Phone apps for beginning language learners: Duolingo vs. Memrise

Duolingo: Duolingo’s app is very intuitive, is free, and has short exercises for both grammar and vocabulary for 100-level French. Structured exactly like the website, Duolingo features a ladder-like structure of learning; each lesson introduces new material based on past information. One nice feature to the app is the possibility of “testing out” of lessons, which is helpful if you find yourself bored by the current material.

Memrise: Almost identical to Duolingo’s mini-lesson/game-based platform, Memrise uses incrementally more difficult lessons with easy responses, presenting words or phrases and then asking for repetition. Some minor variations are present, however: Memrise uses short videos of native French speakers to help with listening comprehension. There is also a texting-based portion, where you can practice composing short messages by stringing together suggested words or letters. Memrise is less polished than Duolingo, and each lesson seems to introduce less material overall, with more repetition. This may be useful for learners who have a more difficult time learning new words or phrases. Memrise is free, but has frequent prompts to purchase a subscription. These can be ignored by simply tapping anywhere on the screen (other than the “purchase” button).

Visual of the Memrise user interface

Image credit: https://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/duolingo-ios-app-new-bot/
https://www.pcmag.com/review/356293/memrise

 

French Podcasts for Beginners

Here are some podcasts which would be excellent for beginning French learners:

How Are You? 28min: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/cbf-1-01-how-are-you/id263170419?i=1000163412494&mt=2.
This podcast is from Coffee Break French, which has several seasons of podcasts for learning French for beginners. The first episode introduces the phrase “ça va?” and its possible responses. Although the host is non-native (and has a Scottish accent), his pronunciation is not bad. Expressions are introduced in French and English, with plenty of room to practice and repeat phrases.

The Alphabet 12min: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/5-a-look-at-the-alphabet/id160256534?i=1000010654926&mt=2.
This Podcast, presented by Learn French by Podcast, introduces the French alphabet and pronunciation in French. The speakers use French and English to describe the pronunciation of each letter, including words which use those letters.

Hindi [Beginning Resources]

Hindi is an Indo-Aryan language given the status of being the official language of India, although other dialects may be more prevalent than Hindi in several areas. It currently has over 540 million speakers, with 425 million native speakers. Hindi is written using the Devanagari writing script, in which fourteen characters are vowels and thirty-three are consonants. There are several dialects of Hindi, including Khadiboli, Haryanvi, Braj Bhasha, Kannauji, Bundeli, Bagheli, Awadhi, and Chhattisgarhi.

Resources [For Beginning Students]:

Learn Hindi with HindiPod.comThis YouTube channel is based off of a separate website (https://www.hindipod101.com) , but it has tons of really helpful videos.

Omniglot WebsiteThis website contains a brief overview of Hindi, including the writing script, and also has several links to other resources.