The three biggest concerns that men have about international dating in order are getting scammed, the expense, and the difficulty of communicating with a woman in a foreign language.
Since International Love Scout started in late 2008 we have written numerous articles about how to avoid being scammed and the expenses involved in international dating, but we have never written an article about the best way to learn a foreign language: until now.
The reason for this is simple. I am atrocious at foreign languages. If I actually had a gift for foreign languages. I barely speak English. If I had a gift for foreign languages I be running a hundred billion dollar hedge fund or be the head of the CIA or maybe both. Foreign languages are hard.
And really I have seen anything I could recommend. Yes, there are some good language learning programs, but the best ones, like Rosetta Stone, can be really expensive. I didn’t recommend any language learning programs because I hate recommending something that I realize most guys are never going to be able to spend enough time with to really master.
But then I stumbled across Duolingo. It is an amazing free program developed at Carnegie Mellon with most if not all of the bells and whistles of even the best commercially available programs.
It uses image recognition and the other standard tools. I am working my way through Russian and I am shocked at my progress. No, I can’t read Tolstoy in the original, but I can read street signs. For me that is a huge accomplishment.
It works great on a cell phone, because you can download a Cyrillic keyboard. And then you can squeeze in lessons whenever you happen to have a few minutes free. There is also a big community of users to help you and that seems to be a big help for a lot of people.
So, if you are worried about your language skills keeping you from communicating with a beautiful young woman from the far side of the world start trying to work your way through Duolingo. It is really great and it is FREE!
Even better recommend Duolingo to the beautiful young lady you are talking to, because it is free, and both of you have to work together to really communicate effectively.