Native German speaker tests language learning apps | Duolingo, Busuu & Babbel
Vložit
- čas přidán 13. 09. 2024
- Hello everyone :) In today's video I'm talking about how well Duolingo, Busuu and Babbel teach German. My native language is German, so I thought I would test these apps and tell you what I like about them and if there are any mistakes. I hope you found this useful! Thank you so much for watching :D
Lamont's channel (Days of French 'n' Swedish): / @daysandwords
-----------------------------------
Main Instagram: / tomanita_
Study Instagram: / study_with_anita
Goodreads: / anita-tomanic
-----------------------------------
My name is Anita, I'm 24 years old and live in Switzerland. I'm majoring in Social Sciences and I'm also doing a minor in Criminology. I make videos about University, ethical and sustainable fashion, travel, books and language learning. Let me know if there's anything you want me to do a video about.
Thank you for watching this video. I hope it was helpful! I made another video where I discuss three (mostly) free apps to learn German: czcams.com/video/eB3vZ4L4e3g/video.html
How and where to use der , das die .I know der is for masculine , das is neutral and die for feminine. Very difficult to predict .
@@seshadrideepak I'm sure that's difficult to learn. I've found some general rules online (there are some exceptions though): www.passion4teq.com/articles/der-die-das-gender-article-rules/ I hope this helps! Also, every time you learn a new noun, learn it with the correct article. That way you've already memorized the correct article for that word instead of having to go back and learn it. Another tip while studying (I got this from a book) is to imagine the word with a color. For example, feminine nouns with the color red. So when you're learning the word for door ("die Tür"), imagine a red door.
@@Tomanita thanks a lot . But surely have to go inside the link .
I have been using Duolingo for a year to learn German. The main problem that I had on the first days of using this app was not indicating the formality of the words. For example, I learn the words like aufwiedersehen, bis später, bis bald, and tschüss to say goodbye to somebody but it doesn't mention any notes about which one is the most suitable in different circumstances in its lessons.
Man, Busuu's placement test is really interesting. All the placement tests I took for Spanish always put me at B2 but Busuu somehow put me at A2. I'm not angry with it though, I'm actually glad they did that because I still learned a lot from the beginner's lessons. As of now, I'm looking forward to learn my fourth language and my candidates are Mandarin Chinese, Thai, French, and German. God, if only I had the brain capable of learning all these beautiful languages. As of now, I'm leaning toward Mandarin because it has the most native speakers plus China's economy is really performing well for the past few years.
Yes, I also find it interesting how different placement tests show different results. I'm glad you found Busuu helpful.
Ah, I totally get you. It's hard to pick a language. I hope you'll enjoy learning Mandarin! And if you don't like it that much, you can always pick another language. That's what I would do, try them all for a bit and see which one excites you the most.
Danke! Das ist > Very helpful 👏
As a student learning german I found that bussuu is definitely the best among the three
1. It's more straight forward to the point and actually teaches you the language and how to have a conversation also the grammar and the community feedback is definitely worth it! Its simple, effective, and you can feel good after putting effort and time into it.
Doulingo on the other hand has alot of vocabulary that you end up repeating for a long period of times, by the time I completed the first vocabulary lesson and got 5 crowns with the same words on repeat and that doesn't make sense or help with any interaction like (brot,wasser,) on doulingo I had already learnt 30 words and meanings to actually speak German on bussuu
I'm glad you found the video helpful😊 And thanks for sharing your thoughts! I hope you're language journey is going well😃
I am learning German as my 3rd language and this video is really helpful.
Danke, Guten Tag!
Thanks, I'm so happy to hear that😃 Ich wünsche dir viel Erfolg!
Yes! I am so glad a native German speaker did this.
What I don't get about Duolingo is: They make heaps of money (like more than the other two, even though it's free) but then there are errors like "Danke, hallo" and literally thousands of people might write it in the forums, and they never fix it? The Swedish course moderators are extremely helpful, friendly and kind people who work really hard FOR FREE (they are volunteers) to try to keep the course error free, but on other courses Duolingo don't seem to care.
There is or was also a bug in the German course (and it's one of many across ALL of the courses) where the entire lesson is just 15 repetitions of "Die Bundesliga" and you just have to write "The German football league" 15 times. Oh and yeah the placement test is easy - my Mum got placed really high and she only speaks it to about an A2 level, but with a much bigger vocab.
