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Stop Scrolling & Start Exploring: Your Next Adventure Is At Your Fingertips

Lately, I've noticed how much I'm picking up my phone with zero purpose. Out of curiosity, I looked into my average screen time for the week and my jaw dropped. It was embarrassing.

Thankfully it wasn't just me, a few of my friends were saying that they find themselves on their phones a lot more these days too. That still didn't make my 5 hrs 25 mins spent with my head hunched over my phone okay in any way!

The mindless scrolling on useless apps needed to be cut down. No phone until after breakfast and at least two hours before bedtime.

Another more fun idea (which I'm stealing off my friend Sam) is signing up for Rosetta Stone, a language learning app. I can't help picking up my phone throughout the day (out of sheer boredom) so this way I can make my screen time beneficial and learn a few new Italian phrases.

Sam is loving Rosetta Stone, I on the other hand had zero expectations. It could be a fun new hobby to learn Italian without having to take actual classes or deal with the pressure of vocab quizzes. Plus I won't feel guilty being on my phone when I'm on Rosetta Stone.

Signing up was easy and the classes are only 15-30 minutes per day and you can download them to do anytime, wherever you are. After a few days I really got into it. The lessons are actually fun and they build upon each other, making them interesting and keeps you coming back. I really wasn't expecting advanced features likeTruAccent® and Phrasebook but they're extremely helpful for grasping a new language.

A month after downloading Rosetta Stone, not only have I managed to spend less time scrolling on my phone but I can now hold a basic conversation in Italian. I can't believe how many phrases, sentences, and Italian words I now know. Rosetta Stone made it so easy to learn a new language while showing me how to use my screen time in a constructive and beneficial way.

If this is how much I can learn in only 4 weeks, I'm excited to see where my Italian skills will be in another month.

Here are a few more reasons why I'll be keeping the Rosetta Stone app;

It's convenient, you can use it any time, anywhere, whenever it suits you.

Lessons are only 15-30 mins, which makes it easier for your brain to absorb the material.

The TruAccent® feature helps you perfect your pronunciation- it shows you exactly how accurate you are and how to improve.

The Phrasebook is super helpful by telling you out loud how to say short, useful expressions.

The Seek & Speak feature makes it fun with scavenger hunt-like activities.

When you sign up for Rosetta Stone's annual plan, you get access to all 24 of their languages.

It's Affordable, an annual subscription is only £7.99 a month.

The folks at Rosetta Stone want to show their thanks! Here's a special offer for our readers only: Get Unlimited Languages For The Price Of One!

Claim Your Exclusive Offer From Rosetta Stone!

It's Always A Good Time To Take Up That Hobby You Always Wanted To! Here's My Hooby-Hacks

When quarantine started, nobody knew what to do or how long it was going to last. Between Zoom fatigue and the absence of in-person social interaction, it can be easy to get into a routine of junk food, oversleeping, and mind-numbing hours of television.

If this all sounds a bit too familiar, then it could be a good time to take a look at those daily routines and make some changes for the better. Maybe now is a good time to start a new hobby? Here are three "hobby-hacks" to inspire you:

Learn A New Language

So you like the idea of a new hobby, but you're struggling to decide what to do? Learn to code, pick up a musical instrument, get more adventurous with your cooking? The choices are overwhelming.

Our top hobby-hack is to choose learning a foreign language. Why? Because foreign language skills do so much more than just teach you words. Learning a new language is great for improving your cognitive skills, it helps you to stay calm and disciplined, it inspires you about a place and culture and - perhaps most important of all in these home-bound times - it gets you communicating with people!

Best of all, you don't have to leave the comfort and safety of your home to get inspired with a new language or to interact with others.Rosetta Stonehas put a new spin on language learning with its innovative, bite-sized lessons and online coaching sessions. Instead of trekking to class to learn a bunch of words and phrases you'll never use, Rosetta Stone focuses on teaching you conversational snippets relevant to the kind of interactions you want to have, and provides you with a safe space (online) to practise with native speakers and other learners.

Designed to fit into your busy life, lessons can be done when you're having coffee or going for a walk - all it takes is 15 minutes a day. You can even download them in advance, if you are going somewhere without the internet.

The key to Rosetta Stone's success is its huge range of features that allow you to totally immerse yourself in the languages. Take TruAccent®, for example. It shows you exactly how accurate your pronunciation is with a little icon that goes green, yellow, or red when you speak.

