Babble did NOT work for me.
Duolingo.
you have to train your ear and brain to the language as the speed of normal conversation.
I started learning Russian two years ago via youtube channel “Be fluent in Russian”, and later added Polish when I downloaded Duolingo.
Duolingo is okay, but the seminars by independent youtubers offer a better understanding and pronunciation guide.
I sort of tried, but I feel stupid talking to a computer. (You should hear me trying to use “speech to text” - haha, I start getting upset because no matter how slow I talk, it STILL gets everything wrong and then I try to say things like “delete that” and it misinterprets the command and so on because of the volume of my voice going up!)
I had 8 yrs of Latin in HS and College, and have no one to converse with, except my old profs. But it was invaluable in my command of the English language. I doubt they even offer it, anymore, anywhere.
If you are willing to commit yourself . . . really . . . look in to the Rosetta stone complete program. Forget about this free stuff . . . at any rate, it isn’t really “free.”
Being from East Tennessee, people say I can’t even speak English...LOL
If you want to really learn a foreign language (as opposed to just memorizing mysterious phrases), you’ve got to find a site that covers the grammar.
I mention this because too many folks go for sites like Duolingo. That’s okay for the tourist, but without the grammar you really don’t know the WHY of what you’re saying.
Unfortunately I don’t know of any such sites. Perhaps a good textbook could be combined with a site that emphasizes pronunciation.
I have heard good things about Pimsleur, our own government uses it to train their people, but it is pricey.
You can find used copies of the program on ebay for much less, though.
I use Duolingo every day for Spanish. It works! Several others I know are also using it for Japanese and other languages. I’m on a 1355+ day streak!
I pay the annual fee to avoid the ads and it’s worth it.
Bkmk as follow up to self-researching this very topic last week. In addition to watching foreign language television ...
According to Money.com 11.11.22 ... each listed has pros / cons, might also depend on which language one wants to learn.
Best language learning software:
Duolingo - best free course software
Rosetta Stone - best comprehensive language
Babbel - best intermediate
iTalki - best for tutoring
Pimsleur - best for learning on the go
Lingvist - Best for training vocabulary
Watch Telemundo.
Language Translator Device Portable Real-time Voice Translation in 138 Different Languages
Immersion is the most effective way to learn a different language. You can’t get tone, inflection or pronunciation from book learnin. Get yourself a wife, husband, boyfriend or girlfriend who is a native speaker to teach you. You have to get to the point where you’re “thinking” in that other language.
Years ago, in the days of the 386 home computer, I tried a French language program. “Bon jour,” the first word out of the chute; whenever I repeated it into the mic, all I got was barely a nudge from the needle. In frustration, I said “bullshit” and the needle pegged. Into the trash went the cd.
Although it’s an app, I really liked the free Duolingo for Russian. I just spent a few minutes per day for over a year and learned a lot. I can read it exceptionally well but my ear isn’t very good for it yet.
I suppose this could be done over the internet with video conferencing. But that's not what this is, right?
From what I understand you can’t really learn a new language by passively listening to it. You must have interactive conversation with other speakers of the language to become anywhere near fluent.
Some of these apps allow you to do that to a point. I guess watching Telemundo or other Spanish language programs is helpful if you are learning Spanish, but you won’t learn the language by just listening to it.
I studied Spanish all through school and continued at the college level, but I can say I didn’t really learn the language until I had the chance to live in Latin America, avoiding English-speakers as much as possible. And reading, and consuming telenovelas daily for years.
Since then in the last couple of years I tackled Portuguese via Duolingo. It’s a good tool, it gives it to you in baby steps, I did it in small bites to not burn out. Having finished the course, again I started reading, the New Testament, then novels, re-reading the first several. I’ve read now a dozen or so. It’s a slog but easier on re-reading. And listening to Portuguese speakers on YouTube at least a few minutes each day. My ear is still not tuned, so listening is a struggle. But some YouTubers are easier to understand than others, and I keep at it.
I know I will not master the language without actually visiting a Portuguese-speaking country and going through the same process I went through learning Spanish. But it’s doable.