Duolingo doesn't have Thai. Here's the free way to learn it.
As of 2026, Duolingo does not offer a Thai course. If you searched for one, landed here and were about to give up: don't. Thai is learnable, the hard part is one specific thing (tones), and the app we built to teach it is free to use — not just free to look at.
Why Thai is a different problem
We don't know Duolingo's roadmap and won't guess at it. What we can tell you is why a Thai course can't be a Spanish course with different words.
Thai has five tones. Mess one up and horse (ม้า, máa) becomes dog (หมา, mǎa). English speakers use pitch for attitude — a question, a doubt, sarcasm. In Thai, pitch is the word. That means a tap-to-match exercise can teach you to recognise ข้าว (khâao, rice) on a screen while your mouth keeps saying ขาว (khǎao, white). Nobody at the night market will correct you. They'll just hand you white.
Then there's the script: 44 consonants in three classes, vowels that sit before, after, above or below the consonant, and four tone marks whose meaning changes with the consonant class. It looks intimidating. It's actually a system, and it tells you the tone of a word better than any romanisation can — but it needs a proper alphabet stage, not a side quest.
Tone-blind apps teach you to read Thai as if it were Spanish with funny letters. That's the gap we built glot.it to close.
What glot.it does about it
- A tone mirror. Say a word. Your pitch curve is drawn over the native speaker's, in real time. Green where they match, red where they don't. You can see where your tone slipped, instead of being told "try again".
- 162 lessons across 12 stages. From สวัสดี to watching Thai soaps without subtitles. Each lesson runs five phases: learn, read in context, listen, speak with feedback, drill.
- Reviews that arrive on time. Every word you study goes into a word bank scheduled with FSRS (the spaced-repetition maths behind modern Anki), so a word comes back right before you'd forget it — not on a fixed calendar.
- An alphabet stage. Consonants, vowels, tone marks and handwriting, taught as a system with pictures for every letter.
- Offline. Lessons and reviews work on the BTS, on the plane, in a temple with no signal.
- Free. Every lesson, drill, review and the mirror itself work without paying, and you don't need an account to start. There's an optional Supporter tier for extra AI chats; the lessons are never behind it. Our marketing budget is zero and this page is the proof.
An honest comparison
These are the apps people actually recommend for Thai on r/learnthai. Tiers and prices are from each app's public listing in 2026 and change often. The tone column asks one thing: does the app show you your own pitch? Speaking exercises alone don't count.
| App | Free tier | Shows your pitch? | Thai script | Price (as of 2026) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| glot.it | Everything you need to learn: 162 lessons, tone drills, tone mirror, reviews, offline | Yes — your pitch drawn over the native speaker's | Yes — alphabet stage, reader, tone-mark rules | Free. Optional Supporter tier for extra AI chats |
| Ling | Trial lessons | No — speech-recognition score | Yes | ~$16.99/mo |
| Pocket Thai Master | Limited free lessons | No — listen and repeat | Yes | ~$10/mo |
| ThaiPod101 | Free account with a sample of lessons | No — audio and video lessons | Yes, in video lessons | Tiered, up to ~$47/mo |
| Pimsleur | 7-day trial | No — listen and repeat, audio-only | Minimal (audio course) | ~$20/mo |
| Drops | 5 minutes a day | No — vocabulary pictures, no speaking feedback | Partial | Paid for unlimited time |
Spotted a mistake in this table? Tell us on GitHub and we'll fix it. We'd rather be corrected than be wrong about a competitor.
Not sure where to start? Test your tone ear first
Sixty seconds, five words, no reading. You'll hear one half of a tone pair and tap the word you heard. The score tells you whether your ear separates pitch from meaning yet, and the app starts you on the right lesson from there.
Take the 60-second tone-ear test →
Questions people ask before they start
Does Duolingo have Thai?
No. As of 2026, Duolingo does not offer a Thai course. If you want to learn Thai with an app, you need one built for Thai specifically — the tones and the script are the whole game, and a general-purpose course cannot bolt them on.
Is glot.it really free?
Yes — free to use, not free to look at. All 162 lessons, the alphabet stage, tone drills, the tone mirror and word reviews work without paying, and you do not need an account to start. An optional Supporter tier adds extra AI chats; the lessons are never behind it.
Do I need to learn the Thai script?
Not on day one. Every word shows Paiboon+ romanisation with tone marks, so you can start speaking first. We do recommend learning the script within your first month: it is 44 consonants, not thousands of characters, and it tells you the tone of a word in a way romanisation only approximates. glot.it has a dedicated alphabet stage for exactly that.
How are tones taught?
Three ways. You hear minimal pairs (horse versus dog, same letters, different pitch) until the contrast is obvious. You say words into the tone mirror, which draws your pitch over a native speaker so you can see where it slipped. And words you miss come back in review right before you would forget them.
Is glot.it on iOS and Android?
Yes. glot.it is on the App Store and Google Play, and it also runs in any modern browser as an installable web app. One account keeps your words, lessons and streak in sync, and lessons work offline.
Start now
Open glot.it in your browser — no sign-up, first lesson in under a minute. Or get the iOS or Android app if you'd rather learn on the BTS. If you want to check how the tone mirror works before you trust it, the code is on GitHub.