Learning a foreign language is always one of those things that people dream of doing, but only a few can ever pull off. It’s a skill that can undeniably enhance one’s life and career, but actually doing it is an immense, lifelong challenge. But nowadays, with the aid of technology, learning a new language is easier than ever.
No longer do you have to resort to buying thick manuals and dictionaries, rely on expensive software, or enroll in hectic classes in order to learn a new language. You can now learn a new language at your own time with your smartphone using an app designed to help you learn words and grammar daily.
This is a great alternative to more expensive educational options that may not turn out as expected over time. Let’s take a look at these language learning apps that are becoming more popular in this day and age.
The Best Mobile Tools for Learning New Languages
We took a look at different reviews to see which ones are the most interesting when it comes to how they help users learn new languages. In the case of the best learning language apps 2021, popularity doesn’t immediately convey the quality and effectiveness of these educational apps, so we have to take a closer look at other factors as well.
Babbel
This one offers fairly traditional online language learning courses with a wide range of learning materials. The good thing about that is that if you’re the type who does best with school-based learning, then this should fit you quite well. Each lesson has vocabulary, dialogue, and grammar. It provides equal focus on reading, writing, listening, and speaking all at once.
Babbel focuses on basic conversational skills with the goal of letting you become proficient at speaking and understanding the language as soon as possible. Once you’re able to become conversational with that language, you can then move on to becoming more fluent. Its integrated speech recognition tool can help test and grade your pronunciation.
However, the complete courses are not free. You can avail a subscription to Babbel for $12.95 per month and access the app on Android, iOS, and the web. It does indeed cost more than its competitors, but Babbel is a lot more comprehensive and teaches up to 14 different languages.
Busuu
If you are looking to pick up vocabulary with a fun daily routine, Busuu is a good app to use for that. It’s a free app that gives you a learning path that you can work with however you wish, either sequentially or skip around to give you the learning experience that’s just right for you. Busuu is the app you should use if you want a more freeform learning path.
Busuu lets you read, listen, and speak common phrases with exercises to hammer in what you’ve just learned. It’s not as rigorous or intense as Babbel, but it makes up for it by having more core learning content with a modest collection of languages. It does have some tedious typing exercises that may have you scratching your head.
While it’s mostly free, you can avail of the premium service if you wish to get serious. You can avail a premium subscription to Busuu for $12.99 per month or $89.99 per year, which gives you a study plan, advanced AI features, access to all languages, and other great perks to take your language learning to the next level.
Lingoda
For some people, they like a learning environment that’s more intimate and private, either with small groups or one-on-one instruction with enthusiastic teachers who want to make learning fun and engaging. If coupled with appropriately challenging material that stimulates your desire to learn, it could just be what you need to learn a new language effectively.
That’s what Lingoda aims to do. Lingoda is an online language learning service with classes taught via Zoom to give you a more “hands-on” learning experience. It’s a good way to stimulate and maintain your desire to learn a new language. If you’re the type who finds it better to learn in a school setting or have a personal trainer to maintain an exercise regimen will find Lingoda to be a great service. All you need to install is Zoom, which you may already have.
Of course, this is not a free service. For a reasonable price of around $9.50 to $20 per hour-long class, you’re taught your language of choice by an expert instructor who will guide you through reading, writing, and speaking with interactive lessons that let you get your practice in each day. However, you only have a small selection of languages to choose from: French, German, Spanish, English, and Business English.
Mondly
The best language learning apps tend to have two things. First is letting you select the language you wish to learn, and the second is providing a learning experience that progresses naturally with a scaffolded structure. Mondly is such a language learning app, with a wide selection of languages to learn and a well-structured curriculum with scaffolding and challenges in between. Mondly is designed to help you become fluent in your chosen language as naturally as possible.
Mondly has a limited free version, which lets you try it out without risk. There are beginner, intermediate, and advanced levels that you may find in other language learning apps as well. But the difference is in how it’s more thoughtfully structured in Mondly, making sure you’re not in over your head or bored to death whenever you move onto the next level. However, it doesn’t provide a slow-down feature for spoken audio on the Android and web versions, so you better have an iOS device if you want that feature for learning how to pronounce words.
Also, it doesn’t provide instruction or pronunciation guides for languages with non-Roman scripts like Arabic and Hebrew. Hopefully, they do change that fact in the near future because Mondly is a solid language learning app for anyone looking to get serious with learning a new language. You can avail the premium version for $9.99 per month or $47.99 per year.
Rocket Languages
If you’re the type who learns best by listening, Rocket Languages may just be the language learning app for you. Rocket Languages makes use of audio lessons, interactive exercises, and readings to help you practice by speaking conversational phrases, thus letting you gradually understand more of the language.
You learn greetings, how to order food and drink, how to ask for directions, and so on. If you’re looking to learn enough to be able to visit another country, Rocket Languages should get you ready for your travel plans. But if you’re learning a language that makes use of a different script, Rocket Languages can provide you some instruction, but you may have to consult other resources to further learn them. It can introduce you to new scripts, but doesn’t have enough to reinforce them.
What’s awesome is that it’ll let you choose a language you would like to learn:
learn japanese
learn french
learn german
learn russian
learn chinese
learn italian
learn korean
learn portuguese
learn hindi
learn arabic
The great thing about Rocket Languages is that you can pay for its premium service with a one-time fee, which gives you lifetime access. It provides learning courses in 12 languages, with materials that are available for download online in the mobile app. That material blends audio instruction with interactive exercise that lets you practice your language skills extensively, although some may find those exercises somewhat clunky due to the lack of adequate structure, especially when it comes to learning non-Roman scripts.