A Fun New Way to Learn Languages

I remember my school days, spent lounging at the back of Spanish class during my A-levels, idly doodling in my notepad or else trying to keep up with the rest of the class as I desperately tried to recall the Spanish for "Lorca uses lots of phallic imagery in his plays". The thing is, I wasn't all that bad at Spanish; it's just that, compared to the others, I wasn't all that good. Much of that was of course down to me: I rarely took the time to look at the vocabulary or revise until exams came by, at which point it was already too late. I seem to recall doodling during much of my preparation time for the oral exam, too, actually.

But the past month or so has led me back into languages, through a route I hadn't hitherto given much thought. With the advent of smaller, faster technology we have more and more ways to access information, a fact which Muzzy and Rosetta Stone have taken into account with their DVDs and computer software. But me? I've gone for something a little smaller, more... handheld.

Duolingo is a pretty little app which you can download for free for Apple and android devices, but despite the cartoony owl mascot and the fun little pictures for each subject, I find it's actually very good for learning languages. For myself, it felt a little patronising to begin with, but as I've said I did Spanish to A-level so that was to be expected. And it turns out I've forgotten a lot in the few years between the end of sixth form and the middle of my first year at university - I was surprised at how soon I started to get things wrong.

Much of that came down to not speaking Spanish in public, well at all really. I haven't had the practise which would be useful to keep the whole thing in my head. I've used it a couple of times - an old man who needed help where I work spoke very little English but he was Spanish so I was drafted to speak to him - but it's fair to say I really am not at the level I was just two years ago.

Duolingo really helps with this, taking you back to basics and giving you the lessons all over again. For those who've studied the language and are looking for a refresher course, the first few rounds are quickfire and fun, and I marvelled at how fast I was cutting through the challenges. But for the beginners, I imagine repeated plays of the basics are a must, though the handy tap-to-explain mechanism for each word is useful for learning what you need with each new question (the Spanish for spider is "araña". I just learned that today!). I did French at school too, and though I haven't tried the Duolingo lessons for that I'm hopeful for that time when I do decide to give them a go. The lessons are easy enough to pick up, and the skill level bar which flows up through each set of questions gives you a good guide as to how you're doing, each metre slowly depleting as you move on, forcing you to return and up your skills in each category once again. The skill bars are actually really nifty, and I like the mechanic because it does make you want to go back and refresh your memory on those words again. The regular refreshers really help your skill grow, especially with daily practise.

If I have one problem with Duolingo, though, it's that it doesn't follow what I already know. Having spent five years studying the same language, I know enough to more-or-less breeze through the first pyramid of lesson plans. But I trip up unexpectedly now and again because the words I know are not the ones presented to me. As an example, I learned in Spanish class that the Spanish for sandwich was "bocadillo". Duolingo presents me with the rather more mouthy "emparedado". I've checked and both are correct (at least according to Google translate, and how reliable is that nowadays) but it does irritate me a little that it seems to be going against what a usual Spanish textbook would tell me. But then, I can't really call this a problem, because if I write "bocadillo" the program will still take it as correct, because it is. I've noticed a few other people wondering if "emparedado" is a South American word or something, because they're not familiar with it, so I'm inclined to believe it's not in totally common usage. As I've said, it's still taken as correct, so Duolingo has no problem with another dialect or a Latin American usage. It'll be interesting to see, when I turn the microphone back on and start doing the speaking questions, how it deals with an Andalusian accent.

So that's Duolingo, a fun, interesting education game which teaches languages. FYI: the languages you can choose from are French, Spanish, German, Italian and Portuguese. And those are just the ones from English. You can learn English from Russian, Dutch, German, Turkish, Polish and a whole host of others, so it's just as good if you're learning English. And if you are learning English, here's hoping Google translate makes this page readable for you. :P

Adieu!