“To have another language is to posses a second soul.”
Scholars have named English the world's most influential language. It's the second most common language in the world. Over 340 million people speak English as their first language. English is the most common second language in the world doubling the second most common Arabic.
Is it time we moved past the mentality of "Everybody else speaks English so why do we need to learn a language?"
As the world has become more accessible both physically and through the development of technology is it time the nation learns a language and expands their horizons?
As we know, the internet can be a magical learning tool which can teach us anything from baking a cake to the best ways to keep fit... but how can it teach us a language?
Before we show you great apps to learn a language let's understand why it is invaluable to learn a language.
There are literally thousands of reasons why we should be learning a second language and why learning one will benefit us but the main reason for learning a language is why we learn anything...
“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.
”
Bill Gates, the billionaire philanthropist, can lay claim to a lifetime of achievements, but confessed earlier this year that a foreign language was missing from his CV. In an attempt to tackle the problem, he rejected using his $80bn fortune to hire an army of private tutors and joined the 100 million people in the world on Duolingo.
Having grown up in Guatemala the founder of Duolingo, Luis Von Ahn wanted to create an educational tool for those people without money to learn a language and expand their horizons. People will of course need access to a computer, mobile or a tablet but this is accessible for most people globally.
Duolingo was founded in 2012 and now has over 100 million users worldwide. 3 million users are in the United Kingdom alone and the numbers continue to grow with 100,000 new users being added a day.
Learn anytime, anywhere: Make your breaks and commutes more productive with iPhone and Android apps and learn outside the classroom.
Duolingo for schools: Duolingo has a specialist learning platform available just for schools. It's currently being used by thousand of teachers to enhance their lessons. Over 100,000 classrooms are now using Duolingo.
Set homework: Duolingo for schools gives teachers the ability to assign homework that kids actually want to do! Children think of Duolingo as a game and strive to earn points, pass levels and compete with their friends.
Track pupils progress: Track the progress of your pupils from your teacher management system. It's easy to track and tells you which levels your pupils have advanced to and where they may be struggling.
Rosetta Stone is one of the biggest brands in language learning in the English speaking world (not to be confused with the Rosetta Stone that helped us decipher Egyptian hieroglyphics, which it is named after).
Apart from instructions (like repeat, listen etc,) everything is in the target language in an attempt to immerse you in the language completely.
Rosetta Stone is regarded as a premium and corporate language resource tool, with prices for a personal course ranging between £190-£300. Courses are either 12 or 24 months.
Rosetta Stone is available for educational institutions and currently is used in over 22,000 educational institutions. There is not a fixed price for the educational software you can make an enquiry as pricing varies on the size of your institution and number of potential users.
Although Rosetta stone may be a bit pricey it's a premium brand which has been around for 20 years. Try a demo for schools for free....
Memrise similar to Duolingo. It is free a online learning tool but with courses created by its community. There are thousands of language courses available on Memrise because it is a community based learning tool.
Courses created by Memrise themselves are quite long and intensive similar to courses on Rosetta Stone and Duolingo, so it is possible to properly learn a a language using Memrise.
Unlike Rosetta Stone and Duolingo , community created courses offer a wealth of languages and variation which are particularly useful for people wanting to learn a more obscure language.
There are over 6,500 languages spoken in the world, so a community network like Memrise is a really important tool. Compared to other language software suppliers which only teach 10-30 languages (less than 1% of the worlds languages) it really shows the importance of Memrise.
“Just learning to think in another language allows you to see your own culture in a better viewpoint ”
— Gates Mcfadden
Whichever language app you decide to choose, remember the fundamental reasons for learning a language, to explore and expand your horizons. A language is a beautiful skill which helps us reach out to another community in the world.
We would love to hear about how you have used these apps and how your language skills are coming along! Please comment below and share your experiences with us.
Don't be afraid to leave a comment in the new language you've learned ;)
autocomplete="on"
method="POST"
novalidate
onsubmit="return (function (form) {
Y.use('squarespace-form-submit', 'node', function usingFormSubmit(Y) {
(new Y.Squarespace.FormSubmit(form)).submit({
formId: '564a0b3ce4b0e50631513528',
collectionId: '',
objectName: 'post-5649bdd8e4b0717f06f0f143'
});
});
return false;
})(this);">