There’s an App for That: Learning Languages, Instruments, and Skills While Staying Home

By: Gracie Swind, Contributing Writer

No matter how you find yourself specifically affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, most everyone is finding themselves with more time at home. Staying productive can prove a challenge when you’re out of routine, but adopting new skills and habits can help control the chaos and get you through the day.

Duolingo has a ‘steak’ feature which shows how many days in a row you’ve practiced your language of choice; the streak is often a motivator for days when practicing isn’t a top priority.

Learning to speak a new language and play an instrument are two of the most quoted skills for ‘well-rounded’ people; high schoolers are even required to take two years of a foreign language before graduating. Thankfully for those of us looking to take up a new hobby, we live in the era of online, and there’s an app for that.

On Duolingo, you can learn just about any language – and I do mean any; Duolingo even offers the made-up language of High Valyrian a fictional language coined by George R. R. Martin and made popular by Game of Thrones.

Duolingo is the #1 downloaded education app on the market and touts itself as being “the best way to learn a new language;” as a user myself, I have to agree. They have a wide range of languages to choose from, lessons are short, fun, and personalized, and the bite-sized, learning-as-you-like-it style really works for someone with a busy schedule.

Duolingo is free to use, but locks certain features behind its Duolingo Plus paywall; Plus costs a little over $12 a month for a monthly subscription and it removes ads and limited lives. If you’re serious about learning a new language and will use the app daily (as its intended to be), Plus is well worth the price, because running out of lives just as you get in the groove can be very limiting.

Duolingo had tested and proven its usefulness at teaching languages, quoting on their website that “34 hours of Duolingo are equal to 1 university semester of language courses.”

Yousician is a service that teaches you to play the guitar, ukulele, piano, or singing available on iOS, Android, and PC. Yousician uses the microphone embedded in your device to listen to you play, so it’s completely cordless and cableless; it works with acoustic and electric and offers a huge catalog of popular songs to play along to.

Yousician adopts a noted ‘play along’ style for its lessons that is somewhat reminiscent of the bouncing ball prominent in ‘sing-a-long’ videos.

Yousician, like Duolingo, is free to use, but has an optional paid Premium that streamlines the user experience. In addition to removing ads and limited lives, Premium users also gain access to Yousician’s full music catalog, personalized curriculum, and all the instruments Yousician teaches; a monthly subscription to Premium is $9.99.

Yousician offers a free 7-day trail of their Premium feature, during which users can sample their song library and personalized tutoring.

For those of you looking to learn other skills, like cooking, coding, self-defense, dance, photography, or business, sites and apps like Udemy and Linda offer paid courses for a diverse range of skills and hobbies. Costs are based on the individual courses and may or may not include a lifetime access to the course(s).

Self-improvement can help bring yourself out of a rut and get back on track to being productive, active, or satisfied with how you spend your day. We’ll all weather through the current state of the world with stories to tell, but its up to you whether or not you’ll have a new skill to show for it too.

Duolingo is often used as a tool for teachers in the public and private school systems as a supplement for their classes.

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