Afrikaans

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By Brian Alsatian Afrikaans Albanian Arabic Armenian Assamese Aymara Azeri Basque Belarusian Bengali Berber (Tamazight) Bosnian Breton Bulgarian Burmese Catalan Cebuano Chewa (Chichewa) Cornish Corsican Croatian Czech Danish Dari Dutch Dzongkha English Esperanto Faroese Fijian (ITaukei) Filipino Finnish Flemish French Frisian Galician German Greek Greenlandic Gujarati Haitian Creole Hausa Hawaiian Hebrew Hindi Hungarian Icelandic Igbo Indonesian Irish Italian Japanese Javanese Kannada Kazakh Kinyarwanda Korean Kurdish Lao Latin Latvian Lithuanian Luganda Luxembourgish Macedonian Malagasy Malay Malayalam Maltese Mandarin Chinese Manx Maori Marathi Mongolian Navajo (Diné bizaad) Nepali Norwegian Oromo Papiamento Pashto Persian Polish Portuguese Punjabi Quechua Romanian Romansch Russian Sami Samoan Sardinian Scots Scottish Serbian Shona Sicilian Sindhi Sinhala Slovak Slovenian Somali Spanish Swahili Swedish Tajik Tamil Telugu Thai Tibetan Tigrinya Tswana Turkmen Ukrainian Urdu Uzbek Vietnamese Welsh Wolof Xhosa Yiddish Yoruba Zulu

Cudoo Review — I Wouldn’t Even Use it if it Were Free

Quick Review

0.6 

Summary

Cudoo is an online learning platform that offers courses in over 160 languages. The platform also offers courses teaching soft skills and other professional development courses. Certificates are available upon course completion, and courses are provided to libraries and non-profits for free. We feel that the quality of the language courses is quite low, and that the prices are relatively high.

Quality

It’s nice to have native speaker audio, but I personally found the course to offer very little learning potential.

Thoroughness

The course didn’t cover everything listed under “Course Content” and offers no explanations.

Value

This course is way overpriced in my opinion. I wouldn’t even use it if it were free.

Languages

There are courses in over 160 languages on Cudoo. You’ll find languages as rare as Alsatian, Jerriais, and Navajo alongside more popular languages like Spanish and German.

Price

Price varies by course, from $4.99 to $24.99, with language bundles costing up to $199.

Visit Cudoo

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By Tanya Afrikaans

How To Teach Yourself Afrikaans – And Why It’s Worth It

Afrikaans may not be the world’s most widely spoken language, but it is a rewarding one. With its relatively easy grammar and pronunciation, you’ll quickly be able to express yourself in conversation. And if you’re planning to travel to South Africa or have an interest in its history, understanding Afrikaans will give you extra insight into the culture.

Just over 7 million people speak Afrikaans as their first language. Most of these live in South Africa and Namibia, but it’s also spoken in Botswana, Zimbabwe, and many other places around the world (including, curiously, a small community in Patagonia, Argentina).

So if you’re wondering how to learn Afrikaans, keep reading: we’ve rounded up the best language courses and apps for you. (more…)

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By Brian Spanish Afrikaans Albanian Arabic Armenian Azerbaijani Basque Belarusian Bengali Bosnian Bulgarian Cantonese Catalan Croatian Czech Danish Dari Dutch Estonian Filipino Finnish French Georgian German Greek Hebrew Hindi Hungarian Icelandic Indonesian Italian Japanese Kazakh Korean Kurdish Latvian Lithuanian Macedonian Malagasy Malay Maltese Mandarin Chinese Mongolian Nepali Norwegian Pashto Persian Polish Portuguese Punjabi Romanian Russian Serbian Shanghainese Sinhala Slovak Swahili Swedish Tamil Thai Turkish Ukrainian Urdu Uzbek Vietnamese Wolof

17 Minute Languages Review: I Wouldn’t Recommend Using It

Quick Review

1.5 

Summary

17 Minute Languages is a language-learning program that uses spaced repetition and native-speaker audio to teach a wide variety of languages. In our opinion, the courses aren’t very engaging; the courses we tried included significant errors and didn’t offer any language-specific explanations. There are leaderboards for comparing your progress with other users and a language forum that’s available after four days of use.

