Language Learning App — 26 Languages, Free

The browser version does nearly everything the app does, so the app has to earn its place on your phone. It opens faster than a page does. It sits on the home screen as an icon, one tap away, instead of behind a tab you have to find again. And sleep mode keeps playing with the screen off, which a browser tab will not do. None of that changes what you learn. It changes how little stands between deciding to practise and actually practising, and across a few weeks that is what decides whether you keep going.

Inside is the whole of Langula — 26 languages, eighty lessons each, running from A1 to B2. Words and sentences are spoken by native speakers, and you can replay any of them as often as you want before saying them back. The flashcards run on spaced repetition: what you know turns up rarely, what you keep missing turns up again until it sticks. Finish a level and you get a certificate whose authenticity can be checked. Nothing on that list waits behind a payment, and nothing unlocks after one.

The app works without an account. Download it, pick a language, begin — no email address needed, and your progress stays on the device. Sign in and it syncs with the browser version instead: what you started at lunchtime on a desktop carries on from your phone on the train, with the same cards due and the same place in the path. You can create the account later, or never. It does not stand in front of the first lesson, and going without it costs you no feature.

An Android version is being worked on. There is no date, and we would rather write that plainly than put a quarter on this page that does not hold up in the end. Until it exists, Langula runs in the browser on Android — the same 26 languages, the same lessons, and the same progress as soon as you are signed in. If you install the app later, your place is waiting for you there instead of back at lesson 1.