#busuu

if you're seeing this, check the reblogs or my "languages" tag for an addition!!

if you're in the US or Canada and interested in learning a language using a free app please get a library card and download MANGO. it's very good and extremely free with a library card (there are many public libraries and universities using the service, so make an account and use the search feature here to find out if there's one near you).

mango currently has 72 available languages and dialects (that's right! different courses for french or canadian french! spanish or latam spanish!). it's set up basically like an audiobook with text. the idea is that the narrator explains the words while you read, and you repeat after them or say the translation out loud when prompted. there's a daily review where you go through flashcards. you can also use the flashcards at your leisure and create your own. at the end of each chapter there's a listening comprehension quiz and a reading comprehension quiz. i cannot emphasize how effective this all is. and it's free with a card.

if you're not in the US or Canada and/or looking for something more like duolingo (don't use duolingo btw tldr they fired translators and replaced them with "ai"), then try BUSUU! it only has 14 languages atm but the lessons are really descriptive and effective. it also has a feature where you can correct other people's open-ended speaking/typing exercises. you set your fluent languages, and exercises by people learning those languages will appear in your feed for you to correct. you can even add others as friends! and, much like duolingo, it has a streak and leaderboard system for you to strive for, minus the guilt-tripping owl.

busuu is free (you watch ads to unlock lessons and they're all skippable after like five seconds), although it also has paid premium/plus versions (i don't use the paid version—the language courses are available for free, and the ad system is Really unobtrusive).

new language alert 🇩🇪✨

I started learning German after I came back from my trip to Switzerland, and I like it! 🌺

Anyway. I recently downloaded Busuu as an alternative and I’m going back through all the lessons from the beginning even tho it lets you competency test placement. ANYWAY so in the kana and

Guys I’m ceyingkfns still about this i adore this sm.

I am fucking LAUGHINGIDHSJDNGKD LMAOOO

So when they go over the kana they tell you like

“Hey this resembles this” to help you remember

They’re like “ha” (は) looks like a person hiking/holding a stick and then give this image as an example:

And im like yea cool i get it.

Then we get to “ho” which is ほ which looks just like ha with an extra line on top right?

And it’s like. “It’s someone hiking/holding a stick but WITH A HAT” and I was like lmao ok

And then it shows me this:

Busuu

Pretty similar to Duolingo, so the transition was really easy. You go through example sentences, filling in missing words, matching words or phrases to their translations, or identifying which of two options is correct. There is a way to start midway through a course if you already know some of your target language, but I started as a beginner to get the complete experience (and fill in any gaps in what Duolingo taught).

Pros: Busuu has pretty good grammar notes. It's how I learned German capitalisation, which Duolingo never taught, as well as the difference between ein/eine/einen. There's no lives, so I don't have to worry about not being able to progress if I make mistakes. Finally, it's got a community corrections feature, where you translate sentences, describe pictures, or answer questions in your target language, and speakers of that language can give feedback.

Cons: There's ads, but they have to make money somehow. You can get premium, which takes away ads and also lets you practice old material, but I haven't paid for that yet. That's another point - you don't get to practice that old stuff for free. Though with Duolingo you can't do that either now, so. Minor point here but one of the things I loved about Duolingo was that it was very queer friendly, and idk if Busuu is yet.

Mango

Yeah so this one is pretty different. You essentially go through cue cards, with grammar explanations sprinkled between. At the end of every lesson, you review old phrases/words, also in a cue card format. You can select if you got it right or wrong, and if you got it wrong, it goes back into circulation for you to practice again later.

Pros: The grammar lessons (including cultural notes) are pretty good, and it taught me some words Duolingo and Busuu haven't yet. No lives and no streak, so you don't lose anything by making mistakes, and no streak means if you have to skip a day, you're also not losing anything.

Cons: The lessons are absolutely interminable. This structure probably works great for some people, but my eyes just glaze over during lessons and I skip through all the cards. I read the grammar notes, but that's about it. Honestly probably gonna drop this one entirely bc it's such a slog.

As much as I love just listening to Disney songs in my target language, it wasn't doing much for actually learning.

I've also added two new target languages??? I know, I can't believe it either! Anyway, here's my current plan that's been working fairly well.

I aim to hit 7 areas in each language every day: Consume media, listen to speech, Read while listening, Speak, write, study and review.

The idea is to touch each item every day, not spend forever on it. Build consistency first and then spend more time on it if you want to.

An Example from my journal today:

(Italian)

Consume: Listened to Disney songs on the way to work (Resource: Spotify)

Listen: Italian pod 101 unit 1 listening videos (about 7 minutes total) (Resource: Youtube)

Read: Lingo Mastery Read along video, Elena and Catalina (Resource: Youtube)

Speak: Busuu Community challenges - counting lemons and talking about family (Resource: Busuu)

Write: One sentence in my planner. Buongiorno. Io sono cosi-cosi. (Resource: pen and paper)

Study: Chapter 4/A1 on Busuu: Pronouns, the verb "to be", talking about people. (Resource: Busuu)

Review: Busuu flashcards: formal and informal greetings (Resource: Busuu, Anki Droid flashcard system)

It uses AI voices (as in literally the "sigma chad guy voice used on TikTok).

Plus, today I recieved a deepfake video on a listening exercise (speakers' facial expressions didn't match their tone or what they were saying, those unnatural circular head movements that most deepfake videos do, very periodic blinking and arm movement, eye level never changes).

Additionally, I'm pretty sure that the German course to learn Dutch is just a translation of the English version, because the German instructions were often weird/unnecessary/explaining stuff you wouldn't have to explain to a German speaker but to an English speaker.

Also on some translations they straight-up forgot to change the English translation to a German one.

At this point it just feels like we have to abandon the concept of language learning apps completely because they're all starting to use AI (and AI does *not* understand language).

in the first one, she went ‘hij heeft een heel SEXY ACCENT’ quite loudly indeed and talked about how great this guy is and then there was a cliffhanger at the end and she went ‘but something embarrassing happened…’ GIRL TELL ME.