#plus i'm tired of just seeing things for major european languages on my dash

[guillemelgat]

Language Platforms and Resources for Lesser-Studied Languages

I see a lot of posts going around on here about great new resources that people have found for their target languages, but most of the time when I look at them, they don't have any of the languages that I'm learning. For people learning lesser-studied languages (which includes languages that have lots of speakers, like Hausa or Telugu for example, but aren't commonly taught in places where they aren't spoken by most of the population) finding resources can be a headache. While the best route is definitely to try to find classes or native speakers to help, that can be expensive, inaccessible, and sometimes anxiety-inducing. Language platforms are a great resource for building a base or learning grammar, and they should be available for a lot more languages than they are. Still, some are better about including a variety of languages than others, and so I decided to do the work and present you all with a (not-at-all-comprehensive) guide to what resources are pulling their weight in language diversity. Here are the areas that I scored them on:

Asian Languages (not including the Big Three of Mandarin Chinese, Japanese, and Korean, because these are already pretty well represented)

African Languages

Oceanian Languages

American Languages (indigenous to the Americas)

Minoritized & Endangered Languages

Usability

Grammar

Vocabulary

Interactivity

Depth

Overall

** DISCLAIMER: I didn't check all the course for every single language on these websites, so some languages may have better content than others. However, I did check for all the languages that I'm learning, which should cover most of these areas to some degree.**

DUOLINGO

Asian Languages: ☆☆

African Languages: ☆

Oceanian Languages: ☆

American Languages: ☆☆

Minoritized & Endangered Languages: ☆☆

Usability: ☆☆☆☆

Grammar: ☆☆☆

Vocabulary: ☆☆☆

Interactivity: ☆☆☆☆☆

Depth: ☆☆☆☆

Overall: ☆☆

Duolingo is honestly not one of my favorite language learning platforms, but I know there are people who swear by it so I thought I’d include it here just to give a full review.

The pros of Duolingo are that it’s a very sleek, well-established website/app and that it’s fun. I think some people find it easier than trudging through grammar books, and I can’t blame them. However, as far as lesser-studied languages go, it’s not great. Because of the time it takes to develop a course, there’s a vetting process and also personal volition in the way, and that makes it really hard for lots of languages to get put on it. So while there are some minoritized languages represented, and some diversity, it’s not super great, and there are better places to look.

MEMRISE

Asian Languages: ☆☆☆☆

African Languages: ☆☆☆

Oceanian Languages: ☆☆☆

American Languages: ☆☆☆

Minoritized & Endangered Languages: ☆☆☆☆

Usability: ☆☆☆☆

Grammar: ☆

Vocabulary: ☆☆☆☆☆

Interactivity: ☆☆☆☆

Depth: ☆☆☆

Overall: ☆☆☆☆

I am personally a very big fan of Memrise, but it’s definitely not an all-in-one tool for language learning and has its pros and cons. Because the community can create courses, it has a pretty wide range of offerings – but you also have to take things with a grain of salt because you don’t know whether or not they’re correct. I generally try to pick courses that go along with books or were released by a specific organization promoting the language – something which does limit the number of languages which actually are on the platform. Memrise also has the drawback of only really being a vocabulary resource, and not teaching grammar. In conjunction with other resources, though, I think that it’s one of the strongest language-learning platforms for lesser-studied languages.

TATOEBA

Asian Languages: ☆☆☆☆☆

African Languages: ☆☆☆☆

Oceanian Languages: ☆☆☆

American Languages: ☆☆☆☆

Minoritized & Endangered Languages: ☆☆☆☆☆

Usability: ☆☆

Grammar: ☆

Vocabulary: ☆☆☆☆

Interactivity: ☆

Depth: ☆☆

Overall: ☆☆☆

I just looked into this website for the first time a couple weeks ago after having had it bookmarked for years, and it’s somewhat of a goldmine for lesser-studied languages. It has a massive amount of languages available (100-200 probably), and a lot of them have really good phrases that I otherwise wouldn’t have been able to find – it’s great for Tamasheq, for example. It’s also good practice for testing reading comprehension in your target language. It does have quite a few cons though: it’s not interactive at all, so it’s basically only a source of information, not a site like Duolingo or Memrise. It’s also very hit or miss with languages, some having 100+ phrases while others have only 10. Unfortunately, a lot of these are lesser-studied, but I would check it out to see if it has what you need.

