Duolingo Dropped Welsh. Here Are the Best Alternatives (2026)

If you were learning Welsh on Duolingo, you already know something is wrong. Correct answers get marked as mistakes. Northern dialect forms are rejected. Words are misspelled. And none of it is going to be fixed.

In November 2023, Duolingo mothballed the Welsh course. Froze it in place, stopped all updates and bug fixes, and walked away. A last-minute update by the National Centre for Learning Welsh introduced dozens of errors right before the freeze, and those errors are now permanent.

This affected 675,000 active learners. Welsh was the 9th most popular language on Duolingo in the UK, growing 38% year-on-year. Three million people had used the course in total. A Senedd petition demanding government intervention gathered over 4,000 signatures.

So: the course still exists on the app, but it's a frozen shell with known errors and no path to fixing them. If you're still using it, you're learning some things wrong and there's no way to know which ones.

What Duolingo Did Well (And What You Lost)

Before looking at alternatives, it's worth acknowledging what Duolingo actually gave Welsh learners:

• Structure. A clear path from beginner to intermediate, broken into manageable daily sessions.
• Spaced repetition. Words and patterns came back at intervals designed to move them into long-term memory.
• It was free. No subscription, no paywall for the core course.
• Gamification that worked (for some). Streaks, XP, and leagues kept people coming back.
• Vocabulary in context. Words appeared in sentences, not just flashcard pairs.

The alternatives below don't all replicate every one of these. Some are better in specific areas. None is a perfect 1:1 replacement. But depending on what matters most to you, there's a path forward.

The Alternatives: What Actually Exists

Say Something in Welsh (SSiW)

Best for: Getting speaking quickly. If your goal is to have a conversation in Welsh, SSiW is the fastest route.

SSiW is entirely audio-based. You hear an English phrase, pause, try to say it in Welsh, then hear the correct version. No reading, no writing, no grammar tables. The method works. It gets words out of your mouth in a way that flashcard apps never will.

Strengths: Genuinely effective for speaking confidence. Active community with forums, meetups, and bootcamps. Northern and Southern dialect versions. The most passionate user base of any Welsh learning tool.

Weaknesses: No text component at all. You won't learn to read or write Welsh with SSiW alone. No explicit grammar teaching. Mutations are encountered naturally but never explained or drilled. No spaced repetition algorithm. Costs ~£10-15/month.

Glossika

Best for: Free sentence repetition to supplement other learning.

Glossika offers Welsh for free (one of nine minority languages given free access). You hear and repeat full sentences with spaced repetition scheduling. It's a solid supplementary tool.

Strengths: Free. Real spaced repetition. Sentence-based learning gives you grammar patterns in context.

Weaknesses: Web-only (no dedicated app). Grammar is never explained. You absorb it implicitly through repetition. Not recommended for absolute beginners. No mutation drilling. Limited content compared to a full course.

Memrise

Best for: Building vocabulary with native speaker video clips.

Memrise has an official Welsh (South) course with video clips of real people speaking. The SRS algorithm is solid for vocabulary retention. Community-created courses exist but were removed from the main app in 2024. Their future is uncertain.

Strengths: Native speaker video is compelling. Good SRS for vocabulary. Free tier available.

Weaknesses: Vocabulary only. No grammar, no mutations, no reading, no structured progression. Southern dialect only. Community courses being phased out.

Clozemaster

Best for: Intermediate learners expanding vocabulary through context.

Clozemaster shows Welsh sentences with a word blanked out. You fill in the gap. It uses spaced repetition and has a large sentence database. Good for getting exposure to Welsh in realistic contexts.

Strengths: Large sentence database. SRS-based. Free tier. Contextual learning.

Weaknesses: Random difficulty. No progression from easy to hard. No grammar teaching. No mutation drilling. Best as a supplement, not a primary tool. Not suitable for beginners.

National Centre for Learning Welsh (Dysgu Cymraeg)

Best for: Structured, tutor-led learning if you want a classroom experience.

