Clare Henney: Hooked on Duolingo

A few weeks ago I was talking to a friend from France who commented on how I am obsessed with learning a different language. While it is true that I am interested in learning a new one, I’m not obsesses to the point that I would spend so much to take classes. I have, however, tried to learn in other ways: I bought books, audio lessons and even desktop programs to learn. Unfortunately, I haven’t had much success learning with them. Enter Duolingo. I read about this online and it was called the best mobile app for learning a new language. Naturally I had to try it! I can’t say that I am good already but I love that the app not only teaches you how to read the language you want to learn but also how to speak it. I love the feature where you can speak the words/sentences and have the app rate it.

The lessons start with basic words and phrases and then move on to other topics that will help you with sentence construction. I haven’t completed the entire thing yet so my rating on how effective it is for me is still up in the air. BUT, it is fun to use and the recall from the lessons is actually easier than anything else that I’ve tried.

Right now I’m learning Spanish but I would like to move on to French in the future. I hope that the app can have more languages soon because I’d love to learn Mandarin and Korean as well (yeah right, like I can learn all those languages – who am I, Jose Rizal?). In case I wasn’t clear: I love this app!

Photo Source: Wikipedia