Is learning a new language on your bucket list or New Year’s Resolutions? Are you finally traveling to the destination you’ve always wanted and want to know some of the language before taking off? Fountaindale Public Library offers an amazing eResource that can help! Mango Languages offers courses in over 70 languages, including Spanish, French, German and Japanese. Mango Languages has also partnered with ASL Inside to bring American Sign Language to their repertoire. You can even take your courses on the go using your smartphone or electronic device with the Mango Languages app. All of these language courses and features are available to you when you sign up with your library card!
How Does It Work?
Mango’s courses are typically broken up into five units. Each unit consists of 5–10 chapters, each containing multiple lessons. When you start a lesson, you will be given an overview of what will be covered throughout the duration of the lesson. The language courses are self-paced, so you are able to spend as much or as little time as you’d like. You can even work on multiple languages in one account. Mango Languages will save your place so you can return to the exact spot you left off.
Mango takes a practical, conversation-based approach to language lessons allowing you to gain speaking confidence quickly and more easily. If you click on new words throughout your lesson, you will see the phonetic pronunciation of each unfamiliar word.
For me, the most intimidating part of learning a new language is always pronunciation. Luckily, Mango has some interesting tools that will help! During your lessons, you will be asked to pronounce the words you hear. You will be able to record yourself pronouncing new words, and once you finish, you will see an audio wavelength that shows the inflections in your voice. This allows you to compare it directly with a native speaker, helping to correct any mistakes you’ve made.
Shortly after practicing speaking, you will be greeted with grammar and culture notes to become more familiar with the language. Grammar notes will tell you more about specific grammar rules, while cultural notes will give you more insight into cultural norms.
Color coding is used when showing translations from English to a new language. This feature enables you to see the relationship between languages right down to the sentence structure. This is a great tool to help you pick up on grammar rules in addition to Mango’s grammar notes. Other languages often structure their sentences differently than English, which can be very confusing initially. I’m glad that Mango eases you into this learning curve.
Now Introducing American Sign Language (ASL)
Recently, Mango Languages partnered with ASL Inside to bring the platform a brand new ASL curriculum. This addition also brought with it some new features, including the Magic Mirror. You can use the Magic Mirror feature when you have access to a Camera (the camera on your smartphone will work on the app). On videos where Magic Mirror is enabled, you will see a video of an ASL speaker alongside a video of you. With this feature, you can follow the ASL speaker’s signs and will instantly be able to compare your signs with those of the ASL speaker. I’m glad that this feature was included with the ASL addition! It’s so helpful to the learning process! Similar to other languages on Mango, you will also receive grammar and cultural notes along the way to help build your confidence in ASL.
Try It Out
Mango Languages can be found on our eResources page. You can even use the resource as a guest if you want to try it out. If you want to save your progress and finally learn that language on your bucket list, register with Mango using your Fountaindale Library card!