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Recommend me a Language Learning App!
Enc
A Fool with CompassionPronouns: He, Him, HisRegistered User regular
A Fool with CompassionPronouns: He, Him, HisRegistered User regular
As the title days, for professional development purposes I want to re-learn Spanish as I let it slide after college and could use both in the near future. Anyone have any specific apps or programs they would recommend? Something phone-based and able to work in 30m-1hr chunks would be ideal.
I'm specifically looking for Spanish right now, but apps that also accommodate other languages with the same framework are a plus.
My current tops are Babbel and Rosetta Stone, but I'd love to hear about others or experiences with either.
I'm specifically looking for Spanish right now, but apps that also accommodate other languages with the same framework are a plus.
My current tops are Babbel and Rosetta Stone, but I'd love to hear about others or experiences with either.
Enc on
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Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
I've tried a few before settling on Duolingo.
Babbel I thought was not worth very much. In the trial, it's centered entirely around learning nouns. Like, ok, learning what a cookie is sure is nice, but like, you can't hold a conversation if you know the Spanish names for some foods. I don't know where it picks up to get to verbs and actual sentences, but it wasn't in the trial, and I wasn't going to pay to keep learning what tea and lunch are, and I still can't even have a basic conversation with my coworkers.
I also tried Lindvist. They offer a week trial. It was a little bit better than Babbel, but I found Duolingo is best for me.
Rosetta Stone I did not try, because they didn't offer a trial, and I don't want to spend my money blindly. And absolutely nobody I know has ever used it. At work, it's either Duolingo or Babbel.
Duolingo is free, but you can pay for it if you like. Of course, if you don't, it's a ad supported. If you don't pay the sub, you only get so many lesson retries a day, or so many mistakes you can make before watching an ad. Something like that. Each area has 5 levels, and there are 4-6 lessons in each level. And there are stories, which is more organic. I actually really like the stories, because it coddles you a little less, which makes it harder, and after a certain point everything turns into Spanish. Like, the instructions are in Spanish, so you have to learn what it's asking to answer the question. And it stops giving the option to translate some words, which I really like. Usually you can click or select with your finger a word or small phrase, and it will translate it. It does that less and less the further I've gone, and that I think really helps with the immersion and learning.
What I dislike is that story progress is tied to doing the lessons, and after a while I've found myself just farming easy lessons to get enough crowns to do more stories. And they're super easy, I'm like much further one, and it's asking me about schooling and such.
Also, it's very very focused towards school children, like middle or elementary school. There are TONS of lessons about schools and the like. And that's ok, but I don't work with people who are still in high school, so it's not important at this point. But I do it because it's there and easy.
If you have the time and you're not under pressure, Duolingo is the way to go. But it's very slow. If you want to learn faster, there are faster ways. Up to an hour a day isn't a lot.
After almost a year of doing it daily, more or less, I think I can hold a conversation with a 3 year old. Maybe.
That said, Duolingo isn't great for learning something from scratch, but as a refresher + expansion of your prior learning it's perfectly fine. I just wish I had someone in person to practice it with at all so progress wasn't excruciatingly slow.
If you do subscribe to it, it sounds like it's a lot more flexible, and allows you to test ahead if you remember a fair bit rather than having to grind to new bits.