Duolingo is a free app that teaches  foreign languages. It provides a selection of over 30 languages, and even teaches English for certain foreign speakers. This app is available on Apple and Android, on nearly any platform. 

With voice work, Duolingo allows you to hear the words it’s teaching you, great for auditory learners and getting familiar with the sounds of phrases/words. 

Immediate feedback is given after you answer each exercise, so if you get one incorrect it’ll tell you how to improve. Even if you get something correct, it’ll tell you alternate ways of how to say certain phrases. And if this isn’t enough, there is also a community section where you can ask native speakers of the language you’re learning for help. 

The progression is decent, you start off with basic words and phrases, then you get to more advanced ones. It tries to keep you motivated by unlocking new ‘’levels’’ which allows you to learn advanced phrases. Duolingo learns to adapt to your learning style, so if it sees a pattern in what you’re getting wrong, it’ll make sure to keep giving whatever you got wrong so you can eventually master it. 

Although progression can be adequate most times, it does tend to get repetitive, and this manifests to tedious learning sessions. I can understand repetitions are the key to learning, but when it gets too much, it can deflate motivation to learn and progress which is counter productive. 

Duolingo doesn’t teach Alphabets for languages like Russian. This can be problematic as it is the very foundation of a language, however, they also had this same problem for Arabic but they recently added the feature to learn the alphabet first. This shows that they are making improvements to the app, which is always appreciated. 

Overall, Duolingo was better than most apps that I previously would pay for. It simply has a lot more to offer, and its teaching model is practical. I personally learned a lot in just a couple days, and I’m able to recognize words and sounds of phrases of German outside of the app.