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Duolingo adds French and German to its short story library

You can listen to twenty new mini-episodes for each.

Six months ago, language learning service Duolingo introduced new mini-morsels of content called Stories. They walked users through short tales that would ideally be more organic than scripted conversations. Today, the service announced it's expanded beyond Spanish and Portuguese by adding 20 Stories each in French and German.

Duolingo launched Stories as an experiment, as its team points out in an August update, so they aren't sure when (or if) they'll add more languages. Expanding up to four is a good sign, though, and shows promise for the service's experiments beyond typical lessons. Earlier this month, Duolingo launched a podcast focusing on Spanish-language non-fiction stories, which can be found on iTunes, Google Play Music, Spotify and elsewhere. Stories remain on the Duolingo site, but as it's still in beta, they don't add XP for participating -- they're just for your own learning pleasure.