Key takeaways in this post:
- The “best” language apps actually suck
- Language apps are designed to be addictive NOT effective.
- Learning a language takes practice in speaking and listening not tapping buttons and memorising grammar.
- The most successful apps mislead users about their effectiveness.
ADDICTIVE NOT EFFECTIVE
Ineffective language learning methods are dominating the market with apps like Duolingo being at the front of our minds. But are these gamified apps with all their bells, whistles, points and badges good at teaching people languages?
From our research they aren’t. Although they are great for keeping people engaged in a world where attention spans are decreasing by the minute, Duolingo is great at keeping users on the app but not at teaching them the skills needed to communicate to others in a new language.
We conducted an interview of 96 people who have learnt multiple languages to understand how they do it and what is most effective. In one interview we conducted, the interviewee told us that they had memorised 2000 words of French using Duolingo for 4 years but could not do much more than introduce himself verbally.
So what is the best way to learn a new language?
WHAT DOES IT TAKE?
Our research and interviews showed that to actually learn a language takes more than clicking buttons and playing games. Instead many sources such as ThinkItalian (https://www.thinkinitalian.com/bad-methods-language-apps/) indicate that the best way to learn languages are by:
- Speaking
- Listening
- Mimicking native speakers
Traditional methods such as memorising grammar and pronunciation are less effective for communication skills. But that makes sense! When we were children we didn’t learn our native language by studying complex linguistic patterns… No. We learnt by speaking, listening and being around those who also natively speak the language.
Our first words weren’t “Hello! How are you this morning?”. They were “Mama” and “Papa”.
Although I don’t want to plug our app too much, Ardia focuses on bringing the language learning process back to its roots. We focus on the best ways to learn languages. Learning by speaking and listening. Not by playing pointless, attention-grabbing games that do not give any real value to the language learning process.
SUCCESSFUL APPS MISLEAD
The idea of a business is to make the most profit. So does it make sense for a company to try and get the most money out of each of its users or to actually teach them a language? I think the way that the big names in the language learning space mislead answers this question.
Many of them claim to enable users to “learn a new language in 3 months!” or “Improve your language skills 6x in 1 week!”.
Learning a new language is a difficult and time consuming process whether you have a private tutor or are learning on an app. An app focusing on profits instead of increasing language learning effectiveness will not give you the results you are after.
Although our app is still in beta testing, we understand that the process used by the big names is wrong and we want to simulate as closely to reality what it is like to learn from a native and give people the opportunity to speak, listen and mimic a true native speaker.
Give it a try by testing out our beta available on our website: ardialearn.com
Thank you for reading and reach out if you have any thoughts of your own. I’d be interested to hear your thoughts.
Ryan.