Knowledge of a foreign language is an important step towards establishing a successful career in almost any field of activity. If you often spend time at the computer (it doesn’t matter whether you use the PC as a user, an administrator, or just like to play games), without knowledge of English, a huge component of any program, service or game will pass you by. You will not know what features are hidden in the application of your choice, what else your preferred service is capable of besides basic functions, and what twists and turns of the plot are hidden in the recently released 3D strategy or MMORPG. Of course, the most effective way to learn a language is to communicate with native speakers: discuss films and books, discuss the innovations of the latest models of phones, smart watches and other gadgets, and finally express your point of view about the recently watched football match of the English Premier League. But if this opportunity is not available to you, you can sign up for courses and replenish your conversational skills, again from films and books.

Another alternative method is various online services available for mobile phones and computers (LinguaLeo, Khan Academy, Coursera). According to the latest ranking of the most popular applications by number of requests and downloads for Android, presented by Google, the best of them is the service Duolingo – learn languages ​​for free(link). It also regularly gets into the “Best of the Best” tops based on the results of the end of the fiscal year and summing up the results of sales of their products by companies.

Duolingo is quite an innovative product. The combination of high learning efficiency and the presence of a huge number of practical exercises to develop reading, writing, articulation and understanding of foreign speech skills; all classes are held in the form of a game, which provides an excellent foundation for learning all the elements of foreign speech. In addition to English, a host of other languages ​​are available on this platform: German, French, Italian, Spanish, Danish, Swedish and other forms. In addition to this, if your native language is not Russian, the platform offers courses for other foreign language forms.

The installation process is, as always, quick and smooth. All you need to do is visit the official project page on Google Play (link above) and start the installation.

To start working with the program, you need to register. When starting for the first time, in the window describing the main features of the product, click on the “Get started” button.

A window appears asking you to select a course. In addition to the fact that there are courses in Russian, you can also choose English methods. Since the range of classes in English is much wider, choosing such training will give you additional help in understanding English adverbs and phrases, since all tasks will be presented exclusively in English language form.

To open a list of courses in English, click the “Courses taught in English” button.

How does the teaching methodology itself work in “Duolingo - Learn languages ​​for free”? The learning process is based on daily exercises, taking into account the time allocated for practice. For successful lessons, the user receives a special currency called lingots. First, the applicant chooses how much time he plans to spend each day on exercises, on the basis of which he will be awarded lingots. The program also defines a series of several days of practice, for which the user will be rewarded separately.

So, first we choose a daily goal: easy (5 minutes a day), medium (10 minutes) or severe (15 minutes). It is important to understand that if you allocate too little time, the material will not settle in your head and be remembered, and too high indicators can discourage you from continuing the course, so it would be advisable to choose a medium interval. If you doubt your decision, don't worry too much - you can change this setting at any time later.

What's next? If you haven't studied your chosen language before, it might be a good idea to start with the basics - simple words and expressions, grammar and tenses. If you already have certain skills in the corresponding dialect, “Duolingo - learn languages ​​for free” will offer you to take a qualification test, based on the results of which the program will determine your level of language proficiency and create an individual plan for improving your skills.

The entire course is divided into several sections. First, you will be asked to learn the very basics: articles, the simplest words and phrases. Later, as you progress, the difficulty of the lessons will increase, and it will not be so easy to complete the lesson without losing the Lingots.

So, to start the lesson, select the category and task you need (by the way, all lessons open sequentially, one after another, as the previous lesson is successfully completed).

Another necessary comment: all exercises are completely different and personalized. The simplest task is to choose one of the proposed pictures that depicts the given word. It promotes visual cognitive understanding of the meaning of words on a graphical basis.

The next version of the exercises is the translation of a phrase from a foreign language into the native language (taking into account articles, definite or indefinite, and the correct grammatical form). In addition, the words are spoken aloud through the smartphone speaker. If you do not understand the words, or are absent for a while, you can repeat the audio playback at any time by pressing the loudspeaker button.

To make your task easier, the developers offer several translation options to choose from, so you are unlikely to get confused here. When you are sure that your choice is correct, click the “Check” button.

The test result will be immediately displayed on the screen.

As feedback in response to your problem solving, “Duolingo - learn languages ​​for free” offers you to get acquainted with the comments of other students. In them you can find out that the same phrase can be translated in different ways, depending on the context, and each of these translations is grammatically correct and correct. To read comments on an individual test item, click on the corresponding icon that appears after your answer to the question.

What other tasks are there in the application? Audio elements are quite useful in terms of pronunciation of words. First, the expression is displayed on the screen and played through the audio speaker. After this, the student is asked to speak the phrase or phrase he just heard through a microphone. The program engine determines the correct pronunciation and provides a rating depending on the speech characteristics of each individual user.

