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What I Learned While Learning Languages

Many people who want to learn a new language don’t know where to start other than downloading Duolingo. However, there are many more language learning resources out there to aid in their journey. They come in various formats to cater to your particular learning style. Many are free, but the best are extremely expensive. In either case, I’ve collected a list of all the language learning resources I’ve encountered. I present them here for you, complete with my review and their use cases, and suggest ways to mix and match them into a language learning curriculum.

DISCLAIMER: I have no formal training in linguistics or pedagogy, and this is not the advice of an expert.

DISCLAIMER: I receive no monetary compensation from referral links in this post. The only compensation I receive is app credit, so I quite literally won’t recommend something I wouldn’t use myself.

Guidelines

There are 6 levels of language comprehension, according to the CEFR, from A1 to C2.

B1 is the level where people can start acting independently in arbitrary interactions. C1 is the level where you can call yourself fluent. Be wary of different apps’ definitions of “intermediate”; it could mean anywhere between A1 and B1.

However it’s defined, that is the level that focuses on new grammar. Formally studying the nuances of grammar is good and well, but the human brain excels at recognizing patterns. Ensure that you are being exposed to new sentence structures in these stages, and you will build a natural intuition for correct word patterns. Even natives use grammar incorrectly, so don’t fret about pedantry.

More important than even grammar is listening and conversational comprehension. Developing these skills should be your primary goal after achieving an A2 level. Incorporating audio sources into your learning routine is the best way to develop your listening skills. But if you’re like me, you learn to read faster than you learn to listen. So, be sure not to rely too heavily on captions or transcripts. If you use reading as a crutch, you train your brain to ignore audio stimuli, which is a rut that is hard to get out of.

Be careful when falling into the trap of wanting to speak like a native. An accent can be a blessing in disguise. It marks you as someone who may need help and patience. If you are awkward, clumsy, and susceptible to faux pas but have an accent, then natives will attribute any failings you may commit to a language barrier and help you overcome it. But if you don’t have an accent, they will simply assume you are a native speaker who is also kind of an idiot.


Curriculum

The rest of this post is interactive. Select your desired language and pricepoint below, and recommended language curricula will be generated for you. You can switch out different resources to customize for your particular learning style. Every app, audio course, and more are detailed later in the blog. Assess which you like and build your language learning plan.

Or, if you prefer, you can check “All” to see all resources available across all languages and price points.

Spanish
French
German
Japanese
Mandarin
Russian
Italian
Arabic
Korean
Portuguese
Indonesian
Hindi
Other

< $500/yr

What would you like to spend?

Videos.

For those who like to watch as they learn, this is a special collection of resources with video content

Daily Driver

Supplements


A Guide

Below, you can find my reviews of the resources mentioned in the suggested curricula. They are filtered according to the language and price options you selected above.

Note that not all resources are beginner-friendly, so if you see an icon that says A1, A2, or B1, you should attain that level of fluency elsewhere before attempting to use this resource.

Legend

– my stamp of approval. While I have personally used many apps on this list, these are my favorites

– Freemium. Most things listed below have a free trial, but any resources with the lock can be reasonably used without ever paying money.

– Paid, but for less than $30/year. Each additional corresponds roughly to a doubled cost.


Learning Apps

While gamified apps have been touted as the best way to learn languages because “it’s how children learn”, it’s mostly just advertising. They appeal to an audience drunk on TikTok and shortform content. Sure, gamifying the experience may help you stay focused enough to learn for 10 minutes a day, but contrary to the advertising, you cannot learn a language for 10 minutes a day.

However, they do present vocabulary and grammar in an accessible way. Most also have proficiency tests when signing up, so they can be started in the middle for a more tailored experience. Contrast that with Audio Courses, which can feel slow at first if you already have experience in the language. Using a daily app provides an entree for your language learning course. Just be sure to include sides.

the Babbel logo, a language learning app

Babbel

My daily driver

No surprises here. It’s good at the things apps are good at (vocab) and bad at the things they’re bad at (conversational comprehension). It does attempt to improve this with live tutoring for an extra charge, although I haven’t used this feature. Supplemented with other resources, this is a very rounded tool to start your language learning journey.

Praises: the multi-modal approach to learning vocab. Review is built into the app. Review exercises are vocabulary focused, and can be practiced via listening, speaking, reading, and writing to create a multi-modal language learning experience. No conversational content is built into the review, so you should use other (preferably audio/video) resources. Compared to the other gamified apps (Duolingo, Mondly, Busuu, etc.), Babbel has next to no clutter. No leaderboards, daily challenges, or confetti animation that plays after every lesson.

