Learn More—No School Required

My friend Nathan once told me, "When you look back 6 months from today and don’t feel embarrassed by your naiveté, there’s a problem.”  Like many people, I’m always eager to learn and explore curiosity.  These apps do just that, compiled by the Product Hunt team.

For the first 20 or so years in one’s life, learning is a priority. After that? Learning just for the sake of it often takes a back seat in relation to other priorities, like work and relationships. If you’re looking to get back into the learning habit to develop new knowledge, skills, and hobbies, you’ll enjoy this list of programs built to infuse learning back into your life daily. There’s something for everyone—whether you want to become a better cook, play a new instrument, learn a language, or develop a professional skill. Who needs school? 

Simply Piano

Duolingo for learning music 

This incredible app will help you learn how to play the piano seamlessly and quickly. All you have to do is place your iPhone or iPad on your piano or keyboard and start playing. Simply Piano will automatically recognize the notes, and give you real-time feedback so you can learn quickly and improve your skills. The app includes a variety of courses for different playing levels and musical tastes. You can also learn the basics one step at a time, from reading sheet music to playing with both hands. The app creators, JoyTunes, also built the award-winning apps Piano Maestro and Piano Dust Buster, all of which are used to play over a million songs each week. This one is definitely worth checking out if you want to become a piano master.

Duolingo

Learn languages completely free.

Learn over 20 languages with bite-sized lessons by earning points for correct answers, racing against the clock, and leveling up. Each lesson includes a bunch of speaking, listening, translation, and multiple choice challenges. You’re motivated to stay on track by recording how many days in a row you worked on language learning, as well as in-lesson grading, which helps you improve in real time. The method Duolingo is similar to Rosetta Stone, especially at the basic levels—so if you want to start learning a new language without a ton of cost to begin, this is the perfect program for you.

Traffic 1M

Free lessons from the pros who’ve built massive websites.

In the words of Traffic 1M creator Noah Kagan, “If you build it they will come. Just kidding.” It is hard to drive an audience to your site?—?especially in the very beginning. If you’ve ever asked yourself the question, “How do I drive a ton of traffic to my site quickly and cheaply?,” then this is for you. Noah, who has worked on Facebook, Mint, AppSumo, and SumoMe, along with 15 other traffic generation experts, share some of their best traffic generation tactics. You’ll learn how to incentivize social sharing, own your SEO, test your content, create smart social ads. This is, without a doubt, some of the best advice in the online traffic game.

Primer

No-nonsense, jargon-free marketing lessons, created by Google.

Primer is a simple way to build your marketing skill set with quick, 5-minute lessons whenever you can fit them in. New lessons are added continuously, so whether you need to brush up on basics or want to learn more about advanced subjects—from advertising and storytelling to SEO and retargeting—this app is sure to help you improve your marketing chops. Plus, now you have something productive to keep you busy the next time you’re in an Uber or waiting on a long line.

Enki

The 5-minute daily workout for your dev skills.

If you’re a professional developer, Enki will help you keep your programming skills sharp with short, daily workouts you can do on your phone. Each lesson provides you with the best tips, tricks, challenges, and features to help you improve your knowledge and teach useful hacks. Choose from one of three personalized lessons each day, unlock new challenges, and track your progress over time. This is a fantastic way to learn efficiently in a career where the learning truly (for better or worse) never stops. :-)

HackDesign

Newsletter that teaches you design via 50 curated courses.

If you want to acquire or improve design skills, HackDesign is a really thoughtful way to learn. Each week, you’ll get a new lesson, hand crafted by a design pro, delivered to your inbox. The course is 50 weeks in total, and covers everything from typography and graphic design, to icons and user experience. You’ll learn by doing with design puzzles and challenging games, as well as curated resources selected by the world’s top designers. You’ll be designing better than you thought you could faster than you can say “Photoshop.”

Salted

Learn skills and recipes from expert chefs.

Cooking is one of those skills that always comes in handy. That said, if you don’t have an inherent passion or skill for doing it, the process of becoming a decent chef can be quite intimidating. Where do you start? What’s the best way to make simple meals? How do you even begin to attempt making some of the stuff that requires more effort and ingredients? We’d like to introduce you to your new best (cooking) friend, Salted. It’s like Netflix, but for learning how to cook. Build your own video cookbook, get step-by-step tutorials for different techniques and recipes, and learn from some of the best chefs around the country. This is one of those skills that will keep on giving—and impress just about everyone, from your parents to your significant other to your friends who thought you barely knew how to use a microwave. Bon apetit!

Curious

Grow your skills with 15,000 lessons in tech, business, and more.

Curious starts with a questionnaire that measures your interest in eight different areas: work, play, mind/body, relationships, humanities, STEM, aesthetic, and music. All of these areas and their subsets combine to give you access to over 15,000 bite-sized lessons. You can learn about American history one day, and advertising the next. This is a fun way to learn in a digestible way that makes you want to keep going. Take mini lessons in the most random of things, like balloon art, classical vocal conditioning, subliminal persuasion, and buying a house—just to name a few. By the time you’re done with Curious (which will probably be never?), you will likely be the world’s best trivia night teammate.

Even if you’re done with formal education, there’s always room to learn more about your career, relationships, the world, and the most random facts ever (you know, just for fun). These tools will keep you sharp no matter what your age or interests. If you’re looking for more great learning tools, you can find them in this collection on Product Hunt.