busuu language app marks 50m user milestone
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| Oct. 13, 2014, 9:14 a.m.
Language learning app busuu has celebrated the milestone of reaching more than 50 million users worldwide, less than six years after its launch, making it the largest online language learning tool in the world.
To coincide with the milestone, busuu has carried out a survey which explored its users’ language learning habits. In the UK, the findings revealed more than two thirds of people (71%) want to learn a language. Half of them (51%) wanted to learn to improve their cultural awareness, while almost as many again (43%) use the service to improve language skills while on holiday. One third (29%) think learning a language could advance their career prospects.
The user milestone follows the news earlier this month that busuu has entered into a partnership with Pearson, one of the world largest publishers for English Language Learning. Together they will now offer the GSET, an online test for English Proficiency. Busuu will offer this test exclusively and has the intentions to disrupt the Proficiency English Test Market.
Through intuitive training programs and a strong social network structure, which allows users to ask each other for help, busuu has introduced a new way to learn foreign tongues.
Soon, this bite-sized approach to teaching and learning gained praise worldwide. Use of the app spread quickly through word of mouth and recommendation, in many different languages and countries.
As users become familiar with the service, the company has seen a rise in people using the service not just for necessity, but adopting language learning as a hobby and pastime due to being so user-friendly.
Bernhard Niesner, Co-founder and CEO at busuu said: “We have seen user numbers grow significantly in the last year and we are delighted to be encouraging so many people to learn new languages. We hope future generations will all speak more than one language and this will be considered ‘the norm’.”
In the coming weeks, busuu will be launching new grammar courses for both English and Spanish learners.
busuu brings 12 languages to web users and 11 to mobile, making learning a language easier with greater benefits for all its 50 million users worldwide.
The language learning app takes its name from Busuu, the native language of Cameroon where, according to an ethnological study from the 1980s, Busuu is spoken by only eight people.
