Learn Korean with LingoDeer

Learn Korean with LingoDeer

Today I want to talk to you all about LingoDeer!

I actually tried LingoDeer for the first time a couple of years back. I liked it well enough but it didn’t seem too different from other language apps. I’m so glad I gave it a second chance.

Now, personally I’m more of a textbook learner so the apps I use are never intended to be a one and done type of thing. I need apps to supplement my textbook learning well. I also don’t believe that any app will be able to get you to fluency in a language on its own. That being said, LindoDeer can help establish a solid foundation as it covers more than apps I’ve used in the past.

If you can’t go through the whole post right now check out the TL;DR below. I tried to hit on the most important aspects.

Onward!

TL;DR

  • One of the most comprehensive language learning apps I’ve tested out.
  • Decent variety of languages to learn and learn through.
  • Excellent variety of exercises so that you don’t get bored while learning.
  • Like Duolingo, lessons are grouped by topics and vocabulary/grammar skills. Unlike Duolingo, LingoDeer provides Learning Tips that give a grammatical overview of concepts you’ll be covering.
  • Covers all four study areas in some capacity: Reading, writing, listening, speaking. The writing in particular is more involved than I’ve seen in other apps.
  • Price is an excellent value for what you receive.
  • Travel phrasebook available to learners on free plan.
  • Suggestions for improvement include expanding on the “Fluent” section by offering short stories or news texts.
  •  *Note: There are options to purchase just one language or the full suite of languages. While buying one language is ever so slightly cheaper, it’s honestly most sensible moneywise to purchase the whole suite. You never know what you’ll want to learn in the future!*

     

    Monthly

    Quarterly

    Yearly

    Lifetime

    $11.99

    $29.99

    $79.99

    $99.99

    Visit the Website

    Download on Google Play

    Download on the App Store

    getting started

    First thing’s first, choose your language! Though they started out with just Korean, Japanese, and Chinese, they now offer 11 different language options. In addition to those three they also have: English, Spanish, French, German, Portuguese, Russian, Vietnamese, and Italian.

    English not your first language or you’d prefer to use another language to learn? They’ve got you covered. For Korean alone you can start your studying in Spanish, French, German, Japanese, Vietnamese, Chinese, Portuguese, Russian, Indonesian, and Italian.

    Obviously, for the purposes of this particular review, I’m only going to be looking at studying Korean in English.

    Once you decide on which language you want to learn, you’ll have the option of choosing your level. This is one of the first things that I truly appreciated.

    I’m still a beginner in Korean but for something like German, I wouldn’t have wanted to be forced to start from scratch. If you’re at a more intermediate Korean level you won’t have to trudge through lessons on learning the alphabet and basic sentence structure.

    LEARN

    If you’ve ever used Duolingo the main Learn tab will look familiar to you. It’s essentially a skill tree with specific topics and the option to test out at different points. Once you choose a skill to work on there are a variety of different exercises you’ll come across.

    Then you’ll start the actual lesson. If you click the settings in the top you get a few choices to personalize your experience including changing the background color, changing the font size, toggling sound effects and animation, spacing, and (most importantly) the ability to turn off romanisation.

    You guys already know how I feel about books/apps that have the reader rely on romanisation too long. It’s an asset in the complete beginning stages (i.e. learning the alphabet) but beyond that, it can become a hindrance. The LingoDeer app does a pretty decent job of walking you through learning Hangul so you won’t even need it for long.

    One of the things that set LingoDeer apart is their Learning Tips. Unlike Duolingo (and most language apps to be honest), they give you more information about the focus of the unit topic you chose, the vocabulary, and also the grammar concepts you’ll be covering. They can also be favorited for review when offline!

    EXERCISES

    There are a ton of vocabulary and grammar exercises. If you’ve used any popular language learning app the majority of them will be familiar to you. However, there were still a couple that managed to surprise me! Here’s a rundown of the types of activities available in the lessons:

    • Select the correct picture for the given English word.
    • Listen to the sentence and record yourself saying it as well. There’s an option to slow down the speech. You can also listen to your own recording and play it back to compare it with the native speaker.
    • Listen to the given Korean word and choose the correct written option.
    • Match the Korean and English words with each other.
    • Read the question in Korean and choose the correct answer.
    • Complete the sentence with the given vocabulary.
    • Choose the correct vocabulary word and put it into the correct location in the sentence.
    • Choose the correct vocabulary word.
    • Choose the word that doesn’t belong in the sentence.
    • Compose the sentence using vocabulary words.
    • Type the sentence out in Korean.
    • Choose the Korean Word that Matches the given English word.

    Additionally, if you want to do some “silent studying” you can toggle the sound on your lessons.

