Thursday, May 26, 2016

Duolingo

Is learning a new language on your to-do list?  Are you planning a trip and could really use some foreign language skills.  I wanted to share something awesome that I found, and best of all its 100% FREE.  An online language program called Duolingo. 

With Duolingo, you can learn Spanish, French, Portuguese, Italian, and many other languages.   There’s a mobile app and a website, and the courses are completely free. 

I took French way back in high school, but I have forgotten most of what I learned.  Last summer my husband and I had the privilege of hosting a foreign exchange student from France.  It was a wonderful opportunity and it rekindled my interesting in speaking French.  I didn’t want to spend a lot of money on a Rosetta Stone program.  A friend told me about Duolingo and I love it. 
I have the app on my phone and I spend just a few minutes each day to practice some French.  Through a variety of speaking, reading and writing, I practice French.  The lessons are quick and easy in a game-like format, usually taking less than 5 minutes to complete.  Duolingo even keeps track of your lessons and lets you post your ‘fluency’ in a language on your LinkedIn profile.  Right now I am 25% fluent in French. 

The best part of using Duolingo is that it doesn’t have any annoying pop-up ads. By using the site individual users are helping to translate sections of the internet. Created by Luis von Ahn, a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon University, Forbes magazine describes how Duolingo uses a crowdsourcing model to translate content from Buzzfeed and CNN, which generates the revenue to keep the program free. 

If learning a language is one of your goals – I recommend you check out Duolingo. 


3 comments:

  1. thanks for the tip. Will try to upgrade mi espanol [high school version]--not just for travel but also because my Grands are taking it in school and I need to keep up! also like the idea that I can pick up some phrases for whatever country I'm going to where I have no idea how to say please, thank you and where is.

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  2. I want to do this...I want to learn Italian....

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  3. My daughter has been planning on using Duolingo this summer to get ahead on her middle school Spanish next year. She is excited about it!

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