Problem
I am going to China, sending Chinese New Year cards - and need to know that they don't say Happy Birthday (which happened once when I bought a Chinese card in Singapore, assuming it would be seasonal!) or just a Chinese reaturant looking at a menu, or ingratiating myself with a waiter and creating goodwill so I get a good table - so I want To learn Chinese.
This requires special characters. So fewer websites offer it. Somebody must.
Learning a few words of another language for free is easy. I have been doing brilliantly with Duolingo learning German, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish. However, the Chinese course starts with sounds, not attached to words, so I don't remember.
Another learner had the same problem. (I thought of saying she and I were students, but that implies a school.) She said she was going back to Memrise.
I am very keen on Duolingo because it has pictures, encourages you with smiley faces, and you have short lessons. So if you are short of time, tired late at night, ought to be doing some other urgent task, you can still do the minimum every day. Duolingo teaches short sentences, such as the city is big. Or use their Tinycards, learning one word at a time, in groups such as fruits, flowers. You can create your own set on something you want to remember, for yourself and to help others. What about Memrise?
Answers
Memrise offers these free courses. I shall put them in alphabetical order so if you or I are looking for a particular course we can find it quickly.
Memrise gives you a button to click on which is for Babbel, which I think of as a paid for system.
Babbel
Danish
Dutch
English
French
German
Indonesian
Italian
Norwegain
Portuguese
Polish
Russian
Spanish
Swedish
Turkish.
Then I see signs which tell me some languages have free games 'practise'; others are in the PRO section (professional) which cost from $4.90 ((near enough $5) a month. The price is okay if you are a professional translator or need it for business and can offset it against tax, or your employer is paying. However, I am wary about buying on the internet, unless I have seta out to do so. You could click on something interesting and buy it every five minutes and run up huge debts, a house full of clutter. Back to my search for Chinese and Memrise. I am still stranded on the Memrise search.
Another search shows me Wikipedia. Ah! Gotcha. I have looked at Wikipedia on languages a while back. This will lead me to a simple explanation, not an 'about' section which says we are wonderful, but who are they, who owns what and how long, how many hours does it take to learn a langauge using each system.
Learning Languages On Laptops or Phones?
By the way, why do I prefer the Duolingo version for a laptop? The phone ap works fine for two or three days. Then it fades in train tunnels when you can't get a connection. Finally it disappears altogether and asks me to log in or re-start my phone, which a laptop doesn't do, perhaps because I sit for a long period on a laptop but don't on a train so it keeps cutting out.
You get more features on the 'big' version.
Useful Websites
http://androidpride.com/memrise-learn-languages-free/
https://www.duolingo.com
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memrise
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_language_self-study_programs
Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, learner and teacher of languages.I have several posts on learning words in different languages, with memory aids, and inforamtion and links to duolingo.
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