Duolingo launches Klingon courses for those with absolutely nothing better to do

Do you like the idea of Duolingo’s app-based way of learning a foreign language on the go, but object to absorbing something that might actually prove useful one day? Well, good news: the app has announced that its 200 million users can now learn Klingon, should their CV be lacking that one detail that prevents them from landing that dream job*.

Bafflingly, that seems to include a lot of people – and the company claims that the waiting list to take up the course includes more than 170,000 people, which is roughly the population of Milton Keynes, in case you were wondering.

Should you wish to take Duolingo up on its offer, you’ll find yourself uttering key Klingon phrases like “success and honour” (“Qapla’ batlh je”) and “the ship is big” (“tln Duj”) in no time at all. Like the app’s other courses, you’ll learn the language by matching words to pictures and translating words back and phrases back and forth between languages.

“Many Star Trek fans become curious about the Klingon language at some point, but learning a language takes time, energy and regular practice, especially when you’re just starting out,” said the course’s creator Felix Malmenbeck who has been working on it since 2015. “Therefore, if the language isn’t one of your primary interests, chances are you’ll end up investing that energy elsewhere, whether it’s cosplay, fan fiction, reading novels or any of the multitude of forms that fandom can take. The Duolingo course should help lower that barrier to entry by giving people a simple way to get regular exercise with the language.”

Right now, according to the site, 11 people are learning Klingon. As languages of limited use go, that puts it some way behind High Valyrian (240k users) and Esperanto (1.26 million users), but as a Klingon might say: vogh start ‘e’ Daghaj.

*FYI, “I’d like to add you to my professional network on LinkedIn” is “SoHvaD chel targhHom veDDaq noch network LinkedIn vIneH.” You’re welcome.