I want to begin this blog by saying, learning a new language is extremely hard and frustrating at times. But I am trying my best to stick with it! I have recently semi given up on Duolingo. As mentioned in previous posts, outside of some vocabulary, I’m not learning a whole lot. I have also fully given up on Babbel, as my free trial ran out and was too cheap to pay for a subscription.
This week I experimented with the app called FluentU. I am going to begin with the aspects a liked about FluentU. The first thing that stood out to me was their interactive approach to the learning of language. They use authentic Spanish videos, from movie clips to music videos and everything in between. It gets the learning away from the traditional “textbook” style of learning as the past two were mostly based around. This approach gave me a realistic picture of how people speak in everyday context. I found this helped me learn how words and phrases are used in real-life scenarios. These short video clips were also tailored to what videos I liked or disliked making FluentU more personalized to me. This was an underrated aspect that I did not think I was going to appreciate as much as I did. In addition to this personalized approach, FluentU also provides interactive quizzes and exercises to help with my understanding of vocabulary and grammar while keeping me engaged.
Now time to look at the negative FluentU has to offer. First and foremost, another paid subscription is needed! While it does offer a free 14-day trial, access to its full library of content requires a subscription. Not only is a paid subscription needed, but it is also a bit pricier than its competitors, Duolingo and Babbel. Outside of the price, one of the biggest things I noticed is that there is no real structure or progression path that the app follows. This almost makes me feel like I need to be using a different app to assist with this one which kind of defeats the purpose. Last thing, I find that the FluentU still has a few bugs to workout when it comes to technical glitches. In some cases, when rewinding certain video clips, the app would glitch, forcing me to shutdown the app and reopen it.
Overall, I found while using FluentU I learned more of real-life phrases and how to speak in proper slang while talking informally. However, once again I did not learn much sentence structure or grammar. Out of the three apps I have used so far, this would probably be my last choice.
Does anyone have anymore suggestions other than Duolingo, Babbel, or FluentU? If so, let me know!
Zach