Quality

Native speaker audio is the only thing that impressed me in the courses I tried; mistakes and glitches were many.

Thoroughness

Explanations are lacking, which I found made some material misleading.

Value

I think there are far better ways to spend your time and money studying a language.

Languages

There are courses in 80 languages. 

Price

The Beginner’s Course is $39.95 and the Complete Package is $97. There is a free 48-hour trial.

Visit 17 Minute Languages

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By Brian Arabic Afrikaans Albanian Armenian Azeri Basque Belarusian Bengali Berber (Tamazight) Bosnian Bulgarian Burmese Catalan Cebuano Croatian Czech Danish Dutch Dzongkha English Esperanto Estonian Filipino Finnish French Galician Georgian German Greek Gujarati Haitian Creole Hausa Hawaiian Hebrew Hindi Hmong Hungarian Icelandic Indonesian Irish Italian Japanese Javanese Kannada Kazakh Khmer (Cambodian) Kinyarwanda Korean Kurdish Kyrgyz Lao Latin Latvian Lithuanian Luo Luxembourgish Macedonian Malagasy Malay Malayalam Maltese Mandarin Chinese Maori Marathi Mongolian Nahuatl Nepali Norwegian Pashto Persian Polish Portuguese Punjabi Quechua Rohingya Romanian Russian Samoan Sanskrit Scottish Serbian Sindhi Sinhala Slovak Slovenian Somali Spanish Sundanese Swahili Swedish Tajik Tamil Tatar Telugu Thai Tibetan Turkish Turkmen Twi Ukrainian Urdu Uyghur Uzbek Vietnamese Welsh Xhosa Yiddish Yoruba Yucatec Maya Zhuang Zulu

Speaky Review: Better Than Other Language Exchange Apps?

Quick Review

3.7 

Summary

Speaky is a social language-learning app for people interested in language exchange. It’s available for iOS, Android, and the web. Users can chat with other language learners, share photos, leave voice messages or even have voice calls. The basic features on Speaky are free to use, but access to more than five translations per day requires a subscription.

Community

There are some dedicated language learners on Speaky but not as many as similar apps.

Features

The platform is easy to use but lacks advanced features.

Value

Speaky is mostly free to use, extra features are available for a subscription.

Languages

There are over 100 languages on Speaky. These include popular languages like Spanish, French, German, Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Russian, Portuguese, Italian, Arabic, etc.

Price

The basic features on Speaky are free to use. A premium membership is available for a subscription.

1-month Subscription$5.99/month
6-month Subscription$4.83/month
12-month Subscription$3.91/month

Visit Speaky

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By Nick Afrikaans

The 7 Best Podcasts to Learn Afrikaans in 2020

If you’re planning to travel to or work in multiple countries in Africa, it can be helpful to learn Afrikaans, a southern African language that is also the official language of South Africa.

The language stemmed from the Dutch spoken by settlers in the 1600s and has evolved over time into what we see and hear today. Now, Afrikaans is spoken in not only South Africa, but also Namibia and in parts of Botswana and Zimbabwe. There are more than 7 million people who speak Afrikaans as their main language, and another 10 million-plus people who speak Afrikaans as their second language.

Are you interested in learning Afrikaans? If you’re taking an in-person or online course to learn Afrikaans, then you may be looking for language-learning resources to help you along this journey. If that’s the case, then you’ve come to the right place.

Language-learning podcasts can be an excellent complement to any online or in-person language course, helping you stay abreast of vocabulary and grammatical concepts and further your comprehension skills.

Check out these seven recommended Afrikaans podcasts and see if one (or a few!) might be right for you.

