‘TikTok refugees’ learn Mandarin Chinese on Duolingo for RedNote

Within a few days, TikTok may be banned in the United States, rendering the app unusable and removed from app stores. Instead of settling for Instagram Reels, people looked for a closer alternative and found the Chinese social media app.”rednote“or Xiaohongshu, which translates to “little red book.” It has reached the top of Apple’s App Store downloads list, and according to Reutersmore than 700,000 users joined the service in just two days. Apparently, RedNote isn’t the only app to benefit from TikTok’s impending ban. Language learning app Duolingo revealed that it has seen “216 percent growth in the number of new Chinese (Mandarin) learners in the United States compared to this time last year.”

Although RedNote has an English interface, most of its content is in Chinese, and American users may be hoping they can interact with more videos. like TechCrunch He notes that the graph published by Duolingo clearly shows a significant spike in the number of new learners at the same time that RedNote’s popularity rose. On TikTok, Duolingo posted videos with the hashtags #rednote and #tiktokban. In one video, a person wearing a green owl mask appears on the app, teaching Mandarin Chinese to beginners, starting with “Welcome TikTok refugees.”

Meanwhile, RedNote’s native Chinese users are taking language lessons from the app’s US imports. They now seem to be learning American slang and TikTok trends, like “my shayla” and “Raw. Next question.” Chinese users also entertain new users, telling them they are their “Chinese spy” and jokingly asking to provide their data to the Chinese government.

TikTok’s owner, ByteDance, only has until January 19 to sell the app’s US assets to prevent a shutdown.