It’s the digital age with most of the things easily done on smartphones, the days of in-class learning is becoming irrelevant. Here is a list of language learning mobile apps.
Memrise
Memrise is fun platform. One can get standardized courses based on popular keywords. E.g. a French translation of 50 Shades books.
Memrise relies on creating funny or bizarre associations with the studied words. Courses use memes and other means designed to playfully help remember the vocabulary.
The power of Memrise also lies in the spaced repetition algorithm which calculates when and how often you should review each word and the app will send you reminders when it’s time to review.
Duolingo
This is arguably one of the best apps on this list. It was developed by Luis von Ahn who successfully merged gamification and learning addicting people to languages and producing an app with over 100 million users.
Duolingo courses are created by native speakers themselves which empowers communities and language passionate people to get involved.
Duolingo has an array of languages including German and Irish.
HelloTalk
HelloTalk is an app like Whatsapp where one can learn a new language by communicating—chatting—with native speakers.
Users can correct each other’s messages with an in-built correction tool. The app also has an integrated translation system to help you avoid those moments when you really want to communicate something but just lack the one word that gives the sentence it’s proper meaning.
You can star favorite phrases for recalls. To help you with conversation motivation you can also arranged language exchanges with lengths defined by different parameters like time, number of exchanged messages or characters.
Mindsnacks
Mindsnacks is like a game. Each out of seven languages they teach comes with eight or nine tiny games are designed to help you learn vocabulary, grammar, practice your listening.
Mindsnacks monitors your progress so you can clearly see how much more learning you need to achieve proficiency in every skill. It’s so fun that you can go back to play the games even after learning the languages.
The basic download is free, but it comes a pay-wall for some games.
Busuu
Busuu offers full courses in 12 languages. The app is free but to unlock most of the features and course materials you have to pay a certain amount pay month.
Busuu takes you through learning individual words to simple dialogues and questions about the dialogues all of which include audio where you can listen to native pronunciation.
Busuu comes with a “travel course” for people traveling abroad who want to earn specific basics quickly.
