Wondering what the heck you’re supposed to do with gems or lingots or what they’re for? This is the Ultimate Guide to everything you need to know about gems and lingots including what they are, how to spend them, and how to earn them (including a few hacks to earn more gems than ever!)
Duolingo Lingots vs Gems: What are they?
Lingots and gems are both virtual currencies in Duolingo.
However, lingots are the currency used on the Desktop version of Duolingo, and gems are only used on the mobile application. Lingots are red and Gems are blue.
Lingots used to be used on the mobile app as well, but Duolingo changed the currency to gems. Also, it’s important to note that if you buy something on the desktop version of Duolingo with lingots, then that purchase transfers over to the mobile version as well.
You can see the amount of Lingots that you have when you log in to your Duolingo account on a desktop computer. The number is up in the right corner of the screen.
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To see the number of gems you have, you will need to be on the Duolingo application on your phone. Click on the shop icon on the bottom right of the screen.
On that tab, you should be able to see the number of gems you have in the top right corner.
What Are Gems For? How to Spend Gems in 6 Different Ways
Gems are used to buy different things within the Duolingo app. If you’re wondering what to do with your gems, how to spend them, and what to buy with gems, this section is for you!
1. Use Gems to Refill Your Health
The most common way (and the way you will likely use the most often) to spend your gems is to use them to refill your health when you have made more than 5 mistakes.
UPDATE: Some users no longer have health in their app, so they no longer need to use gems to refill.
Once you have run out of hearts during a lesson on Duolingo, it will give you the option to use gems to buy back 5 more hearts and continue with the lesson.
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If you have at least 450 gems saved up and you don’t want to repeat the lesson, then you can buy the gems right away.
However, if you don’t have enough gems or if you don’t mind redoing the lesson, you can exit the lesson (even though it will make Duo cry). Just click the “end session” button.
After that, you can then go refill your health in the shop for cheaper.
If you are out of hearts, you can refill them for only 350 gems in the shop which is 100 gems cheaper than buying them in the middle of a lesson.
2. To Buy Bonus Skills
Bonus Skills are extra lessons that you can buy with gems. Not every language has them, but you can check if yours does by going to the shop and seeing if they are available to buy.
If they are available, this should be your first purchase using your gems.
The Bonus Skills are usually called “Flirting” and “Idioms.”
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3. Use Gems to Buy Streak Freezes & Wagers
The next most popular way to spend your gems is by buying streak freezes and wagers. A streak freeze allows your streak to remain in place for one full day of inactivity, according to Duolingo.
So if you are trying to use Duolingo every day, but you know that you won’t be able to use it for just one day, you can buy a streak freeze with gems and it won’t count against your streak of days.
Another way you can spend your gems on Duolingo is by betting Duolingo that you will maintain your streak.
This is called a Double or Nothing wager that you can buy for 50 gems. If you can maintain a streak for 7 days, you get 100 gems.
This is also a great way to earn gems if you are consistent with using Duolingo every day!
4. Buy Timer Boosts & Row Blasts to Get More XP in Match Madness
The best way to use your gems in the app is to save up as many as possible so you can use them to buy timer boosts and row blasts in the Match Madness challenges on the League tab.
This makes it so you can get to higher levels which earn you more XP with each level (a great way to earn XP super fast).
5. Buy Harder Lessons to Earn Double the XP
Every once in a while, you’ll start a lesson and Duolingo will give you the option to take a harder lesson and earn double the XP, but you’ll need to use your gems to buy this. Right now they cost 20 gems.
6. Buy Rapid Reviews & Match Madness in the Duolingo Path
You may have noticed Duolingo Characters on the side of the Duolingo Path, if you click on these you can buy Rapid Review or Match Madness challenges for 100 gems (a pretty steep price!) A better use of gems would be to save them for the Match Madness in the League tab.
What Are Lingots For? How to Spend Lingots
You can basically buy the same things as you can on the Duolingo app, however, you will be buying them with lingots and on the desktop version of Duolingo.
Buy Streak Freezes and Wagers with Lingots
You can buy power-ups like streak freezes for 10 lingots and you can wager with Duolingo for only 5 lingots. This is why I usually do the Double or Nothing wager on the desktop site instead of the app since it is a lot cheaper and I have way more lingots than gems!
You don’t lose health on the website (this is one of the tips that most users don’t know!) so it’s much easier to save up lingots than gems.
Give Lingots in the Duolingo Forums
UPDATE: Duolingo has shut down their Forum so you can no longer gift lingots this way.
One way that you can spend lingots is to actually give them to other users! If you have a question or just want to hang out around other people who are obsessed with Duolingo (like me!) you can head to the Duolingo Forum.
You can give a lingot to anyone who comments in the forum. If you like what they said or if they’ve accomplished something cool, or if they’ve taught you something new about Duolingo, give them a lingot to thank them!
