11 Best Apps for Improving English Speaking Skills
Learning or improving a new language may seem like a long and complicated process; after all, we need to immerse ourselves in various countries’ cultures to frame the speech in a particular context.
This article will indicate applications with various compositions that make learning English something dynamic and fun to incorporate into our daily lives.
Summary of 11 Apps for Improving English Speaking Skills
| Comparative table between 11 Apps for improving our English | Costs | Who would like it? |
| Fluentu | 14 days free trial;$30/month (we’ll spend $360 per year);$240/year ($20 per month), and we get four months free. | For selective and seekers for exchange programs, this is the right app.Also, both natives and non-natives can join. |
| Speaking Pal | Free. | For non-natives and social people. |
| ABA English | Basic (Free);Premium ($30/month, $150/six month ,$239/year and $359/two years) | For people who enjoy being independent, mostly for non-natives. |
| Babbel | Seven days free trial;$8,95/ month;$7,45/ six month;$6, 95/ year. | For people who enjoy the school-type experience and don’t have much time.This app is for native or non-natives. |
| Tandem | Free. | For people who would like to have some exchange experience. |
| Busuu | Basic (Free);Premium (€ 5, 41 / Month). | For goal-oriented people.This app is for non-native and native people. |
| Lingbe | Free. | For both native and aspirant to be fluent, this app also for people who don’t have much time. |
| Rosetta Stone | A 3-month subscription runs $36; A 6-month subscription is $66;A 12-month subscription is $96;And a 24-month subscription is $144. | For visual people and vocal ones. This app is for natives, whether for non-natives. |
| Drops | Basic (Free);Premium ($10/month) | For visual people, native or non-natives. |
| Duolingo | Basic is Free with seven days trial of premium version;Premium (offline classes) $6.99/month. | For practical users who are native and not. |
| Falou | Free. | For selective users who like things in their way, primarily for non-native people. |
11 Best Apps for Improving English Speaking Skills
Hungarian Balázs Csigi, fluent in 7 languages, argues that the learning process can be facilitated if the student immerses himself in the country’s culture that speaks the language studied.
“Memorizing words is not an option if you want to achieve excellence”
“Instead of learning by repetition, you need to go beyond the surface and unveil the culture hidden behind every word and expression.”
“Mastering English has been an incredible gift in my life. I received a new mindset, a new set of emotions, and a new way of thinking.”
1. Fluentu
Fluentu is one of the best tools to learn English, even if we don’t live close to no native speaker. This app provides real-world English videos, such as:
- Trailers of films;
- Music videos;
- Inspiring speeches and more.
2. Speaking Pal
Speaking Pal is one of the most direct English language apps to use – and it’s free! Lessons begin with a recording of a person talking to us by video. While they speak, we can read the words as they are saying. Then, below the text, we will see an answer for us to say on our phone.
The app evaluates our ability to speak. It tells us how we are talking and points out the words which we are having problems with. Our dialogue focuses on topics and real-life situations we would encounter.
It is excellent for beginners and will help us speak English with confidence.
3. ABA English
The app’s contents are all prepared to fit our methodology, consistent with our tastes and preferences, whether by series, movies, music, etc.
The app offers multiple sections based on short-film videos, which simulate real situations for us to practice simultaneous dialogue. Several grammar exercises, vocabulary, writing, and pronunciation are also made available to us to speak English finally.
The teachers are all native, having in hand material of extreme reliability, we can set goals, ranging from basic to fluency, all at our own pace and from where we want!
4. Babbel
Another app for us to learn how to speak English is Babbel. In it, we will have all the support necessary to begin a journey towards fluency. That’s because experts in languages developed courses according to their primary language, leaving content in the hands of those who know the subject! And besides, Babbel has effectiveness proven by researchers at Yale University.
With Babbel, we will have:
- Short and efficient lessons;
- Facilitating our learning in the day;
- Besides, a series of exercises listen, speak, and write to practice our new language in real-life situations.
This whole apparatus, coupled with voice recognition technology, provides you with the fluency you’ve always longed for. And in detail, Babbel isn’t just about a specific language, but 14 different languages, with incredible support and super materials complete!
5. Tandem
Tandem is another app that will help us learn to speak English very interactive and dynamic. This app has one of the largest language exchange communities, leaving you at ease and more security in pronunciation, joining other native speakers to learn English!
We can integrate with the locals through annotations of texts, audio, and video calls. And if we have any question of a word, the app provides a feature of translation that composes a message or translates some received.
It’s time to learn to speak English has arrived! But it does not stop there; the app has more than 160 languages, with members from around the world is an interactive platform in any language, attaining the fluency we have always longed for.
6. Busuu
Busuu offers the teaching of English plus 12 languages. Developers ensure that 10 minutes a day are enough to start learning a new language. Its differential is the opportunity to improve vocabulary and grammar with the help of native speakers.
We can count on the user community to correct our texts and evaluate your pronunciation, just as it can help others who want to learn Portuguese. There is still a Vocabulary Trainer tool, which promises to expand the number of words who knows.
The service has a free plan, in which it is possible to practice only one language at a time. In Premium, the user can move between options and access resources extras, like offline use.
7. Lingbe
With Lingbe, we can chat with natives and be fluent in the language through chat or phone. And if we like the conversation, we can give a “Like” in the person’s profile, almost as relationship apps, to chat back at any time and practice languages together.
