LingoDeer Language App Review

Hello, everyone and welcome back to my blog! I hope that you have been having a nice month so far and that you have been staying warm during our cold winter days. For this week's post, I wanted to share my all-time favorite language-learning app. I have been using it for almost a year now for German, French, and now consistently for Portuguese.

LingoDeer is an app that I found out about from one of my favorite language YouTubers, Lindie Botes, who made an app review about it on her channel a while back. At first, I was not sure if I would like it, or if I could use it, given that I am not learning any Asian languages, but the more I learned about it, the more I started to use it. I completed almost the entire course for German in a few months, started using it for French, and have now completed 40% of the Portuguese course it offers.

What makes this app so great? Well, to start off, it is free, so you do not have to worry about spending a single cent to install it on your phone. It's also very practical, fun, and easy to follow. Unlike Duolingo that gives you very unnatural-sounding sentences and often robotic sounding voice recordings, I would say that the sentences you are asked to learn and then spell out, as well as the voice recordings, are very clear and logical. They are also made by native speakers, which helps you practice your phonetics and pronunciation.

It's a bit hard to describe how to use this app, so I decided to attach a YouTube video that shows you how to use it step-by-step. It also talks about many of the features that you can use that provide further vocabulary and grammar explanations that you do not get when using Duolingo. I am determined to finish the entire course for Portuguese within the next 3 months or so, which goes to show how much I love this app. I especially love how you can earn prizes after completing certain challenges, such as having a 30-day streak, or completing a certain level of the course.

This app offers courses in Korean, Japanese, Mandarin, Vietnamese, French, German, and Portuguese. I have to say that I have been very impressed with the non-Asian language courses, but have never tried the other ones. Most LingoDeer app reviews talk about the Asian language courses, so they seem to be very thorough and easy-to-follow from what I have gathered.

Boa sorte com tudo! Good luck with everything!

Until next time,

Laura 

Foreign Language Vocabulary Builder Using Anki (Application)

I have been waiting months to write this post, because I wanted to make sure that I gave you the best tips and that I genuinely knew how to best use Anki. In case you have never heard of it, Anki is an application, which you can download online for free, or on your phone for a decent price. I first found out about it when I read a book that gave practical tips on ways that you could start making a better use of time when learning languages. Although I have not been able to use it every day, due to being a full-time student and doing a lot of extracurricular activities, I have used it for a total of over a year, so I can confidently say that Anki alone is one of the most valuable tools of which I have taken advantage over the years. I have not only increased my vocabulary, but also now know how to teach myself abstract words that are harder to master.

The way that it is used is very simple. When you open up the application, you have three tabs from which to choose: Decks, Add, or Browse. If you click “Decks”, you can directly click on one of your decks and start learning a fixed number of cards a day. For example, in my deck named “Deutsch”, it currently says that I have 30 new cards and 0 new cards. This means that, based off of the amount of cards that I want to learn per day, I should review all 30 of those cards today.

If you click on the tool icon to the right of where it says “New”, you have 4 options: Rename, Options, Export, and Delete. If you want to change the name of one of your deck of cards, simply click “Rename” and type in what you want that deck to be called. In the options tab, you can choose “Default” if you feel that you can study the amount of cards that the program is defaulted as. You can also choose “Show new cards in random order”, or “Show new cards in order added” under “Order”. Lastly, you simply choose how many cards you want to learn a day in a certain graduation interval (ex: 1 day), as well as change the easy interval and the percent of your starting ease.

I usually learn 10, or 20 cards a day, but what is great about this application, is if you ever feel that you cannot learn, say 20 cards a day like you originally set out to do, you can adjust that every day if you feel like it is necessary to do so. Anki is an application that you can adjust based on your particular needs and does not make you do something that you do not want to do.

Now that I have covered the basics as to how Anki works, you are probably wondering how I actually use it. Although I will try to do my best to explain how this application works, please make sure to watch the video that I attached above, so that you know how to properly use it step by step. Otherwise, you will probably be very confused and will not understand what I feel like any language learner should know how to use. The first step to adding cards to a deck that you name is to click “Add” and to click on one of the decks that you have, so that you are assured that the new cards that you will add are placed into the correct deck.

Then, I go to www.google.com/images and search for an unknown word in its original language (keep in mind that this step is absolutely crucial if you want to get the most out of this application). For example, if I did not know that “la Estrella” were “the star” in Spanish, I would type in “la estrella” and would find the image that most appealed to me. In other words, I try finding images that are not only visually appealing, but that also help me remember what the word means without translating it from Spanish to English. I then pu the word in its original language where it says “Back”, or I will copy and paste a phrase that is attached to an image and leave the word that I am trying to learn underlined like this: ___________.

