Hey guys, welcome back to my channel! My name is Sarah and today I wanted to talk
about my five favourite language learning apps. These are apps which you can use
for multiple languages so they're not apps for specific languages.
I've only ever used the free versions of the apps, so as far as I know you can
pay something to get like a better version of all of the apps but I've only
used the free versions so far so I can honestly say to you that these apps are
amazing just if you pay nothing for them. Just for a bit of background I am
learning German and Italian as part of my university degree and I'm also
learning a bit of French on the side super casually so I feel as though these
apps are good for anyone whether you're doing like a course of a language or
you're just learning it super casually like I am with French. So, yeah! I hope you
enjoy and let's get into it!
[intro: taps on wood]
Okay, so I did A level German, so in the UK you do a levels before going off to uni so.. (or
college!) I wish that I'd known about an app called 'Reverso'. I use a
conjugator but I think that you can also use it as a dictionary and I think my
friend uses the translator of it as well. I found out about it when I started uni
but I wish I'd known about it sooner. I find that the conjugation... the way that
they conjugate verbs is so good because and it lays out in a table every single
possible form of the verb that you can get and even the ones that are trying to
[fast classical music in background when scrolling] really use that much so like all of the subjunctive versions as a verb you can
get, all the passat... Passato! I'm speaking Italian now!!! ...All the past versions of the
verb, all the conditional versions, all the indicative versions; it's just amazing so
I would totally recommend the conjugator Reverso especially if you're learning a
language which has a different conjugation for every subject of the sentence.
So, the next app I think is pretty well-known but hear me out! It's
'Memrise' and having used duolingo for years before that for
like learning super casually and also like to help with my GCSEs,
I find that 'Memrise' so much better in terms of the sort of passive forms of
learning the verbs so certainly for listening as well as for reading and
because you can hear people in real life speaking the language it's not some kind
of robot speaking it so I really like that like you can hear native speakers
and sometimes when native speakers actually speak the language super fast
especially with languages which like often end in vowels like Italian it's
kind of hard to sometimes tell when one word finishes and the next one begins so
I feel as though memorise really exposes you to the spoken language of... yeah the
spoken language! So yeah I would definitely recommend that if you want to
be immersed into the language more um and also it's not very overwhelming at
all because it's obviously very short extracts so I would totally recommend it
for beginners certainly but also if you just want to practice it anyway. Also
compared to Duolingo I think that Memrise is a lot more satisfying in
terms of seeing your progression like there are definite refined levels and
topics and even subsets of certain vocabulary of the language like level
one is super basic and then like if you learn the second set it's a bit more
advanced and so on, so I've been using 'Memrise' for French for the past three
months and I've really enjoyed. So, if you guys have watched my channel for a while
now you might have heard me rave about 'Quizlet'.
I've talked about Quizlet in one of my most viewed videos so you might have
have seen that but um Quizlet is the app which literally got me through A level
German I don't know what I would have done if I didn't have Quizlet with A
level German it's so so good for learning vocab so couldn't recommend it
enough. There are so many learn modes of it you, can just passively read the card
sets you've made or you can read other people's cards that they've made
although you can't guarantee an absence of errors if you do that but
yeah I find actually the act of making my own memory cards really helps me
learn. You can also do like... play games with them and I think if you like pay
for them you can highlight certain words like make them bold or in italics or
underline them or whatever but I find that the free version is so good because
they also allow you in the free version and in all versions to literally write
out the word so that you have to get literally every letter right so yeah I
just really enjoy using Quizlet. I actually do find it fun I know that
might sound sad but um yeah I think that Quizlet has helped a lot with helping me
nurture my love for languages you know! So, the next app I'm gonna talk about is 'Linguee'.
Linguee is really good if you want to not only find synonyms of certain words if
you're putting them... in your input and the target language, but also it's good for
if you want to find sort of common phrases and idioms in the language
and obviously you wouldn't find that always in the dictionary, I mean
sometimes certain dictionaries that you use like the dictionary that I use on my
phone and on my computer it tells you the phrase... common phrases that a word in
the language would be associated with including idioms but not all
dictionaries do that and I find that even the dictionary that I use sometimes
misses seemingly important ones out so I think that's yeah Linguee is quite good
for that and also if there's a really unusual word that you type in, and
sometimes even if it doesn't recognize it itself has a set word or phrase
that's common enough to... sort of say it is one, then you can often see it written
in context. I don't know what database they use, but there are a lot of texts which
Linguee seems to use to expose that word being written in context so yeah I
think it's quite good for seeing the word in context as well because I've
made SO many mistakes learning languages when I've said the word in the wrong
context because it has lots of subtle different meanings which you wouldn't
have an English. It's quite hard to explain without an example
but I feel as though this video would be really long if I did so, yeah, Linguee is
really good in essence for slightly more unusual words or phrases and also seeing
it written in context. So, the final app which I'm going to talk about this week is
LyricsTraining. I have recently rediscovered this app. I think I used to know a bit
about it but I'm not really sure if I knew what it did otherwise I think I
would have been absolutely addicted to it but this is such a good way to learn
a language and have fun with it so I think that even if you have kids who are
learning a language at school and absolutely hate it but they have to I
would totally recommend them using this up as well and yeah even as a 21 year old
I absolutely I have hours of fun with this app and so it basically gets up a
YouTube video of certain songs. I guess that the people have worked for them have
transcribed the lyrics of the song and then there are certain modes so that you
can write yourself the lyrics of the song. I don't think you write the lyrics,
but you have to you get multiple choice of the different words of the lyrics and
then you have to put them in the right order whilst you're listening to the
song I hope I've explained this correctly but erm yeah so you can get
beginner, intermediate, advanced and expert and with those different levels
there's an increasing amount of lyrics that you have to fill in so I've used the
beginner mode for learning French and I try and use advanced and expert only for
German and Italian because I think it's quite good for me to do that and again
you can hear it being spoken by native speakers or, well, sung usually although
there are sometimes spoken parts of the song as well. I just think it's so good
to learn it in context and sometimes they don't use the full version of the
word in the song; they use some dialects or some shortened version that natives
use a lot so I think that it's just such a good way to learn colloquialisms as
well and so yeah it's just so fun I think you get to play it three times
every half an hour if you don't pay or you can play unlimited times in
any time space if you pay for it. You can let you play with the lyrics of any
genre of song so I have done anything from Italian opera to German pop music to
French alternative music so I recommend it so much whatever music you're into I
can almost guarantee that there will be something for you that you would like on
LyricsTraining and that you'll also be able to learn a language with which i think
is pretty cool because you're having fun and learning a language too! What's not
to love eh?! So, I hope you've enjoyed this video. There are so many other amazing
apps out there which I haven't mentioned that those are just five of my favourite.
There are a few apps which I use specifically only for a certain language
which I'm learning so I find that some apps are better for German and some are
better for Italian for instance but those are just some apps which in
general I found really helpful for every language I've been learning. So yeah hopefully
whatever stage you are at in learning your said language I hope that this video
has helped. Please give this a thumbs up if it has and subscribe below for more
language videos. I also make videos on travel and minimalism as well so yeah I
hope see you in a future video and thanks so much for watching. Bye!
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