Learning A New Language with an App
Hola! Me llamo Jensine, y estudio español con Duolingo.
I’m an educator. If I knew how to speak and understand Spanish, I would use it every single day in my work world. After countless frustrating moments with loving, involved parents, or new students who only speak Spanish, I sought to find an app from which I could learn Spanish.
Meet Duo.
This little guy has changed my life. We’ve been spending the last 3+ months together. Every day. Check out this note he sent me today 🙂
Have you been thinking about learning a new language?
If yes, here’s a few reasons why I love Duolingo and hope you’ll check it out!
- It’s free. My favorite price!
- I’m actually learning Spanish! I’m a Spanish beginner but I quickly blew through the first few units. That made me feel fantastic! I started to feel successful from the first time I used Duolingo. The program asks you to make a commitment to earn so many XP per day (I think that stands for experience points); I chose 20 per day, which is two 10-question lesson per day. It takes me about 5 minutes to do my lessons.
- It feels like fun, not like drudgery. The design of the app is playful, colorful, and bright. It is interactive and each of 10-question lesson has a variety of questions, so it’s not boring. Sometimes I’m speaking into my phone, other times I’m typing what I hear. Or I’m selecting the pairs or dragging and dropping words in order.
- You get lots of “rewards” along the way. Every time I finish a 10-question lesson, this trumpet sounds (“Buh buuuuuh!”) and it makes me feel really proud. I then see graphics that show my progress toward my daily goal. Everytime I finish a whole unit (of which there are over 100), there are fireworks on the screen. It feels like my phone is celebrating with me! You also earn coins (called lingots) for maintaining practice streaks and other milestones. Those lingots can be used to purchase cute clothes for Duo (I like the tux and monocle), freeze your “streak” so you can skip one day, or buy special lessons.
- It conveniently goes everywhere with me. I did my lessons while standing in line at Six Flags Magic Mountain! I feel like I’m making really great use of my free time, since it’s conveniently in my pocket and I can do it anywhere.
The Tree
When you click on one of these circles, you see that it has a unit name, like “Travel” or “Routines.” Within this circle there are 5 units that start easy and build foundations, then get progressively harder. There are anywhere from 5-20 10-question lessons within each of the 5 units. Don’t do the math! Here goes: To complete ONE CIRCLE, I have to answer about 500 questions. These go by very quickly, and like I said, the formats vary.
When I finish one circle, others unlock so I can move forward with more complex learning.
Speeding Up
On the desktop version (not the app), you can skip ahead of the 1-5 units if you feel confident you can pass a quiz. I love this feature. Sometimes you just know the material and you don’t need 500 questions to prove it! For example, I used to work in a Mexican restaurant and knew lots of vocabulary from that setting. I took the quiz, passed it, and earned 200 XP just for blowing through the unit! So it’s not a “one size fits all” program.
The Question Formats
Check out some screenshots from early units. Notice the variety of question types.
These are just a few of the formats of the questions! Others have big, colorful pictures or ask you to speak what you see. I love the variety!
What Duolingo has done for me
Since starting Duolingo, my passion for learning Spanish has taken on a life of its own. I signed up for an educator’s immersion program happening in my community in the summer. I am actively looking at places to visit in Central and South America that have immersion schools. But most importantly, I can confidently greet families by telling them my name, my title, and that it’s very nice to meet them. This budding skill is just the start of growing better relationships with families and providing a welcoming culture for all in my school.
Let me know your experience with Duolingo by posting a comment below.
Take care!
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