To consolidate your knowledge of translating words not only from Russian into English, but also vice versa (however, instead of this combination you can substitute any other pair of language dialects), the program will offer you exercises that require you to independently translate the corresponding phrases. If at first the expressions are elementary, then as you progress their complexity will correspondingly grow and increase.

In some translation tasks, if you come across new words that were previously unknown to you, in order not to confuse or confuse you, the application highlights new expressions in a different color so that you can click on them and find out the exact translation before composing the answer. With the help of this feature with Duolingo, the English language (at least its basics) can be learned in just a couple of months, if you have enough attention, perseverance and perseverance.

As we wrote earlier, the program has its own internal currency. What is it for and what can you buy for it? By successfully completing all the lessons in one section, you will be awarded several Lingots.

For them you can purchase several bonuses that open up various opportunities for the student. for example, with the help of such bonuses you can change the design of the program, giving a new look to the Duolingo mascot. Secondly, you can open access to new slang expressions and dictionaries dedicated to one of the more complex topics. For example, these could be free words often used in modern conversation, or business terminology used in negotiations. In each course, the bonuses are completely different and individual, so what you saw in one of the courses may be available in it and only in it. In others, other bonuses will be available accordingly.

If design bonuses have only a visual meaning, then new dictionaries and sets of expressions when learning languages ​​carry a completely different, more practical meaning, so what to buy is up to you.

Finally, the last important component of the service that we want to talk about is daily goals. By completing lessons daily, you see your progress and can get additional lingots.

This feature acts as a kind of achievement (certified achievement), of which there are already plenty in the presented software product.

It’s not for nothing that the “Duolingo – learn languages ​​for free” program has earned the status of one of the best practical applications for learning foreign languages. Developers are constantly developing and improving their brainchild: adding new courses, languages, features, functions and settings. We can assure you that training with the help of this project really produces results, since the most progressive and modern techniques are used here.

Duolingo is an online service with which you can learn foreign languages ​​in a playful way. Courses in English, Spanish, French and German are open for Russian speakers; 30 living and artificial languages ​​are ready or are being developed in the English version. Training takes place in a completely free web version and in applications for Android, iOS and Windows Phone.

Thanks to its comprehensive learning experience, Duolingo is suitable for children from preschool age. To improve your language level, you have the opportunity to skip the initial stages and move on to sections of higher complexity. Teachers are offered the “For Schools” format, which allows them to create classes, create accounts for students, assign tasks, monitor activity, and limit access to certain functions. They can also provide group lessons, including those specifically tailored to the skills and needs of a particular class.

The training program is divided into lessons arranged in order of difficulty and, after the initial level, devoted to individual topics. Each lesson contains exercises of different types for translation, reading, writing and listening, designed to learn grammatical rules or new vocabulary in the context of live speech. At any stage, training is available to consolidate acquired knowledge. The game format is represented by elements such as experience points, levels, rewards and in-game currency for purchasing additional features and bonuses in the store. To keep track of your regularity, you can set a daily goal and set up email reminders. To further develop skills, the Stories project has been opened, where you need to complete interactive tasks within the framework of voiced situational dialogue.

Key Features

• Completely free web version
• Discussions for each task
• Learning vocabulary in context
• Paid testing to obtain a certificate in English
• Russian-language interface for 4 languages ​​only

We recommend downloading Duolingo to your computer for those who want to use an excellent program for learning foreign languages. You can learn English quickly and easily, spending just a few minutes a day. The program is absolutely free. Therefore, you don't have to worry about additional expenses.

By the way, more than 150 million people have already decided to download Duolingo on their computer. And every day this figure is increasing. It is by this that you can judge how functional and popular this program is, and whether it is worth downloading.

Application functionality

The Dowlingo program on PC will allow you to improve your knowledge of the English language. And not only that, because there are other foreigners of this group. Practice will include reading, speaking, comprehension and writing. All this will happen in a playful way. Interesting tasks will increase your vocabulary and improve your knowledge of grammatical speech. You will be able to hear, see, write and repeat whatever you see fit.

After downloading the application, you will start learning with the simplest verbs. Next, your attention will be revealed to phrases and sentences that will develop into texts. And you will learn new words every day.

You only need to spend 34 hours to start speaking English well. In terms of efficiency, this time can be compared to a semester at the university. This program will be an excellent addition to the course taught in schools and universities. Therefore, you can gain excellent knowledge without leaving your computer.

The program is completely free. It can be called the most accessible way to learn a foreign language. But, at the same time, you will not listen to boring lectures and answer awkward questions from the teacher. The game form of learning will be really effective and interesting. The effectiveness of the program lies in the fact that it is enough to complete simple, interesting tasks to consolidate the acquired knowledge.

By the way, you can learn not only English, but also Spanish, German, French and many other foreign languages. Soon you will be able to speak your chosen language fluently.

