Duolingo

DuoLingo is an amazing educational software that helps you learn a new language for free! I am so happy to have bumped into DuoLingo because I've wanted to take my understanding of the French language deeper. I took French in school for six years and did okay but wasn't as passionate about learning this as I am now. DuoLingo makes it super easy to do so with my favorite learning method which is integrated in bite size modules which you can do daily, or as often as possible. I'm talking about five minutes modules which is the length of session I've set for myself although you can make it ten minutes, or much longer. When I first logged into my account I noticed there are not advertisements, nor upgrade links of any kind and that made me curious to know how they make money as a business. Well after doing some research I learned the very clever business model they use which is to ask you at the end of some lessons if you want to attempt to translate a real article from CNN or BuzzFeed. These articles are translated by dozens, or hundreds, or thousands of people I'm not certain but the collective efforts ensure the translation attempts are good enough to qualify as a paid translation service for DuoLingo. Who knew? That's a very cool way to make money, yet provide a super valuable tool for free to help you learn new languages. The dashboard is very easy to understand and follow along. It all works with a few clicks as your lead through each lesson. I like how you`re learning how different perspectives with each sentence or phrase. Such as reading it, writing it and saying it out loud as well as making a visual connection to each word so in this sense helps you learn quicker because of it`s integrative approach. I learn best if I am passionate about a subject yet there is only so much time available to dedicate to new endeavors. This learning software allows you to gain momentum over time which is an incredibly powerful way to learn even if it`s five minutes per day. Five minutes per day is hard to make an excuse to not do, and by building the fundamentals and allowing them to metabolize in your psyche and become more conscious over time is awesome. I truly love this software for providing me an opportunity to take my learning of language to new levels.

I believe that while DuoLingo isn`t tricking you into doing anything that doesn`t benefit your learning a new language and there is no cost, I would appreciate the transparency of having it laid out on their site. Though it does add to the curiosity factor about their company and this is helpful with word of mouth marketing for sure, so I can respect their choice as well, because there really is no harm done by not having it there though it would help solidify trusting relationships faster between their company and users, because I believe it`s true that most of us expect there to be a cost for this quality of learning online. Had I not done the research on their forum and elsewhere online to learn more about their business model there would have been a suspiciousness about it about it every time I logged in waiting to discover the catch. But there isn`t one. Rest assured this is a fantastic free offer with outstanding value included. I wanted to write the range of time you can set for your goals as mentioned above in my first paragraph but this isn`t easy to find once you`ve already made your choice of language. Perhaps this option is there, it makes sense that it would be, or perhaps you can only make this choice when you begin a new language I have yet to determine but it`s not an intuitive feature easily found after first selecting it. Minor issue in the big scheme of things.

If you have a compelling, practical reason to learn another language or you`ve ever thought it would just be cool to do DuoLingo is the place to get started. I found it better than Rosetta Stone because it involves reading, writing, speaking and visual association which together create a much more powerful integrated method of learning for me personally than other more tedious, repetitious ways to learn. Plus you`re rewarded XP for completing your goals so it makes it kind of fun. It`s a way to measure your progress is all and that`s useful. Overall, I can`t say enough about the incredible value offered by DuoLingo for free. Highly recommended!