Learn Languages Free with Duolingo

Traveling is cool. Traveling while being respectful and immersing yourself into the local cultures is even cooler. One way to engage with different cultures is by learning some of their language and Duolingo can help you with that. Duolingo is a FREE mobile and web app that touts many popular and obscure languages. You can even learn High Valyrian in case you want to have a fire conversation with kindred spirits who share your dragon energy. On the practical side of things, you could learn a great portion of a language on Duolingo and even become conversant. If you just need something to supplement the formal coursework you have already taken then Duolingo can fulfill that role as well.

Duolingo is free to the end consumer because they make their money through advertising, something that will be very apparent at the end of each lesson session. Though the advertisements are placed front and center (as any good advertisement should be) it feel well justified by the quality of service Duolingo provides. Duolingo allows you to connect with your friends through its platform where you can compete for daily, weekly, monthly and lifetime rankings. This gamification aspect and the daily soft reminders from Duolingo helps you to stay on track with learning whatever language(s) satisfy your journey to becoming a humble polyglot. There are also external online chat groups that help to clarify confusion regarding context and grammar posed in Duolingo.

My native tongue is US English (from Northern California if you want to get specific about it). I had formal instruction in Spanish and Japanese many years ago, but by now I had long since forgot the words I worked so hard to remember before. Duolingo helped me to not only re-learn many of these words and phrases, but makes it convenient. Being available as a mobile app, I have been able to use Duolingo on short Lyft/Uber rides, during lunchtime breaks, and between loading times while playing video games. I have a phone that is rated IP68 for water resistance so I even use Duolingo while I am in the shower! But as with anything, you will get out of it what you put in. Experience being the best teacher, I suggest you give Duolingo a try. If you signup through this promotional link, you will be able to support my efforts and be rewarded with your own credit(s). If you happen to try Duolingo through my link, please leave a comment below and let me know what you think of it!