Pros and cons of the application

By downloading Duolingo in Russian for your computer, you will receive an excellent program with many advantages. For example:

• interesting colorful design. It is uncluttered and unpretentious. Therefore it is very convenient;
• complete absence of any financial expenses;
• quick way to learn. With just a few minutes a day, you can improve your skills in a matter of months;
• many language options;
• fast application operation;
• constant repetition of lessons that work to strengthen memory.

The program can be called quite interesting and effective. But there are still some disadvantages in it:

• slow response of moderators to requests and questions;
• several errors in spelling words and constructing sentences;
• Not quite correct work in voice recognition.

How to Run Duolingo on PC

The Duolingo app works on Android and iOS mobile devices. But few people know that you can also download it to your computer.

On our website you have this opportunity. The main thing is to learn how to use the emulator. There is nothing complicated about this. Download it from our website, install it following the instructions and register with Google mail. It won't take you much time. And if you already have an existing account, it will be completely simple.

Next, you have two options - download the application from our website or from the Google store. But, the first option will be more effective and also free. You download the archive and install it in BlueStacks. That's it, Duolingo on your computer.

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Summarize

Those who decide to download Duolingo to their computer will immediately discover the functional world of a foreign language. It can be not only English, but also many others. If desired, you can combine them with each other. The program is absolutely free. Therefore, you don't have to worry about being billed for additional expenses.

You can increase your vocabulary in a matter of hours. Especially if you have only basic training or no training at all. We recommend that you start learning several languages ​​of the same group at once. This way you can become bilingual in a few months.

After learning the words, you can move on to composing simple phrases. Then you will be asked to start studying sentence structure. Be sure to remember the forms of irregular verbs. This will help you speak beautifully and correctly in the future. Well, if word order is not so important for our language, for foreign languages ​​it is significant.

We really recommend that you download this application. It's effective and interesting.

Duolingo (duolingo) - this is a fairly new online project (launched in June 2012) for self-learning languages. The idea for its development came from a young American professor, Louis von Ahn. His previous successful projects Capture and Recupture are known to most Internet users.

DUOLINGO project developers

If someone is not familiar with the operation of these programs, then it can be briefly explained as follows: if you make some kind of request to a site that provides services (for example, you buy tickets), then the system must make sure that you are a person. To do this, you are sent a set of numbers or letters so that you reproduce them and thereby prove your human nature.

Second project recapture was developed for digitizing books. It was simply a brilliant idea to use the huge number of Internet users to digitize books. Probably not everyone realizes this, but regardless of whether you know it or not, you are also participating in the creation of a digital library if you are given two lines of characters to reproduce.

With one of them you again confirm that you are a person, and the second is symbols unrecognized by the computer. Of course, not only are they given to you, the same fragment from different people is compared, then all this is processed by the program. Now this project has already been bought from Louis von Ahn, and he and his team are working on a new grandiose project - Duolingo.

The essence of the project

Its essence is to give people the opportunity to learn foreign languages ​​for free, and in return, these people will translate texts from the Internet. The Internet is now 70% in English. Translation work is a huge undertaking. Probably, everyone has already experienced when they cannot find something they need in their native language, and not everyone understands English, and even for those who understand, it can be quite difficult, since a lot of special terminology is often used.
And if it’s some kind of matchmaker, then there’s no hope at all!

Available languages

At first, Duolingo was available in English, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, German, French, but trial versions of other languages ​​have already been launched. Currently, Russian has already appeared - so you can learn English based on your native language. It’s very interesting, exciting and enjoyable, I advise everyone to try it, by the way, in Duolingo you can start from scratch.

Duolingo - site fragment

Currently, more than 5 million people use Duolingo every week and the audience is constantly growing. The site periodically changes its design, improvements are constantly being made. All your successes are counted, there is voice acting, which is very valuable, as it is worked out pronunciation, which is indispensable in learning a new language.

Efficiency of DUOLINGO

Louis von Ahn claims that using this free Duolingo course is very effective. It takes several hundred hours of work for a student with zero knowledge of a foreign language to reach an intermediate level and be able to already participate in the translation of texts. Translations from different students are compared, evaluated, processed - using special programs, it turns out quickly and not as expensive as the services of professional translators.

It turns out that the Duolingo project is mutually beneficial for students and founders. Students are given the opportunity to obtain free knowledge, and developers receive and use the results of this knowledge.
Here is a video from the TED conference, translated into Russian, in which Professor Louis von Ahn himself explains how Duolingo works

The official Duolingo website is located at

Click “Home” to get to your skill tree. The skill tree is where you'll do most of your training. It is divided into separate units, and each unit contains several lessons. The more you progress in learning the language, the more units will be available to you.

Take what you already know ahead of schedule (optional). If you already have the basic knowledge, you can complete part of the skill tree early. Click on the golden keyhole at the end of each section to take the test. You will have three attempts.

Click on the first skill block. It will probably be called "Basics 1"