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We found an interesting article in The Guardian where journalist Shelley Hepworth tries to find out how much language apps actually can teach you.
The article refers to linguistic expert Ingrid Pillar from Macquarie University of Sydney, who explains that two processes must happen to become fluent in a foreign language, roughly divided into social and linguistic processes. The linguistic part is where you learn the building blocks in a language like words, grammatical structures, and pronunciation. An app can work really well for that. But to hold a conversation and impart meaning, an app falls short.
“Language is about interacting with other people. It’s not something we do alone,” says Ingrid Pillar.
The challenge that most people find is that to become fluent, you need to find situations in your daily life where you are immersed in the foreign language. You have to use the language creatively to make decisions in the moment for how to construct meaningful sentences and respond to questions. Finding these situations in daily life and regularly might be a complicated task for many. But you don’t give up, and you stick to your linguistic approach, but the learning becomes more of an intellectual exercise, and after a while, a bit dull.
Wouldn’t it be great to have an app that could help you do both processes, the linguistic and the social, simultaneously?
We have created a social game-based app called New Amigos because learning new languages leads to new friendships!
The app connects you with native speakers who want to learn your language and lets you play a fun and educational game together with live video-communication.
You learn words, phrases and dialogue, and pronunciation together while supporting each other’s learning by giving feedback on pronunciation, sentence structuring, or grammar. The app naturally provides a space for conversation in the foreign language between you and your player partner, thus creating a situation where you actively and creatively use the language to construct sentences. A win-win situation for both parties!
You can come back to the app to play more games with your player partner or browse our member page to find other people to play with. You don’t need previous knowledge in the language as the game takes you from zero to fluent level (0-B1 in European framework). If you want to get ahead, you can also practice on your own by looking through and testing yourself in the cards you played in your last game or looking at entirely new cards. Play on your own in single-player mode with the support of video files of a native speaker. The built-in AI will listen to your translations and judge if you win or lose the card. There is a lot of repetition and memorization, so you need to keep your ears open and stay focused.
Sitting down in a café in a foreign city with newfound friends and trying to decipher their conversation, and even to participate in it, is a real thrill! But when that’s not a practical option, especially now in our pandemic times, the second-best can be to establish regular online gaming meetings with a new foreign friend, interact in the foreign language and help each other to master the language and reach fluent level. Start now, make friends with real people who want to learn a language from you, and speak new languages!
Download now.
