Aspiring Spanish speakers are flocking to learn the language in the wake of Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl LX halftime show.
A spike in Duolingo activity preceding the much-heralded all-Spanish set hadn’t changed much by Tuesday, though the language-app company acknowledged it is too soon to know whether that will stick.
“Is this what a one-night stand feels like?” Duolingo quipped on X about whether the interest would translate to an actual relationship.
The initial stats were promising, as indicated by postgame Google search trends reported by the website Canada Sports Betting. Surveying several Google Trends search terms referencing Bad Bunny and “learn Spanish,” oddsmakers detected “major spikes in Spanish-related curiosity,” the site reported. This showed a 122% increase in searches for “learn Spanish” in the U.S. during the 24 hours following the Super Bowl, and a 96% increase in Canada.
New Hampshire led the U.S. in “curiosity score” for a search surge for “Bad Bunny lyrics” and “Bad Bunny translation,” followed by Rhode Island, Maine, Pennsylvania, and a tie for Colorado and Kentucky for relevant variations on those terms.
People were cramming ahead of Sunday’s performance even before the Puerto Rican performer, whose given name is Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, joked on “Saturday Night Live” in October that viewers had “four months to learn” the language.
The quip fired up fans and foes, with adherents scrambling to learn enough Spanish to at least follow along, often using Bad Bunny’s lyrics to teach themselves — though the language company Babbel noted lessons might not apply in daily life — and a number of conservatives upset at the thought of a 13-minute English-free song set. Bad Bunny’s historic Grammy album of the year win as the first Spanish-language album to win the honor fueled even more enthusiasm among the faithful.
As many as 60 million people in the U.S. already speak Spanish, including 42 million at home, according to data from the Instituto Cervantes. In fact, U.S. Spanish speakers outnumber those in Spain and is on track to be second only to Mexico by 2060.
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