The Top 5 FREE Language Apps 2016

The Top 5 FREE Language Apps

The best apps for learning another language doesn’t cost you an arm and a leg. We scoured the Internet and AppStore to look at five the the most popular and FREE language app.

Duolingo

Set your goal and pick up the app and start learning everyday. Duolingo has the biggest following due to the fact that it is free and will be free forever. Yes, there are no ads or hidden charges. The app makes it fun to learn on your own or in a group, with friends. There are levels and competitions that you can use and can get addictive, which is what you need to be when learning a new language.

What can you learn: English, French, German, Italian, Spanish.

Rating: 5 Stars

Memrise

We first started using Memrise to learn Chinese, Mandarin in particular and found it to be very effective. The app uses planting analogy in learning; plant, water and grow. Start planting new memories in your garden, water and grow them into long term memory. We love the imaginative learning function with mnemonics and morphing images as well as quizzes to help you learn. There is talk about the app offering more than languages; extending to geography, history, science and pop culture through crowd sourcing. Watch this space.

What can you learn: Mandarin, German, French, Russian,

Rating: 5 Stars

busuu

New to the App scene but not new in on the web is busuu. Practice speaking with native speakers and apply what you have learnt. Use the listening, reading, writing and speaking task to improve your language skills, take on interactive learning exercises and quizzes and stay motivated with regular feedback. The community has over 35 million native speakers, so there are plenty of help to practise speaking the lingo.

What can you learn: English, Spanish, German, Italian, French, Japanese, Polish, Russian, Turkish, Chinese, Portuguese

Rating: 5 Stars

Google Translate

Not a learning app but a learning tool, Google Translate will help you translate any language. It also verbalises the translation, great for those practising to read and speak. However, the app would need to be online to work and not all translations are accurate.

What can you learn: a huge number of languages.

Rating: 3 Stars

iHandy Translator Free

Translate sentences or phrase into any of the 52 destination languages from the list. You can tract your translation history and searches. This is a cut down free version. The paid, PRO version goes without the banner ads, access to commonly used expressions and text-to-speech functionality.

What can you learn: 52 languages.

Rating: 4.5 Stars