Language lessons across the UK & Ireland

Call us! 0203 650 19 50 / +353 (0) 1 440 3978

LANGUAGE APPS REVIEWS

Quality Tested by
FREE
RATING

Duolingo Russian
Duolingo

LEVEL:
beginner to intermediate

Duolingo has won many awards in recent years. Its website makes the claim that, according to an independent study, an average of 34 hours of Duolingo is equivalent to a full university semester of language education. Since a one-semester university course usually takes more than 34 hours of work, this suggests that Duolingo is more effective than an average university language course. 

 

With Duolingo there are different levels which you have to progress through. You can skip through the levels by successfully completing tests (“checkpoints”), but if you fail them, then you are “locked” into completing each level until you reach the end of the course. Normally, you have three or four “hearts” per level, which means that you can make three or four mistakes before you fail the level and have to start it again.

 

In the Russian app, each level is comprised of learning-themed Russian vocabulary or grammar. There are short, one-line grammar explanations, though most of the learning occurs through making mistakes and correcting them. The levels work your reading, writing, and comprehension skills through translation exercises. There is also voice-recognition software which identifies if you are “correctly” pronouncing a word or expression.

 

Considering that the app is free to download and addictive to use, I would recommend it as a secondary learning aid. It’s great to use when you have ten or twenty minutes to kill, such as while on a commute, as you will certainly learn something interesting in your target language. However, the Russian app is not yet comprehensive, intuitive, or effective enough to be a primary learning resource in its current form.

Screenshots

Reviewed by

Conor Clyne


Conor Clyne has lived in 8 countries and travelled to over 70 in the past 15 years. Although not talented at all with languages in school, he subsequently learnt or is currently learning to speak 12 languages, including French, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Russian, Romanian, Irish, Ukrainian and Catalan, in addition to, his native English. Inspired by the other polyglots who participated at the first Polyglot Conference in Budapest in 2013, Conor subsequently started his own website and YouTube channel called "Language Tsar" at www.languagetsar.com.



Testimonials

From our clients all over the world

"The lessons are going great! I'm very satisfied with my teacher."
Sam Rhein

Russian course in Online.

"Each lesson is ‘bespoke’ to a particular topic that I am interested in and, so, have been getting the most from the course so far."
Mike Mount

Russian course in Cardiff.

"Elena is an excellent teacher with very good lesson plans (that she is content to change at short notice), and is both patient and enthusiastic."
Tim Harlow

Russian course in Exeter.

"Darya is very accomodating and flexible and friendly. Her lessons are always well planned and she always has homework for me."
Fiona Overbeke

Russian course in Bristol.

"In terms of feedback, I can give you 5 out of 5 for everything."
Robert Middleton

Russian course in Bristol, PMP, GradDipAppSc..

;