    There’s a learning level called Fluent Korean where the exercises are conversation-based. At first, I thought it was only for advanced through intermediate but it starts at the beginner level! You can choose from all kinds of situations from shopping to a conversation with a friend.

    For each dialog, there’s an option to hit almost all of the study areas.

    Listen and Learn

     

    In Listen and Learn you’ll run through example conversations with explanations for vocabulary and grammar concepts. My favorite feature here is the ability to turn the sentence translations on and off. It’s a great way to test your comprehension quickly.

    I also appreciate being able to change the length of the pauses between the sentences and it will give you a play by play explanation of every word in a sentence. You can even star/save the word to review later on.

    Speaking Exercise

     

    It allows you to record the sentences from the aforementioned dialog and listen to yourself in comparison with the native speaker’s dialog.

    Writing Exercise

     

    Using the same sentences as before, finish the sentence (Fill in the blanks)/type out the conversation. You can either use the syllable blocks provided or, if you have a Korean keyboard already installed on your phone you can use that as well. A key takeaway for me is that this exercise definitely tested my ability to actually remember and comprehend the conversation rather than just generally recognizing words in context.

    It’s no secret that I love to travel. I love that the app comes with a pretty extensive Travel Phrasebook. If you’re studying for a future trip to Korea it’s nice to have everything all in one place!

    LESSON REVIEW

    LingoDeer has a separate review mode to go over everything you’ve completed so far. The five-minute quiz is a test of everything you’ve learned so far. You get five minutes to get through as many questions as you can! There’s also the option of focusing on reviewing either vocabulary or grammar concepts individually. It’s a flashcard system similar to Anki.

    Finally, there are the knowledge cards again that have more information on any concepts you’ve been introduced to. You can favorite them and also save them to your phone.

    EXTRAS

    There’s also a few extras that I appreciate:

     

    • A dark mode for those of us who don’t want the blinding light of the heavens beaming out from our phone.

    • Leader Boards

    • Achievements

    • The ability to change the voice (man or woman)

    • You can set a specific time to get notification reminders or even turn them off if you don’t like them

    • You can turn off different sound effects and animations

    • You can download files for offline learning

    • A detailed Learning History. It shows the number of days in your streak and the total number of minutes spent studying. What I’m absolutely obsessed with is that it tracks, by day, how much time you’ve spent studying. So if you’re like me and sometimes forget, LingoDeer has you covered.

    FINAL VERDICT

    LingoDeer is one of the most comprehensive language learning apps I’ve seen. It has features of some of my staples (Anki) and the price is fantastic for what it offers. The only feature I would like to see added is an expanded ‘Fluent’ section. While it’s helpful to walk through conversations, I would love to see these same features applied to longer texts. Something along the lines of short stories or news articles.

    Visit the Website

    Download on Google Play

    Download on the App Store

    Discovering Quechua with Elva Ambia

    Discovering Quechua with Elva Ambia

    Last summer I had the privilege of meeting with Elva Ambia, a native of Peru who immigrated to the US as a teenager to work and help support her family. Although she primarily used Spanish and English in her daily life, she missed being able to connect with others in her native language Quechua. That’s how her organization Quechua Collective was born. Through classes and community events, Elva has been passing on her language and culture to the next generations.

    I’ve wanted to start a language podcast for the longest time, even though I have zero experience with podcasting. There are a trillion out there; most of them (including some of my personal faves) are concerned with learning a specific language. I knew from jump that wasn’t the direction I wanted to go in. At the very least because I’m interested in too many languages to devote that much energy to just one, haha.

    That’s when I started brainstorming ways to hit on not just language, but culture as well. Eventually, I’d even like to throw a bit of travel in there too. And it just punched me in the face one day.

    “What about the ‘other’ languages? The ones they don’t ever teach in school?”

    I’ve always been interested in the languages that get far fewer chances to shine, so why not focus on those? Bam.

    In all honesty, I don’t know what possessed me to Google “Quechua New York” one day but that’s exactly what I did and the Quechua Collective was the first thing that popped up. After reading about Elva I knew I had to talk with her. There are a lot of wonderful larger organizations out there doing the work to keep indigenous languages thriving, but I couldn’t pass up the chance to hear directly from someone who was living it.

    I had already put in my notice at work and I knew I’d need some time away afterward anyway. So I actually booked my flight to New York and decided to shoot my shot at interviewing Elva. It was incredibly terrifying because uh, I’m nobody. For real. Just a language nerd whose version of ‘living my best life’ consists of puppies and copious amounts of kimchi. Elva had been on radio stations. She had a documentary. Thankfully the spirit of YOLO jumped into my body that day and I hit send on the email. Much to my surprise, I got a yes! I literally did a happy dance.

