Is Punjabi on Duolingo?

By the Ladoo team · Published August 7, 2026 · Updated August 14, 2026

No. As of August 2026, Duolingo does not offer a Punjabi course in either direction: you cannot learn Punjabi on Duolingo, and there is no course for Punjabi speakers learning English. Duolingo's community course incubator, which was once the path for new languages like Punjabi, closed in 2021, so there is no course in development either.

Why doesn't Duolingo have Punjabi?

Punjabi has well over 100 million speakers worldwide, more than many languages Duolingo does offer. But Duolingo builds courses in-house now, prioritized by expected subscriber demand, and South Asian languages have never been a focus: Hindi is its only Indian language with a full course. Punjabi adds two extra hurdles: it is written in two scripts (Gurmukhi and Shahmukhi), and it is tonal, which makes generic text-to-speech pipelines produce misleading audio.

What to use instead

Here is an honest map of the options, including where each one is strong.

• Ladoo teaches only Punjabi, and is the first app to teach it in both Gurmukhi and Shahmukhi, with a dedicated script track. It is built for people who grew up around Punjabi but never learned to speak it, and for complete beginners starting from zero.
• Ling has the largest Punjabi exercise volume of the Duolingo-style apps and a familiar gamified feel. Its Punjabi content shares a template with 60+ other languages, so cultural context and script depth are thinner.
• Mango Languages builds around conversation: short dialogue-based lessons with native-speaker audio, with grammar and culture notes woven in.
• Pimsleur is audio-first and good for pronunciation and listening during a commute, but it does not teach either script.
• uTalk and Simply Learn Punjabi are phrasebook-style apps: useful for travel phrases, not for building grammar or reading.
• A tutor on a marketplace like Preply or italki remains the fastest route to real conversation, and pairs well with any app on this list.

We compare all of these in more depth, including where each one beats Ladoo, in our guide to the best apps to learn Punjabi.

If your goal is reading Punjabi

Start with the script itself rather than a phrase app. Gurmukhi is phonetic and has 35 core letters, so most learners can decode simple words within a few weeks of steady practice. Our free Gurmukhi alphabet chart covers every letter, vowel sign, and numeral with audio. If your family writes Shahmukhi, start with how to learn Shahmukhi instead.

Will Duolingo ever add Punjabi?

Nothing suggests it is coming. Duolingo has not announced a Punjabi course, the incubator that crowdsourced new languages is gone, and its recent additions have favored large-subscriber markets. If it ships one day, that would be good news for Punjabi overall. Until then, the tools above are the realistic options.

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