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By Brian Afrikaans Albanian Arabic Armenian Azerbaijani Belarusian Bengali Bulgarian Cantonese Catalan Croatian Czech Danish Dutch English Filipino Finnish French German Greek Haitian Creole Hebrew Hindi Hungarian Icelandic Indonesian Irish Italian Japanese Korean Kurdish Latin Latvian Lithuanian Malay Mandarin Chinese Norwegian Pashto Polish Portuguese Punjabi Romanian Russian Serbian Slovak Spanish Swahili Swedish Tamil Thai Turkish Ukrainian Urdu Vietnamese

HiNative Review: Useful But Not Exceptional Q&A App

Quick Review

3.7 

Summary

HiNative is a Q&A app for language learners that want to have questions answered by native speakers. It’s available for iOS, Android and desktop, and it has over three million registered users. A free version is available that offers the basic features of the app.

Features

The app is pretty basic, but it works.

Features

Many users are very helpful, but not all questions receive intelligent responses.

Value

The basic functions of the app are available for free, but you’ll need to pay for audio or video features.

Price

The basic features of HiNative are free to use. A premium subscription is available for $5.68/month paid monthly, or $4.96/month paid annually (a $59.63 payment).

Languages

HiNative supports just about any language.

Visit HiNative
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By Brian Afrikaans Ainu Albanian Arabic Armenian Assamese Austrian German Avar Aymara Azerbaijani Balinese Bavarian Belarusian Bengali Berber (Tamazight) Bhojpuri Brazilian Sign Language (LIBRAS) Breton Bulgarian Burmese Cantonese Catalan Cebuano Chavacano Chechen Cherokee Chewa (Chichewa) Choctaw Cornish Corsican Cree Croatian Czech Danish Dutch Dzongkha English Esperanto Estonian Ewe Faroese Fijian (ITaukei) Filipino Finnish French Galician Georgian German Greek Greenlandic Guarani Gujarati Haitian Creole Hebrew Hindi Hmong Hokkien (Taiwanese) Hungarian Icelandic Ido Igbo Indonesian Ingush Irish Italian Japanese Korean Kurdish Latin Latvian Lithuanian Malay Mandarin Chinese Norwegian Pashto Persian Polish Portuguese Punjabi Romanian Russian Serbian Slovak Spanish Swahili Swedish Tamil Thai Turkish Twi Ukrainian Urdu Vietnamese

Tandem Review: A Tinder-esque Language Exchange App?

Quick Review

4.7 

Summary

Tandem is a popular language exchange app with over one million active users. It’s available for iOS and Android and aims to bring language learners from all over the world together. It’s largely centered around its chat capabilities and language tools that facilitate communication, but there is also a tutoring service offered in the app.

Community 

There are lots of active language learners, especially those looking to pair with native English speakers.

Features 

The interface is intuitive and the language tools are simple and effective, though you’ll quickly run out of free translations.

Value

The free version is all most people will need. Tandem Pro doesn’t add a ton of extra value.

Price

There is a limited free version of Tandem and a pro version available at $6.99 for one month, $3.99/month for three months, and $2.92/month for a year’s subscription.

Languages

There are over 160 languages offered on Tandem.

Visit Tandem
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By Alex Afrikaans Arabic Armenian Basque Belarusian Breton Bulgarian Cantonese Catalan Cornish Croatian Czech Danish Dutch English Esperanto Estonian Filipino Finnish French Galician Georgian German Greek Guarani Hebrew Hindi Hungarian Icelandic Indonesian Irish Italian Japanese Kazakh Korean Latin Latvian Lithuanian Macedonian Mandarin Chinese Norwegian Persian Polish Portuguese Romanian Russian Scottish Serbian Slovak Slovenian Spanish Swedish Turkish Ukrainian Vietnamese Welsh Yiddish

Clozemaster Review: Limited Focus But Fun Way To Grow Vocab

Quick Review

4.2 

Summary

Ideal for people who are already at an upper beginner/intermediate level, Clozemaster will help you build your vocabulary and learn new words and sentences in context. While you won’t learn much grammar or improve your speaking and writing much, it is great at what it does and the videogame aspect makes it fun and addictive to work though. Although the exercises are all pretty much identical, there are various ways in which you can increase the difficulty and Clozemaster’s free account is almost as good as the Pro User one.

Quality

Very easy to use with thousands upon thousands of sentences for you to work through, Clozemaster’s main exercises are well-designed though some features are a bit hit and miss.

Thoroughness

Although you aren’t given any explanations, Clozemaster’s huge database of sentences allows you to learn words in context.

