Duolingo has replaced its heart system with an ever-decreasing store of energy, which can limit your access to lessons even if you don’t get anything wrong. What’s worse is that you can buy more energy by watching an ad, but the energy points you earn aren’t enough to complete a lesson, even if you answer everything correctly. If this latest change is one too many for your liking, there are some free alternatives to Duolingo that you can use instead.
6Busuu
If you’re looking for an experience that’s similar to how Duolingo was before it was ruined, thenBusuuis definitely worth a look. It uses a similar format to Duolingo, with short lessons of a few questions at a time.
The biggest difference when compared to Duolingo is that there are no lives or energy points. If you get questions wrong, instead of being stopped from learning more until your hearts or energy refill, you simply see the questions you got wrong again until you get them right. Busuu uses streaks, points, and stars to encourage you to keep learning without giving penalties for making mistakes. Unlike Duolingo, which uses both carrot and stick, Busuu is all carrot.
5Language Transfer
I’ve tried many different language apps and tools over the years, fromRosetta StoneandPimsleurto Duolingo andBabbel. The tool that I found gave me the most proficiency in a language in the shortest amount of time wasMichel Thomas. I used the Michel Thomas language CDs when I first started learning Italian, and I was able to learn enough to hold a reasonable conversation in Italian after just a few weeks.
However, unlike Duolingo, Michel Thomas courses don’t come for free, unless you’re able to find copies in your library. However, there’s another option that uses a very similar method to Michel Thomas and is completely free:Language Transfer. This is a purely audio-based method; it doesn’t use written responses or gamification like Duolingo does, but it also doesn’t include any ads at all.
One of the central tools of Language Transfer is to teach you words in a new language that you already know from your own. For example, when learning Spanish, many English words that end in “al” are the same in Spanish, but with the stress placed on the second syllable. Words like animal, central, criminal, formal, local, musical, and more are the same in Spanish, and armed with just this one trick, you immediately gain a vocabulary of more than a thousand Spanish words.
Using words that transfer from one language to another, you can learn enough to be able to hold a reasonable conversation in a very short space of time. There are courses available in Spanish, Arabic, Turkish, German, Greek, Italian, Swahili, and French, all of which are accessible through the free app.
4Mango Languages
One of the biggest reasons that Duolingo has become so popular is that it enables you to learn a language for free if you’re willing to put up with ads and constant pestering to upgrade. I’ve used Duolingo for several years and have never paid to use it at any point.
You can set up an account that’s linked to your library card and access Mango Languages for free via your library’s subscription. You then get access to more than 70 different languages and dialects, with a mix of reading and listening activities to help you learn how to understand the language in both written and spoken formats. You canuse the search toolon the Mango Languages website to find a library near you that offers access to Mango Languages for free.
3YouTube
Another incredible source of free language-learning content is YouTube. There are thousands of channels offering free language content that’s funded by YouTube ads. As long as you’re willing to put up with the occasional ad interrupting your lesson, you can learn almost any language you can think of for free on YouTube.
Some channels offer a more traditional approach, while others opt for a more immersive method. For example, the channelDreaming Spanishdrops you straight in at the deep end by offering content that’s completely in Spanish from the outset. However, thanks to clever use of icons and images, you can understand a lot of what is going on, meaning you pick up the language as you hear it. Channels such asEasy Languagesuse street interviews with native speakers alongside English subtitles to let you learn how the language is spoken in real life.
Once you’ve gained some proficiency in a language, you can also use YouTube to help you practice. For example, you can watch videos from a channel that’s in your target language to improve your comprehension of that language. If you’re struggling, you can turn on English subtitles to help you.
2AI Chatbots
One of the things I’ve always found hardest when trying to learn a language is speaking. When you’re writing down answers or typing them into an app, you have time to think, but when you’re speaking to a real person, you’re able to’t just stop and think about what you’re going to say. It can also feel embarrassing trying to speak to a native speaker when you feel like your language skills aren’t very good.
AI chatbots can really help here. Chatbots such as Gemini and ChatGPT havevoice modesthat let you chat in real time, with the chatbot speaking aloud. You can ask these chatbots to speak in a specific language and then have a conversation with the chatbot without the embarrassment of making mistakes when talking to a real person.
For example, I ask ChatGPT to speak to me in Italian and to gently correct me if anything I say in Italian is not quite right. The chatbot doesn’t mind if I make mistakes, and I don’t feel as rushed to respond as I would with a real person. It’s a great way to find your feet when speaking in a new language, before you’re brave enough to try speaking to a real person.
1Streaming Services
you’re able to watch English content with foreign subtitles, or foreign content with English subtitles, to get used to reading or hearing another language. When you’re feeling brave enough, you can try watching a show you know well in a different language to see how much of it you can follow.
There are some useful extensions that can help, too. TheLanguage Reactorextension lets you display subtitles in two languages simultaneously, so if you’re watching a show in Italian, you can display both Italian and English subtitles. This lets you spot new words you don’t know, see how they’re written in the native language, and see what they mean in English.
Duolingo has followed the way of all good tech services and continued to get progressively worse over time. It’s now reached the point where it’s beginning to become unusable, but the good news is that there are plenty of alternatives out there that you can use for free. If you want to learn a new language or improve one that you already know, then you should consider letting go of that hard-earned Duolingo streak and trying out some of the options above.