CLOZEMASTER

Asian Languages: ☆☆☆

African Languages: ☆

Oceanian Languages: ☆

American Languages: (none available)

Minoritized & Endangered Languages: ☆☆☆

Usability: ☆☆☆☆

Grammar: ☆

Vocabulary: ☆☆☆☆

Interactivity: ☆☆☆

Depth: ☆☆

Overall: ☆☆☆

While this is somewhat of a sad-looking review, Clozemaster is actually not terrible. It’s basically a putting-vocabulary-in-context game, and it has a fairly good selection of languages, especially widely-spoken but underrepresented Asian languages and European endangered and minoritized languages. It’s not perfect, but if you want something more interactive that’s not just rote-memorization like Memrise, this might be fun. It does run out of sentences really quickly though, which means that it’s not a long-term resource. Sentences and words are also of varying usefulness.

READLANG

Asian Languages: ☆☆☆

African Languages: ☆

Oceanian Languages: ☆

American Languages: (none available)

Minoritized & Endangered Languages: ☆☆☆

Usability: ☆☆☆☆

Grammar: ☆

Vocabulary: ☆☆☆

Interactivity: ☆☆☆

Depth: ☆☆

Overall: ☆☆☆

I think that Readlang is an alright resource, although I’ve had mixed results with it. For a lot of the languages, it’s still in beta, and the translations can be wonky sometimes – it seems a little like it’s using Google Translate, which is sometimes not the best. It is a pretty okay resource if you’re just learning to read in your target language, and good to have in your back pocket. The language selection, however, is like Clozemaster in that it skews towards big but underrepresented Asian languages, and basically all of the minoritized languages are European.

101LANGUAGES

Asian Languages: ☆☆☆☆

African Languages: ☆☆☆

Oceanian Languages: ☆☆

American Languages: ☆☆

Minoritized & Endangered Languages: ☆☆☆

Usability: ☆☆☆

Grammar: ☆

Vocabulary: ☆☆☆

Interactivity: ☆☆

Depth: ☆☆

Overall: ☆☆

This website has lots of resource compilations, and while it is somewhat superficial, it does have a decent amount of stuff, especially for African languages (not a lot represented but what it does have has a decent amount of content). It’s more of a jumping-off point than a full language course, but it does have a fairly decent amount of stuff. I don’t want to oversell it, it’s not great for a lot of languages, but it is something.

YOJIK (FSI/DLI/PEACE CORPS)

Asian Languages: ☆☆☆

African Languages: ☆☆☆☆

Oceanian Languages: ☆☆

American Languages: ☆

Minoritized & Endangered Languages: ☆

Usability: ☆☆

Grammar: ☆☆☆☆

Vocabulary: ☆☆☆☆

Interactivity: ☆

Depth: ☆☆☆☆

Overall: ☆☆☆

If you’re learning an African or Asian language that has lots of speakers but isn’t commonly taught, this is the website for you. Basically it’s just a hoard of old FSI, DLI, and Peace Corps courses, and so any language which might be of interest to US foreign policy or aid is here (okay maybe not every one, but a whole lot of them). That being said, the courses are old (outdated, often) and very dry, so take them with a grain of salt. Either way, it’s a good stash of language materials to have, and is the only website here to actually have solid African representation.

LIVE LINGUA PROJECT

Asian Languages: ☆☆☆

African Languages: ☆☆☆☆

Oceanian Languages: ☆☆

American Languages: ☆

Minoritized & Endangered Languages: ☆

Usability: ☆☆☆

Grammar: ☆☆☆☆

Vocabulary: ☆☆☆☆

Interactivity: ☆

Depth: ☆☆☆☆

Overall: ☆☆☆☆

The Livelingua project is basically the same thing as Yojik, just often the materials are more modern and a little more user-friendly. It does also use FSI/DLI/Peace Corps courses, just as a heads up. This is absolutely the place I would go for African languages, but the selection is more slim for languages from other parts of the world.

CONCLUSION

As learners of lesser-studied languages, getting resources is always going to be difficult. Unfortunately, even some of the best websites are not going to have what you need. My number one recommendation for learners is to get a good course book or grammar, and find someone to practice with. As far as websites go, general websites are honestly never going to be your best bet – look for things made specifically for learners of your language instead. Still, it’s not all terrible, and hopefully some of these websites are at least somewhat helpful for people on here who are struggling. If you know any more, I’d love to hear them, since I’m always on the lookout myself!

#this is......the most detailed thing i will ever do #hope it helps some of you #the honest to god truth is that all of these suck to some degree #but some suck less than others and i figured you should at least know about them #plus i'm tired of just seeing things for major european languages on my dash #so we're changing it up #all reviews are entirely subjective and also the content of these sites may vary in goodness #a lot of them i haven't used at length so they might not be perfect #just a disclaimer #feel free to add your opinions #resources #edit: made it format better #tumblr actually formatting so i don't have to go into the html to edit it myself challenge >:'0 #general:resources #general:reference