blas. – Celtic Languages

Even though there is the option to start as a complete beginner, I felt that the lessons did not teach enough information to follow the practise drills unless you already knew some Irish. For example, the lesson would teach you the word for ‘house’, but the practise drill would be ‘how do you say “the house is at the top of the hill”’ even though you haven’t learnt any of those other words or even the basic word order of the language. I also downloaded the app because of the Celtic-language-specific features like spelling lessons, but those assume you have lots of vocabulary already, which is difficult to learn if you don’t understand why they are spelled the way that they are. I was really excited to try this app but I just found it frustrating because I could not find the information I needed to do the exercises.

Compare to any language learning app out there and you will find a feature here the others lack… accessibility for those with learning disabilities in the settings. For those of us who have the above this app not only allows you to turn answers requiring spelling off it features a section to work on spelling specifically!! A creator who truly cares that folks learn to SPEAK our language! I can’t give this a higher rating!!! I wish I could!!

Duolingo has long been the go-to for learning languages through an app, and I myself completed the Portuguese course on it years ago. Over the years, however, it has gradually come to be among the slowest methods available for language-learning, and I have completely abandoned it. While Duolingo indeed offers many languages including Welsh, Irish, and Scots Gaelic, but it’s common knowledge that any language outside of the top most popular ones is an afterthought at best. Blas is different. No silly childish characters, no unnecessary bells and whistles, and a slick minimalist UI. This app is how Duolingo was 10 years ago, though perhaps even more straightforward. For having been around for less than a year, it already looks and feels quite professional, and more importantly like the developers are clearly aiming to make a serious language-learning app rather than a game. Although many features have some kinks that could be hammered out (especially the voice clips, speech recognition, and camera mode), I wholeheartedly expect this app to be the #1 for Celtic languages within the next year or two. Overall, my experience learning Welsh with it has been efficient and highly enjoyable, and I’m anxious to see how the app will improve further as development continues.