Everything You Need to Know About Duolingo Monthly Challenge Badges • Happily Ever Travels

What are Duolingo Monthly Badges and how can you earn them? Here’s everything you need to know about Duolingo Monthly Badges, plus whether they’re worth the effort to earn them or not!

What Are Duolingo Monthly Badges & How to Earn Them

Duolingo Monthly Badges are challenges that you have one month to complete in order to earn a special badge for that specific month.

For example, in November 2021 if you completed 1000XP in one month, then you earned a badge for “Oscar’s Mustache Marathon.”

I seriously would not be able to learn languages without italki (I’m taking 3 classes per week right now) try out a class and you’ll thank me later. They’re usually $9 or less!

These are completely different than Duolingo Achievements, which you can find if you scroll down to the bottom of your profile on the Duolingo app.

Achievements can be earned at any time, while Monthly Badges need to be earned within the month that it is offered. For example, you can’t earn the May Monthly Badge in June.

What Are All the Duolingo Monthly Challenges So Far?

Here are all the Duolingo Monthly Badges in order:

May 2021: Hamamatsu Kite Festival
June 2021: Duolingo’s 9th Anniversary
July 2021: Eddy’s Big Race
August 2021: Oscar’s Duocon Keynote
September 2021: Junior’s Field Trip
October 2021: Lily’s Jack-o-Lantern Challenge
November 2021: Oscar’s Mustache Marathon
December 2021: Falstaff’s Big Sleep
January 2022: Zari’s Sparkly New Year
February 2022: Lin & Lucy’s Lucky New Year
March 2022: Vikram’s Garden
April 2022: Zari’s Cherry Blossom Picnic
May 2022: Bea’s Mindfulness Practice
June 2022: A Decade of Duo
July 2022: Junior & Eddy’s Beach Trip
August 2022: Lily & Zari Host Duocon
September 2022: Vikram’s Reading Marathon
October 2022: Lily’s Halloween Costume
November 2022: Duo’s Big Game
December 2022: Oscar Goes Ice Skating
January 2023: Celebrate the New Year with Duo
February 2023: Junior’s Love Letter
March 2023: Lily’s Punk Rock Band
April 2023: Bea’s Earth Day Celebration
May 2023: Eddy and Junior’s Fishing Trip
June 2023: Duo’s Birthday
July 2023: Falstaff’s Discovery
August 2023: Lucy’s Cat Clowder
September 2023: Vikram’s Sunny Hike
October 2023: Duocon 2023
November 2023: Duo’s Chess Match

Want to learn a language quickly and never forget it? Check out this book on Amazon about how to stay fluent in a language over time without losing fluency!

Where Can You See Your Monthly Badges?

You can find your monthly badges if you click on the treasure chest tab, which is divided into “goals” and “badges”, then click on “badges.”

There are two tabs in this section: Goals and Badges. The Badges tab is where you’ll find all the monthly badges that you’ve earned so far.

If you haven’t earned any, it will look like this:

duolingo monthly challenge badges section

Once you’ve earned your first monthly challenge badge, it will show up in the “Badges” section.

Duolingo november monthly badge for "Oscar's Mustache Marathon"

Are Duolingo Monthly Challenge Badges Worth Your Time?

I have to admit that earning my Duolingo Monthly Badge was quite anti-climatic since it’s not super easy to get to the Badges section and they just show up there without much fanfare.

I found it a lot more rewarding to earn Achievements and see all the Achievements that you have earned throughout your time on Duolingo.

Another reason why I’m not super motivated by the Duolingo monthly badges is that it feels a bit temporary.

I wouldn’t be surprised if Duolingo got rid of this feature in the future and therefore getting rid of all the badges you’ve earned.

However, if it motivates you to get on the app more then it’s worth it! Just don’t expect those monthly badges to be there forever.

If you want to learn a language faster than ever, I highly recommend reading Benny Lewis’s book on how to learn a language in JUST 3 months.

What if My Monthly Badge Doesn’t Show Up Even Though I’ve Earned 1000XP in One Month?

Some users have reported that even after completing their 1000XP in one month. Unfortunately, if this happens it’s probably an issue with the app and it might never show up.

There is the risk of that happening with any of the challenges on Duolingo, especially since they change their challenges so frequently.

Even if it never shows up though, your XP will count towards your total XP earned on Duolingo and that is a much more fun achievement to keep track of!

Check out this post for how to track your XP and check your fluency level on Duolingo!

How to Get Your Duolingo Monthly Badge Quickly

There are tons of ways to earn XP super fast (check out this post for more ideas) and since you are on a time crunch to earn your Monthly Badge, you’ll definitely want to utilize some of those hacks.

If you’re like me and consistency is a struggle, here are the 3 fastest ways to get your Duolingo Monthly Badge if you only have a few days left until the challenge is over.

1. Complete All Levels of Match Madness

In the League tab, you can find the Match Madness Challenge. It’s not always available and it will tell you how long it is going to be there.

You need 30 Gems for each level or to be a Super Duolingo subscriber to participate.

Each level you have a certain amount of time to match words to their translations, and you can choose to buy time boosts or row blasts (gets rid of one row of matches for the whole level) with gems to make sure you earn all your XP.

The reason why Match Madness earns you so much XP so fast is that you can do it as many times as you want until the Match is over.

Each level also gives you more XP than the last level. For example, level one earns you 40 XP, level 2 50 XP, and so on, until you get to the highest level. That’s when you can just keep repeating that level as much as you want and continue earning that number of XP each time you complete the level!

2. Earn & Use XP Boosts

Although you can’t always predict when you’ll earn an XP Boost, if you get the notification that you’ve earned one, make sure to do as many lessons as you can in the time period that it gives you!

For example, after earning my daily XP goal, I was notified that for the next 30 minutes, all the XP I earned in lessons would be doubled.

However, about an hour later, I was offered an XP Boost after finishing a lesson, and that XP Boost was only for the next 15 minutes.

If you have your notifications on for Duolingo, it should let you know when the “Early Bird Reward” XP Boost opens up and you can use that to earn double the XP.

3. Test Out of Units

I don’t recommend doing this in a language that you are new in, but if you have been learning for a while and just are starting on Duolingo, or if you are already fluent in a language, this is a super-easy way to get XP quickly!

With the Duolingo Update, you now test out of Units by scrolling down on your Duolingo path until you see a button that says “Jump Here?”

Once you click on that, it will ask you if you want to jump to that Unit, and then you will take a test to see if you’re ready. When I took the test, it was allowing for 5 mistakes, but Duolingo is known to change this often.

To jump up one Unit from where I was earned me 50XP, so I tried to skip two units to see if it would give me more XP, but I was only rewarded 50XP.

So to get the most out of testing out of Units, make sure to do one at a time so you earn 50XP each time.

Also, these lessons are obviously going to be slightly longer and more difficult since you are skipping a whole level and earning a lot of XP at once.

Have you earned any Monthly Badges? Was it worth it for you? Let me know in the comments!