I’m looking for an app or website to help my so improve her English.
We looked at Duolingo earlier (as I’ve used it before for learning a bit of Greek) but it does not support English to English courses. This is a problem as our native language is as obscure as it gets.
Do you have any recommendations? It would be awesome if the service was as gamelike as Duolingo.
This is my first post on Lemmy, I hope I’m not in the wrong community.
Well now I’m intrigued by what your native language could be.
I thought I shouldn’t doxx myself so much, but whatever. Our native language is Bulgarian.
@alokir@lemmy.world (is that how I tag people?)
Anki is a flashcard app that can help with memorizing vocabulary.
Watch media in English with your local language as subtitles. Or the opposite.
Play video games in English. Watch English-speaking YouTubers. Interact with people online using English. As long as she enjoys the content, proficiency in the language will follow.
You see, one of the goals is to be able to enjoy media in English together. The problem is that she quickly gives up after encountering too many unfamilliar words or constructs.
Thats why I’m looking for an app to help her get a bit more confident.
There needs to be a desire to learn first. If anything, I believe it’s easiest to start with watching content creators that play the same games she does; I learned a lot of my English from playing video games and watching Minecraft YouTubers (I highly recommend EthosLab) back in the day.
Kindle kindle kindle! I also commented elsewhere but the kindle offers one super key thing: the ability to look up a word’s definition super fast and easy.
You just long press on a word with your finger, and the definition pops up. If it’s a term like “Monrovia” you’ll get the wikipedia article instead. Definitions and wiki articles pop up in a little window just smaller than a post-it note and when you tap anywhere else it goes away.
Instead of describing it, I just uploaded a quick video of how it works.
I read in spanish with a spanish dictionary and it’s great. I can actually proceed in literature that would be too slow with a physical dictionary.
Also there’s always flash cards. She can probably find some kind of app work english-her language flash cards and just start learning vocab.
https://youtube.com/shorts/3d4F-E4Cm00
edit: pardon my nasty nails I’ve been moving today
Maybe look for peer to peer type setups. Iirc Babel has one. Basically you’re just chatting with someone else. Iirc they also have a live class thing, which might be good too.
Personally I’m using Duolingo for Spanish, along with watching movies/shows in Spanish (still at kid level so cartoons mostly) and a site (who’s name is escaping me right now) that has a ton of videos that range from very simple to much more complex.
if you can pay the Rosetta Stone is the best. None of these free apps come close to it in my opinion.
Talking about apps I would recommend MosaLingua (digiSchool), it helps me for English and Spanish.
It’s mainly design to learn vocabulary (spaced repetition), the app is free, only class/courses may required a subscription.
Answering your initial question you can select the “native” language you want, but I’m afraid you won’t find your mother tongue.
The best way to improve her English is for her to read tons of English literature.
Get her a Kindle Paperwhite (about $120) and encourage her to read fiction. It has to be enjoyable.
With the Kindle, she can look up the dictionary definition and pronunciation of any word she encounters and does not know.
Busuu is neat. It has a feature to submit answers to the community so native speakers can correct speaking/writing and give tips.
Just took the test for myself and it looks very promising. Thanks!