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Duolingo: https://www.duolingo.com/ https://www.duolingo.com/ It's not tech-related, but I have achieved near-fluency in one language in less than a year (Dutc
by mrsuprawsm 11y ago
Duolingo: https://www.duolingo.com/ https://www.duolingo.com/
It's not tech-related, but I have achieved near-fluency in one language in less than a year (Dutch), and I'm currently learning 3-4 others. (Russian, German, French, Italian) I find it very effective and easy to fit in around everyday life.
I would definitely recommend it to anyone else seeking to learn languages.
- rahimnathwani 11y agoAre you living in the Netherlands and/or doing any study outside Duolingo?
- mrsuprawsm 11y agoI'm living there, but not doing any study outside of Duolingo. This seems to be sufficient to get by in daily life and social conversation.
- halviti 11y agoYou'll have to eventually study outside duolingo if you are serious about learning a language. I would recommend starting with the duolingo course, completing it, then keeping your tree gold while exploring other learning material. Start with children's books and work your way up. There are also a lot of language exchange chat sites that are good to help you get more comfortable speaking a new language, but you will need a partner to practice with at some point. Also I've found ReadLang (which I found on HN) to be a very helpful tool for faster learning, and I upload the majority of my ebooks into it. I hope this helps.
- rahimnathwani 11y agoThanks. I was curious because I was using Duolingo to help with my (very rusty) Spanish. I could see that it was helping me to recall vocabulary (and some grammar points) but I didn't see how it would help me improve my listening. Reading your comment, I thought you had achieved near-fluency in Dutch with just Duolingo, and thought perhaps there was some functionality I had missed! Thanks for the pointer to ReadLang. The click-to-translate and immediate ability to add to a flashcard list are similar to the features I used most in Pleco (dictionary on steroids) when I first started seriously studying Chinese. I'll give Readlang a try.
- halviti 11y ago"Fluency" is kind of a subjective term. If anyone is curious, as a rule of thumb a duolingo course is sufficient to get you to an A2-B1 language level in reading/listening and around an A1-A2 level in speaking.
- VinzO 11y agoUnfortunately they don't have a course to learn mandarin chinese
- evolvedlight 11y agoI also use Memrise (http://memrise.com http://memrise.com). Using both together seems very effective.
- jacinda 11y agoRocket Languages: http://www.rocketlanguages.com/ http://www.rocketlanguages.com/ I really like Duolingo (especially the fact that it's free) but have been using Rocket Languages for learning German. You do have to pay for it, but it has an emphasis on speaking and understanding full conversations in context that I haven't found in other courses. After using it daily (about a half hour) for around a year I received a 95 on the A1 and an 87 on the A2 exams, so I can vouch for its effectiveness. I took both exams around the same time because I wasn't sure of my exact level. I also used Anki for vocabulary memorization and was able to practice some with a fluent German speaking friend (infrequently). Tip: If you're going to buy a course, wait till a holiday or clearance day like Black Friday. They regularly do 60% off sales that are actually valid (i.e. they don't raise their prices right before the sale).
- mod 11y agoWow! Their pricing page was RIDICULOUS. It took soooooo much scrolling to get to the price chart.
- mkaziz 11y agoDoes anyone know of a course to learn Arabic?