If you’re not careful about your pronunciation, it’s pretty easy to tell someone in France that you’re pregnant instead of saying you’re full. In Israel, you might ask someone to buy their daughter instead of buying a slice of bread. Saying you’re cold in German? It sounds a lot like saying you’re dead.
Even those poor conjugation skills make all the difference between trying to say “Let’s get on with it” and “Let’s get it on!”
Living like a local is all the rage for travelers, but speaking the local language is not always so easy.
Even having a few basic phrases can go a long way, depending on where you are. Last winter, when I found myself in rural Thailand, I had few words in my repertoire than hello (“sa-wa-dee-kah”) and thank you (“kap koon kah”). Despite that paltry showing, I was surprised at how genuinely locals seemed to appreciate the effort. On a solo trip in Brazil, I managed a half-hour conversation with a cab driver using nothing more than my fluent Spanish. With middling Hebrew (which has much in common with Arabic), I was able to learn about ongoing Eid Al-Adha traditions when I arrived in Morocco last September.
Thanks to a rise in Rosetta Stone-style mobile apps, it’s easier than ever to pick up a new language—or at least get a grasp on the basics before your next trip. And thanks to push notifications that keep you coming back, gamified motivational techniques, and bots that help you practice without imposing judgment, they’re likely to get you speaking conversationally—and gaffe free—before you hop on the plane.
Here, the best ones to consider, depending on your personal learning style and ongoing goals.
For Short Attention Spans: Drops
Why we like it: No reading. No typing. Just five minutes a day. That’s how Drops promises to get you to learn one of 19 languages—spanning from French and Spanish to Korean and Arabic. (Esperanto, comically, is also included.) Lessons walk you through 120 word buckets covering food, drinks, numbers, and hotel terms. And instead of showing you flash cards with cheesy stock photos, the app focuses on clean illustrations, all in white, set against solid-colored backdrops. Whether you’re matching pictures to their translations, unscrambling letters to practice spelling, or swiping across a grid of letters to unearth the word that matches the picture, the exercises feel like quick games rather than classroom worksheets.
The caveat: Drops places a heavy emphasis on building vocabulary through nouns, which means you won’t get much in the way of grammar, usage, and conjugations. You won’t be quizzed on speaking or pronunciation, either. And though you can purchase unlimited time for as little as $48 per year, five-minute blocks mean that you learn at a relatively slow pace. That’s great if that’s all the time you have to spare, anyway—not so great if you’re actively trying to cram before a trip.
To Sound Like a Local: Busuu
Why we like it: Busuu offers the language-learning equivalent of pen pals—if you’re studying French, you can have your speaking exercises evaluated by Busuu students in France, so long as you return the favor and grade someone else’s homework in your native tongue. (With 70 million users around the world, it’s not a stretch to find a study partner you’ll love.) To extend the theme, lessons in 12 languages include insightful tips on local usage: For instance, this is the only app I tried that told me that French natives are more likely to use the plural “ons” instead of “nous” when conjugating “we” verbs.
The caveat: Most of the app’s best features, including unlimited exchanges with foreign students, are behind a paywall. But the plans are highly affordable: one month costs $8 and a year goes for $45, less than a dollar per week.