10 Apps to Stay Productive While Learning a Language

Learning a new language is one of the most productive things you can do for yourself. However, tackling Italian, Spanish, or French for the first time can be challenging, and it’s easy to give up halfway through. Instead of abandoning your aspirations to learn a new language, you could try using dedicated smartphone apps to help yourself.

While some language schools consider productivity and learning apps their competitors, the two are complementary. You can visit a local language school or take online courses and then build on your learning experience with the apps we’re about to discuss.

1. Evernote

Evernote is a great platform available on both desktop computers and smartphone devices and is designed with productive writing in mind. You can take short notes on what you’ve learned so far on your phone and then access those notes on your computer for further research. Evernote also features rudimentary editing options, which will help you organize your language learning as best as possible to stay focused on your forward momentum.

2. Freedom

If you are learning a language online, distractions can crop up at a moment’s notice. This is where apps such as Freedom can help declutter your computer or smartphone. Freedom is designed with blocking popular social media sites and other online platforms in mind, depending on which sites distract you the most. While simple in design, Freedom can indeed give your mind some “freedom” to learn a new language in a more productive manner.

3. Any.do

As its name might suggest, Any.do is a productivity app designed to help organize your spare time. Learning a new language will take several months if not years until you are confident enough to speak close to a native level. With tools like Any.do, you will be able to organize and track learning sessions, do more homework and have a much easier time motivating yourself.

4. Cogi

Speaking exercises are a vital part of learning a language. However, it can be difficult to practice speaking if you are learning by yourself. Cogi is a voice recording and notes app designed to help you quickly record your voice. You can read texts in a foreign language and listen to yourself speaking to learn from your mistakes. You can order book report writing if you are not confident enough in your language skills to write a more comprehensive paper just yet. Thanks to Cogi, your language learning will quickly become more dynamic, exciting, and productive.

5. Ayoa

Once you build up confidence in your language skills, you can use Ayoa to practice new words and phrases in the form of mind maps. Ayoa is a visual app meant for coming up with new ideas, creative thinking, and brainstorming. It is the perfect tool to test out your language skills in a controlled environment and come up with great ideas. Beyond that, Ayoa also has planning and task management features which you can use to organize your learning.

6. Pocket

Learning a new language from home allows you to look for interesting online resources in a foreign language. Pocket is an app designed to help you quickly capture interesting links and content from around the web and organize it into neat groups. This will enable you to gather learning materials and multimedia in a different language for later use with a single click.

7. Toggl

You should aim to be as productive as possible with your language learning instead of simply being persistent. Using Toggl will allow you to do just that, as the app is perfectly suitable for work optimization. Toggl tracks how much time you spent doing different things and can help you plan your time accordingly. The tool is comprehensive in the data it offers based on your use of its features – it helps optimize your learning process.

8. Habitica

Habitica is a productivity app all about turning boring tasks into interesting habits through gamification. The app resembles a traditional video game in the way it rewards you for using it daily. Setting up your language learning goals and then tracking them each day will help you progress through Habitica and its charming world. This is a great app for learning, especially if you learn with kids or people fond of video games.

9. Due

Due is an amazing productivity app for forgetful people. Essentially, Due is a reminder app. However, its feature lists go far beyond that. It features a very minimalistic and modern UI and a plethora of reminder mechanisms. The app will remind you of different activities throughout the day and allow you to finetune your workflow. It will be very difficult not to learn a language daily with Due on your smart device, so give it a go.

10. Forest

Forest is one of the most unique apps out there as it allows you to plant trees while you’re learning a language. The app is designed to block out some distractions on your phone during “work”, all while using its ads to fund tree plantation. In practice, this means that the more you use Forest during learning to stay productive, the better impact you will have on the environment. Forest is very engaging and one-of-a-kind and should be on your productivity app radar.

Making a Habit out of Learning a Language (Conclusion)

The fact of the matter is that you will need to be patient to learn a new language. This goes double if you are learning a language unfamiliar to your own, such as going from English to Russian or from French to Italian. Download some of the apps we’ve discussed and try to integrate them into your learning experience. Using them will become habitual, and you won’t be able to imagine learning without the productivity apps there to assist you.