    About ten minutes later my brain caught up and I started freaking out. How was I supposed to do this? I’ve never interviewed anyone before? What kinds of questions was I supposed to ask? Are there super-secret important protocols? Why am I like this? Praise the universe for Google because I spent like an entire day just researching how not to be a disaster come June.

    While I was wracking my brain trying to think of a location I could maybe rent out for the day, Elva surprised me by offering to do the interview in her home. Which, definitely wasn’t expecting that. Fun fact: As an introvert, I cannot even begin to imagine having someone over just because(plus nobody wants to walk up three flights of stairs). Home is where I get to avoid people. I felt grateful that she was trusting me in her space in that way.

    I’ve been to New York a dozen or so times and I love the city’s energy. Chicago is a big city but with a completely different vibe. I had actually given myself a couple of days before we met up and was relaxed up until that point (learn yourself people). When the time came I traveled all the way down from the Bronx to her apartment, a hot mess of nervousness because I’d never done anything like this before. But the second Elva invited me in it all dissipated. It literally felt like I was stopping by my grandma’s house. We settled at her kitchen table so she could have dinner while her daughter made tea.

    Conversation with Elva was so free flowing and easy for me that I almost forgot to turn on the damn mic and start recording. She actually reminded me before we got to really talking which, wow. Way to go me.

    After the interview wrapped up she asked if I wanted to take a look at the documentary made about her, Living Quechua (Runasimiwan Kawsay). I’d wanted to watch it before I even got to New York but couldn’t so I jumped at the chance.

    Elva showed me pictures of her family and told me about her journey from Peru to America. I also got a chance to read her book, Qoricha. The synopsis:

    Qoricha, Charanguerucha, Huk Kumpachata Tarin (Qoricha, the Charango Player, Finds a Friend) is the tale of an unlikely friendship, crossing cultural and linguistic boundaries. When Charlie, an English-speaking boy from New York, becomes lost in the streets of small town Peru, he befriends a local Quechua-speaking boy, Qoricha, who takes him under his wing and helps him to find his parents. Along the way, Charlie and Qoricha share their languages, teaching each other words in English and Quechua, and realizing a friendship that would last a lifetime.

    This book is a trilingual book, written in English, Spanish and Quechua.

    I’m super mad at myself for not getting it at the time (that’s what happens when you don’t carry cash kids) but I’m hoping to pick one up the next time whenever I get my butt back to New York.

    Still, I’m glad I got to start my podcasting journey with Elva.

    If you’d like to learn more about the organization or just Quechua culture in general, definitely check them out:

    PIN ME!

     

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    Mission Acquisition: February Language Goals

    Picture of strawberry cake and cream

    It’s Aquarius season! Well, technically Aquarius season starts in January but my birthday is this month so that’s all that matters. 😛

    Despite how busy I was, I managed to get in a decent amount of studying last month. And I put everything in a super awesome chart because I’m a nerd like that.



    As you can see I spent most of my time on input (listening, reading) rather than output (writing, speaking). If it weren’t for my exchange partner I wouldn’t even be doing the little bit of speaking that I am now.

    The Ewha textbook is still my favorite. I’ve planned out the chapters for the rest of this month and a little into March so I should be finished with it soon. I need to do a full review on it because it’s one of the best ones I’ve used.

    My friend and I went to see WINNER in concert! And yes I’m 100% counting that as listening practice because all the songs are in Korean. The boys were amazing and I’m glad they enjoyed the snow because we sure as hell didn’t.

    I follow Talk To Me In Korean on twitter and I see people mention the Iyagi series frequently. I listened to the first one and understood maybe two words total. Not very encouraging. But my listening comprehension isn’t going to get where it needs to be just by using my textbook. So my goal for this month is to do at least three Iyagi sessions and write sentences using the vocabulary.

    And the absolute best of anything I’m doing, my language exchange partner and I meet weekly! My 언니 really pushes me as far as comprehension. She speaks about 90% of the time in Korean unless I’m really not understanding. Unfortunately, I’m still not the best when it comes to speaking (any language to be honest), and I often get choked up when I need to say what I’ve already figured out in my head. This month I want to increase the amount of time with her that I’m actually speaking Korean.

    Also! I want to start recording myself in Korean. I’m just not sure about the delivery. Should it be on YouTube? Instastories? I’m still trying to figure that part out.

    What I’m Reading

    I finished Evil and The Mask! Working out whether I want to write out a quick review or do a video on it. My next book I’d like to read from a Puerto Rican author. Don’t ask why I chose that country next, I promise it’s random lol.

    Where I’m Going

    Lunar New Year is this month (on the 5th) and there are tons of events planned all around Chicago. I’m going to be attending as many as possible so keep an eye out on my Instagram!


    That’s all for this month! What are your plans?

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