Top mobile apps to learn English

You’re here… so you’ve already started to learn English! Smart move! There are many apps that can help you, let’s take a look at a few of them:

In the translation industry, we know that English is the language most often translated into. As well as being an official language in 101 countries, over 520 million people worldwide speak English. When travelling it is likely that many people you meet will not know your language, nor you theirs – however you can be almost certain that they will understand basic English. One of the reasons for this is that many movies, games and apps are released in English by default. English lessons are of course available worldwide, but their are a number of mobile apps that can help you learn.

Should you learn British English or US English? The main differences are spelling and colloquial expressions, plus of course, the accent. But rest assured, both US and English English are understood the same way. Here are 5 of the best mobile apps to learn English. 

 

Memrise

Memrise is one of the most popular language learning mobile apps. It’s a crowd-sourced learning platform, where members of the Memrise community develop and create the courses themselves. It’s one of the most the most fun apps to practice vocabulary and, a key benefit for beginners, is that you can search for words or sentences in numerous different languages. 

Memrise teaches through memes and gamification. It relies on creating strange associations with studied words. These associations are often coupled with memes which can make the leaning experience a lot more entertaining!

 

Duolingo

In the language learning community, you will often hear this comment: “Is it like Duolingo?!”  It would be impossible to create a list of best language learning apps that fails to mention it. Their blend of learning and gamification has been much copied by others. With more than 100 million users, to say it’s popular is an understatement!

With Duolingo, you can choose if you want to learn a language from scratch, or improve a language that you already have. For each language, there are specific courses, aimed at people with specific native languages and levels. The app also requires you take regular tests to see where you stand with your learning.

 

Busuu

Quite similar to Memrise, the courses on Busuu are also created by the community members. You can choose the level you wish to start from, and courses advance from there. The app is free, but you do need to pay $17 a month to unlock all the course materials. The courses also come with a handy “travel course” which includes helpful tips and hints to learn the basics before leaving for a trip. Another advantage is that Busuu is also social media platform, which means it lets its users chat as well.

 

Babbel

Babbel is a priced version of Duolingo, with more stuff than Busuu. It has 40 classes in the free version. So actually, without paying anything, you still have enough materials to learn a great deal. Babbel comes with 13 languages. The classes work with step-by-step teaching of vocabulary, where the app includes pictures to help you. Then there are short dialogues to help you build up conversation and more.

 

Hellotalk

Hellotalk is one of our favourites! An app where you are able to connect and chat with people, in the language you want to learn or improve. It is aimed to help you speak and overcome nervousness. What better way to improve than to talk with a native speaker? You can send text messages, audio and even make a video call. Plus, you can view people’s profiles to find who you want to chat with. So goodbye translators and Hellotalk!