Drops is free if you get the kids version. No ads and you can reset your allowance for free just by pressing the timer. It has less vocab though. Also be careful because their translations aren’t always accurate (it gave the word for a stuffed animal, as in taxidermy, for cuddly toy in European Portuguese. I reported it several years ago and it’s still not fixed) and they translate “how much” differently in different languages (eg in Arabic it translates to how much quantity, but in Portuguese and French, how much price). So I had a lot of fun thinking I was asking how much I need to pay for a bag of potatoes and the man kept telling me 500g.
I haven’t used duolingo since they brought in that stupid crown system years ago. I got my 600 day streak and then stopped using it. I heard it’s even worse now. It was a good starting point, but you’ll quickly have to supplement. Pre-crowns, duolingo was pretty good. Memrise was much better, but they’ve overhauled that now too. Also I dislike that duolingo has time for fictional languages, but refuses to do real languages like European PT, British English, etc.
I’ve been using Busuu and it’s really good. Its really aggressive about asking you to buy the premium version but it has all the functionality you need in the free version so you just gotta ignore it.
The content on duolingo is pretty bad, in general. There are much better apps out there like Language Drops and Rosetta Stone - but they aren’t free.
Drops is free if you get the kids version. No ads and you can reset your allowance for free just by pressing the timer. It has less vocab though. Also be careful because their translations aren’t always accurate (it gave the word for a stuffed animal, as in taxidermy, for cuddly toy in European Portuguese. I reported it several years ago and it’s still not fixed) and they translate “how much” differently in different languages (eg in Arabic it translates to how much quantity, but in Portuguese and French, how much price). So I had a lot of fun thinking I was asking how much I need to pay for a bag of potatoes and the man kept telling me 500g.
I haven’t used duolingo since they brought in that stupid crown system years ago. I got my 600 day streak and then stopped using it. I heard it’s even worse now. It was a good starting point, but you’ll quickly have to supplement. Pre-crowns, duolingo was pretty good. Memrise was much better, but they’ve overhauled that now too. Also I dislike that duolingo has time for fictional languages, but refuses to do real languages like European PT, British English, etc.
I’ve been using Busuu and it’s really good. Its really aggressive about asking you to buy the premium version but it has all the functionality you need in the free version so you just gotta ignore it.