Based on brain science and memory research, Memrise (free, Android & iOS, www.memrise.com) uses a series of images – often funny and thoroughly memorable – with regular testing and reminders to help learners more easily recall vocabulary and phrases. There’s also audio from native speakers. Memrise is a community learning platform, so some courses will be better than others, but there are a staggering 30,000 to choose from (and for English, Mandarin and Cantonese speakers). Covering languages and much more besides, many of them bite-size and just a couple of hours long, Memrise courses are perfect for swotting at the airport on your way to a new country.

Busuu (free, Android & iOS, www.busuu.com) takes a social networking approach to language learning and is all about practising speaking a new language with help from native speakers. It claims to have 50 million users around the globe. Busuu has a clean user interface with plenty of listening, reading, speaking and writing tasks, with actual feedback on the latter available from native speakers. There are 12 languages in total, including Mandarin for English speakers and vice versa, Russian, Arabic and Japanese, and the main European languages. There’s also a Travel course of bite-size listening and vocabulary exercises, which is handy for learning on the plane, but it’s the community feel that makes Busuu different.