Reviews

Jun122018 by Language MagNo Comments

Memrise Review

I've been using Memrise for a while, so I thought it about time to put together a quick review as there don't seem to be many memrise reviews available. Memrise is a spaced repetition system that aims to help you learn things. Whilst you can learn many things with Memrise, there's a particular focus on languages. Memrise is available in app form for Android and iOS, but also has a web version. Memrise is available for free, but in recent times has had a pro version for additional features that is virtually constantly on special offer. I've never felt the need to pay for these additional features. Memrise let's you make your own courses, or search for and follow one of the many others that other people have created. This, I would say, is one of the benefits of Memrise. There is a lar...

Jun52018 by Language MagNo Comments

Babbel Dutch Review [For Beginners]

Language Specific, Reviews

In my quest to learn Dutch I have paid for precisely two pieces of software. The first was memrise, which is perfectly fine in it’s free version but I felt like supporting it. The second is Babbel. Babbel cost me around about £50 for the year. Babbel divides it’s course into lessons. For Dutch, Babbel has a limited amount of content. To be honest, this means that if I was signing up just for Babble Dutch then I could have got away with signing up for just 6 months. But that's one of the things that I didn't know at the time, but you do now! Babbel content is well organised and easy to understand. It also teaches you the grammar and basics as you go on. Babbel provides a more realistic learning environment than the likes of Duolingo, by which I mean that the things you are learning w

May242018 by Language MagNo Comments

Duolingo Stories

Language News, Reviews

Perhaps one of the best features of Duolingo is locked away in the Labs section of the site. Once you've finished the main Duolingo courses you're left in a bit of a void. You can understand a bit of the language, especially when you read. But your knowledge isn't complete enough that you could say reading was easy. In an ideal world you'd be able to find reading material that is suitable for adults (i.e. not dull as dishwater) and has an audio version that you can play to get the pronunciation set in your mind that isn't in a stupid children's character voice. For me, reading has always been the next logical step for improving and increasing vocabulary after a Duolingo course. This is where Duolingo stories comes in and its implementation is nothing short of genius. To disappoint a...