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Learn Kurdish

What are the best apps to learn Kurdish?

Well-known apps like Rosetta Stone, Babbel or Duolingo offer no Kurdish courses, but there are other apps for learning Kurdish that are just as good or even better.

City of Sulaymaniyah in the Kurdish Region in Iraq

   Overview of the Kurdish Language:

The Kurdish language has about 30 million native speakers. The Kurdish region extends over four countries: Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Syria.

There are three Kurdish dialects: Northern Kurdish ("Kurmanji") is by far the most widely spoken dialect with 15-20 million speakers.

There is also Central Kurdish ("Sorani") in Iraq with 6-7 million speakers and Southern Kurdish in Iran with 3 million speakers.

The Kurdish language has many similarities with the Persian language and is very different from Arabic and Turkish.

City of Erbil in the Kurdish Region in Iraq

Now let's take a look at the apps, software and online courses that you can use to learn Kurdish. The biggest advantage of such learning apps is that they are much cheaper than traditional language courses.

Kurdish Basic Course

From 17 Minute Languages

Systems: Online Access (PC, Mac, Linux, Android, iOS)

Suitable for: Beginners and Advanced Learners, Students, Professionals

Content: 1300 words (basic course), 5200 words (complete course), grammar, verb conjugations, exercises

Prices: USD 29,95 (Basic Course), USD 97 (Complete Course)

Overall Value:

The Kurdish Basic Course contains a vocabulary trainer for the basic Kurdish vocabulary (1300 words) with native-speaker audio, as well as grammar explanations and various exercises.

The vocabulary trainer works with a long-term memory method, in which the new vocabulary is checked at increasing intervals.

You can choose between text input, multiple choice or simply confirming whether you knew a word or not.

The exercises include text comprehension questions, filling in word gaps or just vocabulary lists where one side is covered.

The basic course corresponds to the official language levels A1 and A2 (explanation of CEFR language levels).

The Complete Course contains:

  • Basic course for beginners (basic vocabulary with 1300 words)
  • Intermediate course (1800 more words)
  • Advanced course for experts (2100 words)
  • Additional specialized vocabulary
  • Covers the official CEFR language levels A1 to C2
There are 17 different languages you can use to learn Kurdish with this app.

Summary: Much cheaper and even better than the famous Rosetta Stone. There is a free demo version available and a 30-day money-back guarantee.

Link: Kurdish Basic Course and Complete Course


uTalk Kurdish App

Alternative to Duolingo or Babbel

The uTalk app teaches about 2000 Kurdish words and focuses primarily on playful exercises. There are several exercises to choose from:

  • Read and listen to Kurdish words (with translation and photos)
  • Match the Kurdish word you heard to a photo
  • Speak a Kurdish word and compare the recording with the original
  • A memory game with pictures
  • Speak the Kurdish translation of an English word
The vocabulary is divided into 60 freely selectable topics. The special thing about the uTalk app is that you get access to all 160 languages.

The interface of the app is well made and is similar to other apps like Babbel, Duolingo or Mondly.

Summary: Getting access to 160 languages is impressive and the scope (2000 words with native speaker audio and exercises) is also solid.

Link: uTalk Kurdish Language Course App


Glossika Kurdish App

Kurdish for Advanced Learners

Systems: iPhone App, Online Version

Suitable for: Intermediate and advanced learners

Content: Kurdish advanced exercises

Prices: USD 17 (1 month and 1 language), USD 31 (1 month and all 64 languages)

Overall Value:

The Glossika app is for people who already have some basic proficiency in Kurdish or already know a similar language.

The app has an entry test to determine your Kurdish proficiency level. You can start from A1 to B2 (beginners and intermediate).

Glossika works with whole sentences instead of single Kurdish words. You can choose which topics you want to learn.

This app has intentionally no "gamification". The only exercises are reading, listening, typing the sentences and speaking into the microphone.

There are also no grammar explanations. You are supposed to understand Kurdish grammar from the context, like in Rosetta Stone.

You can try the complete app with all 64 languages for 7 days for free (without providing payment information).

Summary: Effective exercises for advanced learners, but somewhat higher price and not much variety.

Link: Glossika Kurdish Language Course App


Cudoo: Kurdish Course

Online Learning with Certificates

Systems: Online Access (PC, Mac, smartphones)

Content: Kurdish video lessons and quiz tests

Prices: USD 12.99 (one course), USD 24.99 (4-7 courses bundle)

Overall Value:

Cudoo is a kind of online university that offers courses with certificates on different topics.

This includes language courses for 160 languages. These are all beginner courses (CEFR level A1 and A2).

For each language there are 1-10 courses and each course has 20-40 lessons.

The lessons each include a short video with new vocabulary and there are short quiz questions below the video.

Summary: The videos are well made, so especially for smaller languages these courses are a good start.

Link: Cudoo Online Kurdish Language Course


Memrise Kurdish App

App with User-Generated Lessons

Systems: Android App, iPhone App, Online-Version (PC and Mac)

Content: Kurdish lessons and vocabulary trainer with native speaker audio, grammar

Prices: USD 8,99 (1 month), USD 60 (12 months), USD 110 (unlimited)

Overall Value:

With the Memrise App you can learn over 90 languages.

This includes even very small languages - however, in such cases the language courses are often limited to just a few lessons.

