Google’s Android app store, Google Play, is filled with hundreds upon hundreds of language education tools that you can use while commuting on the bus or the train and during other idle moments. With the right tools and the proper motivation, you’ll be able to pick up a new tongue with ease.
Flashcard and memorization apps
No matter what language you’ve chosen to learn, you’ll have to memorize a new set of vocabulary and possibly a new writing system as well. Luckily, the Android offers a wide range of language apps designed specifically for memorization.Babbel offers study apps in several popular languages. Babbel’s programs use both flashcards and audio to teach the user basic vocabulary. This set of programs features vocabulary memorization lessons in German, Spanish, French, Turkish, Polish, and a variety of other languages.
It’s easy enough to memorize words that you can sound out, but what if you’re a native English speaker studying a language with a different writing system, such as Arabic or Japanese? Before working on your vocabulary, you’ll have to memorize the language’s script.
Apps such as Learn Arabic by AppVerx Limited and Hiragana Cards by Solnus feature flashcard programs and quizzes to help beginning students memorize new characters and writing systems.
Interactive study apps
One of the benefits of using a language study program such as Babbel is the interactivity it offers the student. Babbel and other popular Android language app series such as Busuu feature recorded conversations to help you learn basic, everyday phrases and get a feel for the language, but they also allow you to participate in the conversation by repeating phrases and answering questions out loud.The app’s speech recognition system can tell how well you’re able to pronounce a word or phrase and will correct you until you have it down. This function is vital to mastering proper pronunciation.
Are you trying to learn how to write Chinese characters? If so, Pleco Chinese Dictionary is for you.
This interactive app lets the user study characters and attempt to reproduce them on the right side of the screen with the Android’s stylus. Interactive apps such as these can give you the attention to detail and the results that most high school and college courses can’t offer.
Using the Android for traditional language study
Interactive apps and touch-screen quizzes are extremely useful, but sometimes you might not have the ability to repeat words and phrases back to your smartphone – for example, while you’re riding a crowded train. At times like these, you can resort to the more traditional language audiotape.Pimsleur
is one of the oldest and most successful language programs in the world and has produced audiotape lesson series in dozens of languages. These audiotapes are now sold as MP3 files that you can download to your Android and listen to while in the car, the train, the bus, or the elevator at work.If you own an Android and you’re not using any of its language study apps, you’re missing out on a great opportunity to expand your knowledge and improve your skills. Pick a language to learn, download one of the study apps available at Google Play and get to work. You won’t regret it.
Sarah HughsAbout the Guest Author:
The author of this article Sarah Hughs has bought her daughter a cheap android phone, in case of emergencies.
