Learn a New Language with Duolingo

Sometimes you want to go beyond the knowledge you have and learn a new language. Maybe it’s for research purposes. Maybe it’s for business. Or maybe it’s for pure entertainment. But this no longer has to be a struggle thanks to the app Duolingo which helps you understand and speak a new language.

There are tons to choose from: Spanish, Italian, French, Swahili, and every day, you can get better. Simply take about five to 10 minutes of your time and the app shares words with you, with full pronunciations so that you can speak the new language in no time. And by earning points for answers, you can unlock new levels and have fun while at it.

The lessons are usually quite short so it’s a matter of getting an intro, then moving onto phrases that you’d learn when you’re travelling, like at a restaurant or shopping. And once you’re done with the basics, you elevate to harder ones, with lessons often being repetitive so that you don’t forget what you’ve learnt. And don’t worry about getting things wrong – the app offers you helpful tips on how to improve your language learning.

The wonderful thing about this app is that it’s free! If you’ve got an internet connection, you can even mingle with a community of speakers so that you can practice your skills!

So far, Spanish is the most popular language with over 124 million people eager to learn it while French comes second with 72,6 million and German third with 44,1 million. And well… fictional languages are also available to learn such as the ‘Star Trek’ language Klingon and High Valeryian from ‘Game of Thrones’, but some are still in their beta phases.

Duolingo was started in 2009 by Guatemalan-born professor Luis von Ahn (who created the ‘reCAPTCHA’ system), and his student Severin Hacker. It has been further developed by several of his colleagues since then. According to Von Ahn, he wanted to dedicate his life to helping transform education. “I was particularly inspired by my upbringing in Guatemala, a poor country where high-quality educational opportunities are limited to those who have money.

Because education is such a broad area, I chose to focus on language learning,” he said in an interview with lifehacker.com.

In his home country, many people do not have the access to study English, hence his inspiration to come up with Duolingo. And with millions of people coming from different backgrounds, Duolingo is the perfect platform to help you understand and speak the basics of a language in order to get by.

Just recently, the team also developed Tiny Cards, which are flashcards to help you learn better and it works much like the game ‘Heads Up’. It touches on all kinds of things such as medical and nursing terminology, Mayan glyphs and at the moment ‘Harry Potter’ characters are trending!

Interested in learning a language for free… forever? The app is available on iOS, Android and Windows phones. All you have to do is log in and you can get your language learning on.

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