#language apps

[fraisefille33]

I downloaded a new app for learning German because Duolingo actually started driving me insane and I know it’s the jump from most used nouns to just generally whatever nouns they felt like putting on here… But 242 feels a little excessive for one section. Can we not pace this a little slower please? This is just scary 😂.

[foreignfawn]

Question for Language Learners

Imagine you had access to the most perfect language learning program for your target language. What would it look like? What would it have? What would you need?

[h0neytalk]

Mango v. LingQ v. Anki

I’ve been using the above apps for a while now and I couldn’t find a ton of somewhat easy to understand comparisons/explanations of how to use these various cult favorites. I figured I would make one if anyone is wondering where to start or making a departure from Duolingo.

Standard langblr disclaimer: I am ultimately just a person on the internet, I’m not an expert in language learning or a world renowned polyglot. I’m not even an expert in any of these apps/programs. These are all just thoughts and opinions I have about the value of each app to myself as an average consumer trying to learn a language and intended to help other people decide where to spend their time.

Anki

Anki is an open source spaced repetition flashcard program. It has an incredibly loyal fan base of med students and people who just want to learn things. This is also the one I have the least experience with so I recommend diving into forums and other blogs who go in depth on all the ways you can use this program. The web version is completely free and there is an official paid mobile app. There are also unofficial paid apps, this is the source of great drama and discourse and I’m not touching that here. Spaced repetition essentially means that the program will present you with cards at intervals designed to maximize your retention. When you flip over a card, you have four options that boil down to: fail, hard, good, easy. This is how the program determines what to show you and when.

Key Features:

The main draw is obviously the spaced repetition system. It’s much easier and more effective than sorting manually.

Because it’s open source, there is a way to customize the settings and cards to do basically whatever you want. There are also tons of premade decks to import and either use as-is or use as a base.

The online web version is completely free.

You can add really any media type to the cards. You can add sound clips of pronunciations, images, even drawings and diagrams.

Having the four options is particularly useful for the nuances of learning a language. For example, for general vocabulary decks I’ll assign one “point” to general meaning, tense/part of speech, and pronunciation. Getting the general meaning but not the other two means I select “hard” when I flip the card.

Best uses:

Vocab or learning a new alphabet. Specifically for drilling any of those “slippery” words. I don’t know if this happens to anyone else, but there are some vocab words that just refuse to stick with me. I’ve found the Anki SRS does help pin them down.

Potential downsides:

While there are decks to import, there could always be errors that you won’t catch just seeing single vocab words with no context.

The available customization is labor intensive.

The UI for the official app and web version isn’t super slick and intuitive.

Even the best flashcards are ultimately just flashcards and have limits to their usefulness.

Mango

Mango is similar to Babbel or other programs that focus on speaking (and doing so quickly). I much prefer Mango to Babbel or any other similar app and find that it does what it says it will. Languages are split into units. Each unit has chapters and each chapter has lessons. A lesson will start with an optional pre quiz and a brief recording of a conversation that you will be able to follow by the end of the lesson. Each lesson concludes with a listening and reading quiz. It also utilizes spaced repetition and gives you daily flashcards to review.

You learn based on phrases rather than individual words. A long sentence will be presented in its entirety. The lesson will then go through each word individually before combining them into phrases and, finally, the full sentence from the start. Then you will learn vocabulary needed for variations. The activities are fairly standard for a language app: speaking, listening, multiple choice. You can also turn off the interactive feature and have the lesson run as a “speak and repeat” style podcast. It tracks the hours you’ve spent learning a language and there is an activity log, but no in depth stats.

Key features:

It is focused on speaking immediately.

Has a ton of languages and several dialects for those languages.

Focuses on phrases and patterns that are most useful if traveling or having brief, friendly interactions.

Presents information in a digestible way and isn’t overwhelming.

Includes culture and grammar notes.

$12.99 a month but most public libraries and schools give you free access. You can also set up a household account for multiple people and split the cost with friends/family.

The first lesson of any language is free, and some rare and indigenous languages are completely free to access.

Audio is native speakers. When you record yourself, your vocal wave pattern appears that you can compare with the native speaker.

Best uses:

If you are traveling soon and want to navigate basic, friendly interactions, this will get you there quick. Within 1-3 months easily, depending on the language and how often you practice.

I also recommend this as a starting place when you are totally new to a language or to learning a language in general. The structure is excellent for getting a feel for things.

This is also great if you studied a language previously and need to refresh your memory or get back into it.

