Learning a Language can be a bit difficult if you are at your own without any support from a native speaker. This difficulty is fading away as you now have a number of ways to interact and listen to a language, thanks to technology.
Tips before Starting to Learn any Language
1. Listen a lot to the language you are learning (Youtube, Movies, TV etc)
2. Speak to yourself in the mirror.
3. Translate everyday phrases into your new language.
4. Read, watch and listen to the news in the new language.
5. Whenever possible try to speak with a native speaker and request for feedback.
Luckily you are pretty much at ease, since a lot of apps are being developed for smart phones and tablets to help people with learning a new language on the go. These apps cover a lot of languages and you surely would find them useful.
1. Busuu
Busuu is a community of language speakers where learning is made social through live interactions with native speakers through their video chat application. You can learn from exercise material based on images and sounds which gets marked by the community native speakers. It’s free to use on the web or on your smartphone but you need to pay a little monthly fee to access premium membership additional functionalities and more material.
2. Babbel
Babbel is a fun way to learn everyday conversations in any language. It has a pretty sleek interface with native pronunciations and focuses a lot on reading and writing. It is available for android, iPhone, iPad and web.
3. Voxy
Voxy is a personalized English learning platform which educates you with a course in accordance with your career, lifestyle and education. It provides live tutoring sessions and tests to grade your achievements. It is also available for smartphones and tablets.
4. Wlingua
It is an app for Spanish speakers to learn English through vocabulary, grammar, phrases, readings and much more. It is available for smart phone and tablets.
5. Duolingo
Duolingo makes learning a language a pretty fun task. It’s completely free and the environment for learning is amazing. It boasts a user-base of 10 million users. It maps your skill levels on to a skill tree and allows you to share it with your friends on social media. It is a crowd source website with translation contribution and voting coming from the public. It is available for free for web, smartphone and tablet users.
6. Mindsnacks
Mindsnacks is a group of apps for learning a language while playing games. It teaches you a language while you pop balloons, save a penguins or match words. It is available for smartphones and tablets.
7. Vaughan
Vaughan method is designed by Richard Vaughan, which emphasizes more on the most important language tool: the teacher. It is for the Spanish speakers you are willing to win English verbal agility. Vaughan’s best English courses are available through their interactive application for iphone and android.
8. Learn English by British Council
Learn English program by British Council promotes the learning of English language by offering free apps for mobile devices to learn English vocabulary, practice grammar exercises, listen to and watch audio/video podcasts. The apps are available for iPhone, iPad and Android users.
9. Mosalingua
Mosalingua is a language learning app for people who are interested in learning some European languages (Spanish, French, Italian, German, and Portuguese). It uses a spaced repetition system which keeps reminding you about vocabulary when you are most likely to forget it. The app in available on iStore and Google Play store for iPhone and android users.
10. Binaurality
Binaurality uses dual languages which are played together as audio to teach English to Spanish speakers. It is available on web, iPhone, iPad and android.
You should know that learning a language is no longer a challenge. All you need is motivation and some time to unlock your multi-lingual skills.