Hello,
A few alternatives to Duolingo (which hasn’t been that good for a while now)
So here are some tips
- Drops app - Originally from Estonia, now a Kahoot! company which is from Norway. In few minutes a day for unpaid version it builds your vocabulary and you can also search by the topic. They offer wide range of languages. They also support Ukraine.
Link: https://languagedrops.com/
- Babbel - Most widely known subscription-based app where you learn with language professionals. Origin in Germany.
Link: https://www.babbel.com/
- Preply - Tutoring platform focused on languages originating in Ukraine. It is like a marketplace where tutors offer their language services and you can book tutor for language you want to learn.
Link: https://preply.com/
- Lingoda - German online language school
Link: https://www.lingoda.com/
- Busuu - they are from Spain but main hub is now in UK. Self-led language app in short lessons.
Link: https://www.busuu.com/
https://www.memrise.com/ is British
Feel free to share more if you have them and/or your experience with the ones above
Babbel is great. Made the switch quite some time ago already when Duolingo decided to cater to Vladolf Putler’s homophobic censorship and removed all LGBTQ+ references from their language courses for Russian users instead of just pulling out of the market where they don’t even make any money.
Thanks Blaze I needed this thread!
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Not really the same type of app as Duolingo, but here In France we have the Assimil Method (En). It has existed since 1929, using books, 33t longplays, then tapes, CDs, USB key, MP3s and online access.
BTW, if you own a free library card, at least if you’re living in Paris no idea about other cities, you have access to a few online methods for free through your Public Library portal (link in French). Also, next to these full online methods (no need to go to the library borrow anything) there are also many traditional books/physical methods one can borrow for free from the libraries.
Those online lessons are a neat feature many Parisians don’t even know it’s included with their free library card.
As a matter of fact, the city of Paris offers quite a few various online formations entirely free, in many domains ranging from cooking to writing novels, painting, playing the music, sketching, and so on. Alas, like most things public it’s kind of a mess, and one will need to do some hunting.
I really like the Assimil method of learning. I find it is more organic than Duolingo or flashcards. It makes you more proficient in conversation early than learning a whole lot of vocabulary.
My uni also offered a Dutch course with a similar style to Assimil. Loved learning it, although it is quite similar to German so it was actually super easy. No offence to you Dutch folk, but the way you pronounce your G is just terrible. xD
I really like the Assimil method of learning. I find it is more organic than Duolingo or flashcards. It makes you more proficient in conversation early than learning a whole lot of vocabulary.
Indeed. It gives stronger fundamentals. I much prefer it to Duolingo myself which I find a bit too focused on the gamification of the learning through their system of badges, rewards and leagues. Whereas Assimil has none of that (at least last time I checked). It’s also much, much older than Duolingo something I’m afraid many of our younger people may feel awkward to be seen using the same method their (great-)great-grand-parents could have used.
That said, no matter how excellent the method, the best way to learn is still to immerse yourself in the language and live it.
I’m just posting here to write: Thank you! I saved your post and upvoted it. This is gold!
While probably not for everyone, my preferred solution was always a flash card app like Anki or similar.
There are many shared flash card decks for many languages and topics. I’ve also always felt that being able to modify the flash cards for my own needs was very important.
I want to add a fun (at least for me) way to use flash cards:
I take a songtext in the language I want to learn, feed it to an LLM with the prompt:
List every word in this text in column A in a .csv-file. Don’t list a word that is already listed. Translate every word and write the translation in column B. Check, if every word of the text is listed once in column A. If it isn’t, add it and translate it.
I then feed this .csv-file into the flashcard app VocableTrainer (available on F-Droid) and learn those words. After that, I am happy to sing along to a song I now know the meaning of. Songs stay in my head very easy and so do those new learned words.
(The prompt might not be quite right, I talk German with my LLM and tried to roughly translate what I normaly write. Just check if it works and adjust it.)
Would be great, if someone could programm such a function into a vocab-trainer.
I’m pretty sure Mango Languages goes here. https://mangolanguages.com/
Hands down the best free Greek course I ever came across, can’t recommend it enough for anyone interested in Greek.
I’ve been learning Spanish, and it’s hands down the best language course of any kind I’ve ever used, and I already speak five languages.
Completely free (funded by donations, I’ve been donating $5 a month for several years now) and you can use it on YouTube, SoundCloud, or the excellent smartphone app.
of these memrise seems the best to me. no fancy animation, you have to wait for (unlike drops), it works well in browser, and gives you a lot of freedom.
plus has the least awful/annoying free trial of all :)) (i ignored all, that wanted my credit card first.)
i do second the notion, that flashcards really do not need to be a subscription model, anki for example is great, there are a lot more apps like it, flashcards can be realised as a simple python script even!
really anything aside of vocab repetion is what makes these services worth it. and i guess i like the conversations feature memrise offers. (i played around with one of the big languages. i’m sure the ai features are clunkier with less popular langs?
babble of course is amazing. really anything that pairs you with natives is s-tier.
Any VHS in Germany. They do online courses that include an app that you can keep using after the course has finished. The VHS in Neukölln is particularly good.
But who owns a VHS these days? I’llseemyself^out
I guess I set myself up for that one.
I have really enjoyed busuu
Annoying that I just paid for a year of Duolingo before this whole Trump thing came to be, but after it expires I will for sure be moving to Babbel
