Learn a language on your commute

Let’s face it, commuting is nobody’s favourite time of day. But if you take a glass half full approach, just think of it as an opportunity to satiate your inner bookworm, catch up on your latest must-see TV and even to try something different – like learning a new language.

Duolingo is one of the best travel companions you could ask for, helping you to build your new language skills and make the best out of those hours toing and froing on public transport.

Duolingo’s carefully curated classes are perfectly suited for on the go. The app offers shorter lessons from five to 20 minutes long and gamifies the process of learning, so you can pick up over 30 languages, including English, Japanese, French and Korean using the free fragments of your day. If you’ve been thinking about trying Duolingo or you’re already a user, then you won’t want to miss out on the app’s subscription features.

When you’re trying to learn, there’s nothing worse than getting stuck – it can easily cause you to become frustrated and demotivated. If you’re already a Duolingo user, you’ll know that you’ll lose some Hearts along the way, and when your Hearts reach zero, you have to do more exercises to replace them. Become a Duolingo Plus subscriber though, and you’ll receive unlimited hearts – so there’s no excuse for quitting.

And Duolingo Plus has another perk: access to lessons offline if the internet connection on your commute is patchy or non-existent. You can also start a quiz at any time to refresh what you’ve learnt.

Want some companionship and motivation while you study? You can invite friends and follow anyone within Duolingo.

Apart from this, you can see the top 50 learners within your own level on the leaderboard. Want to move up in the rankings? Take advantage of every commute to level up.

Duolingo’s developer has also created an app called Tinycards, which is another useful resource for your language learning. Unlike traditional vocabulary cards, Tinycards is more interactive and includes illustrations, multiple choice, pronunciation and typing questions to help you learn thousands of words.

If you’re already using Duolingo, all the courses you’ve taken and vocabulary you’ve learned will appear in Tinycards as well. Use the two apps together and you’ll be able to improve your vocabulary, as well as make your own cards to build your personal word lists, like Easily Forgotten Words or Travel.

You can also see your friends’ customised cards through the app’s friend function, making the arduous task of learning a new language more fun and efficient.

Both Duolingo and Tinycards will liven up your dull commute, giving you the tools to master a language, or three, on the move.

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