Picking up a new hobby or skill can involve a lot of effort and time, but it doesn't necessarily mean your wallet needs to take a huge hit. Free or cheap resources are easily accessible, be it YouTube videos, websites, or apps that you can download for free.
This summer, I've committed to trying a bunch of apps to help me learn new skills, without spending a fortune. These eight apps can be used from the comfort of your phone and can help you nurture your new fixation in no time.
1 Skillshare for a Bit of Everything
Expert-led resources can be essential for mastering creative skills. With the internet, you can access many accessible resources to help you level up your skills. Watching YouTube videos has often helped me begin learning creative software tools and skills, but it might not be enough to level up or be suitable for everyone.
Skillshare is a resource and app that you can use to discover, watch, and learn new creative skills such as drawing, animation, calligraphy, music, photography, and more. The app offers online courses through guided content and professional-led classes, making learning skills and creative software accessible for beginners.
What I like most about Skillshare is that, with a free trial, you can preview the first class for all courses available (and see details such as instructor, course duration, project details, and level), then decide if you're up for committing to the app and its offerings.
If you want to unlock subscriber-only classes, you can upgrade your free plan to Skillshare Premium ($31.99/month or 169.99/year). This will allow you to download videos offline and participate in discussions with classmates. You can also track your achievements and pick up classes/videos where you left off.
Skillshare has a web app and is available on the App Store and Google Play Store.
2 Babbel for Learning New Languages
Want to move away from Duolingo as your preferred language-learning app after its heart system update? Try Babbel! This is a user-friendly language-learning app that offers 13 languages, including French, Italian, German, and European Spanish up to varying CEFR levels.
The app uses "the Babbel method" to help you learn languages faster. This involves fast-paced lessons, podcasts, and conversation bots. Like with Duolingo, I felt that Babbel helped me pick up new words much quicker with constant recaps, daily vocabulary checks, and situational questions. While you require a premium subscription ($107.99/year) to access the full set of learning materials for every language, you can still access multiple lessons and levels for free, depending on which language you choose. The app also offers language-specific subscription plans for 1, 3, 6, or 12 months.
Babbel is available on the App Store and Google Play Store.
3 Mimo for Coding
Mimo is a fun, gamified education app to help you code, whether you're starting with your first line of code or just want a refresher to strengthen your foundations. You can learn HTML, Python, JavaScript, SQL, and more, completing short projects to improve your coding skills.
The interface, with its heart-based learning system, robot learning companion, and retro color palette, is not my only favorite thing about this app. As a beginner at coding, Mimo makes learning very accessible to me, watering down even basic concepts and definitions, taking away any intimidation I've felt getting into learning. If you prefer to learn on your desktop or laptop, you can sync your progress by logging into Mimo's web app.
You can track your progress by earning XP with every lesson completed and maintaining a learning streak. Another feature that cemented Mimo as one of my most visited education apps is its "Playground," which allows you to code and test projects and environments as you learn.
With a premium subscription ($9.99/month or $89.99/month), you can skip ads, access more paths and projects, and get certificates for completed courses.
Mimo is available on the App Store and Google Play Store.
4 Yousician for a Virtual Music Companion
Want to pick up playing an instrument without signing up for classes? Committing to a music class can be daunting, especially if you're unsure about sticking to it long-term. Yousician can help you figure out if you're willing to take that leap. This music app is a virtual companion to help you get started with guitar, bass, piano, and singing. Yousician offers level-based video lessons, songs you can practice singing or playing, and personalized workouts that help you keep practicing.
The app isn't intimidating, even for beginners and you don't have to worry about falling behind on fast instructions. The app can help you learn basics like tuning and chord progressions if you're just getting started with a stringed instrument. Singers can use karaoke-style lessons to sing along to melodies and learn new techniques, while an instructor-led guide is available in most lessons. Yousician also has a virtual coach who listens to your progress and gives feedback, making the experience feel more two-sided.
As someone who has trained in singing for years, I found Yousician to be a good way to warm up my vocals and go through some foundation lessons to keep my vocals in good condition. Picking up and playing the guitar was also relatively easier than other music apps I've tried before, and even when I'm not scrolling through lessons, I use the app to quickly tune my instrument.
Yousician is available on the App Store and Google Play Store.
5 Planta for Better Gardening
Planta is the perfect app for wannabe green-thumbs looking to pick up gardening as a hobby. As a beginner plant parent, I wanted to do a decent job growing my outdoor garden and be consistent with plant care, which is when Planta came into the picture. This gardening app helps you cover all the basics. Create a virtual garden to keep track of your plants, get reminders for watering (depending on each plant), find ideal locations to keep plants, and take photos to check your garden's progress over time.
Planta is also extremely helpful for sick plants. If you're having trouble figuring out what's wrong with any of your plants, you can use Planta's auto-diagnosis feature to find what's wrong. The app's community groups let you join discussions about plant care, edible gardening, and more. With Planta Premium ($7.99/month or $35.99/year), you can sign up for features like weather alerts, in-depth plant diagnosis, and fertilization schedules.
Planta is available on the App Store and Google Play Store.
6 Kitchen Stories for Spicing Up Cooking
Kitchen Stories is a virtual recipe library that can help you keep track of and discover new recipes that you want to try cooking. Whether you're hosting a dinner party for friends or trying your hand at cooking different cuisines, searching for recipes and finding a reliable blog or video can take some time, and may not always turn out the way you want. Kitchen Stories can help streamline your cooking process, storing all your recipe cards in one place while also creating shopping lists for ingredients you would need for your favorite recipes.
The app has a neat interface with categories that help you discover new recipes every day. The recipe cards cut to the chase, simply listing ingredients, cook time, and preparation steps. You can set food preferences to avoid recipes with ingredients you might be allergic to, and import recipes from other websites or apps like Instagram. With a premium subscription, you can browse for recipes by ingredient and save multiple third-party recipes in one place.
After trying the app's recipes for about a month of meal prep, I was successfully able to switch up my meal plan and try new recipes from Kitchen Stories chefs that were easy to follow (and tasted delicious). My meals also turned out consistently tasty without any disasters, unlike what happens when I sometimes try out new viral recipes.
Kitchen Stories is available on the App Store and Google Play Store.
7 Sky Guide for Stargazing
If you're a novice to stargazing, Sky Guide can be a good app to help you get started. This AR constellation app helps you identify and learn about stars, constellations, and planets, helping you quickly level up your knowledge. The AR mode on this app is extremely user-friendly and lots of fun to use, and is suited for whichever level of stargazing you're on. It comes with a compass that makes navigation easier (especially if you're, say,
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