Hello everyone, and welcome back to English with Lucy. Today, I am going to talk to you
about the best apps and websites for learning English. And they're not going to be your
average. I'm not going to recommend the normal Duolingo and Babbel and all of that. These
are more specific things to help you work on individual skills, skills like pronunciation,
writing feedback, speaking, et cetera. As always, there is a free PDF that goes with
this lesson. It contains the full transcript along with key words and their definitions
as well. So you can use this for listening practise to how metta. If you'd like to download
the PDF all you've got to do is click on the link in the description box. You enter your
name and your email address. You sign up to my meeting list and the PDF comes directly
to your inbox. Then every week after that, you automatically receive my PDFs, and all
of my news, course updates, and offers. Let's get started with app number one. And
this one is really rather special. It's incredibly unique. It is something that I think will
help almost anyone who is learning a language. Now this app is free and it's sponsored this
segment of today's video. It's called HiNative. Oh, my word, it's wonderful. It's such an
incredible tool for learners of virtually any language.
In my experience, one of the most frustrating parts of learning a new language is the constant
stream of doubts and questions going round and round in my own head, especially when
you're in an earlier stage, there are just so many questions. And when you get to that
more advanced stage, the questions you have are so niche and you need a native speaker
or a teacher to answer them. Why is this like that? Why don't you say it like that? Will
I sound natural if I say it like this? I needed a teacher or a native speaker around
me 24/7 to be able to ask them all of these constant doubts and questions. And obviously
for 99.99% of us having a teacher around 24/7 is pretty much impossible unless you're lucky
enough to be married to one, I guess. This is especially true if you're learning a really
popular language like English, because there are lots of other people in the same situation
who also want a lot of attention. The HiNative app provides the solution here. On their free
app, you can ask any question about language and native speakers will answer you. They
support questions for over 113 languages. You can sign up and take advantage of this
free app on Android, iOS, or on desktop. You enter your own native language and the
language that you're learning. You can see right here how many questions have been asked.
And they are receiving a lot of answers as well from native speakers. It's so valuable
because you're not just learning textbook English, you're learning expressions, phrases,
and slang terms that are genuinely used by native speakers every day. You enter your
language and the language that you're learning, type in your email, create a username and
a password, and you're ready. Now, when you go to ask a question, you choose
a question template. You can use all of the templates for free apart from does this sound
natural and foreign language diary. The rest are free. Is so easy to do, even beginners
can ask questions easily using these templates. Let's give it a go. So let's ask what's the
difference one. What is the difference between affect and effect? I've waited just a short
while and look at all of the responses. I really like the premium feature. It does
just sound natural because you can get your writing corrected by a native speaker. So
let me write an example sentence like this one, the children are being very misbehaving
today. It's not any wrong. Then let's see what the native speakers do to correct my
writing. Exactly perfect correction. What a fantastic resource that does this sound
natural feature is only available to premium users.
However, you can upgrade your account for free for seven days. So I really recommend
you do that. One more feature that I really, really appreciate is that there is no private
messaging feature. So this can not be used as a dating site, which sadly is a big worry
for a lot of people who use language exchange services. Users can only communicate with
each other through question and answer. So it feels very safe. You can study the languages
in comfort and safety. No one's using it for dating. If you'd like to download HiNative
and try it for yourself for free, then you can get it on iOS, Android, and desktop. I've
left all of the links down below in the description box.
Let's move on to app number two, and this one is an oldie, but a goodie. It is Google
Docs/Drive. And this is the most wonderful language correction and organisation tool.
I used to teach group classes and I would always make my students complete their homework
on a Google shared document. This is so that I could make tweets and my students could
see where I had made corrections, view what I had changed, the edits I'd made, and see
my comments that I'd made on them as well. It also meant that my students had neat files,
a nice organisation system of all of their homework and their essays that they're done
throughout the years. So they could see their progress and they could use it. They could
use the corrections most importantly as a revision tool. So if an exam was coming up,
they could go through all of their past mistakes to make sure that they don't repeat them.
If your teacher is still making you hand write essays and store them in a folder, talk to
them, it's time to modernise. Alternatively, if you find someone who's willing
to correct your work, ask them to do it on Google Docs so that you have this amazing
resource. When I was a student learning Spanish, I never kept hold of my feedback in my essays.
They were on pieces of paper, and I'd put them on my bag, and I'd lose them. I was terrible
at that. When I went to university and started learning Italian, I was really, really organised.
And I still have these folders and files month by month, year by year of all of my work.
I promise you this will be your best revision resorts.
Next, let's talk about one of my favourite, favourite dictionaries. As a teacher and a
language learner, I can promise you this is one of the best of the best. Well, I've been
teaching on YouTube for nearly six years and I've used it since the very beginning. It
is Oxford Learner's Dictionary. And the reason I love it so much is because they have the
most fantastic IPA transcriptions. Some will offer lots of different accents, but they
won't provide the transcription. Oxford Learner's Dictionary provides everything
you need. You can listen to the audio and standard American English and standard British
English as well as many other accents on some words as well. And the written transcription
too. It is beautiful. It's a dictionary that's designed for learners in mind. So the definitions
are really clear and understandable. They have the word origin on most words as well,
which is really interesting as well as antonyms and synonyms. It's always really, really good
to look at the synonyms so that you can further expand your vocabulary.