Potential downsides:

The “record yourself” feature is fairly buggy and often freezes up. It can also be annoying to try and match the timing of the native speaker, but you don’t have to record audio to progress past those lesson points so it isn’t too much of an inconvenience.

It isn’t meant for total fluency. As stated, the lessons (at least that I have done) are focused on speaking while traveling and making small talk. Some of the early lessons teach you to say “sorry, I don’t speak [x]”. Which is very useful if going abroad soon, but less so if you would rather just be able to speak that language.

The regimented nature can make it feel slow/too easy if you are also using other methods.

The review flashcards only have a binary “yes/no” option which feels annoying for longer phrases or after using Anki-style cards.

With any course like this, you aren’t going to have much choice in the vocab you learn or prioritizing topics.

LingQ

I am honestly surprised I don’t see more about this. I think they have been making a bunch of updates recently so maybe the version I’m using is miles above previous ones, but it is shockingly powerful. It’s also the hardest to explain (which may be why I don’t see much written about it and why this is going to be a long section.) LingQ (pronounced “link”) operates on a hybrid comprehensible/massive input model. While Anki prioritizes memorization and Mango priorities speaking, LingQ focuses on comprehension and listening. LingQ is comprised of courses which are made up of lessons. There are pre-built courses made by LingQ but the real goal is to make your own (more on that later).

Each lesson within a course has an audio recording and a written transcript. Words you haven’t seen before are highlighted blue (when you start, that’s every word). You click the word to see the definition and assign it one of 5 statuses: ignore, new, recognized, familiar, learned, or known. “Ignore” is used for things like names or borrowed words, they won’t be counted in your stats. “Known” is for words you knew before seeing them. You likely won’t have any of these if you’re starting a new language with no prior experience. Levels 1-3 highlight the word yellow and it becomes a LingQ. You can create a LingQq using as many words as you want. You can manually change the status of a word when you see it. You can also do various review activities similar to Mango, and if you get a word right twice in a row it will automatically bump up a level. You can always adjust it back down if needed. LingQ is very focused on the value of listening to a language. You can add lessons to playlists and listen to them like a podcast.

My personal favorite part of LingQ is the ability to import lessons. Especially YouTube videos. The site has a browser extension that will import any content in your target language into a lesson as an embedded item. You can then read/listen to/watch that content right in the app and get “credit” for it. LingQ’s statistics are some of the coolest/most motivating I’ve seen. You get coins for completing tasks but those are really just to see a number get bigger. It also tracks the words you’ve read, how many words you know, the hours listened, and speaking/writing if you utilize their tutor marketplace or writing forum.

The free trial is very limited but it’s enough to poke around and get a feel for things before signing up, not necessarily to learn anything substantial. The monthly membership is $12.95 and there’s a $199 lifetime option as well. I definitely recommend spending some time playing around at the free level and then upping to monthly if you like it.

Key features:

The ability to import lessons. It will also create a simplified version of shorter content. This is an AI generated summary of whatever you’ve imported. I use this for videos where natural speaking cadence can make it hard to parse things sometimes. It’s easier/more productive if I know generally what’s going on.

The creation of LingQs. I just think it’s a really cool and useful way to approach comprehensible input. You can visually see the yellow fading as you understand more and more of a lesson.

You can export LingQs to Anki (theoretically). I’ve never done this myself and I’ve seen some forum posts saying it doesn’t work super well all the time but it is a built in feature.

In-depth stats tracking and the ability to consume all the content easily in app. The stats would be annoying if it wasn’t literally easier to watch a video via LingQ than on YouTube.

Community features. There are community challenges (like Duolingo) but also a forum to submit writing that will be corrected by native speakers and a marketplace of tutors to easily sign up for speaking lessons. The forum is free and volunteer based, but scrolling through I didn’t see anyone who didn’t have at least one reply. The tutors are paid at an hourly rate and you can also pay by the word to have them correct written work.

Super flexible. There really isn’t any one right way to use this app so you can structure it however you like and set your own goals/metrics.

Playlists and focus on listening. It really does help to constantly be immersed in what a language sounds like, and being able to read and listen to the same thing has been so nice.

Actually decently helpful emails and not just spam.

Best for:

Hardcore language learners. The app/site provides some guidance on how to get started and the basic idea, but you’ll need to play around with it and spend some time reading forum posts or the emails they send to find what works for you.

Getting to higher levels of fluency after maxing out other apps/self study methods.

People looking to spend a lot of time on language learning because they enjoy it. This isn’t snarky, but there’s a difference between wanting or needing to learn Spanish to communicate at work or on vacation and just really enjoying learning languages. This is an app for language nerds.