Cons: The content sputters out after reaching A2 level. They have a few dozen lessons categorized as “B1” and “B2”, but I call false advertising on that. If you finish all the app content, it would barely place you at an A2 in conversation. The app encourages you to move on to their podcast content to build listening comprehension, which I agree is a natural progression in your language learning journey.

It is developed by a German company, so they excel specifically at teaching German.

red square with a white g in the middle, the logo of gymglish, a language learning app

Gymglish

Best app out there if you’ve got the money

This is by far the best app I’ve found. The only downside is that you have to pay—a lot, like $32/month, and that’s only if you get the annual plan.

They claim to be powered by AI (who isn’t these days?), so the lessons are tailored to fill gaps in your knowledge. This is probably for the best since this app is not beginner-friendly.

Users tend to come here after finishing/abandoning another resource. I started learning French on this app shortly after passing a 365-day streak on Duolingo. I started learning German after completing all of Babbel’s A1 and A2 content. In both cases, I found Gymglish to be adequately challenging from the start.

The lessons typically include a short cartoon, comic, or audio clip in your target language. The content is often meant to entertain and combines to create a broader story as you take the course, which is fun and engaging. The rest of the lesson is primarily text-based, with some audio cues. The nature of questions throughout the lesson, combined with the fact that it’s all in your target language by default, forces you to process the context of the video and lesson instead of parroting back phrases you memorized.

Although each lesson is only 10-20 minutes long, it’s very cognitively dense. It forces you to think and process a lot of information. Other apps may teach you something new that goes in one ear and out the other, but it’s difficult NOT to retain knowledge learned with this app. As usual, I recommend supplementing it with flashcards and listening practice elsewhere.

It’s also geared for adults. You learn curse words, romantic etiquette, politics, and dirty jokes. At the end of each lesson, there is a “dessert” that is usually a clip from a film or TV show, followed by an explanation of its cultural importance. More than any other app, this app teaches you to integrate into the society of your target language.

You can get a one-month free trial with this referral link.

logo of the french verb conjugator app

Gymglish Conjugation Apps

Great reference for the most common verbs

The developers of the Gymglish courses provide free apps that act as conjugation references for the most common verbs in your target language. These apps are less of a study tool and more of a helpful reference.

FrenchAndroidiOS
SpanishAndroidiOS
GermanAndroidiOS
ItalianAndroidiOS
Links to Apps

Audio Lessons

If you have the tenacity, this is probably the best way to develop conversational comprehension in a new language. It forces you to understand a language without the crutch of getting to read accompanying text. But depending on the course, the mono-modal nature of the approach can often be tedious, and you may struggle to maintain focus. This is especially true if you’re the type of person who’s trained your brain to multitask while listening to podcasts. Know your limitations when taking this route.

The primary downside to audio courses is that you can’t jump into the middle. An interactive app will have a placement test to skip over content you already know. Audio courses only cater to beginners, so if you want to use this route to take you to a B1 level, select Pimsleur or CoffeeBreak. The other options don’t have enough content to take you that far. If you get bored of the Audio approach, you can always switch to an app, but you can’t switch back without repeating redundant learning, which is highly wasteful.

At the bottom are audio resources that can be used as supplementary listening practice in addition to your audio course or interactive app.

the logo for the Language Transfer audio course

Language Transfer

My favorite introductory resource

I can’t recommend this enough. Everyone should start here when learning a new language. It’s free, targeted at beginners, only takes a month or two, and gives you a solid feel of the difficulty of the language while establishing basics that can transfer to other courses.

It features a series of 5-10 minute audio lessons introducing you to a language’s core grammatical concepts and baseline vocabulary. In the process, it imparts a natural intuition of the language that accelerates your learning and grants a strong appreciation of linguistics that keeps you motivated. This momentum stays with you after you move on to a more complete program.

Even if you don’t have the focus for longform audio like Pimsleur, you’ll have the focus for these shorter lessons.

an ebook cover that says “Spanish Conversation with Paul Noble”

Conversations with Paul Noble

Can be paired with other courses

This deserves a separate entry because unlike the main course, which may be too short to be properly useful, the conversation audiobooks are a helpful supplementary tool no matter what your daily driver is.

As you approach an A2 skill, you want to practice your listening comprehension thoroughly. 12 hours of conversation content is just the practice you need. It includes English translations and longer explanations by Paul Noble himself.