Value

The free version offers a ton of value, but for those who use Clozemaster regularly, it may be worth upgrading to a Pro account.

Price

The free version is very useful, but you can upgrade to a pro account for $8/month or $60/year.

visit clozemaster
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By Brian Afrikaans Albanian Arabic Armenian Azerbaijani Bengali Bulgarian Cantonese Catalan Croatian Czech Danish Dutch English Filipino Finnish French German Greek Haitian Creole Hebrew Hindi Hungarian Icelandic Igbo Indonesian Irish Italian Japanese Korean Latin Latvian Lithuanian Malay Mandarin Chinese Norwegian Persian Polish Portuguese Punjabi Romanian Russian Serbian Slovak Spanish Swahili Swedish Tamil Thai Turkish Ukrainian Urdu Vietnamese

HelloTalk Review – Make Friends & Practice Languages

Quick Review

4.5 

Summary

HelloTalk is a mobile app for language learners interested in language exchange. It facilitates communication between native speakers and those learning their language with the use of built-in language tools. It also offers audio lessons in 10 languages as part of a separate subscription.

Community

There’s an active community of dedicated learners, but you’ll have to do some searching.

Features

The app is easy to use and the language tools are helpful, but you could end up relying on google translate.

Value

Both the basic and VIP membership provide great value. The paid audio lessons probably aren’t worth it however.

Languages: There are over 150 languages supported for language exchange, and there are audio lessons for 10 languages: English, Japanese, Korean, Chinese, French, Spanish, Italian, Russian, Arabic, and Portuguese.

Price

The basic features of HelloTalk are free. Audio lessons require a separate subscription after a short trial period.

HelloTalk VIP is available for:

$4.99/month
$2.17/month (12-month contract)
$124.99 for lifetime access

The HelloTalk audio lessons are available for a one-year subscription at prices ranging from $99 to $119 depending on the language.

visit hellotalk
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By Brian French Afrikaans Ainu Albanian Arabic Armenian Azerbaijani Basque Belarusian Bengali Breton Bulgarian Burmese Cantonese Catalan Cebuano Coptic Cornish Croatian Czech Danish Dutch Dzongkha English Estonian Faroese Filipino Finnish Flemish Georgian German Greek Gujarati Haitian Creole Hakka Hebrew Hindi Hungarian Icelandic Igbo Indonesian Irish Italian Japanese Javanese Kannada Khmer (Cambodian) Korean Kurdish Ladin Ladino (Judeo-Spanish) Latin Latvian Lithuanian Luxembourgish Malay Malayalam Mandarin Chinese Maori Marathi Norwegian Ojibwe Pashto Persian Polish Portuguese Punjabi Romanian Russian Sanskrit Scots Scottish Serbian Slovak Spanish Swahili Swedish Tamang Tamil Telugu Thai Turkish Twi Ukrainian Urdu Vietnamese Welsh

Memrise Review – Useful But Don’t Overuse It

Quick Review

4 

Summary

Memrise is a super popular language-learning app available online and on mobile. It functions much like a gamified flashcard app, and it offers a lot of content for free. A lot of the content is user-created, and there is a premium subscription that provides access to additional features. Memrise can be a great tool in your arsenal, but you’ll need more to learn a language seriously.

Quality

The mobile app looks great and is easy to use, but the website is clunky. Works very well for memorization.

Thoroughness

There are quite a few official Memrise courses, and the number of user-created courses is massive, but you’ll benefit from using additional resources.

Value

The free version of the app provides a lot of value, but the paid version doesn’t offer much more.

Languages

There are currently official Memrise courses for 21 languages.

Among others, these include: Spanish, French, Chinese, German, Italian, Arabic, Korean, Japanese, Russian.

If you count the user-generated courses, the list of languages is nearly endless.

Price

For the full version of Memrise, the subscription prices are:

$8.99/monthly
$59.99/annually
$99.99 – lifetime subscription

Memrise also offers a ton of content for free. User-created content is available on their sister site, Decks, and signing up for a free account with Memrise automatically gives you access to limited versions of their official courses.

Visit Memrise
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