Potential downsides:

Very overwhelming. They technically say you can jump right in with 0 knowledge of a language and be good to go, but I think it would be hard to make a lot of progress unless you’ve learned other languages before. If you’re looking to learn a new language for the first time, I recommend starting with Mango to get your bearings.

Doesn’t teach new alphabets. This isn’t a huge issue for Mango since it’s speaking focused, but I wouldn’t jump into Arabic or Russian on LingQ without spending some time learning the alphabet with other methods.

User generated definitions. This is a double edged sword. The definitions being linked to sites like Globse can lead to wrong definitions, but because you’re seeing things in context it’s easier to catch. And looking into what a phrase means is a great way to learn if you are really into languages.

The import feature isn’t 100% perfect when it comes to videos. It will only create a transcript when the video has captions enabled or a transcript provided, otherwise it just shows up as an audio file. It will also sometimes randomly just not be able to import a video which can be annoying, but in the grand scheme of things these are very minor annoyances.

Time commitment. The method doesn’t require a ton of actively sitting down and reviewing vocab or reading new words, but it does assume that you’ll swap out listening to music or podcasts while going about your day with listening to content in your target language. This is all well and good unless you really enjoy listening to specific content while doing tasks or need help not getting distracted. It’s going to be a lot of incomprehensible noise for a while before you can parse it. This might not be a downside as much as something to keep in mind when considering how effective it’s going to be for you.

Not as active of a community. Maybe it’s just for my particular languages, but there definitely aren’t a ton of people actively doing things like challenges. This really doesn’t matter much to me but it could be a bummer if you’re looking for that.

tl;dr just tell me how to learn things

If you need to learn a new alphabet, start with that. Otherwise, Mango to get your bearings, Anki to add to your vocab as you get bored with Mango, and LingQ to realistically get “fluent”. Then start writing and speaking either using tutors or people you know or local language groups.

[wiggispa0fartface]

ever heard of Busuu?

i love it for my German course!

the lessons are short but in-depth

they explain grammar rules and have lessons just for pronunciation and grammar

they teach different dialect from the region (idk how to word it, but they teach you the same words from different countries that speak the same language, in my case they taught me the different way to say Hi in German depending on location)

The focus on authenticity and truly helping you become fluent

There is a community setting where you can correct people and give feedback who are learning your language and they can give you the same (for example I can correct a German speaker on an exercise they did in English and a German speaker can correct me on an exercise i did in german)

And all of it free!! Yes there is pesky ads and such but you get so much out of this app! I recommend it =D ✧,

[bihansthot]

Does anyone have recommendations for a good language app to learn Korean? I didn’t like DuoLingo and found it confusing, a free app would be ideal but I’m not opposed to paying. Also while we’re on the topic who has k-pop recommendations for me? I’m obsessed with Kard but don’t really listen or know anyone else, well I mean I know Black Pink too but haven’t listened to them much. Send me your favorites, bonus points for gorgeous men or women my Kard biases are BM and Jiwoo. I’m usually a Visual Kei and heavy metal girlie but K-pop is damn catchy and they’re all so pretty. What about Ateez? What songs are good? I feel like Mingi is my type so they have my interest and Felix in Stray Kids? I don’t know where to start though, I need someone to baby step me through this one please and thank you 🩷

[scrampled-crow]

Does anyone know any good apps to learn different languages? (Better than duolingo)

[mavkaworld]

As much as I see flaw with doulingo, I see more flaws with the people using it.

There is no app out there that is free that will teach you a language without having you study, take notes, and accept responsiblity for your own learning.

Doing those mini lessons is not enough! No matter how long you take them. They are just giving you practice in said language. You still have to take notes and use the words they give you to create a vocab list that you repeat to yourself. Doulingo just gives you the verbal sound of it and the exercises thats it. Sometimes the damn alphabet. But thats it. You still have to study. You are not studying when doing doulingo, you are exercising the knowledge you were given.

"It literally doesn't teach you anything useful!"

Do you expect it to spoon feed you the information? Take the words and sentence structure it gives you and figure it out! It still has flaw in that area but you gotta remember that it is an app. Not an actual living teacher. It is giving you the basics in a fun and colourful way.

When you open up that app, that you chose, also whip out a pencil and paper and start writing down words and take full advantage of the function where you click on any word and it gives you a translation.

All this is applicable to every other language learning app out there. My favorite is lingQ and I still take notes on what it teaches me. Because thats how you actually learn. You have to train your brain, mouth, and eyes to adjust to your language of choice. A language learning app is a tool, not a teacher.

