If you’re trying to learn a new language, but are struggling with the time, energy, or the motivation, you might need to work smarter rather than harder. Get to grips with a new language in no time with these clever little extensions that help you learn whilst you’re reading, watching television, or even just browsing social media.
Toucan
(available on Chrome, Firefox, Edge and Safari)
Toucan is an extension which works with your web browser, by translating words in your web page from your native language to the language that you’re learning.
The purpose of Toucan is to help learners immerse themselves in the language that they are trying to learn. Using this extension, you can learn new words in your chosen language without specifically setting aside time to practice; you can do it at work without it interrupting your day, or at home when you’re browsing the internet. If you get stuck on a word, don’t worry; you can use the cursor to hover over the word if you need to read it in your native language, and then click the speaker to hear the word spoken in your chosen language. There are also quizzes and games for you to test your skills, and Toucan tracks your progress and achievements as you learn.
You can get started with Toucan by downloading the extension from their website.
Language Reactor
(available on Chrome, coming soon to Firefox and Edge)
Language Reactor is an extension which works with Netflix and Youtube, by adding dual subtitles to videos and pausing automatically to allow you to read and process the information.
It’s a great way of learning languages passively, and by using translated subtitles side by side with subtitles from your native language, you’re also able to learn sentence structure, grammar and (if you’re watching something in the language you’re learning) pronunciation. Netflix offers a wide range of films and shows in foreign languages, and as such it is the perfect pairing for this extension. And if you’re wanting to read in the language you’re learning, you can use Language Reactor to add a machine translation to a book or website, and read it aloud in text-to-speech.
You can get started with Language Reactor by downloading the extension from the Chrome webstore.
Readlang
(available on Chrome and Safari)
Readlang is an extension that helps you to learn to read in your chosen language, by translating words and phrases into your native language live on any web page.
This is an amazing extension if you want to focus your learning and start reading in the language that you’re learning as soon as possible. Just choose an article, book or text that you want to start reading and open it in your browser. Once you encounter a word that you don’t understand, click it and Readlang will translate it automatically. It will also translate phrases, if you’re struggling with a few words in a row. But that’s not all; whilst you’re reading, Readlang is collecting the words that you click on, and storing them as flashcards. Just head to the Flashcards page to review all of the words that you’ve clicked on and test your knowledge.
You can get started with Readlang by downloading the extension from their website.
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