The Phrasebook and Seek & Speak® features will also come in handy if you ever find yourself in a conversion with a native speaker. Phrasebook tells you out loud how to say short, useful expressions and Seek & Speak lets you partake in a fun scavenger hunt-like activity for everyday items, like fruit and veg.

Rosetta Stone has lots of languages to choose from- French, Spanish, German, Italian, Arabic, Mandarin, Dutch, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Filipino, Irish, Japanese Korean, Persian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Sweedish, Turkish and Vietnamese

Rosetta Stonecosts just $7.99 a month for a 24-month subscription, which gives you access to all of their 24 languages! They also offer the best lifetime value of any online language learning program. For just $199, you get all 24 languages for the rest of your life. Whichever you choose, it's the best value out there!

As the Spanish say, if you're going to do something properly "Tirar la casa por la ventana" (pull out all the stops). And then you'll have the right to "Creerse la última coca-cola en el desierto," (you can translate that one).

At-Home Fitness

It can be hard to stay in shape when gyms are closed. Luckily, YouTube is packed with lots of informative videos that show you how to build your own home gym with limited resources.

You might figure this would be an expensive escapade but, you can achieve a challenging workout at home with little to no equipment.

Finally, Learn to Cook

If you're tired of heating up frozen pizzas, why not take some time to learn how to cook properly. It's a sure way to improve your quality of life. Meal kits are a great way for those with little experience to whip up delicious meals that require minimal effort.

You'll be astounded by how convenient they are and how simple cooking can be. They deliver all of the pre-portioned ingredients and detailed recipe cards that make the whole process foolproof.

With just a few minor changes to your daily routine, you'll be amazed by how much more productive you'll feel.

Plus, Rosetta Stone is extending a limited time discount to our readers! Get Up To 45% Off Rosetta Stone Today!

Claim Your Exclusive Offer From Rosetta Stone!

How I Went From Skeptic To Subscriber With This Language App

Photo by Philip Myrtorp on Unsplash

There are more than 6 billion people in the world speaking roughly 6,909 different languages. The ability to express ourselves using language is inherently what makes us human. We communicate to each other over the phone, text, email & yes, sometimes even in person. In today's globalized society it's almost imperative that we learn to speak several languages. For many, like me, it's been a challenge to travel and communicate with people for work or pleasure. I've missed out on business opportunities due to language barriers. Other times I've gotten lost and taken the wrong train due to misunderstanding someone. Learning a new language however, can be extremely difficult, full of boring textbook memorization and not to mention, can be extremely time consuming.

So, when I was talking to some of my buddies about presenting a case study in Spanish for an upcoming business trip, I was surprised to learn about Babbel. One of my friends promised that Babbel would help me learn and speak conversational Spanish in just a few weeks, but I was pretty skeptical. He explained how their revolutionary technology makes language learning simple and fun. With nowhere else to turn and not a lot of time, I decided to check them out.

Babbel is a language learning site that offers simple instruction across multiple languages - from beginner to advanced. This platform was developed by a team of over a 100 language experts from more than 40 nations around the world. A research study by City University of New York (CUNY) found that with Babbel, students could learn a semester's worth of Spanish in just three weeks. My trip was a few weeks away so I was hoping I'd be able to pick up some Spanish by then. I definitely had my work cut out for me, but I was up for the challenge.

Every morning, I selected a training with or without voice recognition depending on where I was. Each lesson asks you to study words and phrases with a voice-over teaching you how to pronounce every word so you can practice for real-life conversation. This was key, and I really felt like I was having a normal conversation with a person - not repeating the same phrase over and over again - like in 6th-grade Spanish class. I learned what to listen for and how to properly pronounce words, which was very practical and gave me confidence in speaking. In just a few weeks, I was having conversations and continued to use the app whenever I had a spare moment.

For many people, trying to learn a new language can be a daunting task, but it doesn't have to be. To my surprise, Babbel helped me learn conversational Spanish in just a few weeks, something I wasn't able to do through 4 years of Spanish in high school and college. I even closed a business deal on my trip, which I don't think I could have done without Babbel- that alone was well worth the $7 a month. Babbelhas helped me connect with new people that I wouldn't have been able to speak to otherwise. I even made a few new Spanish-speaking friends along the way!

Update: The folks at Babbel are extending a special offer to our readers. Follow this link to get 1 month free! Use promocode Navigate2018