Duolingo, the #1-ranked language-learning app on both the App Store and the Google Play Store, is now offering an updated course in High Valyrian. The app may be best known for its persistent owl mascot, but it is now offering its users free lessons in the preferred tongue of the Mother of Dragons, the result of a combined effort between the app’s developers and HBO to create an interactive promotion for House of the Dragon, HBO’s upcoming Game of Thrones spin-off.
The High Valyrian course has actually existed on Duolingo for some time, but the HBO partnership has resulted in the addition of over 150 new words and 700 new sentences to the course. But studying Valyrian isn’t just meant to help Game of Thrones fans show off to their friends–this new update actually has a useful purpose. Among the new sentences that have been added to the course are various dragon commands that can be put to use in DracARys, an AR app that allows Comic-Con attendees to hatch and raise their very own baby dragon right from their own home (after first proving themselves worthy by participating in the House of the Dragon: The Dragon’s Den interactive experience at Comic-Con).
After completing the interactive Comic-Con event (which runs from July 21 – 24), players can activate the DracARys app, using the High Valyrian dragon commands they learned on Duolingo to control their dragon.
While we weren’t able to learn any dragon commands in the first few High Valyrian lessons we took, the three-checkpoint High Valyrian Course naturally focuses on vocabulary and short phrases first. Although we’ve yet to discover the words to order any flying reptiles around, we have learned how to inform our scaly house pet that a nearby knight is singing, and really enjoying it.
But even if you don’t plan on attending Comic-Con or raising any pet dragons, it may be worth giving Duolingo’s High Valyrian course a look, as the language will be used frequently in House of the Dragon. While subtitles are always provided, learning Valyrian may allow viewers to take in more of the show’s visual aspects instead of having to maintain focus on subtitles and potentially missing out on other details in the scene. Plus it’s almost guaranteed to impress any fellow Game of Thrones fans who happen to be within earshot. But High Valyrian isn’t the only fictional language offered on Duolingo–users can also learn Klingon.
Set to premiere on HBO on August 21, House of the Dragon will serve as a prequel to the original Game of Thrones television series, and will focus on The Dance of Dragons (also referred to as The Dying of Dragons)–a civil war waged by the Targaryans as two members of the family fought for the right to succeed the throne. The event–which took place 300 years prior to the events of Game of Thrones–has been referenced in both the Game of Thrones television series and the novels upon which it is based.
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