Duolingo is an amazing free tool for people who want to learn languages, everywhere in the world. I'm a language teacher, I would definitely advise my students to use it. The app has added an amazing number of languages since its beginning for speakers of various languages.

I started using Duolingo some time ago, my first purpose was to refresh my Spanish. The app has been tremendously successful in that.

However, I have since met my boyfriend, who is Slovak. From the beginning, I've wanted to learn his language, at least to be able to communicate with his family whenever we visit them there, or even to be able to communicate through various distance apps. 

Since I believe that Duolingo is such a great tool to install the habit of learning a language, I quickly tried to find out if I could learn Slovak there. I was disappointed to discover I couldn't, but I didn't worry too much, as many languages are added to the incubator. I even joined some Duolingo forums with people who are willing to learn that language too. What was then my surprise to notice 5 different threads concerning that language, and to realize that some on them dated back to 2015 ! And yet, if you check the incubator, you will find High Valyrian, Klingon, but still no Slovak ! Don't mistake me, I think that it is super fun to learn such fantasy languages, being myself a great fan of science-fiction and fantasy, but don't you think that a real language would be more useful ?! 

Duolingo brags about enabling some threatened languages to survive, such as Esperanto or Guarani. I believe that Slovak is threatened too: when I went to a bookshop, a big and famous one there in a shopping center, and asked for some comics in Slovak language, I was told that they didn't have any, that all I would find would be translated either in Hungarian or Czsech ! Of course, I'm not saying that Slovak is disappearing, but I think it quite appalling that editors would not even bother to translate such culture in the Slovak language...Even though it means that a lot of people in Slovakia are bilingual, because of TV and culture.

Some might say: learn Czsech ! That's what I'm doing, and what I believe many people who wanted to learn Slovak have come to do. But it's not the same, and I believe after some time, I will just be confused. Some words are used in both languages, some are not. Pronunciation is slightly different, as well as grammar.

This petition won't change life, won't start a revolution - nor does it aim at doing so - but I hope it will entice Duolingo to finally start a Slovak course on Duolingo, that many people will enjoy !