Watch it on YouTube
Read the transcript
Want to know how to learn a language for free? Let’s talk about all the different resources out there for how to learn a language for free online right now.
Mango Languages
The first way to learn a language for free is Mango Languages. Mango Languages is a website and an app that you can access for free. Unlimited languages, unlimited content, as long as you have access to a library card, a student ID, or an employee ID if your business works with Mango Languages and connects to Mango Languages.
Basically what Mango Languages does is it connects to all these different institutions to give you access to learning a foreign language. There are tons of languages available on Mango Languages, but it’s only for beginners, so it’s a great start if you’ve never learned a language before. But if you’re not quite a beginner, then keep on watching this video and we’ll talk about a lot of different options for free.
Language Reactor
The next way to learn a language for free is Language Reactor, formerly known as Language along with Netflix in language Learning with YouTube. Language Reactor is a Chrome extension that is totally free. There are some paid options that you know, if it’s if you find it beneficial, like easier ways to manage vocabulary, stuff like that. Totally cool.
But you can basically apply Language Reactor to any video that you find on YouTube or Netflix. And you can turn the video or the show, the movie, or what have you, into a study tool.
Lingbe
Lingbe is a language exchange app. Basically, if you’re learning Spanish for example, and your native language is English, you go on Lingbe and you find somebody who speaks Spanish natively and is learning English. Lingbe is a totally free app, as long as you also help other people to learn your native language.
So if you’ve ever done language exchanges where you’ve met up with a friend to exchange your languages, Lingbe is kind of like that, except it’s much more convenient because all you do is open up the app and you find somebody to start talking to.
If you don’t want to spend your time helping other language learners learn your native language, then you can also pay a pretty small subscription. But you don’t need to. But it’s definitely an excellent way to get your conversational practice totally for free.
Clozemaster
Next on the list is Clozemaster. Now Clozemaster is available in a ton of different languages, but you do need to be at least an intermediate level of your target language just because it is a little bit more difficult and you need to be able to kind of figure it out on your own.
But the way that Clozemaster works is it gives you sentences and it gives you fill in the blanks. And so you basically fill in the blanks with the appropriate verb or noun or conjugation or whatever it is that you’re learning in that particular moment. Clozemaster has a bunch of different ways to practice different languages like grammar points and what they call the fluency fast track and things like that.
Some of them, including fluency fast track, are always free and some of them are behind a premium paywall. But it’s like $8 a month or something. But I really enjoy both the website and the app for getting in some great contextual practice.
Polygloss
Just like Clozemaster, you should be fairly non-beginner at Polygloss just because Polygloss is basically where you have a collection of images. You select an image and then you create a sentence based on that image to have a partner guess which image you’re describing based on what you said. Polygloss is totally free forever.
If you want to upgrade to take advantage of some of the options, that’s totally cool. But all of Polygloss, like the actual activities and the connections with the Polygloss community, is totally free, but it’s a really unique special way to practice using the language in a way that has context and is personal because the images are vague enough that you can talk about literally anything, but they’re specific enough that they give you direction as to what you could possibly talk about. Great for creatives.
Yask
Similar to Polygloss is Yask. Yask is one of my favorite language apps for practicing using the language as opposed to just kind of mindlessly pressing buttons. Don’t worry, we’ll talk about Duolingo in a second. But Yask gives you a lot of prompts and a lot of ways for you to practice using the language in a way that makes sense.
And then just like Polygloss, you also can use the Yask community for pronunciation help and corrections and things of that nature. Yask is also totally free for everybody, but if you want to upgrade, to can totally pay a few dollars a month to upgrade. And if you go to the link below in the description for my review of Yask, you can even get a discount on top of that.
Drops
Drops is excellent for beginner language learners because it’s going to give you a bunch of beginner vocabulary. It’s very visually engaging, very, very pretty, very, very fun to play with. Their motto is literally play with your words.
Free users of Drops get 5 minutes of practice every single day, and if you want more of that, you can always upgrade. But 5 minutes, why not? Drops also supports a ton of different languages, so if you’re learning a less commonly learned language and you’re having a hard time finding that language, then Drops might be a safe bet for you.
