App of the Week

This week I will tell you about a language-learning app I found that I really love.

So, this week, I was searching in the app store for new apps to learn Arabic. Sometimes I need to switch it up from Mango because the repetitive swiping can get a little boring, and then I don't absorb it as well. It’s important to switch things up from time to time so I can stay interested and motivated.

I ended up finding a couple of apps, Drops and Mondly, which are pretty good, but I need to pay in order to unlock more time or levels. 😕 I don't love spending money on apps. If I'm going to put any money into language-learning, I'd rather buy a really helpful book or book a lesson on italki.

So I kept on searching...

And I happened upon this app called Beelinguapp. Check out their website here.

This app is just what I have been looking for to help me go from beginner to intermediate in Mandarin. I'm not quite ready to use it for Arabic yet, but it does have Arabic as an option so I know I can use it in the future.

So what does it do?

The app contains several short stories, such as The Princess and the Pea and The Tortoise and the Hare, and also some other topics such as the news or travel phrases. A lot of these stories are familiar. When you select a story, you choose what your target language is and then what your native language is. The story is read aloud in your target language while highlighting the words on the page. In the bottom half of the screen, the story is written in your native language, and the words are highlighted there too when read aloud. I guess you can hide your native language too, to see if you can read it on your own first.

For some stories, there are test questions at the end. I think this is a new feature. I hope that they add it to all of the stories because it’s a great learning strategy. It turns your activity from passive reading into a more active experience.

If you don’t want to read it, you can just press play and listen to it almost like an audiobook. This is good if you want to just work on your listening skills. Or, you could not press play and only rely on your reading skills to read it. What I think would be a great thing to do afterwards, is to verbally retell what happened in your target language or write a summary. In this way, with this type of exercise, you can work on listening, reading, writing, and speaking. Awesome!

I am looking forward to using this app with Mandarin. I hope that some of you try it out and you find it helpful too!

Happy learning!