The Only 4 Apps You Need to Learn a New Language

this video is brought to you by Squarespace I've  been studying languages for the past 10 years now  

and by this point I've tried a billion different  apps both free and paid but these are the only  

four I've kept on my phone that I actually use  every single day without fail I finally feel like  

for the first time in my life I'm making real  Daily Progress and it no longer feels like a  

chore I'm actually enjoying the process so let's  get into the first one also one of my favorite  

bold voice bold voice is an app to practice your  pronunciation it's specifically for learning the  

American accent I remember when I was in high  school and in college I really wanted to work  

on my accent and make it sound more American but  unfortunately back then there were no resources  

like this app and when I learned about this  app a few years ago I was so freaking happy  

if learning the American accent is important  to you maybe it's because of your job or maybe  

you want to make YouTube videos or maybe you  just want to speak like an American and that's  

it you're going to enjoy this app a lot I think  people who are more advanced are going to enjoy  

this app so much because usually when you become  Upper Intermediate or Advanced you don't really  

know how to continue improving your language  skills and in my case what really helped me  

is working on my pronunciation and working on my  accent it was honestly like this new step for me  

when it came to my English Lear Learning  Journey because obviously I knew all the  

grammar at that point my vocabulary was pretty  good but I wanted something new like I wanted  

a new challenge and that's the challenge that I  chose for myself working on my accent basically  

when you first use the app it will ask you what  your native language is and your fluency and  

then it will create a plan for you and it will  also always keep your native language in mind  

obviously in my case my native language anguage  is Russian so the app kind of already knows what  

sounds might be tricky for me to pronounce  in English the app has a lot of different  

features like on the for you page you will find  all of the lessons specifically for you then  

they have the scores page where you can train  specific sounds this feature on the resources  

tab called practice your text if I don't know  how to pronounce a specific word in English  

or maybe a specific sentence so let's just type  in I am making a video now and then I can start

practicing I'm making a video now okay so I can  

listen to how the coach pronounces  the sentence and then I can say it

myself I'm making a video now I'm making a video  now and I'm also going to see my score which is  

95% maybe I need to work on the word a a video  I'm making a video now making sure that it's  

not as highlighted because I feel like sometimes  instead of saying I'm making a video I say I'm  

making a video like I'm really emphasizing  this word a little bit too much let's look  

at this lesson introduction to the American  R because the reason why I love their course  

their lesson so much is because the videos are  made by Hollywood accent coaches and the video  

itself explaining how you need to pronounce a  specific sound are extremely helpful because a  

lot of pronunciation apps they don't actually  give you videos and how are you going to make  

a new sound if you can't see how a native speaker  makes the sound so let's try the first Lon today  

we're going to jump into some American R sounds  the r sounds can be broken up into three different  

categories and experiment with this sound  in the practice materials so you see this  

detailed video the mouth of an ashual person and  also the image below if it's better for you this

way rip rip

rip okay so I need to work on my intonation  probably I added this sound okay let me look  

at the quick fix it sounds like you  accidentally added a vowel where it  

doesn't belong for example instead of saying  please you should say please please try again  

without that extra vowel oh that's interesting  okay let me try rip rip ooh nice I got a 100  

to% now and as I said before you can also  practice conversations with their AI let's  

look at this first one Beach vacation because  I just came back from my vacation a few weeks

ago hey Veronica have you thought  about where we want to go for our  

Beach vacation I heard that beaches  in Hawaii have some killer views oh  

wow that's a nice idea but can you  explain to me what killer views

means as you can see it's analyzing my response  and it's analyzing my pronunciation word by word  

and it tells me that I should practice the word  what definitely killer views means the scenery is  

absolutely breathtaking like stunning sunsets  clear blue water and beautiful mountains what  

kind of scenery do you enjoy most and also  another thing that I found super fun about  

BVO is their accent Oracle feature honestly all  of my friends are now obsessed with it and when  