In Lingbe, we can also help others learn Portuguese (if we know how to speak) while learning to speak accurate English with the natives of the country. Seek fluency in another language has never been as easy as it will be with this app. That’s because it gives us a lot of support for taking questions and solving everyday issues with real people! Also, the application still has:
- Immediate Response: No waiting time, press the call button and practice;
- Possibility to practice anywhere;
- Meet people with the same tastes and interests as you;
- Rewards that help you level up and unlock unique features.
8. Rosetta Stone
Rosetta Stone is a very intuitive app for us to learn to speak English, as it offers access to 24 different languages with only one subscription. This app helps us think in a new language by connecting words to images and their surroundings.
All the features offered ensures us an improvement in our conversation skills and reading. And the coolest part is that the Rosetta Stone integrates into its characteristic one of the world’s best voice recognition technologies.
Truaccent is a speech recognition system that tracks our voice and compares sound waves with native speakers. Then the software announces whether our pronunciation flowed correctly like the others.
- Rosetta Stone helps us start a conversation;
- With soundtracking, our voice helps us express correctly with instant feedback, giving us all the support we need to speak fluently.
9. Drops
Drops is a language learning app for Android and iPhone (iOS) phones; the service offers 31 languages, such as English, Spanish, German, Italian, and French. Each lesson lasts only five minutes, so you never have an excuse not to practice. The idea is that, through small games, we can begin to associate vocabulary with illustrations.
In this way, by associating visual memory with words, you can segment a new learning process; besides the vocabulary, Drops also allows us to learn several practical terms, which we can apply in real communication contexts.
10. Duolingo
One of the most popular applications on the subject, Duolingo, is aimed mainly at users looking for fun and practical ways to study new languages. The application provides several phases: writing exercises, reading, listening and speaking, a pretty visual form from essential to fluent levels.
As they advance in the exercises, new goals are unlocked, and the user receives achievements that help you pass the level. In addition to English, French, German, Spanish, Russian, Italian, and more are available.
In the app, we can also learn up to two languages simultaneously.
11. Falou
Falou bases his teaching method on dialogues of common scenarios in everyday life. More of 100 real-life situations that, according to the creators, can already speak English in the first lesson.
The user must repeat the phrases so that the voice recognition system fixes its pronunciation and accent. At the end of each conversation, tests are available to evaluate what was learned.
Besides, there are memory exercises that help memorize vocabulary and statistics on their performance.
3 Reasons to invest in Improving your English Language Skills
It’s vital for Professional Development.
Having strong mastery of the English language can open multiple doors in our career, even if you are a native English speaker, it is one of the essential prerequisites of some multinationations companies to be able to hire. Improving our language skills will provide us the best experiences because we will be the one from all of them, because of the value we bring to the table.
Besides we own the language we may be able to teach in other countries, be a part of different dynamics and improve our odds to get a good job.
Immersing and Learning about different cultures.
Learning another language will allow you to have more significant expansion in the cultural repertoire. For example, in movies dubbed or subtitled in English, you will not depend on more if you study another language.
The same would happen to books that are not published in Portuguese. Another example would be concerning the songs. Because they acquire another meaning, when you not only listen, you also understand them.
Acquire some knowledge
It is essential to take into account the study of another language to expand our knowledge, practicing conversation in our language or when learning a new one as English, requires a great deal of concentration to be able to understand what other people are saying and to listen carefully, to understand what is being said.
So, in addition to mental processes, it is something that exercises empathy: the ability to put oneself in the place of others, seeking to understand them better
Tips to (Re) Learn and Practice a new Language.
Enter your learning in a context
Imagine you should say in French the phrase “I need a phone urgently” in two different situations: in the classroom, during an oral exercise, or in the middle of a dark street in Paris, after having lost your documents. At which time will you require more of our brain?
The answer is obvious. “The greater the need to understand a language or if express in it faster will be learning,” – says neuroscientist Carla. That’s why so many people develop rapidly in a language when living abroad.
Watch the same foreign movies three times
Another simple method to boost your learning is to see three times a film spoken in the language you are studying. First, it enables Portuguese subtitles.
In the week next, see everything with subtitles in the foreign language. On the third and last time, play video without subtitles.
According to neuroscientist Carla, this is an exciting way to:
- Improve your auditory processing;
- The third time you watch the movie, without subtitles, you’ll already know the story and maybe if you remember several dialogues;
- Make associations between form, sound, and meaning;
- Train the recognition of several words in the other language.
Listen to music and podcasts
If we are going to work or cleaning the house, nothing better than a song or podcast in the language we are studying to create a mood and save time. With them, we can learn new expressions, accents, and test if our understanding is good. It is still possible to see the translation of the letters to answer questions of vocabulary.
Make notes in another language
Have you ever thought about making the shopping list in English? Or writing a diary in Spanish? Are small attitudes that will make a big difference in your learning; after all, in addition to increasing their vocabulary, they also exercise their ability to structure a text into another tongue.
Read news in a foreign language
This tip is great to learn much more than another language because reading news from another country also helps keep us informed. Browse the major newspapers and websites in the language we are studying and take time every day to navigate through them. Little by little it will be easier to explore and learn new vocabularies.
Make friends from another country
It is nothing better to learn another language than to communicate with the one who speaks it since he was born. Therefore, nowadays, there are several sites and applications, paid or free, which allow video calls between Brazilians and foreigners. In addition to improving their studies, this option also allows you to make new friends and incredible experiences.
Conclusion
Learning a second language allows the professional to open new opportunities and great experiences, adding value not only to our resume but to our life in general. The way we decide to learn a second language varies greatly, according to the individual.
Reference and Further Reading
C|Net.Best language learning apps of 2021.
2 Hours of English Conversation Practice – Improve Speaking Skills
