Winter Break Is the Perfect Time to Start Learning a Regional Language With These Apps

With students out for winter break until early—if not mid-January—now is an ideal moment to return to language learning. This guide reviews iOS apps from Central Asia and the Turkic world, evaluating what they do best, who they’re for and how they fit into everyday learning routines.

With students out for winter break until early—if not mid-January—there’s no better time to brush up on language skills. Whether parents are looking for meaningful activities for young children or adults want a productive way to fill quieter days, language learning offers an accessible and rewarding use of downtime.

The following recommendations highlight language-learning apps from Central Asia and the Turkic world, all available on the Apple App Store, evaluated for price, app size, ease of use and what they realistically help learners accomplish.

Uyghur

Uyghurly

Developer: Parhat Ablimit

• Price: Free

• App Size: 18.6 MB

• Ease of Use: High

• What It Accomplishes: Builds foundational Uyghur vocabulary and topic familiarity

• Best For: Beginners and heritage learners

Why it stands out:

Uyghurly is a lightweight, purpose-built app offering 50+ interactive lessons and over 2,000 vocabulary items organized around everyday themes such as daily life, food, health, travel and environment. Quick-access quizzes, vocabulary review, a dictionary and progress tracking make it easy to practice in short sessions.

The tip:

Use Uyghurly for daily repetition and habit-building, especially alongside reading or listening practice.

Bulaq Qoshaq

Developer: OLVTEC

• Price: Free

• App Size: 62.5 MB

• Rating: 5 stars (2 ratings)

• Ease of Use: Moderate

• What It Accomplishes: Preserves and introduces traditional Uyghur children’s poetry

• Best For: Families, educators, and guided heritage learning

Why it stands out:
Bulaq Qoshaq functions more as a digital archive than a language course. It catalogs dozens—possibly over a hundred—traditional Uyghur nursery rhymes presented in both Uyghur Arabic and Uyghur Latin scripts. Some poems include audio and fuller entries link to PDFs of original books. The interface can be switched between English, Uyghur Arabic and Uyghur Latin, with English explanations available.

The tip:
Best used with adult or teacher guidance. This is a cultural literacy resource rather than a standalone learning app.

Uzbek

Learn Uzbek Beginner!

Developer: Ali Umer

• Price: Freemium; Premium $34.99/year (3-day free trial)

• App Size: 39.5 MB

• Rating: 4.4 stars

• Ease of Use: Moderate — ads interrupt early use

• What It Accomplishes: Introduces everyday Uzbek through topic-based lessons

• Best For: Beginners seeking broad exposure

Why it stands out:
Learn Uzbek Easily offers one of the most expansive Uzbek curricula on iOS, with 23 lessons covering everyday basics, social expressions, travel, home life, food, education, health, money and traditions. True/false quizzes in both English and Uzbek reinforce comprehension and detailed quiz results track progress.

The free version is heavily ad-supported, while Premium removes ads, enables offline use and unlocks phrasebooks and full lesson access.

The tip:
Best used as a survey tool—pair it with a dictionary or speaking practice for deeper learning

Kyrgyz

Fast - Learn Kyrgyz Language

Developer: Afriwan Ahda

Part of the 50 Languages series

• Price: Free (ad-supported)

• App Size: 6 MB

• Ease of Use: Moderate

• What It Accomplishes: Improves listening comprehension and phrase recognition

• Best For: Audio-first learners and travelers

Why it stands out:
Fast Learn Kyrgyz is ultra-light and almost entirely audio-based, pairing Kyrgyz speech with British English prompts. Lessons cover a wide range of real-life situations—travel, dining, health, work—alongside basic grammar concepts embedded in context. Audio continues playing even when navigating menus or minimizing the app.

Pop-up ads appear frequently, though banner ads are subtle.

The tip:
Treat this as a background listening tool, not a structured course.

Kazakh

Kazakh Language: Learn Kazakh with Zhannur

Developer: Zhomart Zhexenbay

• Price: Free (registration required)

• App Size: 71.3 MB

• Rating: 5 stars (2 ratings)

• Ease of Use: Moderate — slow loading and navigation issues

• What It Accomplishes: Delivers classroom-style Kazakh instruction

• Best For: Adult learners seeking serious study

Why it stands out:
This app resembles an online course more than a casual mobile app. Content spans master courses, flashcards, dialogues, podcasts, videos, phrasebooks, and graded reading (five levels from beginner to upper-intermediate). Reading passages with audio are particularly effective.

The tradeoff is friction: login and enrollment are required, lessons are long and navigation can be clunky.

The tip:
Use this as a dedicated study-session app, not something to dip into casually.

KazLang – Learn Kazakh Easily

Developer: Dastan Makhutov

• Price: Freemium; Premium $33.99/year (often marketed with a 73% discount) or $7.99/month

• App Size: 32.7 MB

• Rating: 4.3 stars (7 ratings)

• Ease of Use: Moderate — pricing flow is confusing

• What It Accomplishes: Introduces Kazakh basics with cultural context

• Best For: Curious beginners

Why it stands out:
KazLang combines beginner lessons with tools like a Kazakh–Russian dictionary, translator, keyboard and cultural notes on ornaments and traditions. Onboarding is detailed and personalized, but most meaningful features sit behind the premium tier, and pricing presentation requires careful attention.

The tip:
Good for initial exploration, but read subscription terms closely before upgrading.

Learn Kazakh

Developer: Ghumman Tech

• Price: Free with ads; $9.99 one-time purchase to remove ads

• App Size: 37.3 MB

• Ease of Use: High

• What It Accomplishes: Reinforces everyday Kazakh phrases through repetition

• Best For: Learners who value consistency over engagement

Why it stands out:
This is a no-frills, phrasebook-style app organized around real-life situations. Audio uses text-to-speech and progress tracking, quizzes and custom flashcards support steady practice. It’s not exciting—but it is dependable.

The tip:
A grind-friendly app: with commitment, progress is real, even if motivation must come from the learner.

Soz Kazakh Language

Developer: Ruslan Burnashev

• Price: Free trial (3 days); $5/month or $22/year

• App Size: 100.5 MB

• Rating: 5.0 stars (10 ratings)

• Ease of Use: Moderate — intuitive but cognitively demanding

• What It Accomplishes: Builds reading comprehension, verb usage, and vocabulary through dialogue-driven learning

• Best For: Motivated learners ready to move beyond phrases

Why it stands out:
Soz Kazakh Language opens with an AI-like onboarding that feels more like a conversation than a lesson. Users are spoken to in Kazakh from the start—asked their name aloud and guided through prompts that establish a narrative journey. Learning centers on verbs and tense (present, past, transitional forms), with additional categories such as cases and nouns unlocking only after foundational lessons are completed.

The app’s reading-focused design allows users to tap unfamiliar words, add them to a personal dictionary, highlight known versus unknown vocabulary and review words later in a memorization simulator. Dialogues serve to set context rather than act as drills, reinforcing immersion over memorization.

The tip:
This app rewards commitment and curiosity. It’s ideal once you’re ready to experience Kazakh as a structured, living language.

Closing Note

Not every language app needs to entertain to be effective. Some motivate through design; others reward discipline. Winter break offers the rare gift of time—and these regionally rooted apps make it possible to turn that time into language familiarity, cultural connection and steady progress, one session at a time.