Duolingo

Today I’m introducing another one of my favourite language learning apps. Duolingo is awesome, because it teaches you not just vocabulary, but also how to build sentences including the articles, tenses and other grammar rules.
It’s easily recognisable because it uses this adorable little green owl as a mascot.

You can study 23 languages including Hawaiian, Welsh, Hebrew, Latin, Indonesian, Navajo, Esperanto or Scottish Gaelic but also High Valyrian or Klingon. If you are a non-native English speaker (and crazy enough), you can practise English while learning Spanish for instance.

It’s super easy and intuitive. You just choose a language you would like to learn and decide if you want to start from the beginning or take a placement test in case you have some experience with the language. At first, you are introduced to some basic vocabulary using pictures and soon you’ll start to put them into simple sentences. It is possible to practise listening, speaking, reading and writing skills. There are multiple layers in every lesson, which are divided according to various topics (either grammatical or semantic).

Duolingo uses a freemium model, which means that you can use it for free or sign up for premium membership and unlock some extra functions.

You can set your daily goal, come back any time and practise what you already know.

They are trying to make learning fun. I bet some of the example sentences will make you giggle.

I use it for Norwegian these days. In the past, it came in handy when I needed to quickly refresh my Japanese, Russian and Spanish knowledge and check how much I understand.

When you focus on the achievements, it feels more like a game than studying.

Memrise

First I want to talk about an app, that taught me hundreds of words when I was trying to learn Japanese, helped me pass exams and in the end graduate university successfully.

It is called “Memrise” and you can use it on your laptop or smartphone. First, you need to create an account and enter your native language. Then you click on “Courses” and select a language you would like to learn. Some of the courses were created by the team of Memrise and some of them by other users of the app.

I know just the English and Japanese sections. Concerning Japanese, my classmates and I just put in the vocabulary and other things we had to learn by heart, so it would be easier for us to prepare for an exam. Regarding the English section, the options are endless. You can learn vocabulary from a certain level (A1-C2), from various textbooks, topics (food, travelling, business, phrasal verbs, irregular verbs,...) or to prepare for specific English proficiency exams (FCE, CAE, TOEIC,...) and so on.

If you don’t want to study a language, there are also other possibilities, such as literature, maths, science, history, etc. or just general memory training.

When you click on a course, you will see all the levels included. The levels are represented by pots, in which you will start to grow your knowledge.

Course -> Level 1 -> Learn these words

They will introduce the vocabulary first. Then you will practise by reading, listening and writing (in some cases also speaking I guess). If you want to practise the pronunciation more, you can always repeat the word aloud.

The button “help me remember this” sometimes provides some kind of strategy, how to remember a certain word.

Then you will slowly plant and grow each new word in your mind. You can come back any time and revise.

Especially if you are a beginner or your language level is quite low, always choose a course that includes an audio file with pronunciation.

It might seem complicated described like this, but believe me, it is in fact pretty intuitive.

When you become more familiar with the app, you can also create your own courses and packages with vocabulary, that will be personalised.

This is how you see your profile with all your courses (you need to scroll down) and words learned. Mine says: learning 27 courses with 8642 words learned. I don’t know how this insane number happened.

I don’t know what else to say.
Go and try it!