And something that I think is absolutely fantastic, as a massive advocate for word diaries, you
can add words to your own word list. Phrase word list doesn't sound that exciting, but
it gets me going. Every time you search a word, you can add it to your word list. It
only takes a click. And then at the end of the year, or before an exam, you have a list
of everything that you've had to research right there for you with the pronunciation
and the definition, and the synonym, and the origin. Oh, it's just gorgeous. It's the perfect
vocab acquisition tool and pronunciation tool as well. It just ticks so many boxes. I love
it. There are lots of other dictionaries out there, but this one is my favourite.
Let's move on to website number four, this is called Forvo. It's a pronunciation website
and you search for any word in a lot of languages. It's got a lot of languages, but obviously
we're focusing on English on this channel, English with Lucy, slight hint. You search
for any word, let's search for the word old, for example, and you have lots of examples
of people from different parts of the world. You have a male from the United States.
Old.
Perfect. You have a female from the United States.
Old.
We have someone from Australia.
Old.
Canada.
Old.
Yes. We have someone from the UK.
Old.
So basically you can compare how words are pronounced differently in different countries
and in different accents. And you can also contribute audio recordings to your own language
as well. I might secretly do a few for this website in return is really, really cool if
you don't want to rely on phonetic transcriptions all the time, you want to hear how a word
is actually pronounced, or you want to compare two different countries pronunciations. Whoever
came up with that idea is a genius. Let's move on to number five. It is Quizlet,
such a good app, perfect for teachers and students. If you want to learn lots and lots
of vocabulary, but you don't know where to start, this is the perfect place for you.
On this app and website, you can create flashcards. Flashcards have been used for years and years,
decades, centuries to learn languages. It's a no brainer, it's a perfect tool. But wonderfully,
you can also search through other flashcards sets made by other students or other teachers
as well. They make them public. You can search for anything. You can search
for politics vocabulary. You could search for gardening vocabulary, whatever you like.
If you're studying to be a doctor, you could study medical vocabulary. There is so much
there. They also have some games too, which are really fun. I like to gamify the learning
process. It's also really nice when you create a set that you're really, really proud of.
You can share it with other people. Lots of teachers now use it with their students, leave
them public. So you can gain access to a lesson that you maybe wouldn't have access to before.
Moving on to number six, this is different to what I've recommended before. I always
used to recommend the BBC Sounds app as a really good place for audios like podcasts
and radio shows. But there was one thing that I didn't like about that app. They really
didn't prioritise transcripts for their audio shows. That annoys me because it's not good
for accessibility. If somebody is hard of hearing and I've got quite a few people in
my life that are hard of hearing they cannot access podcasts. And that's so sad because
there's so much wonderful information in them. It's also not that great for English learners.
One of the most amazing tools is to listen to something whilst you're reading it because
your brain makes connections. It helps you learn the pronunciation. It helps you improve
your listening. It helps you expand your vocabulary. It's just so good. Well, Spotify has now overtaken
BBC Sounds as my favourite audio app for learning English. They have recently started adding
transcripts to their shows. At the moment, it is only the original and
exclusive shows. So the ones that are native to them, I guess. There aren't that many available
at the moment, but those that are have the transcripts. And it's an amazing learning
opportunity. I also heard that they were considering expanding this to the rest of their shows
as well. So I really, really hope they do that. If you're looking for a new podcast,
make sure it's one of Spotify's original or exclusive ones. And hopefully you can access
their transcripts. The last app that I have for you is Google
Translate. And no, I'm not a teacher recommending that you just translate all of your essays
on Google. I remember marking essays and it being very, very clear who had just put their
essay in their own language, into Google translate because sometimes they'd make spelling mistakes
and their misspelt word in Spanish would be in the middle of their English essay, and
it would be very, very obvious. But that's fine. I mean, they may have been at short
on time. The reason I'm recommending Google Translate
is because of the amazing Google lens feature, where you can use your camera to translate
things in real time. And this is perfect if you're out and about, and you want to quickly
see something, but you don't have time to type it all up. For example, if I'm in a foreign
restaurant and their menu is in Chinese or something, I can just hover it over. This
is just a fun one. It's not necessarily an English learning tool, but it's a really useful
life tool, I think. And it's something I was just blown away by when I first saw it. I
just couldn't believe that we're finally living in the future.
That is it for today's lesson. I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you learned something.
Don't forget to check out the sponsor of today's video, HiNative. All of the links to download
the app they're in the description box. I highly, highly recommend it. Don't forget
to download the free PDF that goes with this lesson. All you've got to do is click on the
link in the description box, enter your name, and your email address. The PDF will come
directly to your inbox and then every week afterwards you'll automatically receive my
lesson PDFs along with all of my news, course updates, and offers.
Don't forget to connect with me on all of my social media. I've got my Instagram @Lucy
and my website englishwithlucy.co.uk, where I've got an awesome pronunciation tool. Maybe
I should have included this in the list, but it seemed a bit too showy-offy. On this tool,
you can click on a phone name and hear me pronounce the phone name or a word that contains
that phone name. It's really cool. It's fun to use.
I, word, no.
I also have my personal channel where I've logged my life here in English countryside
and all of the blogs are fully subtitled. So you can use them for listening practise
and for learning more vocabulary. Thanks bye. I will see you soon for another lesson.