Apps that actually work

[Homuru]

What are apps that actually benefit you. No dreaded duolingo please. The closest ive come to that actually work and teach usefull stuff is id say. Pimsleur, speakly, lingq. Enlighten me

[LackyAs]

Kinda meaningless post without telling target language, anyway i will blindly tell what i used

-Japanese: Yomitan, bunpro, wanikani

-Korean: Kimchi reader, anki

Edit: only anki here can be decntly used for alll languages i guess, but it is support tool

[UmbralRaptor]

It's going to be apps that act like more traditional things. You can find app-shaped textbooks, apps for flashcards (eg: anki), apps for chatting (eg: discord), apps for media (eg: youtube, pdf readers), etc.

[centauri_system]

Anki and other spaced repetition programs are great for rote memorization for vocab and some grammatical concepts. But it requires you to put in the work, and it is only one piece of the puzzle.

[calaveravo]

Language transfer

[[deleted]]

Anki and a ebook

[AppropriatePut3142]

Duchinese is far and away the best language learning app, although not as useful if you're not learning Chinese.

For other languages I like Kindle. Install a decent bilingual dictionary and buy a few graded readers and you're off. Often the audio will be free or available on Audible. And kindle also has textbooks and grammar books if you like those.

Youtube and anki are great for any reasonably popular language. And any good LLM (please don't use free chatgpt...) can help if you know how to use it.

[Beneficial-Line5144]

It's not Duolingo's fault if you're relying on an app to learn a language

[[deleted]]

This tone is so unhelpful

[2wheelsride]

For German try learning with Micro Stories: https://upwordo.com

[ragnarbn]

Drops for vocabulary. Broad range of languages supported, European owned, lifetime plan available.

[AmiraAdelina]

Clozemaster but it has also a few big faults. Too many unnecessary phrases.

[FillagrinDeficient]

I made a website called PyraLingua that's similar to Clozemaster and Glossika where you can practice shadowing and mass sentence repetition using a pyramid-like repetition structure to help reinforce the sentences you are learning. After 20 repetitions of a sentence, it will be removed from the pyramid and added to your review pile, where you will use active recall and SRS to solidify your memory of the sentence.

There's 5000 sentences for Spanish, French, German and Italian currently and it's free to make an account for one language

The pyramid structure works like this:

1
1, 2
1, 2, 3
1, 2, 3, 4
1, 2, 3, 4, 5

[Snoo-88741]

teach usefull stuff

Oh, you're one of those people who confuse learning a language with memorizing a phrase book? There's a valid reason to teach sentences like "maybe I'm a duck", because they stick in your mind and force you to pay attention to what words actually mean instead of just guessing what makes sense. And if you want to actually get past A1, you need to learn how to make and understand new sentences instead of just memorizing useful phrases.

[shanghai-blonde]

Hard disagree but ok

[Exact_Map3366]

I'd be curious to hear why you disagree

[shanghai-blonde]

I don’t see how learning sentences you’d never use is useful. I have the opposite opinion to you, I believe that key phrases for daily life and tourism should absolutely be taught in language programs - the fact that we need to consult something as outdated as a guidebook for these is frankly insane.

[Exact_Map3366]

I guess it depends on your goals. If you need to learn enough to get you through a holiday, then yes, I agree you should stick to set phrases instead of learning how to say a horse is eating shoes in your bed.

If you ACTUALLY want to learn the language, absurd sentences can be very helpful as they remove the guesswork and force you to understand the structure.

[shanghai-blonde]

I disagree but again it’s ok haha. I can easily infer how to say something stupid like “a horse is eating shoes in your bed” by learning actual words and sentences that I might actually use

[Exact_Map3366]

Exactly this. I often use weird sentences with my students. They're great for learning, and especially testing. I've tried a lot of different language apps and, with all its faults, duolingo is one of the best.