Does Duolingo Have Kazakh? No. How to Learn It Instead

Does Duolingo offer anything close to Kazakh?

Partly, from two directions.

Russian is the practical one: it's used officially alongside Kazakh, it's everywhere in Almaty and Astana, and Kazakh uses the same Cyrillic plus nine letters. But a Russian course teaches you no Kazakh: the grammar is completely different, and apart from loanwords so is the vocabulary.

Turkish is the relative. Both are Turkic, built by adding suffixes to a root, and some basic words match: бір (bir) and Turkish bir mean one, көз (köz) and göz mean eye. But they belong to different branches, and a Turkish speaker won't follow a Kazakh conversation without study. Babbel and Busuu don't offer Kazakh either (checked November 2026).

How to learn Kazakh with Qlango

Qlango teaches Kazakh at A1 and A2, the first two levels of the CEFR scale. At these levels you introduce yourself, talk about daily life in simple sentences and get through everyday exchanges.

A lesson gives you short example sentences in Kazakh Cyrillic with the translation in the language you learn from, and you answer them in different ways, such as flashcards, picking one of two answers, matching pairs, putting scrambled words in order, writing what you hear and writing the translation yourself. Each example is read aloud by an AI voice, and you can slow it down to hear қ against к. When you finish a lesson, it comes back after one, two, four and eight days and then once more, and any example you needed a hint for returns in harder questions later.

You also choose the language you learn from: English or your own native language.

Nine letters Russian doesn't have

Kazakh Cyrillic has 42 letters: the 33 of Russian and nine of its own.

Kazakh vowels come in back and front pairs (а and ә, о and ө, ұ and ү, ы and і), and a word's vowels decide the form of each suffix. In native words қ and ғ go with back vowels, к and г with front ones: "to the city" is қалаға (qalağa), "to the house" үйге (üige).

Kazakh is also moving to a Latin alphabet, in stages: the decision was taken in 2017, and the planned letters have been revised more than once since. Most books, newspapers and websites still use Cyrillic, so start there.

Your first Kazakh words

Kazakh has two words for "you": сен (sen) for friends, family and children, сіз (siz) for older people and anyone you don't know well. The polite phrases above go with сіз. Our full guide to learning Kazakh covers the sounds, vowel harmony and a four-week plan.

FAQ

Is Kazakh on Duolingo?

No. As of November 2026, Duolingo has no Kazakh course from English or from any other language.

What is the best app to learn Kazakh?

It depends on what you need. If you want a course organised by CEFR level, in Cyrillic from the first lesson, with a fixed review schedule, Qlango teaches Kazakh at A1 and A2. Duolingo, Babbel and Busuu don't offer Kazakh (checked November 2026).

Is there a free app to learn Kazakh?

Qlango is free to download on iPhone and Android, and you can start your first Kazakh lesson without creating an account. It also works in your browser.

How do I start learning Kazakh?

Learn the alphabet first, a weekend if you read Russian and about a week if you don't. Then greetings, numbers and the endings for "in", "to" and "from", reviewed on a schedule.

Will Duolingo add Kazakh?

We can't say. Duolingo adds and removes courses over time, so check its catalogue if you're reading this much later.

Learning Kyrgyz, Kazakh's closest relative? See does Duolingo have Kyrgyz. Or browse every language Duolingo doesn't teach and compare Qlango and Duolingo. Your first Kazakh lesson takes about five minutes.