Have you heard of Duolingo app?

App is an abbreviation for ‘application’ (aplicación) – you can download an app onto your smart phone. Well, DuoLingo is an app that helps you Learn English and other languages for Free!

Check it out here www.duolingo.com/

I’ve been using it to learn new languages, such as Spanish and Russian (just to refresh my old rusty Russian skills), the BEST thing about DuoLingo is, it’s 100% FREE! So if you haven’t got it yet, download it today! It’s an order. Yes, sir!

In my episode I will share some funny examples I came across since I started using DuoLingo, they are unusual and funny examples (algunos ejemplos raros, inusuales y chistosos)!

Hope you enjoy this episode! If you like it please leave a positive REVIEW on iTunes or Stitcher, it will help me keep going with podcasting (& also help you learn English, weee!!:))

Transcription, read below:

Please note, transcriptions are software generated which means, punctuation and some minor grammar mistakes will occur. If you have trouble reading them, please let us know.

Hey guys, welcome to English Made Simple Podcast, this is episode 4, Numero Cuatro.

Hey welcome welcome my name is Milena this is episode 4 of English made simple!

Finally episode 4 (hehe) If you listen to my last episode I gave you some tips on how you can improve your English how you can learn English for free. Como Aprender Ingles Gratis.

I gave you some examples that you have right in front of you for example TV you can watch your favourite show on television you can listen to your favourite song as well go online find some resources online that can help you learn English today.

Now in this episode  I want to introduce you to something called Duolingo it is a free language-learning platform it is 100% free it is an app or application or aplicacion,  set your phone so if you have a smartphone iPhone Android phone Samsung or any Windows phones for example you can download this app and start using it today. Did you know that Duolingo is used by over 100 million users worldwide and has over 23 languages so not only can you learn English but you can learn other languages as well including Russian. Now I can start using it for Russian because I used to learn Russian back in the day when I was in high school now I can start using it to refresh my skills Russian skills. So let’s not go into that :)

I want to introduce you to Duolingo if you haven’t heard of it yet.  I think you should download it today like right now immediately!! That’s an order do it now!! Because it is a great way to expand your vocabulary the first time I heard about it it was in Australia when my friend recommended it to me. When I was moving to Chile  – My friend said hey you should download this app it’s going to help you with your Spanish and she was right it kind of introduced me to the Spanish vocabulary, to the words that I didn’t think I will need to know haha   but yeah I found it really helpful.  So this app has I think a lot of advantages the first one is that it’s free it is 100% free.

And it’s also fun and addictive – es muy divertido y adictivo.  It is great for beginners I found that it’s great for beginners. Because it helps you expand your vocabulary.

It also helps you with your pronunciation it has some exercises that you can use, you can speak into the phone and then it tells you whether it can understand you or not.  So it really is a great way to improve your pronunciation and it also keeps you engaged or it keeps you interested.  It has different types of exercises like multichoice questions or short courses or different type of tests that really keeps you interested and the best of all these exercises are really short.  I think less than 5 minutes so if you’re waiting for a cup of coffee or if you’re out somewhere waiting in the queue for example in the bank you can just quickly open the app and do some exercises you will also learn a couple of new words as well.

So definitely it is a big bonus to have it on your phone!! What are you waiting for? Download it today!!

The things I didn’t like about Duolingo, is that, it doesn’t explain grammar and rules. But because of the short exercises, I don’t think in a short time frame you can have grammar explained. If there is anything you don’t understand using this app you can just go online and find more information or more explanations or different grammar rules.

So another thing about Duolingo is that it can get a little bit repetitive I know that in my experience if there is something that is too repetitive I start to lose interest so after 20 minutes with Duolingo I start to lose interest and I have to have a break and I will come back to it in 2 to 3 days for example. And you will see, once you start using it Duolingo is a little bit funny sometimes funny Ha-Ha sometimes funny chistoso. Because in some of the exercises it asks you to translate some completely random sentences and like for example one of the sentences I had to translate in Spanish was.”My dog eat grapes” Mi perro come uvas.

Now I don’t know about dogs eating grapes I’ve never heard of that before so it’s very unusual and very weird…muy raro. Another thing it asked me to translate was…”Your boy is ugly” Tu chico es feo.

And I am wondering where they’re pulling these examples from because it is quite of a surprise to see an example like that on your phone.  Your boy is ugly – Tu chico es feo.  Now I will have to use this with my friends…. I will have to use it as kind of a joke with my friends.

So yeah things like that will surprise you with Duolingo.

I have a few more examples that I think it can get a little bit hilarious as well really really funny…. like for example ”The cats wear shoes” Los gatos usan zapatos.

Okay what else do they wear?? Boots and sandals??  Can you imagine a cat wearing boots and sandals?? So yeah it’s pretty funny It gives you these examples.  Yeah.. uh

One of my favourite examples it asked me to translate was “My horses drink beer” Mis caballos beben cerveza.  Well I don’t know … I actually didn’t know that horses can drink beer.  The next time I go to a bar I’m going to bring horse with me as a drinking buddy yeah sounds right sounds awesome haha

Another example was….”This is my first cow” Esta es mi primera vaca. Uhmmm… When will I have to use this sentence? I don’t know. Hey Mom I bought my first cow today this is my first cow. Esta es mi primera vaca. Haha

I don’t know when I will have to use that.  So you have to think about how many times people say this even in your native tongue (language)?

Guys it may be easier to follow this episode if you’re reading a transcript at the same time so I would recommend you go to Englishmadesimple.Net, www.englishmadesimple.net

Read the transcript there and listen to the podcast at the same time if there is anything specific that you would like to learn please let me know don’t be shy :)  Well I hope you had fun listening to this episode about Duolingo. Hasta la próxima! See you later Alligator!