Several other apps, such as Mondly, Babbel, Memrise, and Busuu, are also popular. If I’m in a noisy environment, or not interested in speaking or listening that day, I can opt out of that function.ĭuolingo has been around for 10 years and has an interesting history.

But how can we when we’re learning a new language? The program allows users to build competence and confidence by repeating sentences in private and having it graded by the artificial intelligence in the software.” “Adults shouldn’t feel embarrassed, but we do. “It can be really scary speaking a different language,” Blanco agrees. Aside from the varied games Duolingo offers, I love that I’m regularly prompted to read out loud or listen to a sentence and move tiles around to match what I’ve heard. When I took Spanish classes as a teenager, I was fairly good at reading and writing, but my listening and spoken grammar were terrible.

The experience is really important to us.” I love that the program is built for everyone, even someone like me who has been out of school for over a decade. “We want to show learners that no matter their age, education, background, or familiarity with the language you can build up proficiency. “We had to take language classes in school, and they weren’t always great experiences,” Blanco explains. The program was assigned to all the students in her Spanish class as an add-on to their lessons. One afternoon, she was telling me about her homework and mentioned that she was required to play Duolingo for a few minutes each day. It’s been a huge shift for our family-especially after a year of virtual school-and I’m always looking for ways to connect. She spends a lot of time out of the house now. The previous September, my daughter had started her first year of middle school. When our food arrived a few minutes later, we were both in a better mood. Once we were done, we flashed our phones to one other as an onscreen virtual fire lit up the numbers 174 on my screen and 50 on hers, reflecting the number of consecutive days we’d each completed at least one lesson. We scootched our chairs together and each completed a lesson to meet our daily minimum requirement. She grabbed her phone and opened the language learning app right away. “Did you play Duolingo today? You need to keep your streak going!” I said in an effort to lighten the mood. We had just reunited after a long day, and I wanted to capitalize on our time together. My tween daughter was bored and antsy as we waited for dinner at a local restaurant.

Student in spanish duolingo