Many binge watch Korean shows to kill time, and in the process, fall in love with the language and the country’s culture. For others, they may have yearned to learn a new language but never found the time. Now, with time aplenty due to the COVID-19 lockdown, from French to Korean, many residents have taken to learning a new language through a host of platforms online such as YouTube channels, audiobooks or apps like Duolingo.
Manisha Sharma, 26-year-old working professional, says she was getting exhausted of working out mathematics for an examination, and was looking for a break. “That’s when I started watching some Korean shows and got hooked. But eventually, I fell in love with the country and its culture and started learning Korean through a YouTube channel. It has been so much fun getting to know Korean and some day when I visit Korea, this may be useful,” she adds.
Some like Ashwath Ram, a 30-year-old student pursuing an MBA, always wanted to pick up a new language, but never found the time. After the lockdown was imposed, he decided to use this time to learn German. “Every day, I spend 20 minutes learning from Duolingo. I refresh my lessons and maintain a word document to keep track of what I learn. In addition, I plan to watch German films to get a better understanding of the language,” he says.
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Learning a new language is one of the finest ways to stay engaged and also a good workout for the brain, 26-year-old media professional Vaishnavi Prasad says. From Polish to Spanish, she has been having a thoroughly great time picking up new words through audio books and even podcasts. “I also consciously watch shows in other languages and inadvertently, the vocabulary is entering your brain. So far, I have been learning Korean, German, Spanish and Polish and I think Polish has been the most challenging one yet,” she adds.
Not just international languages, some like Sana Wajith, a 22-year-old freelancer has now found the time to learn Kannada and Telugu. She says, “When I travel to either of these two States, it will be easy to communicate with the local language.”
According to Duolingo, a popular language learning app, users in India went up over 108 % by March 23 as against the end of February.
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