Duolingo
Next up, let’s get this one out of the way. Duolingo. I definitely have my qualms with Duolingo, but it is totally free and they claim that they will be free forever. You don’t have to pay to access any of the content, any of the strategy, any of the Duolingo stories, or anything like that. However, if you want to pay to get rid of the ads, then that’s an option.
If you’re not familiar with Duolingo, I have plenty of YouTube videos. I have a blog post below of my review of Duolingo that stays up to date. We can just kind of glide right by this one.
LingQ
LingQ is kind of hard to use, but basically, it allows you to take any type of content, upload it into LingQ, and then you can use those books, podcasts, audiobooks, and things like that, and turn it into a study tool. And then you can also browse around and find what other people have uploaded and study that as well.
All of LingQ’s content itself is free and considering most of it is people uploading their own study materials, there can be a lot of options. So, if you just want an ever-expanding library of content for free LingQ is a pretty good option.
LingQ does have its own system where basically you click new words and it creates lingqs, which is basically a flashcard, then you can study that flashcard later, that part and whole different other options are paid, but they are by no means necessary. You can 100% get away with just using LingQ for free.
Busuu
Now, if you want to learn a language for free but want a little bit more structure, then Busuu might be a great option for you. Busuu is a really unique combination of academic learning of the language and the social community of the language.
Basically, the way that Busuu works is when you go onto the website or on the app, you can learn the lessons, and then after every lesson you are recommended and led to use the information that you learned to submit like a writing prompt or a speaking prompt or something like that to Busuu’s community, for other language learners to respond, correct you, give you some, you know, high fives, whatever.
The vast majority of all of Busuu is totally free, which is amazing, including the Busuu community. You can upgrade for faster community responses, get rid of ads, and stuff like that, but not necessary at all. Busuu is excellent for a lot of community support and some fairly strict hand-holding, but you can also get it for free, which is not bad at all.
Kwiziq
Next on the list of how to learn a language for free is Kwiziq. It’s a website and not actually an app, unfortunately. But Kwiziq is for Spanish and French only, and it’s really excellent at getting really deep and dirty into your grammar. So if you are learning Spanish or French and you want to really have excellent top-tier grammar, then Kwiziq is excellent.
It’s a paid service, but you do get ten free kwizzes every single month, which can be a really effective learning tool because basically the way that Kwiziq works is it has lessons for all these concepts, and the lessons themselves are free for anybody, by the way. But you can learn the lessons and then you can use the kwizzes available in Kwiziq to test your ability to use these concepts effectively within the language.
So even with just ten kwizzes a month and their huge library of explanations, grammar concepts, and all that jazz, it can be a really effective learning tool for you to learn independently, learn all the lessons independently, and then a couple of times a week you can go through one of Kwiziq’s quizzes and test to see how well you’re doing. Honestly, I’m a huge fan of Kwiziq, so I highly recommend it if that is what you’re looking for.
Ella Verbs
Speaking of Spanish, the next app on the list is Ella Verbs. If you’re a Spanish language learner, then Ella Verbs is excellent for Spanish conjugations, probably the best there is honestly. All of the base content is free and it’s similar to Kwiziq in that it uses quizzes to help you learn Spanish conjugations. But it’s a lot more simplistic and there’s not going to be a whole lot of tutorials or explanations or things like that. It’s it’s, it’s more focused on the actual quizzing of the grammar.
Now, if all you want is just kind of a basic rundown of basic Spanish verbs and how to conjugate them appropriately for beginner, maybe intermediate-level vocabulary, then Ella Verbs for free will totally suffice. You can always upgrade for a few more options, but it’s not necessary, especially at the beginner levels.
This list of free language learning resources came directly from my language app search, where I just clicked free and then listed all of the language apps that came up. So while at the time of this recording, these are all of the resources that I personally know of how to learn a language for free, make sure that you to my language app search where you can do exactly what I did for this video. Click free, and who knows? Maybe another resource will pop up that I’ve posted a review of since the filming of this current video.
And if all of these ways to learn a language for free sound great and you’re not sure which direction to go, I would highly recommend you take my free course that will teach you how to find which language learning resources are going to work best for you.
It’s a free simple course that will basically teach you how to use my app search to your advantage so you can find the resources that will actually help you in your language learning, and not just add to the pile of apps and courses that you have somewhere on the Internet.
Leave a Reply