Tips for Students: Learn New Languages Using Duolingo

Overview of Duolingo

1. Duolingo is a language learning site where you can learn Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese, and German.
2. You learn by going through lessons and translating sentences.
3. Duolingo treats lessons like a game, giving you a set amount of hearts, or lives, each lesson, and giving you experience points for every lesson or practice session you complete.
4. It has an immersion page where you translate real articles from a foreign language to your native tongue.

Ever feel like learning a new language? As of late, with the internet connecting people on a now international level, having access to language learning tools is getting easier, but still, a lot of these tools are, unfortunately, very expensive. Some websites, however, are offering free courses to help you on your way to learning a foreign language. Last week I reviewed the language learning website LiveMocha; this week I want to tell you all about Duolingo.

What is Duolingo?

Duolingo is a language learning website. I'm not sure about what it offers for non-English speakers, but for English speaking people it offers full courses and practice in French, Spanish, German, Italian, and Portuguese. These are all free, and you can follow and interact with others who are trying to learn another language.

EDIT: since 1/4/2017, they have added four more languages to learn for English speakers: Dutch, Irish, Danish, and Swedish. There are also more on the way, such as Hungarian, Turkish, and Esperanto. This hub will be updated when those languages open up as options!

It also has a free mobile app for both iOS and Android devices. It has all of the basic tools that the website has, so you can easily learn on the go with a set of headphones if you can't stay at your desktop or lug around your laptop everywhere. It's actually one of those few app/websites where I think the app is equally as good as the website, so if you have a smartphone I highly suggest downloading it.

How it Works

Signing up

Like with most things, you first have to sign up for an account. It's a pretty painless process, as you just have to set your email, username, and password. Then, you can start your courses. As of right now there are only five languages in total, the Romantic languages plus German. You can also set a daily goal for yourself; you can set 5-25 minute daily goals for yourself, which loosely translate to a certain amount of XP (experience points) that you should try to earn everyday.

Lessons and Testing out

The course starts from the very beginning, and when you complete sections using essay writing service , new sections will become available. If you already know a decent amount of the language and are looking to start at the intermediate level, you can test out of individual lessons, sections, or even groups of sections at a time. If you can pass, you can automatically go to the next set of…