Web review: Learn new languages for free

Having communication skill in several languages is a very special credential for anyone in the world of globalisation today.

However, learning languages has been deemed to require significant time, effort, and cost. Availability of places to go for learning languages is also a factor.

Thus, most of us opt not to tread that path, no matter how lucrative the outcomes would be.

But imagine that you don't have to spend extra time and effort to learn a new language, and that too for free, how about it?

Alluring, I suppose.

So yeah, there are a lot of such opportunities in the web and all it needs is our interest to try them out.

Now, let's come back to the topic. I am going to tell you about Duolingo, a website which offers you the opportunity to learn 22 foreign languages for absolutely no cost.

Also, you can actually try out its android application when you pass time surfing through your Facebook homepage in your smartphone, looking at the mundane posts and memes, while being stuck in the traffic.

Duolingo offers an array of courses in 22 languages, including French, German, Russian, Spanish, etc. The courses range from basic to advanced levels. If you have absolutely no language skill in, say for example, German, yet you will be able to try out the basic exercises and move on to the advanced level over time.

Meanwhile, if you have some skill in a language and want to figure out your level of proficiency, it offers you a placement test to see where you stand, and based on the results you will able to choose where to begin.

The site offers the lessons on a 'set your goal' basis. If you are a busy person, you may cut back some of the time allocated for using social media every day and instead try out the '5-minute lessons' in the language that you want learn.

Even just giving only five minutes for a lesson every day and revising the previous lesson while taking the language exercises will improve your skill in it as you continue.

On the other hand, if you have ample time and are rather serious about learning a language, there are more rigorous '20-minute lessons' and corresponding exercises. If you can manage to give in a good effort, the lessons and exercises are going to enhance your skills in the language soon.

The lessons and exercises are mainly intended to develop your skills in writing and vocabulary, however, there are also audio inputs where you can learn the pronunciations of new words and phrases and thus it would help your verbal skills as well.

If someone sets a goal to try this site regularly for a year, s/he is going to achieve a significant level of proficiency in a language.

Duolingo also offers web certifications that you can have once you successfully complete different levels of the language that you are learning, and can place them on your account in professional networks such as in Linkedin.

Learning a new language will enhance your communications abilities in it which would come very handy in the professional arena as we set foot in the age of globalisation where no barrier is a barrier any more if we don't want it to be.

Or, just think that you can tell your special one that you love him/her in a different language every day. How does that sound like?

Awesome, isn't it? I am pretty sure you'd love to grab the idea of surprising him/her this way.

By the way, I have tried it, works out fine actually.