If you are going on vacation outside of Brazil soon, or dreaming of becoming a polyglot without leaving home, apps to study a new language are what you need.
However, with the diversity of offers, it is difficult to choose just one.
Therefore, to help you understand more about the apps to study a new language, continue reading this article that was prepared especially for you!
The best apps for learning a new language
Duolingo, the reference for learning a foreign language
Do we even need to introduce Duolingo? Launched in 2011, the service now boasts that it’s “the world’s most popular language learning platform.”
The app encourages its 300 million users to earn points as lessons are learned and exercises are completed.
The learning method is simple but effective: it is based on check cards and the spaced repetition technique – the cards you know least will be presented to you more frequently.
From the configured application you have the opportunity to learn German, English, Spanish, Italian and French.
If you have a good foundation in English, more courses are available for you in this language: Korean, Chinese, Japanese, Dutch, Irish, Danish, Swedish, Turkish, Esperanto, Norwegian, Ukrainian, Russian, Polish, Welsh, Hebrew, Vietnamese, Hungarian, Swahili or Romanian.
Every day, Duolingo invites you to set a goal, quantified in terms of time: you can spend between 5 and 20 minutes a day learning new words in the language or languages of your choice.
Babbel, lesser known but equally effective
Perhaps a little less well-known than the previous app, Babbel remains a reference for learning a foreign language.
If you have maintained the school habit of expressing your language level according to the Common European Framework of Reference (A1, A2, B1, B2, etc.), be aware that the application also refers to it.
Once again, Babbel works on the principle of repetition: in lessons, the app first presents vocabulary words, which you will have to write correctly.
In the free version, you can access each first class of the different courses; for the following ones, a subscription of one to 12 months is required.
With Babbel, you can learn the following languages: English, Spanish, German, Italian, French, Swedish, Polish, Dutch, Indonesian, Turkish, Danish, Norwegian, and Russian.
Speekoo, playful learning with cultural anecdotes
In Speekoo, there is no text with images to select or summary to write. The app scrupulously prefers to respect one principle: each card you have learned allows you to understand the next one presented to you.
Gradually, the words you learn separately allow you to form sentences, always according to the good old repetition technique.
In addition to English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese and Greek, the app teaches Chinese, Japanese, Russian and Arabic, while maintaining the alphabet you already know. Throughout the lessons, you can unlock cultural anecdotes.
An “in your pocket” tab groups together vocabulary words, grammar notions and the pronunciation of words already found in the app. Currently, more than 900,000 people have registered on the app.
Busuu, to train with several
The free version of Busuu allows you to take courses in one of the languages available in the app: English, Spanish, German, Italian, Polish, Japanese, Russian, Chinese, Portuguese, Turkish or Arabic.
Each lesson begins with a deck of cards to acquire vocabulary on a different topic. Depending on the topics chosen, a dialogue puts the learned words into context or a memorization exercise is proposed.
