Four Tools That Will Help You Better Learn a Language

Duolingo should not be your only method of learning

Some people’s new year’s resolutions included learning a new language or continuing one they had abandoned and wanted to pick up again.

However, using one tool to learn a language will cause them to lose interest.

If you want to learn a language, diversity is your best friend.

You should rely on different learning methods to learn the language effectively and avoid burnout. Here are some of the websites and apps you can use to learn a language in 2022.

Quizlet

Some YouTubers will tell you to download Quizlet and create flashcards for yourself when learning a language.

The upside to this is if you create some flashcards, you set the pace of what you’re reviewing. You also decide what new words to add to your list, and can make changes at any time.

The downside to this is some people don’t have the time or patience to create their own flashcards.

Fortunately, Quizlet allows you to browse flashcard sets that other people created. If you want to find one for your target language, search for the language + 1000 most common words.

There are lots of study sets already created by other people for you to use.

The best part is these study sets are customizable. You can add, edit, or remove words from the study set for your personal use, as you can see in the image below.

Quizlet allows you to study and quiz yourself on the words you’ve already learned. It also allows you to “star” certain terms so you can come back and review them again later.

However, remember to review any set you find from someone else. It’s always possible one or two words might be incorrect, so always verify the flashcards are correct before relying on them.

YouTube

This one had to be on the list. There are plenty of YouTube channels to subscribe to that will motivate you to learn a language.

If you want to immerse yourself in your target language, I highly encourage you to watch videos that will cover the vocabulary you’re learning that week.

For example, after I learned about breakfast items and toiletries, I looked up videos in Italian that featured an early morning routine. I translated “early morning routine” to Italian and searched for videos on YouTube. This is one of the videos I watched:

You can also watch videos of “a day in Rome”, or whatever target language you’re focusing on. Cooking videos and makeup tutorials are also an option.

You can also search for gameplay videos in your target language if you play video games. For example, I enjoy watching Minecraft videos in Italian because I can learn how to say items used in the game in Italian.

Whatever you enjoy doing, look up videos of that in your target language. You don’t need to understand everything they’re saying. However, it will boost your listening skills. It will also help you work on your accent if you read the subtitles out loud as the video plays.

Disney+

Some of us are huge Disney fans. Whether we watched Frozen, Cinderalla, Marvel, or Star Wars growing up, it became a huge part of who we are.

Disney+ stands out because its movies and TV shows are available in many more languages than Netflix does.

If you want to watch Star Wars in Italian, you can change the audio language in settings.

Want to watch Marvel’s The Avengers in Japanese? They have that too.

If you change the subtitles and the audio to your target language, remember that the subtitles might not match what is being said in the audio.

Why? I have no idea. I have yet to find any show or movie that matches the subtitles perfectly with their audio.

Again, like with YouTube, you don’t need to understand everything they’re saying in the show.

As long as it’s something you’ve already watched in English, it’ll be a lot easier to understand the context of what’s being said in the show. It helps when you’ve seen the show multiple times. You’ll be able to translate in your head and focus on learning the language faster.

Keep in mind though, not all languages are available on Disney+. For example, Marvel’s The Avengers doesn’t have German, Chinese, or Russian audio available.

If you don’t have a Disney+ subscription, you might want to pass on it if you are planning to learn one of those languages. You might be disappointed in the lack of videos available in your target language since Disney+ doesn’t make some languages available on their videos.

Spotify

If you want something to listen to during your morning or evening commute, Spotify has a lot of podcasts available. There’s Russian, French, & Italy Made Easy. Easy German, ChinesePod, & Learn Japanese are also available.

Usually, whatever you find on Spotify will be done in podcast-style format, so they’ll teach you new words while teaching you the context and pronunciation.

The only downside to using Spotify is that you can’t see how the words are spelled compared to how they’re pronounced. However, if you’re using Spotify as a review of what you’ve already learned, then it’s a good tool to use when learning a language.

Conclusion

Hopefully, this list helps you on your quest to learn a language. It’s always good to have variety when learning a language. If you rely only on using Duolingo, you will suffer from burnout and won’t want to continue learning your target language.

When you rely on apps or websites outside of just Duolingo, your experience is much more satisfying and you will progress farther in your language journey.

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