Top 10 self-learning language apps to up your communication skills

Stuck inside under lockdown rules as the pandemic has bitten into your routine? But there’s a silver lining in every cloud — you can use the time and your mobile phone or tablet to pick up new languages. More than giving a heady thrill, a new language learnt through self-learning apps brings the world to the palm of your hand, opening up a galore of social and career opportunities.

Here’re the top 10 language-learning apps that can make your world broader:

Babbel

Keeping up with new technologies, this app allows you to learn a language within the comforts of your location through podcasts, online tutoring and live sessions. It offers lessons given by academics from prestigious global institutes like Yale University and Michigan State University, readying you for real-life conversations with native speakers in just three weeks. You can learn the fundamentals of Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, Danish, Dutch, Indonesian, Norwegian, Polish, Swedish and Turkish languages by using the app.

• You can download the app here.

Bhasha Sangam

Under the Ministry of Education, MyGov India and powered by Multibhashi, Bhasha Sangam is a core initiative of the #EkBharatShreshtBharat campaign. Here you can enjoy personalised lessons based on your accuracy in answering questions. The app allows the you to learn Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Kannada, Kashmiri, Konkani, Malayalam, Manipuri, Marathi, Nepali, Odia, Punjabi, Sanskrit, Sindhi, Tamil, Telugu, Urdu, Bodo, Santhali, Maithili and Dogri.

• You can download the app here.

Drops

Long theoretical classes and lectures give a headache to most of us. But exploring this app is fun as it teaches a new language with the help of short illustrative gaming patterns. Here you can build your vocabulary in more than 15 Asian, European and African languages like Arabic, Cantonese, Croatian, Danish, Finnish, French, German, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Italian, Persian, Swahili, Thai and Vietnamese.

• You can download the app here.

Duolingo

With over 500 million registered users, Duolingo is one of the world’s most downloaded apps for learning a new language. It comes with short videos and fun learning activities where you can read, write, communicate and understand a new language in no time. It’s an absolutely free app and you don’t need a paid subscription to the lessons. Here you learn more than 40 languages like Spanish, French, German, Portuguese, Italian, Irish, Dutch and Danish.

• You can download the app here.

FluentU

The best way to gear up your penchant for new languages is by using words from them in real-life scenarios. Using the same principle, FluentU brings to you real-life contexts and videos so that you master a new language. From music videos to motivational talks, this app makes your language-learning process fun and easy. Here you can learn German, Japanese, Italian, Korean, Russian, Portuguese, Chinese, Spanish and French through fun videos.

• You can download the app here.

Language Curry

This app makes learning Indian languages exciting as it uses interesting gamified learning, flashcard vocabulary techniques and live online videos. You can also attend live classes by Indian language gurus and know all about the rich cultural heritage of the country. Languages like Hindi, Punjabi, Gujarati, Kannada, Sanskrit, Tamil, Marathi, Telugu, Bengali and Malayalam are on offer here.

• You can download the app here.

LinguaLift

LinguaLift takes pride in being a hybrid innovative language learning system. Once registered, you’ll be given a customised roadmap to learning a language, including a schedule based on the total number of hours you can devote and your preferred approach to that language. Should you get stuck while practising, you can contact an online tutor anytime. With self-practice activities, short tutorial videos and online sessions, you can easily pick up languages like Japanese, Hebrew, Russian, Spanish and French.

• You can download the app here.

Memrise

Picking up dialects is one of the most important steps of learning a language. The user-friendly navigation of Memrise makes it easier for you to access videos and audio clips of native dialects. Here you can check out how common folks talk in everyday life in another language and accordingly prepare yourself. You can learn languages like Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Turkish, Mongolian and Slovenian through the app.

• You can download the app here.

Mondly

With around 33 languages to choose from, this app allows you to simultaneously learn more than one language by saving your progress. Equipped with free daily lessons to keep you in touch with the language of your choice, it’s one of the quickest ways of picking up a new form of expression. Urdu, Latin, Turkish, Thai, Persian, Hebrew and Polish are some of the languages that can be learnt through the app.

• You can download the app here.

Rosetta Stone

This interactive app offers contextual learning lessons blended with external learning features. All details, information, practice sheets and other relevant documents are at your fingertips even when you are offline so that you can practice any time. The app also comes with an ad-free feature that rules out all the unnecessary distractions. Here you can learn languages like Spanish, French, Italian, German, English, Arabic, Chinese (Mandarin), Dutch, Filipino and Greek.

• You can download the app here.