The Best Free Language Learning Apps (2024)

Deeper Dive: Our Top Tested Picks

Buying Guide: The Best Free Language Learning Apps

Learning a language does not have to be expensive. While there's definitely language learning software worth paying for, you can find many excellent resources for learning, studying, and practicing a language for free.

"More is better" is the right attitude to have when it comes to free language apps. By using multiple apps, you hear more accents and styles of speech, encounter different word choices, and get a more well-rounded experience. It also allows you to use different apps for listening, reading, writing, and speaking.

Whether you're studying at school (remotely) or just trying to pick up enough language to get by among friends or family, using more than one app is your best bet.

As good as many language learning apps are, whether they're Android apps, iOS apps, or web apps, you're not likely to reach fluency with them alone. Instead, think of apps as complements to classroom training and interactive opportunities with native speakers. Free language apps are excellent tools for building a strong foundation of knowledge. You can learn vocabulary and grammar really well with them, but at some point you'll need to move onto more challenging content, such as watching videos, listening to podcasts, and reading books and articles in the language you're learning. There's no substitute for real-life conversation, but you can make plenty of headway on your own.

Check Your Library For Language Software, Too

Most of the apps listed here are not full-featured language learning software packages. Full-featured software tends to offer you an intensive program of lessons that you're meant to work through in order. They're more like self-paced classes, whereas the majority of free apps are for practicing, reinforcing what you've learned, and drilling.

The big software packages, such as Rosetta Stone and Fluenz, usually cost in the range of $100-$200 per year. You can sometimes get them for free, however, through public libraries, at least in the US and Canada.

So if you need full-featured language learning software, which is a great place for beginners to start, we highly recommend seeing what your library has on hand. Then you can boost your learning by adding in some of the apps listed here.

Why No Single-Language Apps?

For the purpose of this article, we only consider apps that offer multiple languages. The reason is to keep the suggestions broad and applicable to a wide range of people.

If we included single-language apps, we might end up with hundreds of suggestions, as there are many. Human Japanese comes to mind. It has both free and paid versions, but it only teaches Japanese with an emphasis on learning to write. Mandarin students swear by ChineseSkill, a free game-based app that only focuses on Chinese for beginners.

The one language where we've seen very few good, free learning apps is American Sign Language—the best one by far is Lifeprint.com, also known as ASLU. Don't be turned off by the old-school site design, and start with the numbered video lessons in the top right corner of the homepage. If you're willing to pay to learn ASL, we like Sign It ASL better. Sign It ASL is free, however, for families with deaf or hard of hearing children younger than 36 months who apply.

Best Overall: Duolingo and Memrise

Two apps took the Editors' Choice in the category of best free language apps: Duolingo and Memrise.

Duolingo has been a fan favorite ever since it first debuted. It offers a full program of language learning material in more than 35 languages. It's sequential, meaning you work through the lessons more or less in order.

For select languages, Duolingo has excellent podcasts and interactive stories for learners at an intermediate level. A lot of the main content is crowd-sourced, meaning quality isn't guaranteed to be perfect, especially among less popular languages, but the community is strong and actively flags and corrects material that's poorly worded, debatable, or otherwise inaccurate. All the content on Duolingo is free, but you can upgrade to a paid plan to remove ads from the mobile app and get a few other perks. If you do use Duolingo for free, consider using the web app, as it's slightly less restrictive than the mobile version.

The other Editors' Choice is Memrise. Memrise has two types of content: that which Memrise the company has uploaded and that which comes from its user community. The company provides courses in 14 languages, but there are more if you're open to trying material from unknown sources. Be sure to use the search bar in Memrise to find the language you want! Not all the language options show up unless you look for them specifically. A good amount of the content is free, although Memrise does offer a paid tier of service that opens up more avenues for learning.

Best for Custom Study Sets: Quizlet

People often learn a language for a specific purpose, such as for work. Depending on why you're learning, you might want to focus on the vocabulary that benefits you the most. Quizlet is the best app for this purpose.

Quizlet isn't technically a language learning app but rather a flashcard app. You can create a deck of vocabulary words or phrases you want to learn, with translations in your native language. So many people use Quizlet to study languages, though, that the app has built-in language support. You can set two different languages for the two sides of the flashcard, for example, English and German, and then hear the correct pronunciation in both languages and get appropriate auto-corrections when you fill in the cards, and so forth.

In addition to making your own study decks, you can also search for decks made by other users or organizations. Many of them are free but some cost extra.

Quizlet makes sure you don't get bored while studying, too, by giving you games, quizzes, and other interactive tools that make use of your custom study sets. While all the core functionality of Quizlet is free, a paid membership unlocks AI features that make your study sessions smarter and you get other perks, too.

Best for General Vocabulary: Busuu

For picking up everyday vocabulary in a way that's not boring and will stick in your noggin, we like Busuu. This free app has a learning path that you can work through sequentially; or you can skip around if you already have experience with the language you're learning. It has you read, listen, and speak common phrases, then work through a couple of exercises to repeat what you just learned.

While you get a good amount of language learning content in the free version, you can upgrade to a paid account to get a study plan, AI features, access to all languages (English, Spanish, French, German, Japanese, Italian, Russian, Chinese, Arabic, Turkish, Portuguese, Polish), and other perks.

Best for Drills: 50 Languages

Learning a new alphabet or new numbers takes repetition. The app 50 Languages is one of the best resources you'll find for this kind of studying. Inside this app, you'll find much more than numbers and letters, such as vocabulary sets about animals, sports, telling time, parts of the body, and so on.

The app has you learn through flashcards, quizzes, and other interactive exercises. You get written vocabulary, pictures, and audio files to help you learn. The 50 Languages app doesn't have a set learning path that you follow or ways to keep track of words you know and words you don't know. Still, the accuracy is high and the app is completely free. It's supported by ads, however. You can pay to remove them for $2.99 in one language or $9.99 across all languages.

Best for Interactivity: HelloTalk

At some point while learning a language, you need to interact with real speakers. HelloTalk lets you do exactly that. It asks you which languages you're learning and which ones you speak. Then it suggests other people using the app who might be good counterparts for chatting.

You get a social media-style feed of other users who are sharing status updates, posting photos, and so forth. This way, you have several avenues to interact with real language. If you don't feel comfortable chatting with anyone one-on-one, you can always read and explore the feed.

The app also has a vocabulary section where you can practice what you know with interactive exercises and games.

Best for Reading: Beelinguapp

Beelinguapp is unique in that it focuses on longer-form reading. This is an aspect of language learning that's often overlooked or omitted from free language apps. With Beelinguapp, you can filter what's available in order to find texts that are the appropriate level for your skills and that are on a topic you actually enjoy, such as pop culture or science and technology.

Beelinguapp incorporates listening skills, too, as every story comes with an audio file of the text being read by a native speaker. If you get stumped, you can always look at a translation of the material.

All the core content in Beelinguapp is free, and if you love it and want more, you can upgrade to an All-Access Premium account. You get more stories to read, audio files to accompany news articles, flashcards, illustrations, no ads, and other perks.

Build Your Own Language Learning Kit for Free

When it comes to choosing software, you usually have to make a decision and pick the best one from a list of contenders. That's not the case with language learning apps. Instead of holding out for a silver bullet, you can compile a bunch of different apps that meet different learning needs. Build a toolkit of resources. Keep yourself engaged by switching apps when you get bored with one. Use different apps to strengthen different skills. Of course, it's easy to do when the apps are all free.

If you're looking for more ways to study online, you should also consider our roundups of the best sites for learning ASL (American Sign Language) and the best sites for online learning.