Whopping 1.45 billion people can speak English, and it makes sense for various reasons: education, tourism, and business. English is an international language, and it is the most spoken language in the US.
That said, if you cannot speak English fluently, don’t worry as I sailed the same boat once. I tried multiple resources and settled on the best one – the language learning apps.
Language learning apps are a great way to kickstart your journey to learning a new language and some of them help you settle quickly and comfortably with the new culture. In my experience, at one point it becomes necessary to learn that language, especially in the US where most brands don’t even offer customer support in other languages.
Well, I said most of them and not all of them. Spectrum is one of the brands offering Spectrum servicio al cliente en español along with great internet and TV services. Airbnb is another brand that offers multilingual customer support because its customers are from across the globe. Anyhow, you won’t be dealing with just these brands so, learning the native language is essential for survival.
So, here you go. I tried multiple language learning apps and compiled a list of just the best ones for you. Without much ado, let’s dive right into them.
Duolingo
Thanks to their great advertisement, you might already have heard of this one here.
Duolingo is one of the best language learning apps that offers more than just languages – music and mathematics. But I will be covering just the languages for today.
So, Duolingo is a bit different from the apps I will mention alongside it. And why is it different?
- It’s fundamentally free (with ads)
- Gamification of lessons is fun
- It has a structured plan for learning
- ChatGPT-powered chatbot for improved learning
It has games that make it fun to learn the subject. You have five lives each day and lose one whenever you answer wrong. Also, it has streaks that quantify your consistency.
Other than that, Duolingo has recently added podcasts to its resources to help you improve your listening skills for a particular language.
One of the best things that I love about Duolingo is that there are valuable tips and suggestions randomly sprinkled around in the app’s interface. You learn by playing puzzles and listening to podcasts. But remember that you have to put in more effort to master the fluency of a particular language, Duolingo (not even the paid version) will not make it easy.
Babbel
Babbel is another great app for learning a new language. It is beginner-friendly and offers well-structured courses for 13 different languages.
The things I like the most about this app are the user interface and the structure of the course. Each lesson is connected with its predecessor (except the first one because of course). The lessons are detailed and the connection creates a chain and makes it effective to learn.
Apart from the lessons, it has vocabulary, listening, and dialogue exercises.
When you’ll kickstart your journey, the app will walk you through some vocabulary-related lessons. You will get to learn new words and their contexts to know when exactly to use that word.
Oh, and another Babbel feature that I like is that the courses are tailored to the user’s native language. For example, if you (like me) are a Spanish speaker, then the French course for you will be different than an English speaker.
As for the pricing, the fully loaded version of the app is $13 a month, and it offers a free trial as well for 7 days with two live classes free.
Lingoda
If you want to skip the fuss of interacting with a bot and want to learn from a (human) language teacher, then Lingoda can be the right fit for you.
Lingoda is one of the best language-learning platforms and is pretty simple to use (if you are not a big introvert). You just have to choose the instructor of your choice and sign up for the class. You will get the necessary study materials to prepare for the lessons and quizzes.
Each instructor has a profile and users rate them after the lessons. It becomes a piece of cake to choose the best ones because the rating given to them is legit. You won’t go wrong because all of the instructors are great and well-trained in teaching new languages.
Overall the app is great but there are some reservations that I should address for you. First up is that since you are learning directly from Zoom, you may run into hiccups if your internet isn’t working fine. The second is the pricing, and it goes up when you are taking 1-1 lessons. If you can afford the pricing and a reliable internet connection then Lingoda is really the best bet for you.
Wrapping Things Up
Let me add a bit of advice for this wrap-up – don’t dive headfirst into buying subscriptions to these apps and learn from people how they learned a new language.
For that, this subreddit is an optimal resource. People share great tips for beginners or even novices. You are going to find all sorts of suggestions ranging from exercises to great movies in that particular language and more.
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