About Busuu: BAHAHA, B1 German. Sorry Anita, should have listened more at school haha.
BabbeL: Yeah that's weird about the capitalisation... I guess it was correcting them, but yes you should get into the Habit of capitalising Nouns from the Beginning. Man that it weird haha.
I know you probably don't particular ever want to try to make this video again, but if you do, let me know and I can give you my logins for things like Busuu and Ouino (because I'm unlikely to ever use the German course in them).
Days of French 'n' Swedish
Yes, it seems like they don't even check the discussion forum! I think they spend a lot of time and resources on developing new courses instead of improving their "original" language courses.
Haha, yes, my German is terrible👀😂 This test is not biased at all😬
The problem with Babbel (and therefore with capitalisation) is that you can't use your own keyboard. They just give you the letters that go in that word or sentence and you basically have to rearrange them. I don't find these types of exercises helpful in general but this makes it worse.
Thank you! I recently got a subscription for Busuu but I don't think I will review more of their German lessons. I might try to find different resources that people can use to improve their German and make a video about that.
@@Tomanita I will appreciate it )
What do you recommend today besides bussu and linquist?
Yo! I got you here too! 👍🏼 😁
You answered your own question, duolingo is already successful financially and doesn't see any reason to improve
To be honest none of these apps are sufficient to effectively learn a language. They might be very useful when combined with other tools and methods, though.
Yes, I 100% agree with you! A lot of people rely on apps to get into the language but I would also recommend to use other resources.
I think that they are a great start for many language learners, but you need to do more for sure to get fluent. You can def learn a good deal of vocab using apps.
@@Tomanita what other methods do you recommend
Yeah I've been doing Duolingo German for 3 months now and like you have mixed feelings. I like that they encourage you to keep going, and maintain a streak, which has been helpful for me. On the other hand, I'm learning sentences like "My snail doesn't eat salt" and "My Owl has no free time" which I expect are not going to be very useful in Germany.
Thanks for sharing your experience! Haha, yes, I've never used these sentences in German😁 It's great for the beginning but I would try some other apps/resources once you don't find Duolingo useful anymore. I hope you're having fun learning German😃
This is so interesting to see a native speaker review them. In relation to Duolingo, I agree with you, why do they always start with the most useless words?? 😂😂 I'm interested in trying Babbel but they don't do Chinese or Thai 😔 can't wait for your next video 🙌🏽
Victoria MacLeod
Thank you so much🤗 I'm glad you liked the video☺️ Haha, yes, it's so bizarre😂 It's not a problem for someone who already knows a bit of the language but I assume that it's confusing for complete beginners.
Oh, no😰 I hope they'll add more languages soon!
@@Tomanita Does the Fluent Forever app have any improvements?
neti neti They changed the layout, you can now see how many words you've learned and how many you need to learn to reach the next level. The Fluent Forever app is great to learn new vocabulary but if you want to improve your grammar I would use other apps.
@@Tomanita usually grammar needs to be learned once your around B2 to eliminate any of the more rare advanced mistakes, in real life you do not learn your mother tongue thru grammar.
neti neti I mean, you learn/practice the grammar at school as a child. But I agree, input (listening and reading) is a natural way of learning the language.
Thank you so much!!! , Believe me this kind of vdo that we the learner need from the native speaker.
You have no idea how useful this is
Love youuuu so muchhhhhh
One thing I absolutely hate about Duolingo is, all the Candy Land game looks, with the hearts, winning sparkling Gems and the confetti and all that childlike stuff. You can definitely make the learning fun, but it doesn't need to look like it's for preschoolers!
I decided two months ago that I wanted to raise my future children (fingers crossed 🤞) bilingual. So I chose German and two months on I'm so glad I did! I already had a basic understanding of French and at one point I was tempted to give up German and just do French, but when I tried I found I just didn't love it the way I love German. Your language is gorgeous and I hope one day to be fluent, but if not at least proficient. I mean how lovely a word is "Schmetterling" 😁 I just love it ♥
Thank you for this lovely comment🤗 It makes me so happy that you love German this much😃 Yes, it's a beautiful language❤️ Raising children bilingual is such a good idea, I'm sure you'll do a great job!
i used these apps and i can confirm what you have said, i also noticed they don't show word by word translation to show how expressions and phrases are made, i think it's useful to know what every single word means aswell as what the entire phrase means, it helps people to make less grammatical mistakes
It's really interesting and educational to see a native speaker review these apps and say which one they think is the best one.
