this post was submitted on 05 Mar 2025
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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/40059556

Rosetta Stone is also US owned.

I pay for a family plan and share it with a bunch of people. Several are government workers and use it in addition to traditional training, so it is actually an important subscription.

It’s one of my last US subscriptions.

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[–] datendefekt@feddit.org 2 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago)

There's mondly, which is based in Romania and was bought up by Pearson from the UK, and memrise, which is also based in the UK.

[–] dust_accelerator@discuss.tchncs.de 10 points 12 hours ago

https://www.babbel.com/legal/imprint

Although they expanded and have a NY office. Still looks like the HQ remains in Berlin.

[–] noodlejetski@lemm.ee 9 points 12 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago)

https://mylittlewordland.com/

community-created website, made after Memrise booted custom courses from their service.

[–] Lazycog@sopuli.xyz 6 points 11 hours ago

There was librelingo but sadly the development halted and main dev seems busy with life.

[–] Matriks404@lemmy.world 3 points 10 hours ago* (last edited 9 hours ago)

You mean: Any alternative to gamified app that makes people think they're learning languages, but really just waste their time for relatively quick dopamine boosts?

That said, I don't really use any apps aside from Anki for learning basic sentences/common words (up to about 5000-10000 of them) with examples of usage.

Good language course, a handbook or getting knowledge from YouTube videos, dictionaries, corporas, random Google searches and prompts in chatbots (they are so good for that), etc. is much better.

To get to B1-B2 level in any language I think it's the best to have good handbook or individual teacher (who is a native speaker). Also learn phonetic symbols (IPA) for your target language, to be able to check pronunciation of words you aren't sure how to pronounce. For higher level(s) see above.

You should also immerse yourself into target language as much as you can, but if you want to actively learn from media, you should only use material that is about 90% comprehensible to you, so you learn remaining 10% by context. If you have some specific interests (like video gaming or history) you can of course try to watch this content in your TL, but I found out that watching drama TV shows (which is what I normally don't watch in my native language) is also very effective, since you learn words of everyday usage.

As for learning new words I have 2 tips:

  • Never learn words without context, because if you don't you won't be able to use them in speech.
  • Always learn words fully, e.g. when there are no global stress rules, such as in Russian, treat it as being part of a word. I made a mistake of not doing that when I began learning Russian, because my non-native teacher didn't say it was important. IT IS (and I still haven't fully recovered from this, lol).
[–] Blaze@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 11 hours ago
[–] psin@lemmy.world 3 points 10 hours ago

I'm quite happy with lingvist, an estonian app, for learning vocabulary

[–] rei@piefed.social 16 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

Maybe give Lingonaut a try. It's not out quite yet, but the beta will be out very soon. It's Czechia/UK based.

[–] DaniJohni@discuss.tchncs.de 4 points 12 hours ago

Oh yes that looks very promising