to be secret agents for the government. It's also mentioned in one of the inspirational images for getting five right answers in a row, where she says, "Genius! Are you a secret agent, like I was in The '80s?"

Oscar

Oscar is a somewhat self-centered art teacher who works at Lily and Zari's school. He has a serious demeanor. According to Duolingo's official Instagram account, one should not mess with his mustache, because it's a sensitive topic.

---

• Comically Small Bribe: In one of the stories, Oscar wants to enter an art show, but he gets fed up of waiting four hours in line. His last resort is to try bribing the security guard with five dollars. It doesn't work, so he gives up.
• Fake Static: "I Have No Reception" begins with Oscar exasperated with Eddy inviting himself to watch a soccer game at his apartment. Eddy decides to order a pizza, thinking that it'll make Oscar less annoyed, but finds out that his cellphone has no reception. Oscar notices that he has a good reception, but lies about it and tells Eddy that the reception is better in the hallway. As soon as Eddy exits, Oscar locks the door.
  Oscar: Ahhh... Finally he's gone! [his phone starts ringing, he answers it]
  Eddy: Oscar? Your door is locked. Can you open it for me, please?
  Oscar: What did you say? I'm sorry, but the reception is very bad.
• Family Theme Naming: Oscar has a similarly minded cousin named Osman, who lives in Hollywood. A few stories are devoted to this cousin.
• Hidden Depths: He's fantastic at preparing coffee. He treats making the perfect cup of coffee as if it were an extension of his artistic passions.
• Laser-Guided Karma: Oscar once mooches off of his cousin Osman for three weeks in Los Angeles, consuming all of Osman's food and ripping a hole through his wallet going to expensive restaurants. Osman responds by giving him the possibly worst day of his life—taking him to the beach (which he hates), having his lunch get stolen by seagulls, and getting his eyes splashed with salt water.
• Public Hater, Private Fan: In "Space Vikings", Zari and Lily are talking during art class about Space Vikings 2, the movie they're planning to watch. Oscar overhears them and chimes in, saying that action movies don't teach anything. He then says that they should watch artistic movies, and offers them two tickets for an international film festival that's going to happen that night. Lily says that they'll think about it. Hours later, the girls are in front of the movie theater, and are amused to find Oscar in the line wearing a Space Viking costume. He secretly does like action movies after all.
• Straight Man: Usually he's the serious guy in most of the stories, contrasting to wackier characters like Eddy. However, he shows his Eccentric Artist side when he gets excited about art. For example, when he got deeply moved with Lily's painting, that was actually... a blank canvas. He also doesn't mind dying if it means that his art will be popular posthumously due to his tragic passing.invoked
• Wine Is Classy: Oscar and Vikram's introduction post says that if it was up to Oscar, he'd sip wine and paint his favorite landscape all day.

Vikram

Vikram is a lovable and rather clumsy middle aged man. He's also Eddy's neighbor.

---

• Acrofatic: He's rather rotund for a person, but his lesson completion animation has him pirouetting like a pro and doing a full leg split.
• Affectionate Nickname: His wife, Priti, calls him Vik.
• Forgetful Jones: As kind as he is, he's often forgetful of dates or important information; even when he does have his facts in order, it's often too late since the event has passed (such as accessing theatre tickets dated yesterday for a play he and Priti wanted to see that night).
• Happily Married: He has been married to Priti for many years. According to Vikram, they never spend more than five dollars with each other's anniversary presents, because their love is enough.
  Vikram: [to the clerk of a jewelry store] We love each other and that is enough. Expensive gifts aren't important.
• The Klutz: Vikram is prone to accidentally breaking things in his house. For example, hitting a vase while dancing, or breaking a clock while doing yoga (both were wedding presents given by his cousin and his mother-in-law, respectively). In "Vikram's Surprise", Priti notes that Vik always burns the food when he tries to make her a birthday dinner, so she ordered a pizza in advance. He also tends to be rather absent-minded, like when he was looking for his passport when it was in his hand all along.
• Nice Guy: He's not only kind, but he's also rarely angry.

Zari

Lily's best friend and schoolmate. A very perky girl who loves shopping, hanging out with friends, and crushing on cute boys. Like Lily, Zari also babysits Junior from time to time.

---

• Barely-Changed Dub Name: She's Sari in the German course (German s is usually pronounced like English z, German z is pronounced /ts/).
• The B Grade: Zari is the best student in her class, at least according to Lily. She wants to get into a good college, but she feels like she needs to be perfect in order to have acceptable grades. Just getting one question wrong (out of fifty!) was enough to make her seek her teacher out for ways to improve her grades.
• Fangirl: She's a big fan of BTS.
• Genki Girl: Her lesson completion animation depicts her as such, with her jumping around in excitement until she's out of breath.
• Hartman Hips: She has a set of prominent ones.
• Light Feminine and Dark Feminine: Zari is the light feminine, being a makeup and fashion focused Girly Girl, while Lily is a sarcastic girl who dresses in all dark colors.
• Pink Is Feminine: Never seen without her pink hijab, Zari is probably the most feminine of the female cast.
• Smitten Teenage Girl: Every few stories, Zari has a crush on a new boy. Her most consistent crush has been on her classmate Miguel, but she's also displayed crushes on Boy Bands, neighbors, and celebrities before.

---