Like the main courses, the conversations are free with Spotify Premium.

Spanish Conversation
French Conversation

the cover art for the duolingo spanish podcast

Duolingo Podcasts

Train your listening comprehension, Duo not required

Although I don’t recommend the Duolingo app, its story-driven podcasts are an excellent tool for intermediate users. Each episode is about 20-25 minutes long and features a storyteller discussing part of their life, intercut with an English narrator to establish context in the event you lose track of the story.

The podcast series is going strong and is regularly updated with new episodes. At the time of writing, there are over 100 episodes in the French series and over 150 episodes in the Spanish series.

This tool is mostly used to train listening comprehension, so don’t incorporate it into your learning plan until you have a strong foundation in your target language.

Listen wherever you get podcasts

the cover art for So ist Berlin, a german language story podcast

Babbel Podcasts

Twice the languages, half the episodes

These are akin to the Duolingo podcasts with a couple of noticeable benefits and tradeoffs:

Pros: More languages are supported. Duolingo podcasts only have a French and Spanish course. Babbel Podcasts include German, Italian, and ESL. It also sorts out podcasts by skill level, so you can start listening even at an A2 level. They do have an A1 French podcast, but it only has five episodes, which brings us to the cons.

Cons: Lack of content. Duolingo has hundreds of episodes and is regularly making more. Babbel only has a few dozen per language and hasn’t released new content in a while. This isn’t a reason not to use Babbel, of course. But plan to move on from it at some point.

These podcasts are available in the Babbel app, but I suggest listening to them wherever you usually find podcasts. All their offerings are listed on their website.

a white microphone icon against a purple background

Duolingo Audio Lessons

Piracy isn’t illegal if the product is no longer for sale

These were by far the best part of Duolingo. They were 5-minute interactive audio lessons for French and Spanish, emphasizing conversational comprehension in different contexts. After a well-received rollout on iOS-only in 2021, they were abruptly removed in 2022. They have never returned. I suspect they were removed because there was no way to make them inconvenient for free users. No premium turnover means no profits, which means the feature gets removed.

However, in 2024, Reddit user u/Deep-Breadfruit-5640 recovered the files and uploaded them to archive.org. You can find the Spanish lessons here and the French lessons here

Tutoring

I’ve never done tutoring myself. The cost-reward ratio doesn’t seem worth it. But this would be the ideal option if money is no object and you need a motivating, immersive experience. You’d have all the benefits of genuine conversation with a native speaker, but none significantly less of the social anxiety. Plus, it’s marginally cheaper than buying a plane ticket and relocating.

the logo for lingoda, an online language tutoring service

Lingoda

Most popular language tutor service

You saw the dollar signs. Their most popular plan (12 lessons a month with a class of 3-5) is $200—every month. A more intensive 1-on-1 session 20 times each month amounts to nearly $8k/year.

They do offer a sprint challenge: If you commit to 30 classes in 60 days and succeed, you get half your money back.

the Babbel logo, a language learning app

Babbel Live

Comparably affordable alternative without switching apps

Babbel also offers tutoring services for unlimited group lessons as cheap as $600/year. $900 for 1-on-1. Do the math on that, and it’s clear the tutors aren’t making a living wage, but maybe Babbel is using revenue from their main products to operate this one at a loss.

The 1-on-1 courses are only available in Spanish and German.

a cartoon bee, the logo for chatterbug, a language learning video platform

Chatterbug Lessons

The tutoring service with a video platform attached

They have another product called Chatterbug Streams, which I love, and which is completely free. I assume this tutoring service is how they pay for such a public service.

Note that the elevated price-point is partially because they only offer 1-on-1 lessons.

Flashcards

Vocabulary should never be the primary focus of your language learning journey. It’s important, but it can be addressed with 10-15 minutes of flashcards daily. Many apps have their own review feature, but I often find these to be lacking (cough Pimsleur cough). Below are the most notable tools to supplement your learning with vocabulary review.

Video Lessons

This includes a wide gamut of resources. It can be a video of a tutor giving a lesson. It can be watching a foreign language show. Or it can be a language teaching YouTuber. This has many of the same benefits as audio lessons. However, the additional video component trades effectiveness for retention. Video content is best used as a supplementary resource. Fittingly, many of the tools listed below do not have a structured curriculum categorizing videos by difficulty. They are best consumed haphazardly to expand your vocabulary, cultural knowledge, and listening comprehension. Use an audio course or an interactive app as your daily driver.

a cartoon bee, the logo for chatterbug, a language learning video platform

Chatterbug Streams

Totally free video learning platform

This is probably the best way to emulate tutoring without costing hundreds of dollars.

