Instead of Duolingo: Enthusiast Builds a Massive Open Library with Hundreds of English-Learning Resources

A project called Learning English is gaining traction online — a large free catalog that brings together hundreds of useful materials for self-study of English. A Chinese developer has collected links in one place to services for practicing listening, speaking, reading and grammar, covering tools for any level of proficiency.

Unlike popular apps such as Duolingo, which guide users through a rigidly set lesson system, this project works as a navigator. People choose their own comfortable immersion format from a huge list of websites, podcasts, YouTube channels, books and services. The collection already includes both recognized educational platforms like BBC Learning English and VOA, and dozens of niche speaking projects.

Learning Through Video Games and ASMR

The library is not limited to classic textbooks and tests. The author of the post tried to gather tools that allow learning a language through everyday hobbies. The listening section, for example, includes not only official news but also entertainment talk shows, global internet radio stations and even ASMR videos for background immersion in the language environment.

For those who absorb information better visually, there are aggregators of simple news, comics and archives of free e-books. Special attention is paid to video games: the catalog lists both text visual novels and multiplayer projects where progress through the story depends directly on understanding dialogue and communicating with foreign players.

Exam Prep and Working with AI

Besides entertainment formats, the database includes a strict academic section. It compiles materials for preparing for international exams IELTS and TOEFL, as well as links to specialized online courses from Coursera, Udemy and edX. Separate guides are collected for developers and professionals who need the language primarily for career growth.

To provide technical support for learning, the library has added pronunciation trainers, programs for spaced repetition of words (such as Anki) and ready-made scenarios for working with ChatGPT and DeepSeek, which allow turning popular neural networks into free virtual tutors.

The Learning English web catalog itself is fully open and develops through a public repository on GitHub. The library’s development is not locked to a single author: anyone can send the developer new resources or update outdated links. A figure of “400 collected sites” is circulating online, but it should not be taken as a hard limit. It is only an approximate estimate of the current scale — the collection is regularly expanded by the community, turning it into one of the most complete free hubs for language learning.