8 Ways to Earn Gems in Duolingo
Here are all the Duolingo Gems hacks that can help you get more Gems for free!
1. Double or Nothing Wager
If you are willing to be super consistent with Duolingo (which I can NEVER do…whoops) then you can make a lot of money gems with the Double or Nothing wager!
You spend 50 gems to bet that you will use Duolingo for 7 days straight. If you can do it, you will get 100 gems back!
2. Earn Gems by Achieving Your Daily Goal & Daily Quests
You have a chance every day to earn gems just by completing your daily goal. (If you don’t know what that is or how to change it, read this post here!)
I have my daily goal set at the most difficult setting, so I have to earn 50 XP in order to get my gems for the day. If you want to earn gems faster and with less work, change your daily goal to a lower setting.
Duolingo has added daily challenges on top of just the daily XP, so you have more opportunities to earn gems each day. Click on the treasure chest tab at the bottom of the app to see which Daily Quests you need to finish in order to earn more gems.
3. Complete Friends Quests
In the same treasure chest tab where you’ll find your Daily Challenges, you can find your Friends Quests. Duolingo matches you with another user and you have a certain amount of time to complete a challenge like earn 1000 XP or completing 5 lessons.
It doesn’t matter who does more work, as long as the challenge gets done (as you can see I didn’t really pull my weight on this one lol).
4. Finish a League in the Top 3 Places
One of the more difficult ways to earn gems on Duolingo is by finishing in the top 3 users in a Duolingo League. It’s not easy, but setting this as a goal could really motivate you to earn a lot of XP quickly as well as earn some gems along the way!
5. Maintain a Streak
You can earn gems by simply maintaining your streak on Duolingo! You can earn double by doing the Double or Nothing wager AND just keeping your streak.
6. Earn an Achievement
Every time you earn an achievement, you can go into your profile on the Duolingo app and open a chest of gems! You usually earn about 25 gems per achievement earned.
How to Earn Lingots in Duolingo
You can earn lingots in all the same ways that you earn gems, except for the fact that you would earn them on the desktop and not on the mobile application.
You earn 1 lingot each time you level up, 2 lingots for finishing a new skill, and 1 lingot for every 10-day streak you maintain!
Language Learning Must-Haves
- iTalki Language Classes: The #1 reason why I’ve been able to learn languages from home. Take conversation classes from a native speaker for only $5-$10 an hour.
- How to Be Fluent Books: Two of my favorite books about language learning have definitely got me super excited about learning a language and I highly recommend reading both!
- Fluent Forever: How to Learn Any Language Fast and Never Forget It
- Fluent in 3 Months: How Anyone at Any Age Can Learn to Speak Any Language from Anywhere in the World
- A Language Planner: Keep track of your scheduled language classes, set language goals, and organize your study schedule with my favorite planner ever.
- Harry Potter in Your Target Language: Reading a beginner book that you’re familiar with is an incredible way to learn vocabulary quickly!
- The Perfect Language Notebook
More About Duolingo:
- How Many Crowns Are in the French Duolingo Tree?
- How to Earn a Duolingo Golden Owl
- Duolingo Tree: What is It and How to Finish It
- What to Do When Skills Break: Restoring Skills on Duolingo
- Find Out The Number of Crowns in Duolingo German
Malin
Wednesday 11th of January 2023
Another way to get gems every hour in the mobile app is to click on the gem counter at the top to enter the Shop, and under Special Offers there are two chests that are always visible (Early Bird and Night Owl) but underneath those there's also a Free Chest. If it's not visible, it appears after scrolling up and down repeatedly or exiting and entering the Shop again. After opening a Free Chest, another one is available again after one hour. They usually give ~5-12 gems.
Winetwinet
Wednesday 2nd of November 2022
I am now in the Diamond league but now my whole program has changed. I can't buy legendary things from it. What can I do with my gems now?
Mary Davis
Wednesday 2nd of November 2022
I haven’t been offered A free chest since I updated Duolingo yesterday. That means that I’m dead in the water because I’m out of hearts and I don’t have enough gems for the match madness. What’s going on?
Linda
Tuesday 15th of February 2022
The cheapest way to earn Hearts in the app is to click on the heart at the top of your home page. A menu appears with 3 options - 2 involve paying for them in gems AND 1 lets you earn a heart by completing a lesson (an easy one with NO heart penalties, plus you get XP for completing it AND a heart). At the end of the lesson, there's often an option to earn another heart by listening to an ad - that's a no-brainer! A couple of rounds of that process, and you're "healthy" again!
Marjorie
Monday 15th of November 2021
I used gems to purchase French idioms in the mobile app, but I don’t know how how to access the idioms. Thank you for your help! Marjorie
admin
Tuesday 23rd of November 2021
Hey Marjorie! So when you purchase the extra lessons like "idioms" and "flirting" they show up in your course. So if you scroll down your French language tree, it should show up halfway through Unit 1. I hope that helps!