This mobile app contains 10-20-minute videos, each presented in a lesson-style format. In each video, the tutor directly addresses the camera and covers some new concept, be it grammar or themed vocabulary, complete with Q&A to keep you engaged. Depending on the difficulty level, the lesson may be presented in English or the target language.

Most lessons start as a livestream, allowing the opportunity to chat with the tutor. If you prefer on-demand content, all livestreams will be saved for later. The more popular/important videos are compiled as a pseudo-official course that you can use to guide your learning process.

Additional extra feature: shortform content. This app has shorts, some educational, some fun, all geared towards immersing you in a new language. I know that TikTok and all its clones are the work of the devil and will be responsible for the collapse of productivity and, ultimately, civilization. Still, at least now you can learn a language while you doom scroll.

This app is mostly useful as a supplementary tool. You can scroll through shorts, catch an occasional livestream, and leisurely skip through their curated videos. It’s a great way to get many benefits of tutoring, but it’s free. The whole thing is a giant advertisement for their actual tutoring services.

TV5 Monde logo, a french public service language learning platform

TV5Monde

Great free resource for practicing French listening comprehension

This is my favorite supplementary tool for learning French. You pick a video, watch it (either with or without captions in the target language), and then answer questions about the content. It’s great for developing listening comprehension in context.

The app is completely free. TV5, a French public television network, developed it as a public service.

die maus, a character from a german tv show

Die Maus

German Sesame Street

This is a wildly popular German children’s education show that is also good for adults learning German. It does have general educational content for all ages, so it’s not completely fair to compare it to Sesame Street, but it certainly fills the same niche.

Reading

Most people are visual and auditory learners, which is why I’ve suggested primarily audio courses and captioned videos. However, some people don’t struggle with speaking practice and prefer reading for vocabulary practice. If you’re one of these people and wish that you could read Ebooks in a foreign language and tap-to-translate individual words to grow your vocabulary, there’s an app for that too.

Passive Entertainment

It’s useful to experience a language even if you don’t understand it. Once you achieve an A1 level, start watching foreign shows with English captions or listen to music in your target language. This approach won’t help you learn by itself but will accelerate your ability to retain and comprehend new concepts introduced from other resources. Different languages have a musicality that can be learned even if the content is not understood. This musicality and rhythm will help with your pronunciation and listening comprehension in your target language.

zee5 logo

ZEE5

Indian Netflix

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This streaming service features South Asian shows to immerse you in Hindi, Telugu, Kannada, and Malayalam. It’s also, as far as I can tell, the only source of the original Telugu cut of RRR. The movie’s dialogue is originally equal parts Telugu, Hindi, and English. But the version on Netflix dubs over the Telugu with Hindi.

hotstar logo

Hotstar

Indian Disney+

This is Disney’s streaming property that serves the South Asian market. Another option if you want to learn Indian languages. Note that it doesn’t have distribution rights outside of Asia, so whip out the VPN and be prepared to pay in Rupees.

Check out Bahubali (parts 1 and 2) and RRR

movistar logo

Movistar+

Latin American Netflix

Movistar is the leading internet provider in Latin America (you’ve heard of them if you’ve ever bought a SIM card there). They also have a streaming service if you’re interested in watching fútbol, telenovelas, or any Spanish content.

Honorable Mentions

languagelearning.site

If you’re about that life on the high seas, this website contains links to many torrents of practically every conceivable language course ever produced, including textbooks, audio courses, and dictionaries.

r/languagelearning

I found out about many of the items on this list by scrolling this subreddit for years. Without word-of-mouth, you’ll only find yourself paying money to apps with a marketing budget. Free resources don’t advertise themselves.

In addition, the wiki on that subreddit contains a much more exhaustive list of learning resources (of greatly varying quality). If you feel something in this post is lacking, look there.

AI Assistants

It’s a brave new world we live in. While you should take their grammar explanations with a grain of salt (they tend to make stuff up), AI assistants provide a convenient way to practice your conversational skills. It’s too early days for me to recommend a particular app, given the ethical frontier we’re in regarding data collection and AI training, but keep this option in mind when you reach an A2/B1 level and need a conversation buddy.


If you liked this post, check out some of my other work. None of it is related, but I need to have internal links for SEO reasons. Look! A résumé!