It happens pretty much every New Year’s Day: we say “This year I’ll learn a new language!” And we get away with at most a few sentences, the bare minimum to order a beer in another European country. Then today is the best day to install Duolingo, the most popular app for learning a foreign language. Right before New Year’s Eve 2017, it has been released an update that adds a social function rather simple and at the same time very addictive. In these new Clubs you will share your results with friends and family, and comparing progress, in order to encourage each other (and hoping that the whole thing does not become overly competitive – even if it will never be as competitive as the family year-end raffle: and you know damn well what we’re talking about).
Duolingo has become the most popular app for foreign languages due to its simplicity and the fact that he made studying like a game. Divided into different categories of applications, Duolingo presents its users with small classes, whose learning is tested immediately. If you fail the answer, you lose a life (as in video games: in fact we speak of “gamification”). The app is designed to present strong motivation to continue studying, acknowledging progress and awarding them with new levels and virtual coins – and now also through the Clubs. With a few minutes of daily effort you can learn the basics of different languages: for English speaker users, there are a lot of choices, such as Portuguese, Russian, Swedish, Turkish, and there are also courses in beta, such as Swahili and others. And for the more daring, this year will be available the Klingon course. For other languages, the choice is much more limited: for Italians speakers, for example, are available English, French, German and Spanish.
Duolingo is a free app and is available for iOS, Android, Windows Phone 8.1 and 10 and even Windows 10. To download it, simply touch the icon of the App Store (iOS) or the Play Store (Android) or Microsoft Store (on Windows) and write “Duolingo” in the search field. Or, if you already are on Duolingo web site, use the link at the bottom of the pages to get directly to the download.