I went to my friend's house a few weeks ago  we all took this test to see if their AI can  

place US based on our accent and it was a lot  of fun because even our native speaking friends  

wanted to use it they just thought it was a  fun activity so let's see BVO ax and Oracle  

do you have an accent when speaking English  I bet I can guess it in 30 seconds or less so  

let's see honestly my accent is not a typical  Russian accent right now but let's see one of  

my favorite activities is making playlists for  different moods or occasions whether it's music  

for relaxing working or celebrating I love  finding songs that fit the moment and create  

the perfect atmosphere oh my God it guessed  it right it said Russian wow your accent is  

Russian my friend I identify your accent based on  subtle details and your pronunciation wow that's  

crazy yes you guessed it honestly I'm pretty  impressed because a lot of people can't really  

place my accent a lot of native speakers at least  because they obviously hear that I'm not a native  

English speaker that I have an accent but they're  always like where are you from I don't know maybe  

somewhere in Europe but this app knows it for  sure and guys com confidence in communication  

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Veronica for 10% off your purchase of a website or  domain another one of my favorite apps especially  

for memorizing is Anki and Ani is the app that has  been around forever and a lot of medical students  

use it to memorize all of their complex things  that they need to memorize I also know that people  

use Ani to memorize music chords and obviously  to memorize new words in foreign languages for  

me personally it is the best flashcard application  of all time because I really like controlling the  

pictures that I use the sentences I create so the  fact that Ani lets me customize everything even  

how often I see a specific word is amazing so  let's go to my app and here I actually have two  

decks the first one is sanskrit o names because  right now I'm trying to learn the actual names for  

yoga poses so that's why I'm using an for that  and obviously I'm using Anki to learn foreign  

languages like Spanish and I have 246 well plus  two 48 pending cards just because I took a break  

for like a weekish because I went on vacation and  I wasn't really practicing my an cards when I was  

on vacation so now that's what I see but let's  actually check the first card and I'll explain why  

I love Ani to memorize all of my vocabulary so the  type of cards that I use the most on Ani is called  

close cards and it's basically when the app is  closing one word for you so that you don't see it  

for example here something I had a hectic day at  work of course I don't remember how to say hectic

anymore

okay so for me it is probably going to be again  so there are four buttons again hard good and  

easy and because I have no idea what this word  actually means I'm going to choose again and the  

way that I programmed my ankey cards is the app is  first showing me the most difficult cards for me  

and that is why at the very beginning I usually  fail at every single card but by the end of my  

revision I only see the cards that are very easy  for me to review because for me I'm very tired at  

the end of my revision so I want to see the most  difficult cards at the very beginning when my mind  

is fresh for full of energy and when I still think  that I remember all of my words in Spanish which  

is clearly not true an uses space repetition which  is extremely effective when it comes to memorizing  

new vocabulary or just memorizing information in  general whether you're trying to learn something  

about music or whether you're a medical student  or whether you're a language learner because the  

thing is our brains only retain information that  it actually uses and that is why people talk about  

exposure so much if you're exposing yourself to  the language if you're practicing your language  

every single day honestly naturally you are  going to learn all of this vocabulary but  

because I want to do it faster that's why I'm  using ankey so that's why space repetition is  

so great it forces our brain to remember all of  these words because it shows you the words at  

spaced intervals and you see them over and over  again also if you do decide to use Anki I think  

you should should know that there are a lot of  pre-made decks by other people by other language  

Tutors or language students so if you don't  want to create your own cards that's okay but  