Although this process can be time-consuming, what is great about it is that there is truly no wrong way to do it. You do not have to add 100 new words every day. Instead, you have to be consistent and try to use it every day when you are starting if you can. If you cannot, then try using it several times a week. It should not take you more than 15 minutes to study the amount of words that you asked Anki to show you, and it is a really fun and interactive way to expand your vocabulary. Instead of simply using the traditional notecard method that can be tedious to write and use, you are using, reading, and saying new words in your target language. This forces you to switch from, say German mode to English mode.

What is most important about this process is that you search for words, or even phrases of the words that you want to learn in your original language. Avoid translating words as much as possible, and only do so to quickly check if you know the direct translation from your target language to your native language, but avoid putting in any words, or even images that contain words in your native language if you want to expand your vocabulary by twofold, or threefold.

I hope that you found this post practical and helpful. Have an amazing week and continue enjoying summer!

Review of Duolingo (Application)

One of the most practical ways of learning a foreign language is through the use of technology, specifically by regularly using applications. I decided to start off by reviewing Duolingo, a free language-learning application that is available in Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Dutch, Irish, Danish, Swedish, Turkish, Esperanto, Norwegian, Ukrainian, Russian, and Polish. I will be giving you my honest opinions about this application, so that you can decide whether or not you want to download it onto one of your devices.

Pros:

 1. It is free

Many language-learning applications, and software programs that are often well marketed can end up being very expensive, and oftentimes are not worth the investment. Although you cannot become fluent in a language by only using this application, it is a great supplement to other language-learning materials, websites, and other applications  Given that it is free, it teaches you basic, intermediate, and advanced vocabulary. 

 2. This application can be used for beginner, intermediate, and advanced learners

If you have had some experience, and or study with your target language prior to downloading Duolingo, you can take a placement test, which will test you out of topics, and levels that you most likely have already mastered. If for some reason you think that you are not as advanced as it says that you are, you can redo lessons that you supposedly tested out of. This is great for review, and for anyone who wants to review a specific topic (ex: animals, or food vocabulary that you might be rusty on). If you have never studied your target language, you can start from the first lesson, and work your way through the topics until you are satisfied with your progress.

3. It helps you expand your vocabulary

In my opinion, Duolingo’s biggest strength is that it helps you learn through repetition. Vocabulary is often recycled, and is repeated often, which means that, even if you do not try to reinforce the vocabulary that it teaches you by doing something else, you will most likely remember the majority of the words. One of its best features is the ability to click on a button that can replay the voices’ recordings. You can click it as many times as you want, which is great for auditory learners, and to hear how the words being pronounced. 

4. You only have to use this application for 5-10 minutes a day in order to make significant progress

I have found that you do not have to spend hours trying to cram information in your head when using Duolingo. Oftentimes, less is more, and quality is more important that quantity. Another strength about this application is that it is very organized. You start off by learning words that help you learn your target language’s alphabet, and eventually learn how to translate official documents from English to your target language, and vice versa. This application helps you practice your listening, reading, and pronunciation skills, expand your vocabulary, spelling, and writing. You learn how to spell words through repetition, and by hearing the voices’ recordings. 

Cons:

1. It does not directly teach you grammar

If you are someone who has not had a lot of experience learning languages, this may be frustrating. The application was not designed to teach you formal grammar lessons. Instead, each lesson will focus on a particular vocabulary topic, and will make you translate, write, record, and listen to words about that topic. For example, if you are on the food topic, you will learn words such as fork, spoon, plate, and cup. However, if you have studied several languages, or have a good grasp on another language’s grammar, you can pick up patterns, and can indirectly learn grammar. For example, if you have studied the accusative case of German in school, and get to that topic, you will practice examples using the accusative case, but will not be taught what the accusative is, and why it is used.

2. You cannot practice your conversational skills

Although you can record your voice reading sentences out loud once you reach a certain level, you cannot practice speaking with anyone else. If you want to improve your conversational skills, you will have to supplement this application with language learning communities online, with native speakers, with your friends, or with your family.

3. The voice recordings are not always clear

I have found that the speakers’ voices have not always been pleasing to the ear. They sometimes sound robotic, or what Google Translate’s speakers sound like. That being said, if you find value in the positive aspects of the application, you get used to their voices, and tune out parts that do not sound pleasing.

4. It can be overwhelming

If you do not practice your target language using this application every day, or several times a week, you can easily become frustrated, and will feel that you have not made any progress. What I would recommend is trying to use it as many days of the week as you can, and use it for no more than 10 minutes a day. If you are a visual learner, or like to write down what you hear, you can designate a notebook specifically for what you learn using Duolingo, and write out the sentences, and new vocabulary that it teaches you.

As you can see, there are pros, and cons of this application, but the pros far outweigh the cons. I wanted to give you an equal amount of pros, and cons, so that I could give you my honest opinion of what the application does well, and which flaws it has. I hope that you found this post helpful. Feel free to let me know what you think of it in the comments down below.