I always see people talking about how good Busuu is, but my problem with it was the placement test. I did it for Spanish and I got most of the things from the placement test correct so they placed me at A2, but once it came to the lessons, they were too challenging for me and I immediately gave up. But I will try to do the placement test a bit worse next time so that it predicts my level correctly. 😅
Thanks for making this video!! :))
Wow !
Thank you🤗 I'm glad you liked the video! Ah, well, you can always go back and do the lessons you "unlocked" through the placement test.
I had the opposite problem. They originally put me in A1, but the lessons were too easy for me. After about a week, I retook the test and was placed in A2, which feels like a better fit.
@@VioletVal529 That's so weird haha, but I guess it's quite random and unpredictable. They should definitely work on improving their assessment. Good luck with your language learning! :))
I'm learning german as my second language, and am currently using duolingo right now.
What i don't like about it is the lives you have, so you aren't encouraged to make mistakes and improve on them. I know that sometimes i go to google translate when I'm low on lives so then i won't have to do the lesson over and over again. You could just pay for unlimited lives, but i can't since I'm only 14.
Also, this is just a me problem, because i am not so smart, but i don't really understand how duolingo explains the grammar. It is super hard to understand. I can translate the sentences into English easily, but since the grammar isn't really explained all that well, my brain just organises the sentence structure into SVO despite german being SOV if my memory is correct.
So yeah, I'm just trying to find better alternatives to duolingo now.
Help Me
Yes, I agree with you! Duolingo makes it easy to complete the lessons. I think it's more about feeling like you're making progress.
The grammar isn't perfect. It's definitely not your fault. I think it's good enough for a free app but don't feel like you're not smart enough to learn German because of that. You might find it more helpful to watch CZcams videos on German grammar. I'm sure there are some good channels on here. Or I would look it up on google. Some apps are better/more helpful than others but you might still want to consider other resources like the internet or a grammar book. Good luck!
@@Tomanita thank you :)
Hey man, I'm learning German with Duolingo too! The you can always get an extra life if you are low by practicing the stuff that you've been not so good at, what I think it's a pretty good system. Anyway, if you don't like it you can use the desktop(web) version; it doesn't have any lives system, but the progress bar in a lesson moves backwards when you miss something, which I find better than the lives system.
@@JeSus-hl6zj yeah, I've been using the desktop version for a while since my phone has low storage lol.
but thanks for the advice anyways :)
,they don't seem to explain the grammar. I am doing both German and Latin, and Latin not only has a good grammar section but also give the vocab for the lessons. German doesn't an that isn't helpful if you are learning.
Danke schön 🙏
Alaa Ash
Bitte, gern geschehen🤗
I am Brazilian and I had a terrible experience trying to learn German on Duolingo. The translations are terrible, there are a huge amount of mistakes and there are no tips. After I tried Busuu that is much better than Duolingo, but the review section is terrible. If a lesson teaches you 6 words, they will review only 3 and you will loose a lot of vocabulary. Babbel is my last hope :D
iago cardoso
Thank you so much for sharing your experience😃 I hope Babbel works better for you! I think apps are great to get into a language but I would strongly suggest to create your own flashcards (on anki for example), to look up the grammar (there are also a lot of people on CZcams that can explain German grammar) and to get exposed to the language (watch movies with subtitles, listen to German music, etc.). I use apps to review certain topics or just for fun but I also need other resources. I hope this is helpful😊
Tomanita Thank you for the tips! Next year I’m gonna take some german classes as well. Gotta leave this country as soon as I can :D
iago cardoso
That's great! Good luck with that😃
Well i think it depends on how you maximize the use of the application.. do not just focus on just answering the questions or filling the missing words that being ask. You should read and understand the whole phrase and conversation... Make ur own notes vocabs list, phrases and grammars that are being highlighted while u are using the apps and read ur notes lot of times.
@@iagocardoso1690 bro what do you think about barbel? I'm also using bussuu and so far it's way better than doulingo and i don't like babbel design
Boys German With Duolingo Since March 23rd, 2020
Thank you very much!
You're nice, thanks!
You're welcome😊
@@Tomanita so in short the busuu app was the best
Also was ist jetzt deiner Meinung nach die beste App ?
