Language Learning Report 2026
English speakers start Spanish. They stay for Italian.
A PolyChat analysis of 9,882 English-speaking learners. Starting a language and continuing it are different things, and the gap is the story.
The language people start is not the language they keep
Among English-speaking learners on PolyChat, Spanish is the most common first choice. It is not the language they stick with. Italian is.
We counted a learner as going deep if they completed 10 or more lessons on a path in that language. Italian learners were about 50% more likely to do that than Spanish learners. Portuguese was the dropout among the major languages we offer.
Who keeps going
Share of English-speaking learners who chose the language and completed 10+ path lessons. Axis scaled to 25%.
Starting a language and staying with it are different things. Spanish wins the first tap. Italian wins the tenth lesson.
Jean-Baptiste Bolh, Co-Founder
Spanish and French are tied at the starting line
This is who shows up, not a claim about what the world wants. Ads, videos, and markets shape the mix of new learners. What they do after they arrive is the more reliable signal.
Still, the starting mix is worth stating plainly: among English-speaking learners, French is statistically even with Spanish. German is a clear third. Italian is a much smaller start, which makes its stickiness more striking, not less.
First language chosen
Share of 9,882 English-speaking learners. Axis scaled to 40%.
Start versus stay
Left: share of English-speaking learners who chose the language. Right: share of those choosers who completed 10+ lessons.
Most people are true beginners
About three in four people who take a Spanish, Italian, or German placement test land at A1. French is a little less beginner-heavy. English is the exception: almost half of English-placement learners already test at B1 or higher.
That fits a simple split. People learning Spanish, Italian, or German on PolyChat are usually starting from scratch. People learning English often already know some.
Share placing at A1
Placement tests, all spoken languages. Axis scaled to 100%.
People still say they want lessons
When new users told us why they downloaded PolyChat, structured lessons beat games by a wide margin. AI chat was the second most requested feature. This is self-reported intent, not proof of what they used, but it cuts against the idea that language apps are only a game loop.
What people said they downloaded for
7,984 entrance surveys. Multiple answers allowed. Axis scaled to 100%.
The hard words are the tiny ones
This is an early signal, not a ranking of every word in every language. Most vocabulary in the system has only been reviewed about once. Among words with at least three reviews and 20 or more learners, the “hard” list is almost all function words: the ones that do not translate cleanly.
Learners don’t get stuck on impressive vocabulary. They get stuck on the little words that don’t translate cleanly: chez, ser versus estar, vosotros.
Jean-Baptiste Bolh, Co-Founder
Methodology
This report describes learners on PolyChat, not language learners in general, and not “Americans.” We do not store country or age, so we do not claim a national sample.
- Who: 9,882 learners whose spoken language is set to English, unless a figure is labeled otherwise (placement tests include all spoken languages).
- Activity: production data through 12 August 2026. A completed lesson is a finished node on a learning path, not an open.
- Stickiness: a learner “went deep” if they completed 10 or more nodes on a learning path in that language. This is stricter than “opened a lesson.”
- Starts: current learning-language setting. We do not treat month-to-month mix as a cultural trend, because acquisition (ads, videos, markets) can move those numbers.
- Placement: first completed placement result per language in the table.
- Survey: 7,984 entrance surveys. Reasons are multi-select feature interest, not “why I am learning.”
- Hard words: lemmas with at least 3 spaced reviews and 20+ learners, ranked by average FSRS difficulty. Small samples; directional only.
All figures are aggregates. No individual user data appears in this report.
Press sheet
PolyChat is an AI language-learning app. This report is the citable source. For quotes, charts, or a walkthrough of the data: jean-baptiste.bolh@polychatapp.com
Four numbers
- Italian learners are about 50% more likely than Spanish learners to complete 10+ lessons (21.4% vs 14.4%).
- Portuguese is the dropout among majors (11.1% go deep).
- Spanish and French are tied at the start (32.0% vs 31.7% of English-speaking learners).
- 87% of new users said they downloaded PolyChat for lessons; 41% said games.
What this is not
- Not a representative survey of all language learners.
- Not a census of Americans. We cannot break this out by US state.
- Not a story about seasonal demand. Acquisition mix can explain who arrives.
Interview
Founders available for a 10-minute call. Charts on this page can be screenshotted for publication.
PolyChat Language Learning Report 2026. Numbers are production aggregates as of 12 August 2026.