Stephen Headrick / Android Authority
My friend is visiting from Colombia for the holidays, and let’s just say my 700+ days of studying Spanish on Duolingo is really being put to the test. Don’t get me wrong, I can definitely see the progress I’ve made in my Spanish learning journey. I pick up on things when I hear Spanish, and I’m usually able to piece together what’s being said. However, contributing to the conversation is an entirely different beast. Duolingo sprinkles speaking exercises into its lessons, but the functionality feels more like a smaller piece of the puzzle rather than the focus. Speak, another language learning app that I’ve been watching from afar over the last few years, turns this strategy on its head, and the difference has been eye-opening to me.
How often do you use a language learning app? 55 votes Daily 85 % A few times per week 7 % A few times per month 4 % I don't study a second language. 4 %
Speak first, sweat the details later
Stephen Headrick / Android Authority
As the name of the app would imply, speaking is front and center right from the start. Your very first lesson is speaking-only, and the majority of your learning time will be spent actually saying things out loud instead of just answering a bunch of multiple-choice and fill-in-the-blank questions. First with Hungarian (pre-Speak app, as Hungarian isn’t yet available) and now with Spanish, I’ve found a speak-first approach to be the most effective learning method for me. That seems logical, too. After all, don’t we learn to speak first while we’re young, followed by reading and writing?
Importantly, speaking in Speak is dynamic. With most language apps, you’re required to repeat an exact word or phrase, which essentially amounts to memorization. With Speak, there are exercises where it explicitly asks you to respond however you want to respond, and the app’s reply changes based on what you say. This is where AI can be really powerful in learning. I also really like that the AI will analyze what you say and suggest other ways to say what you wanted to say while sounding more like a native speaker. The whole process is impressively nuanced.
A little bit of this, a little bit of that
Stephen Headrick / Android Authority
Speak doesn’t reinvent the wheel where it doesn’t need to. Instead, it appears to have identified what works in other apps and applied that to its speak-first method.
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