The National Centre runs ~1,500 Welsh courses for adults across Wales, online and face-to-face, from beginner to advanced. These are real courses with real tutors, not self-study apps. 18,330 people completed courses in 2023-24, the highest ever.

Strengths: Structured curriculum. Real tutors. Covers all skills (speaking, reading, writing, listening). WJEC-aligned levels. Both dialects.

Weaknesses: Not an app. It's a course you attend (even if online). Fixed schedule. Costs vary. No spaced repetition for independent review between classes. Not a replacement for Duolingo's daily self-study model.

Cwrs Mynediad

Best for: Structured beginner content on iOS.

Built by Aberystwyth University, Cwrs Mynediad is a 30-unit beginner course covering greetings, time, family, weather, and (unusually) explicit grammar and mutation lessons. Both Northern and Southern dialect.

Strengths: One of the few apps that actually teaches Welsh grammar and mutations explicitly. Structured progression. One-time purchase.

Weaknesses: iOS only. Old app (originally launched ~2010). No spaced repetition. Beginner level only. No intermediate or advanced content.

The Gap Nobody Fills

Here's the honest picture of what the current Welsh app landscape looks like:

No single app combines spaced repetition with structured grammar, explicit mutation drilling, graded reading, and conversation practice. You can piece it together with 3-4 tools (SSiW for speaking, Memrise for vocabulary, a grammar book for rules, Glossika for sentence practice), but that's a lot to manage, and none of them schedule your review for you across all those skills.

The biggest gap is mutations. Welsh has three mutation types: soft, nasal, and aspirate, and they trip up every learner. The only dedicated mutation tool (Ap Treiglo) is reportedly broken and crashing. Duolingo covered some mutations but the frozen course now marks correct mutations as wrong. Nobody else drills them systematically.

Where blas. Fits

blas. is a language app built for adults coming back to Welsh (and Irish). It covers grammar, vocabulary, mutations, graded reading, conversation practice, writing practice, and exam prep, all with FSRS spaced repetition scheduling.

Specifically for Welsh, it includes:

• Explicit mutation drilling. Every trigger for treiglad meddal, trwynol, and llaes, drilled with spaced repetition until they're automatic
• Structured grammar lessons by category, not just encountered implicitly
• Vocabulary from A1 to B2 with SRS scheduling
• Graded reading passages from A1 to C1. Filling the documented "intermediate chasm" in Welsh resources
• Conversation practice. Write or speak in Welsh and get feedback on grammar and mutations
• GCSE and A-Level mock exams
• Real Welsh TTS via Bangor University's techiaith.cymru. Northern and Southern dialect voices, not a generic English model
• Placement test. If you already know some Welsh from Duolingo or school, you skip ahead instead of starting from zero

The free tier covers the first two stages of grammar and mutations with unlimited sessions and full spaced repetition. No credit card required.

blas. is available on iOS, Android, and web. You can start right now in your browser and your progress carries over to the native apps.

What to Do Now

If you were learning Welsh on Duolingo, here's a practical path forward:

1. Stop relying on the frozen Duolingo course. It has known errors that will teach you incorrect Welsh. You can't trust which answers are right and which are bugs.
2. Pick a primary tool that matches your learning style. If you want to speak: SSiW. If you want structured grammar and drilling: blas. If you want free sentence practice: Glossika. If you want a classroom: the National Centre courses.
3. Consider combining two. SSiW + blas. is a strong combination. SSiW gets you speaking, blas. handles the grammar, mutations, and reading that SSiW deliberately skips.
4. Don't start from zero if you don't have to. If you completed part of the Duolingo course, you have Welsh knowledge. Use a tool with a placement test (blas. has one) to skip past what you already know.

The Welsh you learned on Duolingo isn't wasted. The vocabulary and patterns are real. The errors in the frozen course don't erase what you absorbed before the mothballing. You just need a tool that picks up where Duolingo dropped you.