Want to brush up on that Spanish you used to know in high school? Wish you still remember more than a couple of words from that old French textbook? Itching to delve into the language your grandparents once knew, but of which you only inherited a few colloquial phrases? Duolingo is just the place to start. I have found that working through a few lessons each day on their iTunes app is fun, takes only minutes of my time, and a bit more fulfilling and productive than playing card games like Spider Solitaire (my current favorite way to waste time and my phone battery life). The application can also be accessed via any web browser at Duolingo.com.
For me, Duolingo is a good way to remember and practice all the Spanish I learned in high school and college, but use far too infrequently in real life. I’ve also started learning German from scratch since this was the language spoken by most of my ancestors. It’s great fun to watch my own word bank expand beyond the few phrases like “schmechen gut” and “sprechen sie englisch?” that my dad and grandpa bandy around all the time!
Duolingo offers courses in the most popular romance languages—Italian, Spanish, French, Portuguese—as well as German. There are also English courses presented in various other languages, so I’d imagine this could also be a great tool for ESL teachers. If you were hoping to pick up a more exotic language like Tagalog, Zulu, or Tamil, you are out of luck. There are also no offerings for other alphabet systems, to the great disappointment of a friend who has been trying to pick up Russian. But Duolingo is a growing thing, and is open for people versed in other tongues to contribute to new or existing courses. Stay tuned, new to- and from- languages may be available soon!
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