Duolingo.com: the site that can teach you English from scratch

Ever heard of this neat online tool? It has a really intuitive structure, and guides you by the hand through learning English (or possibly even another language), building up gradually after you cover the basics, like “The pen is on the table!”.

How Duolingo.com works

This learning platform was created quite recently. The “beta” version dates back to 2011, when there was still a waiting list for more than 300,000 prospective users who were drawn to the cute green owl. To sum it up, the language learning method Duolingo offers is somewhat traditional, even if it’s not always the most efficient, teaching languages to users (who now number more than 25 million) and simultaneously translates a whole host of documents and websites for its community.

You can start off either as a beginner, completely from scratch, or if you already know some English you have the option of taking a skills assessment to start you off in a more advance level suited to your needs, and pick up studying from there. Then you can get started with your first lessons on Duolingo.com. First just create a profile, and then decide whether to take the novice track, or the short test.

Added benefits of this clever design

Duolingo is set up like a game, where you earn points for each level, or “unit” you complete and lose points for every error you make. You’re allowed up to three errors in each section, and then you lose a life!

Gaming aside, the creators of Duolingo have designed a really brilliant system: through teaching different languages to users for free, they also allow companies to submit different documents to be translated, which become new exercises for students. . .and voila! You get to translate different documents and websites while you learn! Want to become part of the community for this fun platform? Go to the Duolingo website, register for free, and join the discussion!

Duolingo wherever you want, with whomever you want

This service, which is quickly gaining popularity, even though it’s still quite new, is available on both iPhone iOS, and on Android for smartphones. Apple named Duolingo “Application of the Year” in 2013, and it’s also compatible with iPad and iPod, starting with the 7.0 operating system (click here to download it). Even the Android community can enjoy this fun, effective way to learn languages. Download Duolingo for Android by clicking here.