I come here today to rave about two particular resources that are available for those of us who want to learn a second language. The first is an app that is available for free in the android market (and probably for iOS as well). The second is an online resource that is also available for iPhone owners in app form (which is not me!).
Check out the if you would like to learn English, German, Spanish, Italian, French, Portuguese, Swedish, Turkish, Dutch, Polish, Indonesian, Norwegian, or Danish. I had tolerable success with the Babbel app last year when I went to Paris. As in, I wanted to learn enough French to be able to order food and water in a restaurant. And I was able to! They didn’t even switch to English when they were speaking to me! It might have been because I pretended to have a German accent whenever I spoke an English word, but whatev…
Had I actually regularly used the Babbel app, I am sure that my successes with the language would have been much better. I have recently decided to learn Spanish and have started using the app for that as well. The app is mainly useful for learning new vocabulary. There is a vocabulary manager and a feature for testing your pronunciation of the different words. You also have to learn how to spell them. On the Babbel website, there are also several different grammar courses that are offered, but they cost money, so I haven’t tried them out (sorry. I’m cheap).
is an online resource that I’ve just discovered and am super psyched about. This is helpful for those who would like to learn German, English, Spanish, French, Italian, or Portuguese. It is built up like a game. You have to do exercises to gain points. You learn a lot more grammar than with the Babbel app. I’ve just completed the first two lessons in Spanish and I believe I’ve learned more about Spanish grammar during the past couple hours than I’ve learned in the whole last month of using the Babbel app. If you speak the language to some extent, you can also try to test out of the different levels. I tried to test my German and actually failed. =( Shame on me! Forgive me for translating “I want you to be my friend” as “Ich möchte mit dir befreundet sein” instead of “Ich möchte, dass du meinen Freund bist”. Sorry! Didn’t know you were going to get all literal on me. And I STILL think that my translation is something that a German person is more likely to say. But now I am stubborn andwill probably complete all of the German levels just to prove once and for all that I can indeed speak the language.
And, if I may add a personal geek factor, the website design and software design for Duolingo is absolutely gorgeous.
I’d also like to learn Russian some time down the line (I’m starting with Spanish because I’m guessing that it is easier), but I’m not sure how to go about that best. When the time comes, I may check out another online resource, which does offer Russian. And then I’ll let you know how that goes!