One special feature of the Memrise learning app is the large number of lessons created by users (native speakers).

The quality of these lessons varies greatly though. For example, only the basic forms of verbs are usually taught, without the conjugations. Some languages also do not have an audio recording of the words at all.

Another good idea of the Memrise app are the user-generated tips and mnemonics for each word to help you memorize them.

Summary: User-generated lessons are a good idea. In practice, the quality of the lessons leaves a lot be desired.


Bluebird Kurdish App

Kurdish Lessons and Exercises

Systems: Android App, iPhone App, Online-Version (PC and Mac)

Content: Kurdish lessons and exercises with voice output and speech recognition

Prices: USD 9.99 (1 month), USD 100 (12 months), USD 200 (unlimited), USD 400 (163 languages)

Overall Value:

The Bluebird App offers 146 source languages and 163 target languages and dialects, including Kurdish.

The Kurdish language course in this app includes the following:

  • Daily video lessons at three difficulty levels.
  • Basic Kurdish vocabulary on several dozen topics
  • Common Kurdish verbs with conjugations
  • Analysis of your pronunciation (with speech recognition)
  • Tests: listening comprehension, filling in word gaps, quizzes
For Kurdish, there are about 500 video lessons, each 5 to 60 minutes long. For languages with other scripts, the words can also be displayed trans­lite­rated in the Western script.

The Bluebird App does not have grammar lessons. Instead, you are suppo­sed to understand the grammar "implicitly" from the examples, same as in Rosetta Stone.

Summary: The video lessons and the interface require some getting used to, but the exercises are quite varied. Especially for smaller languages, this app is an acceptable alternative.


Instant Immersion: Kurdish

Learning Software for Download

Systems: PC and Mac

Suitable for: Beginners and intermediate learners, travel vocabulary, business

Content: Kurdish vocabulary lessons and exercises

Prices: USD 35 (Level 1), USD 55 (Level 1-3)

Overall Value:

The Instant Immersion Kurdish learning software is available for download only for PCs and Macs.

According to the vendor, this software is supposed to be "as good as Rosetta Stone", but much cheaper because less money is spent on advertising.

Unfortunately, this promise cannot hold.

The software interface is chaotic and all three "language levels" offer a chaotic mix of easy and difficult words.

Essentially, this software only introduces new Kurdish vocabulary with native speaker audio and pictures, and then there are a few exercises.

Kurdish grammar is not included at all.

Summary: Limited scope and bad interface. At least it is relatively cheap and there is a 90-day money-back guarantee.


Linguashop: Kurdish

Educational Software for Download

Systems: PC (Windows 10, 8, 7, Vista and XP)

Content: Kurdish lessons with native speaker audio and speech recognition, grammar

Prices: USD 35 (second language for free)

Overall Value:

The Linguashop educational software ("TeachMe") is available for over 90 languages, including Kurdish. It also includes an audio CD.

The native speaker audio and speech recognition are relatively good.

However, the interface of the learning software is quite chaotic and there are no exercises — only lessons where new vocabulary is presented.

It is also unclear how many words are included in this Kurdish learning program. There is no information about this on the website.

Some grammar lessons are included — however, these are basically just images with short texts.

Summary: Poor quality for a relatively low price. You get language courses for two languages when you buy, one as a free bonus.



Additional Ways To Learn Kurdish Online:

Colanguage: Find Skype teachers

Overall Value:

At Colanguage you can arrange face-to-face language lessons online via Skype with language teachers around the world (from $5-10 per hour).

In addition to using apps, it is definitely a good idea to also practice with native speakers in order to learn Kurdish properly.

Tandem: Find a language exchange partner

Overall Value:

Instead of hiring teachers, you can also find people who are interested in a free language exchange online via Skype.

It is completely free of charge, but you have to act as a language teacher for the other person half of the time.


Overview of the Kurdish Learning Apps:

Learning App Subscrip-
tion?
Price Systems Value
17 Minutes
(Basics)
No
$29
PC, Mac, Android, iOS
17 Minutes
(Complete)
No
$97
PC, Mac, Android, iOS
uTalk
No
$199
PC, Mac, Android, iOS
uTalk
Yes
(1 month)
$12
PC, Mac, Android, iOS
uTalk
Yes
(12 months)
$60
PC, Mac, Android, iOS
Glossika
(only Kurdish)
Yes
(1 month)
$17
PC, Mac, Android, iOS
Glossika
(64 languages)
Yes
(1 month)
$31
PC, Mac, Android, iOS
Memrise
No
$110
PC, Mac, Android, iOS
Memrise
Yes
(1 month)
$9
PC, Mac, Android, iOS
Memrise
Yes
(12 months)
$60
PC, Mac, Android, iOS
Cudoo
(one course)
No
$13
Online
Access
Cudoo
(complete)
No
$25
Online
Access
Bluebird
No
$200
PC, Mac, Android, iOS
Bluebird
Yes
(1 month)
$10
PC, Mac, Android, iOS
Bluebird
Yes
(12 months)
$100
PC, Mac, Android, iOS
Ins. Immersion
(one course)
No
$35
PC, Mac
Ins. Immersion
(complete)
No
$55
PC, Mac
Linguashop
No
$35
PC

Best Kurdish Online Course:
17 Minute Languages

Best App to Learn Kurdish:
uTalk

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