One of the easiest ways to learn
a language
is to make language learning part
of something that you already do.
My name is Jamie.
I'm a language coach.
Let's talk about the best
Chrome extensions that you can use
to learn a language.
The first Chrome extension
to learn a language
that I want to talk about
is Language Reactor,
formerly known as Language
Learning with Netflix
and Language Learning with YouTube.
Basically Language
Reactor is a free chrome extension
that you can use
to turn any video
that you find on Netflix
or YouTube into a study tool.
If you already really
like to watch movies on Netflix
and videos on YouTube
from people,
and for people
who speak your target language
natively, Language Reactor is easy peasy.
There are honestly
a ton of different options,
but I talk about Language Reactor
on this channel all the time.
So if you want more information,
go to the link below
in the description
for my review of Language
Reactor on my blog.
Similar to Language Reactor,
the next Chrome
extension to learn a language
that I want to talk about is Trancy.
Now Trancy does a lot of stuff
that Language Reactor does
by giving you the subtitles
and helping you to translate
between languages,
between your target language
and the native language.
But it also uses artificial intelligence
to really bump up
your studying a little bit.
So if, for example,
you really value
having a lot of activities
about a video you're watching
or a book you're reading,
then Trancy is excellent
because it basically
takes the transcripts,
the subtitles of the show
or movie that you're watching,
and it creates
a bunch of different activities
like Fill in the Blanks, speech
recognition, all sorts of stuff.
And again,
if Trancy sounds like something
that would be beneficial
to your language
learning,
link below
in the description for
for my review of the Chrome extension.
Next on my list
of best Chrome extensions to learn
a language is CaptionPop.
CaptionPop does a lot of the same things
that Language Reactor and Trancy does.
But the thing that
I really love about CaptionPop
is
the Chrome extension.
Put the CaptionPop
Chrome extension into your browser,
and when you go through YouTube,
it'll show you
what subtitles are available
for every video.
And it'll not only tell you
the subtitles are available,
but it'll also tell you which languages
the subtitles are available in.
Unfortunately for us,
this was a lot more useful back
a few years ago
when YouTube was really big into
getting people to translate subtitles
on to different YouTube videos.
Since they've killed that option,
it’s a little bit less useful.
But to keep YouTube accessible to people
who are hard of hearing
and really like captions like me,
CaptionPop can still be really useful
because again,
if you're looking at YouTube for vlogs
in Italian,
you can find videos where it says like,
there are subtitles in Italian
for this video
and it gives you
that extra step ahead in your language learning.
Obviously this is a few less steps
than Trancy and Language Reactor do.
But if you don't need those steps
and you just need that little bit of,
you know,
help with your search on YouTube,
then CaptainPop is a
really solid option.
Side note, I just realized
that the resource
that I was going to talk about next
isn't actually a Chrome extension,
but it's really similar
to what we've talked about so far.
So I'll put it at the end as a bonus tip.
So keep on watching to the end of this video.
Next best Chrome extension
to learn a language
that I’d like to recommend to you
is Readlang.
Now, we've talked a lot about video
so far in this video.
Now let's switch over to texts
and reading and writing and vocabulary
and things like that. Readlang is a very,
very simple free tool
that you can use
to take any text from anywhere
on the Internet,
and make flashcards
out of it, practice reading it,
pick up the words that are new
to you and need to work on more.
All that kind of stuff.
Not only can you use it to translate
the texts that you found,
but you can also access
all of the other texts
that other users have imported into
Readlang,
and use that as practice
for your target language.
It’s kind of similar to LingQ
if you're familiar with LingQ,
but it's a lot more simple and less icky.
Like it's not pretty by any means,
but it's functional.
Next on the list of Best Chrome
extension to learn
language is Toucan.
And Toucan was just recently
bought out by Babbel,
so it must be good.
Toucan makes it really simple
to casually
immerse yourself in language
while you're reading English or whatever
language, depends on what
languages Toucan covers,
but you get my drift.
But if you find yourself
reading on the internet
a lot
and could use a little bit of injection
of language learning
as you go, Toucan is excellent
because it
will literally just translate words
into your target language randomly.
This can be a fun, interesting,
pretty passive way
of picking up new vocabulary
if it's a method that works for you.
If you like the idea of Toucan,
but you don't like the randomness of it,
the next Chrome extension to learn a
language is Masterlingo.
Of course,
Masterlingo
is a little bit less passive
in that it doesn't translate
words from your native language
as you're reading your native language.
But if you're already
reading your target language
and use Masterlingo,
all you do is click on a word
and it'll help you translate
and learn the word as you go.
So yes, it’s similar to Readlang and LingQ,
but it's prettier and simpler than LingQ.
On the topic of vocab,
the next Chrome extension to learn
a language is one called VocabBoost.
VocabBoost
basically turns
any text into a cloze text.
And if you don't know
what a cloze is, it's
basically a fill in the blank sentence.
You have a sentence,
you have a little square,
and you have to put in the right word
or conjugation or whatever
it is into the square.
This is the entire premise
of another resource called Clozemaster,
but it's not its own resource.
It's a
this is a Chrome extension
and you can
make any text into this cloze.
So if you like Clozemaster,
but you want flexibility
or you're not quite
at an intermediate level yet,
VocabBoost
might be a great alternative for you.
As promised,
let's talk about that
bonus tip that I just realized
isn't a Chrome extension
but is actually
really vital and relevant here
and that is a resource
and a website called YouGlish.
Honestly, I've had YouGlish
on my list of resources for a long time
but have never mentioned it
for whatever reason.
Now,
YouGlish is awesome
and relevant in this video
because it's basically a search engine
for YouTube videos
that have specific phrases
in different languages.
So you can practice
your listening comprehension
and learn to understand
different phrases
from a bunch of different mouths, accents,
situations, tones of voice,
all that kind of stuff.
Because if you are at all familiar
with learning to understand a language,
then you know that it's easy
enough to understand
one audio clip,
but it's really hard
to contextualize that information
across all sorts
of different voices
and accents
and men, women,
young or old, all sorts of stuff.
YouGlish is a free website
that you can use to pick
the language that you're learning,
plug in a phrase
or a word like “me llamo”, for example,
and it’ll give you
literally hundreds of video
clips of people saying “me llamo”,
and you can just train your ear
to understand “me llamo”,
from all these different accents,
scenarios, etc..
Now that is all the chrome extensions
and the little bonus
not-Chrome extension
that I had for this video.
If you found it valuable,
make sure to subscribe
and hit the bell to be notified
when I post a new YouTube video
all about how to learn languages
every Wednesday.
And if you like these suggestions,
but you're really not sure
what to do with them
or which ones to choose,
I really recommend
you take my free course linked below
in the description
of how to choose a language app.
It's a free short three day video course.
It'll basically take you step by step
How to Choose a language
app based on what you like,
what your goals are,
what your language is,
all that jazz.
At the very least,
it’ll teach you how to use my free
language app search
so you can stop searching for language
learning resources and start
actually learning languages.
See you there.