Five Best Apps to Try If You Want to Learn a New Language This 2023

Have you ever wanted to learn a new language but was too daunted to enroll in a course, or didn't know where to start? Learning a language you've never spoken can be intimidating, but also entails a lot of joy and feelings of accomplishment. 

Whether it's for your near future travels, migration, upskilling, or because you want to make a new friend and simply challenge yourself to do the seemingly unthinkable, you can never go wrong with learning a new language.

Before taking the big jump into language learning and enrolling in a course or school, here are some language learning apps you can check out and get started with!

Duolingo

Everybody uses and knows Twitter, but have you heard about the underrated (and dare we say better) bird app Duolingo? This American education tech company is known for creating language-learning apps and was founded by two immigrants. Today, it has over 500 employees hailing from more than 30 countries.

The Duolingo app, which is available on iOS and Android, is a free app that makes it fun for individuals to learn a new language. Its most popular language courses are Spanish (32 million learners, as of writing), followed by French (19.2 million learners), Japanese (13.2 million learners), German (11.4 million learners), and Korean (11.2 million learners). It also offers language courses like Latin, Hebrew, Scottish Gaelic, Swahili, and Haitian Creole, among many others.

Babbel

The Babbel language learning software is geared for every type of learning, offering a myriad of lesson formats such as games, podcasts, and live classes. It prides itself on its "Babbel Method" that its language-learning experts use. These "time-tested strategies," which are backed by academics from Yale University, among others, were created to help you learn to speak a new language in as short as three weeks. Babbel is subscription-based and iOS- and Android-compatible.

If you are a student, educator, health care worker, or a member of the military, you may avail of Babbel's discounts to make language learning more accessible for you. You can choose among languages like Spanish, French, German, Italian, and Portuguese, as well as Indonesian, Norwegian, Polish, Turkish, and more.

Beelinguapp

Move over, Bumble, you're not the only bee app in the scene. Beelinguapp is another app you can download if you want to learn a new language but feel intimidated to do so. It’s perfect for bookworms and readers, as its goal is to "make learning a language as simple and fun as reading your favorite book."

The Beelinguapp focuses on reading as its method, noting that research has shown that the best way to pick up a language is to read something that you can enjoy. It offers a library of audiobooks for kids, beginners, intermediate, and advanced for free, although those who subscribe can access all its collections. Beelinguapp's stories are available in 14 languages, including French, Russian, Chinese, Hindi, Arabic, Spanish, and more. The app is available for iOS and Android.

Memrise

Do you want to learn to speak like the locals? Memrise may be the app for you, as it teaches you practical phrases you can use every day as taught by locals on video. How it works is simple. Memrise offers more than 50,000 videos of different languages being used in real life by local speakers. Your language skills are then trained through gamified tests. Its philosophy centers on "immersive learning" or learning as if you are there yourself, believing that "language acquisition happens through language immersion." 

Memrise is available on the App Store and Google Play, so go ahead and download it and choose what you want to learn from more than 22 languages!

Busuu

This web- and app-based language learning platform allows you to learn a new language with fun, interactive lessons and support from locals. Its courses, which were created by experts, come bite-sized so you can study your language of choice at your own pace. So you won't feel pressured, Busuu only shows you the exercises at the right level for you and allows you to earn certificates after you've passed each one.

Busuu's study plan also ensures you don't lose sight of your progress, while its interactive community means you never have to go through challenges alone, especially if you need advice, tips, and constructive criticism on your grammar or pronunciation. Just some of the languages you can learn on Busuu are Italian, Russian, English, Dutch, Turkish, Spanish, German, and more. Busuu may be downloaded on the App Store and Google Play.