Learning a new language can be difficult and way more of a challenge than people realize, but thankfully learning a new language doesn’t have to be as hard as people make it out to be, and this is all thanks to the growing list of language learning apps on Android and mobile devices. Specifically apps like Beelinguapp, which take the learning process and make it fun and give the process a new spin to your traditional methods for learning. While many apps will have you go through flash cards to learn words and phrases word by word or phrase by phrase, Beelinguapp actually has you learn by reading some of your favorite books and children’s books in the language of your choosing, and you can have your native language visible with the same book reading line by line for reference. Let’s take a closer look at what Beelinguapp has to offer and see how it stacks up.
Before you can start learning a new language with Beelinguapp you’ll need to head to the Play Store and download Beelinguapp and install the app onto your device. From there you’re ready to go and dive right in.
Before you really do anything else you’ll start by selecting the languages you want to learn. You can select up to two different languages as shown in the screenshot above, or you can simply select one language if you’re just wanting to read the books in the new language you’re trying to learn. For example, I chose English and Japanese so I could see both languages being read at the same time.
You can also choose whether you’re a beginner, an intermediate learner, or an advanced learner which will help to determine how challenging you want the experience to be. If you’re just starting to learn a new language then you could choose beginner like shown above, and whatever you choose filters out books from the other levels of difficulty.
There is one last filter option available and that’s choosing which category of book you want to read. You can leave off all filters which will show you all results for the level of difficulty you chose, or you can select from specific categories including culture, travel, short stories and others.
Once you select a book you want to read you can see the overview of it from its own page, which shows you the cover of the book and all its supported languages, as well as the difficulty level, and how many paragraphs there are. You’ll also need to download the book to get started, and this is the page where you would do that.
There is also a link to remove ads on the listing page of each book, which opens up a popup window within the app that shows you the different prices for a premium Beelinguapp membership. Of course you can also view these prices from the dedicated premium tab, which is what you see in the screenshot above. There are three different options including a monthly subscription, a one-time payment of removing ads, and a complete premium one-time payment option which removes ads for life and gives you lifetime access to all current and future supported texts within the app as they’re added.
When you find a book or two to download, you’ll be able to view all those books in the My Library tab. Here you’ll see the covers of any downloaded book and this is where you’ll choose which one to begin reading.
If you only pick the new language you’re trying to learn, you’ll see text written in just that language as shown above, and the words and phrases will be highlighted as they’re read, and turn from black to orange. You can also easily skip back and skip forward at any time, as well as pause and play at any time using the simple controls at the bottom of the page. There is also a button down in the bottom right corner that allows you to toggle between both your chosen languages at any given time if you selected more than one language.
If you’d rather see both languages at the same time while the book is being read, then you can tap the middle of the three buttons up in the top right corner. When both languages are being shown the button will look like five lines, and when it’s just one language it will look like two rectangular boxes.
If you tap on the first button in the top right corner this is where you select the volume of the playback while reading, as well as what language you want the audio in out of the two languages you’ve selected in the beginning for this book, and you can also toggle the option to highlight the text as it’s being read as well as adjust the size of the text.
When you start reading a book you’ll also be given a tiny tutorial on how to navigate through the options of the book while reading. This tutorial is more like an explanation of the different buttons and what they do, though if you prefer to not deal with them you can also skip each little explanation if you wish and get straight to reading.
In my initial impression using Beelinguapp seems to be an easy and fun way to learn a new language. It’s certainly different to the methods I’ve personally seen in other language learning apps but it already feels like it would be quite helpful in assisting me in learning a new language. The app was easy to use and it seems very well put together especially considering it’s been out and available on the Play Store for only around seven months. Plus it’s free so there’s no obligation to pay for anything, though you do get some benefits if you do go premium.
Ratings
- Speed (5/5) – No hassle in setting up the app. Once I opened it up there were just a few different configurations to make and I was able to dive right into learning.
- Features (4.5/5) – App has almost everything you could want in a language learning app and makes the process easy.
- Theme (5/5) – Rather fond of the app’s user interface as everything was easy to navigate and easy to find. The app also looks quite nice which adds to the experience.
- Overall (4.5/5) – A very well-rounded language learning app that is definitely worth a look.
Pros
- Lots of supported languages, including Japanese which was a huge plus for me personally
- Great user interface and design
- Multiple difficulty levels
- Completely free with the option of a premium membership for extra features and no ads
- Easy to use
- A unique approach to learning a language
Cons
- Would be great to see some sort of social element added into the app. Perhaps a way to share accomplishments with friends and other users. Other than that excellent application
If you’re looking for the most robust language learning app that supports every single language out there and has years and years of experience, this app is not for you. If however, you’re looking for an easy-to-use application that has in a short period of time grown to a pretty large user base with a very high rating due to its success in helping people learn languages, then look no further. Beelinguapp is free, has options to remove ads if you want to remove them, and there is a pretty good sized list of supported languages already. The app is also easy on the eyes and that certainly doesn’t hurt. This is absolutely a language learning app that’s recommended and if you’re wanting to learn a new language then you should definitely give this one a try.