I think that's actually the strongest argument for  using Anki the fact that you can create your own  

flashcards add your own images create your own  example sentences but if all of this hassle is  

not for you that's okay there are other people who  are creating their own ankey flash cards and share  

in all of them with the world and another  important reminder from me is that I think  

that Anki is best for memorizing vocabulary  that you have encountered in your language  

learning already maybe it's through a course  or maybe you were reading a book or watching  

a movie you're not really taking a list of  words from the internet and then creating  

random eny cards from that list okay now let's  talk about the app that I use to practice my  

reading and and the app is link Q this app  uses this grammar free approach to learning  

a new language because I know a lot of you  guys are tired of memorizing grammar rules  

or doing all of those grammar drills and  so if you think that you study a language  

better Naturally by exposing Yourself by reading  articles going through stories then this app is  

definitely for you so let's say you choose this  first story Uno Miguel coo so let's listen to

itel I really like the fact that because this text  is for beginners or intermediate students the pace  

of the audio is not too fast because when you're  trying to listen to native speakers in Spanish  

when you're a beginner it's a total disaster like  it is not not comprehensible input you cannot  

understand anything and that is why this app is  amazing especially for beginners intermediate  

students upper intermediate students because  obviously you can change how people speak and just  

naturally the texts for beginners they're going to  be a little bit slower the words are going to be  

way easier which is amazing this is how it should  be so let's say I don't know the word the auno  

I can click on it and I can see the translation  and I can also add the word to my list here and  

then once you're done reading this first page  you can just review it click here review P the  

auno breakfast one Uno Uno cuz you know generally  there are two approaches to language learning the  

first one is this traditional classroom approach  where you're doing a lot of grammar drills where  

all that matters is how many words you know not  necessarily if you can use them in context in your  

everyday conversations dissecting the language  trying to understand every single little aspect  

of it and the second approach is this intuitive  acquisition that happens naturally you're pretty  

much learning how a child would learn their  first language and for me this approach works  

a lot better because I'm having fun while learning  the language I'm not hating the whole process and  

I actually want to continue and so this is why I  really like this app because it encourages me to  

consume content in my target language which is  Spanish right now okay and finally let's talk  

about the app number four which is not a very  traditional language learning app I mean it's  

not an app to learn languages at all but a lot  of people use it to learn languages I know it  

sounds very confusing you're probably like what  did you just say Veronica this app is Spotify  

and I use this app to learn foreign languages  to learn Spanish to improve my English very  

often like literally almost every single day  obviously I use it to improve my listening  

skills to listen to music to listen to podcasts  and to immerse myself into the language I think  

for me with my current levels in the languages  that I'm learning English and Spanish listening  

to something has been such a game Cher because for  English my English is pretty Advanced I can still  

pick up on some slang on the words that native  speakers use right now and also in the process  

learn about a topic I'm passionate about so now  for English I'm not really Listening to English  

teaching podcasts for example in my everyday life  I'm very interested in nutrition so the podcast I  

listen to is Zoe nutrition and science they have a  lot of interesting guests everything is in English  

I get to listen to a lot of accents learn a lot  of nice vocabulary about the topic I'm interested  

in and obviously improve my English skills let's  see the shows that I follow on Spotify so let's go  

to library and then podcasts okay so the first one  is in Spanish no iOS real Mexican Spanish I really  

like it I think they also have a YouTube channel  so they're basically recording their podcast  

for YouTube and for Spotify the next show I  have the red flags podcast it's in English  

and it's about Formula 1 because I love Formula  1 and honestly guys this one is Bomb the hosts  

are so freaking fun like the way they speak very  informal and I highly recommend the show to every  

single person who likes Formula 1 and obviously we  also all remember that on Spotify we can listen to  

music there are lyrics also I think some songs  even offer the translation feature so if it's  

in a foreign language you're trying to learn  you can just translate everything and see if  

you know all of the words if you understand  everything so that's why Spotify has been one  

of my favorite apps for language learning even  though it's not really for language learning so I  

think it's going to be it for this video thank  you guys so much for watching it if you like  

please don't forget to give it a thumbs up  and subscribe to my YouTube channel just a  

reminder if you want to build your own website  you absolutely have to use square space the  

link is going to be in the description and you  can also use my code Veronica for 10% off your  

first purchase of a website or domain if you  want to continue exploring the topic of tools  

and apps for language learning I actually have  another video where I share eight free tools  

I use every day to stay fluent so all you need  to do is Click right here and keep on watching