If you are incapable of taking on such a commitment then don't, it's a free world, just don't put all the blame on an app because it is not responsible for your education as much as you are.

Thank you for coming to my tedtalk.

[lookninjas]

Hey sorry if I've asked this before-- what course are you using to study Latvian? My partner's family were refugees from there and he has tried to study it with a book but didn't get very far.

I'm using the Ling language app. It's something like 50 or 60 for the year subscription. It's not perfect (most voice recordings are AI, and there's a couple mistakes even I've caught), but overall I like it and it does seem mostly accurate. Also, most of the lessons seem to be practical things, like buying clothes in shops or giving directions, and I understand other apps can be more whimsical. I'd say for the price it's a good place to start and get a base vocabulary.

[marilearnsmandarin]

Attention free DOT users!

The app is giving 3 days of free premium for spring festival!

Go favourite a bunch of articles to read later!

Yes, I want to read about the sleeping posture of giraffes, thank you.

(until now, articles favourited before premium was implemented are available for reading, I'm hoping it stays that way)

Also, they have recently lifted the limit on number of articles free users can read per day, as long as you max out the exercises on the last 2 articles on your "learning path" or whatever they call it.

[languagexs]

A Beginner's Guide to Learning Tagalog Language Fast and Easy

Tagalog, an Austronesian language spoken mainly in the Philippines, is steadily growing in popularity among English speakers looking to learn a second language. In this beginner’s guide, we’ll look at why Tagalog is relatively easy for English speakers to pick up, provide tips for learning it faster, and highlight some of its key features. We’ll also explore resources for accelerating your…

[redwylde]

Does anyone know of any (ideally free) language resource apps or sites as an alternative to Duolingo?

I do not care for their decision to lay off their staff on favour of AI but I do miss working on languages.

[fraisefille33]

I knew Duolingo was bad but I didn’t realize it was “I learnt more German in 4 days on a different app than I did in 4 years on Duolingo” bad..

[nfinitefreetime]

FRIENDSHIP ENDED WITH BUSUU

… now Lingodeer is my best friend. (My life has just changed; while checking to make sure that I was using the right color to cross out the Busuu app, I discovered that new friend Salman in that famous picture is the guy on the left, not the guy on the right, and for some reason I can’t handle that.) But anyway. The last time I rattled on about Arabic apps on here I was already starting to sour…

[lingocurio]

Just 10 minutes a day! Just do it!

https://clips.twitch.tv/CuriousDaintyJamCharlieBitMe-PmtefjGMrGFJCUJv

[spruciewyvern]

Wanted to add on a piece for people who were in the Esperanto course on Duolingo like me! Lernu!: Lernu is a great site for learning Esperanto if anybody wanted to! It's a multilingual resource as well, I'm not too sure which languages it supports while learning, however.

Duolingo Sucks, Now What?: A Guide

Now that the quality of Duolingo has fallen (even more) due to AI and people are more willing to make the jump here are just some alternative apps and what languages they have:

"I just want an identical experience to DL"

Busuu (Languages: Spanish, Japanese, French, English, German, Dutch, Italian, Portuguese, Chinese, Polish, Turkish, Russian, Arabic, Korean)

"I want a good audio-based app"

Language Transfer (Languages: French, Swahili, Italian, Greek, German, Turkish, Arabic, Spanish, English for Spanish Speakers)

"I want a good audio-based app and money's no object"

Pimsleur (Literally so many languages)

Glossika (Also a lot of languages, but minority languages are free)

*anecdote: I borrowed my brother's Japanese Pimsleur CD as a kid and I still remember how to say the weather is nice over a decade later. You can find the CDs at libraries and "other" places I'm sure.

"I have a pretty neat library card"

Mango (Languages: So many and the endangered/Indigenous courses are free even if you don't have a library that has a partnership with Mango)

"I want SRS flashcards and have an android"

AnkiDroid: (Theoretically all languages, pre-made decks can be found easily)

"I want SRS flashcards and I have an iphone"

AnkiApp: It's almost as good as AnkiDroid and free compared to the official Anki app for iphone

"I don't mind ads and just want to learn Korean"

lingory

"I want an app made for Mandarin that's BETTER than DL and has multiple languages to learn Mandarin in"

ChineseSkill (You can use their older version of the course for free)

"I don't like any of these apps you mentioned already, give me one more"

Bunpo: (Languages: Japanese, Spanish, French, German, Korean, and Mandarin)