The Best Language Learning Apps (and Why Most Don’t Work)

when I graduated from college I could not speak a single foreign language I mean nothing and now I speak fluent French Spanish Arabic and Mandarin prove it and in this video talk about what those apps are and why you should use them the best app for absolute beginners maybe you're just starting to learn a new language maybe the idea of learning a language is sort of daunting maybe you're not even sure what language you want to learn rest easy my friends there's an app for that du lingo you're probably already familiar with dual lingo it's free and it's very useful although not for the reason you might expect dual lingo best feature is that it will help you answer some very important questions about yourself number one are you committed to learning a language over the long term number two can you commit 20 minutes every day to studying and number three most importantly do you actually enjoy this and of course we want the answer to all those questions to be a resounding yes because if it's not honestly why waste your time or your money on a more advanced product so give dual lingo two weeks to dip your toe in the water with Italian or Swahili or Klingon whatever you're into and then ask yourself those three questions and if the answers are yes awesome congratulations let's talk about some apps that can help you learn much much faster the best app for allaround language learning I've got a hot take on this so stay with me almost all the bigname language apps pitch themselves as a One-Stop shop for language learning they cover vocab grammar pronunciation Etc and all those apps operate in more or less the same way they teach you set words and phrases that get more and more complex over time and then you get little tool tips on screen that kind of explain what's going on and listen that's not a bad way to learn in theory it's how every kid learns to speak their native language right but here's the problem those apps are all visual they require you to stay constantly engaged with your screen you can't do anything else but sit and tap and after 20 or 50 or 100 hours that can get pretty boring so what happens instead of using your phone to study you open up Instagram you check your Tik Tok you like comment and subscribe to my channel whatever you're going to lose focus and get distracted and that is the ultimate progress killer so what should you do use an audio-based app because if you're listening as you learn you can do something genuinely enjoyable like going for a walk in the park at the same time now that may sound quaint but hear me out because that little bit of physical activity can make a world of difference why because it will help you stay relaxed in both body and mind and research has proven time and again that someone who is in a relaxed State as they learn will understand New Concepts much faster and retain far more information over time so there's my hot take so which audio-based app is the best well you've got two apps to choose from and they're a little different first is language transfer this series is 100% free and you can choose to learn nine different languages from the absolute beginner level each lesson features the voices of a teacher and a student so it's a little bit like listening in on a private class the only drawback to language transfer is that there aren't that many lessons even the most complete courses have less than 12 hours of content so unfortunately your progress is somewhat limited app number two is pimsler which is similar to language transfer in some way but it's got many more languages to choose from far more content and a lot of supplemental tools like vocab quizzes and flashcards that can help you make progress faster pinsler does require a monthly subscription I think it's worth it but I'll put a link for a 7-Day free trial in the description box below check it out and let me know what you think the best app for building your vocabulary sometimes it's just about memorizing more words so let's talk about an app that can help you do that as quickly and effectively as possible and again it's free anky is the OG of flash card apps it's been around for almost 20 years and it's a Workhorse here's why if you choose you can of course use anky to create your own flash cards and that's deeply useful in its own right but here's the secret sauce anky allows users to upload their flashcard decks to a portal called anky web and then any other user can then download that deck onto their own device and because anky decks are infinitely customizable there are tons of fantastic decks out there that you can download without spending a dime for example here's a deck that I use for studying Japanese it's got native audio each card has a nice photo and there's even a breakdown of the kanji for poor souls like me who haven't yet memorized all 10,000 of them now again there is the issue of can you sustain this for the long term because even the best flash cards can get tedious after a few months but there is actually a flashcard listening hybrid platform that can help you stay focused for the Long Haul the best app for building your vocabulary listening mode so we've talked about how visual apps are inherently challenging to use longterm but we've also talked talked about how flash cards are the most effective way to memorize information I believe the Greeks called that a paradox but there is one app that offers a solution it's called gloss and it's basically an audio flashcard system gloss operates on a pretty simple concept you hear a phrase in English and then 2 seconds later you hear a native speaker recite that same phrase in your target language I'm going to watch it must the phrases are simple in the beginning and get more complex over time that's really it there are some bells and whistles but but that's the juice and it's extremely useful don't make the mistake of thinking that more features means a better product it doesn't simple and effective that's what we're looking for my only caveat with glosa is that it is not for absolute beginners because it doesn't include explanations and you're learning complete sentences right off the bat you want to have a basic handle on your target language before diving in but after that by all means the best app for improving your speaking skills a lot of language learning apps have a feature that lets you record yourself speaking and then supposedly the app can analyze your speech and tell you if your pronunciation is off it doesn't work no app can reliably correct your pronunciation yet it's probably coming soon but we're not there now so if you want to improve your speaking skills in a new language or simply get better at making natural conversation you need to talk with another human and the easiest way to do that is via a language exchange platform what is that it's an app or a website that connects you with people from other parts of the world who can effectively tutor you in their native language it's one of the internet's great gifts to the modern world now there are two ways to go about using a language exchange platform the free method and the paid method in the free method you set up a conversation exchange with another person I.E you teach them your language they teach you their language and if you want to go this route your best option is hello talk it's got a massive user base and a very active community so generally speaking it's pretty easy to set up an exchange but of course you will need to spend half your time teaching your partner in the paid method you pay someone an hourly rate to speak with you and teach you in my opinion it's absolutely worth the money because you can schedule lessons whenever you want and the teachers are usually experienced and therefore much better and if you want to go this route I would recommend using preply in my experience it has better teachers than some similar sites and you can also sign up for group classes which are great if you feel like a one-on-one lesson might be a little intense which they definitely can be the best app to improve your reading skills but maybe you're more interested in learning to read a new language versus speaking it well thankfully there's a whole subset of apps dedicated to developing reading skills and the best of these is belinga basically it gives you parallel versions of a text in English and in whatever language you're learning there's a massive library of reading material to choose from everything from kids stories to newspaper articles to classical literature and there are some Nifty features like being able to listen to native speakers read stories out loud but on the whole it's all about highquality parallel translation the best best app for becoming fluent so how do you become fluent in other words truly comfortable in a new language no more translating in your head no more I'm sorry could you repeat that it just flows input input input expose yourself to your new language as much as you can and in my opinion the easiest way to do that is by listening to podcasts but here's where most people go wrong you can't just passively listen to something as you go about your day you need to be constantly looking up words and phrases that you don't understand and thankfully that's not hard to do just open up Google translate and use the voice to text feature that's it the app automatically records your search history so you can easily review everything later on and just to be clear Google translate today is hugely different from what it was even 5 years ago as of this February it started to really take advantage of linguistic Ai and that's made it much more accurate and useful is it perfect no so you should still double check your definitions with a native speaker by using one of the language exchange platforms that we talked about earlier for more language learning tips be sure to hit that subscribe button and if you have any questions or comments about language learning apps please let me know in the comments I will do my level best to respond thanks for watching and see you soon

Channel: Brian Wiles

Views: 1,544,068

Keywords: best language app, best spanish app, best french app, learn spanish app, learn mandarin app, learn french app, better than duolingo, duolingo vs memrise, learn arabic app, best language app review, does duolingo work?, learn spanish fast, learn french fast, language app comparison, best language learning app 2024, learn chinese app, language app reviews, how to learn a language fast, best way to learn a language, do language apps work, brain wiles language

Id: U_SAcVGFpag

Length: 9min 10sec (550 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 25 2023