A.J Lywood
Von diesen drei Apps würde ich Busuu empfehlen. Aber ich würde an deiner Stelle alle Apps testen und schauen, welche zu deinem Lernstil passt (bei Busuu und Babbel hast du einfach nicht Zugriff auf alle Lektionen, wenn du kein Abo hast).
Nice
"They want to make money so that they don't put you in the highest level" I disagree with this opinion since busuu placed me on C1 after taking the test.(C1 is their last package of course that they offer)
Hi, thanks for your feedback! I didn't say that they absolutely do that (I don't want tue get sued by Busuu) but that it would make sense, so people would use their app. I just took the German exam again and didn't make any mistakes, I was placed at B2. I did the same for English and got C1. So maybe they remember if you already took the exam and that's why I didn't get C1 in German. The German course doesn't have C1 lessons (unless I missed an update?), so it would still make sense that they place you in the highest level of their packages (or I might just not get C1 in German for the above mentioned reason). Anyway, it was just a thought and I like Busuu.
Maybe skip all about what didn’t work and go straight to the pros and cons of each app.
Hallo ..can I pass my A1 A2 exams with the app....???😵😵
Hi😃 Yes, I think you should be able to pass your exam if you successfully complete these levels on Busuu and Babbel. I'm not so sure about Duolingo but I guess you can take tests there to see what level you have. And this is just for the grammar and writing parts of your exam. If you have a listening and speaking part, I'd use different materials to practice these parts (a textbook for that specific exam and find people you can practice the language with). Good luck🍀
@@Tomanita thanku 😘❤️
I already speak quite a bit of German (solidly B1, perhaps even B2 with comprehension) - which app would you recommend to an intermediate learner?
Danke im Voraus!
Out of those apps I would get Busuu because you can practice your writing skills (like I said, native speakers correct your texts). I would do the placement test first and see how much you still need to do. I don't think you will have to go through a lot of lessons. I'd definitely try the free version first. With your level I'm not sure how much you can benefit from using traditional apps. I guess there are a few grammar rules you might want to review but I'd also recommend to talk to native speakers. There are apps like HelloTalk or Tandem where you can text with native speakers. I hope this is helpful😃
@@Tomanita I'll look into those - thank you!
Busuu . . .
Doulingo : Do your classes
Me : No
Doulingo : *I end your family*
Me: *0-0"*
Me : Finishes french class
Doulingo : Bien bien! maintenant fais ce que je dis, plus tard, donnez malade à votre famille.
Je suis le fromage lol maintenant arc
I love Germany because you help Syrian people
You are the best 💕💕
Cuidado con tus hijos!
No les recomiendo Babbel, en el curso de bodas involucra tema POLÉMICO con imagen de "boda" de la nueva agenda doctrinal que quieren algunos grupos minoritarios implementar quebrantando los valores humanos y la sociedad.
Careful with your children!
I do not recommend Babbel, in the course of weddings it includes a VERY CONTROVERAIAL issue with the image of "wedding" form the new doctrinal agenda that some minority groups want to implement, breaking human values and society..
Este men
Wait, so Babbel is bad because it is inclusive? Isn’t this about learning languages?
@@lunariancat6841
Obviously is not really inclusive, they promote the liberal agenda, is not about be really inclusive.
@@Zentsey the liberal agenda? How will it hurt children to know different types of people exist? Its nothing explicit or inappropriate at all. Just imagine getting this upset because a book featured a marriage between a british person and an african person.
Have you tried pimsuler? If not, try it and let us know what you think
Thanks for your question! No, I actually have never tried it, that's a great idea😃
The most important thing in life is knowledge of foreign languages! Thanks to foreign languages you can realize all your dreams and realize your grandiose ambitions! I would like to recommend the practices of Yuriy Ivantsiv ''Polyglot Notes. Practical tips for learning foreign language". This book will be an indispensable helper, a handbook for every person who studies a foreign language! This book contains invaluable tips, questions and answers, and solutions to problems faced by anyone who studies a foreign language! Knowledge is power! And knowledge of foreign languages is your power multiplied by many times! Success to all in self-development!
Thanks for this helpful video, I started to learn the language still at the lvl of ich bin eine frau progress slowly, also I have a presentation about how did applications really helped as to acquire the language like the native speakers, and with you providing this material helped me so much, and in the end Germany and Arabic have similarities which makes germane more lovely to me as the grammar the pronunciation hopefully by the end of this year I can read and understand germane 🤍🤍
You are soo beautiful
Aww, thanks🤗 That's sweet of!