Rosetta Stone

The app offers 25 languages to choose from and it listens to your pronunciation to help grasp your skills. It helps you learn language foundations faster. Rosetta Stone starts at $35. 97 for 3 months, but has additional plans of different lengths, including a lifetime membership for $ 199.

Mango

While many of the apps on this list focus on gamifying (游戏化)and making the learning experience addictive, Mango goes in the other direction, paying much attention to detailed instruction. A single language will cost you $7. 99 a month, or $17. 99 for access to all of available languages (that’s 70 languages). Mango has longer lessons, which average at about 12 minutes per lesson. These lessons are very detailed, and Mango emphasizes conversation-based methodology to get you toward being fluent.

Mondly

Mondly focuses on gamifying the language-learning experience. You can get started on Mondly for free and upgrade to a subscription service, ranging between $9. 99 and $479. 90. The app is good for those who have no experience in learning a new language.

Duolingo

Duolingo is famous for its owl (猫头鹰) if you don’t keep on track with your lessons. The best part of this app is that it’s completely free, although you have the option to upgrade if you’d like to avoid the ads. The upgraded plan is $12. 99 a month, and with 34 languages to learn, it’s the easiest app by far to get started with. There’re comprehension tests for listening and reading. You’ll listen to a story and answer questions to see how much you comprehended from the story.

Many students ask for advice about improving their English. There are three basic questions.

The first question is about real English. Li Hao from Hubei wrote, “I enjoy watching English films and listening to real English songs. But it takes along time. What do you think?”

This is a great way to learn English! Talk about the film or song with your friends, and guess the meaning of the new words. Just enjoy yourself!

The second question is about speaking. Sam, form Suzhou wrote, “Our school has a foreign teacher. But I’m shy and can’t speak to her. What should I do?”

When I visit China, lots of people in the street say, “Hello! How are you? Where are you from? Do you like China?” These are good questions to start a conversation. Many people are shy when they speak English, so before you begin, takes deep breath and smile! Smiling always helps.

The third question is about vocabulary. Oliver, from Anhui wrote, “I want to remember all the new words. I write them down, but I forget them quickly. What should I do?” Try to remember eight or ten words a day. Write them on pieces of paper and place them in your bedroom. Say the words when you see them, and change them every day. And when you’re shopping, how about counting the English words, or saying the English names for everything you see?

Magazine Activities for Learning English

Even if you just read the magazines and enjoy their content, you will be learning new words, sentence structures and common sayings. 【小题1】 Here are some activities you can do with English magazines that will help you study English actively. You can do these out loud by writing, through discussion with someone else or even just silently in your head.

【小题2】 Most magazines have a lot of pictures. Choose some pictures and describe what you see in them, out loud or in writing. You can find more ideas on how to learn using pictures in this article.

Add speech and thoughts. Are there any people or animals in the pictures? 【小题3】 Then write on the magazine their words or thoughts in your imagination. It is like a film showing in your mind.

Summarize the articles. You can test how well you understand an article by trying to summarize it. 【小题4】 If you can’t, try reading it again and take care to see the meaning instead of the individual words.

Discuss the articles. If you read about an event that just happened, or even if you just find something interesting, share it with someone. Have a conversation about it. It will be a great way to practice your understanding of the article and your conversation skills. Some-times reading an article leaves you with more questions. If you could ask the author anything, what would it be? What else would you want to know about the topic? 【小题5】