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Reviews of Arabic Online Language Learning Resources

  • 17 Minute Languages Review: I Wouldn’t Recommend Using It

    17 Minute Languages

    Rating 1.5

    Summary

    17 Minute Languages is a language-learning program that uses spaced repetition and native-speaker audio to teach a wide variety of languages. In our opinion, the courses aren’t very engaging; the courses we tried included significant errors and didn’t offer any language-specific explanations. There are leaderboards for comparing your progress with other users and a language forum that’s available after four days of use.


    Quality 1.5

    Native speaker audio is the only thing that impressed me in the courses I tried; mistakes and glitches were many.

    Thoroughness 1.5

    Explanations are lacking, which I found made some material misleading.

    Value 1.5

    I think there are far better ways to spend your time and money studying a language.

    I Like
    • It uses native-speaker audio.
    I Don’t Like
    • I came across several bad translations.
    • I didn’t find any helpful explanations.
    • Site navigation wasn’t easy or enjoyable for me.
    • I didn’t find the exercises engaging.
    Price

    The Beginner’s Course is $59.95 and the Complete Package is $97. For the whole package and all languages it is $197. There is a free 48-hour trial.

    Superlearning technology? Fluency in 50 hours? Courses in 80 different languages? This is either the greatest language-learning resource of all time or it’s a painfully overpriced language site making absurd claims. Let’s find out.

  • ArabicPod101 Review – Better Than More Expensive Courses

    ArabicPod101

    Rating 4.2

    Summary

    ArabicPod101 has loads of audio and video lessons that cater to students learning their first few words in Arabic right up to advanced learners. Covering a wide range of subjects, the lessons explore anything from Arab culture and particular grammar points to specific scenarios and essential vocabulary. The lessons progress in difficulty and are perfect for beginner and intermediate learners although not much focus is placed on learning how to speak and write. While the lessons are generally very good, learners need to pay attention as some of them are in Modern Standard Arabic while others are in the Egyptian and Moroccan dialects.


    Quality 4.5

    The presenters very clearly explain the grammar, vocabulary and cultural context while still making the lessons entertaining.

    Thoroughness 4.0

    The content covers a wide range of topics at varying degrees of difficulty.

    Value 4.0

    The Basic plan is great value but the other plans might not offer enough to justify the higher prices.

    I Like
    • The lessons clearly progress in terms of difficulty and less English is used as you move up levels.
    • Good chemistry between the hosts makes the lessons more enjoyable.
    • There are a lot of lessons and they’re well thought out.
    • The Basic plan is very affordable.
    I Don’t Like
    • While the lessons mostly focus on Modern Standard Arabic, it is strange and confusing to find the Egyptian and Moroccan dialects sometimes thrown in.
    • There is not much focus placed on speaking and writing.
    • I found it quite confusing to navigate the dashboard.
    Price

    Basic Plan – $4/mo Premium Plan – $10/mo Premium Plus Plan – $23/mo

    “ALLLANGUAGERESOURCES” to save 25% on a subscription to ArabicPod101.

    Having previously tried and been disappointed with Rocket Arabic and Talk in Arabic, I was hopeful ArabicPod101 would be better but began to think that maybe the resources for studying Arabic just aren’t that good.

  • Assimil Review — A Fresh Look at a Longstanding Resource

    Assimil

    Rating 4.0

    Summary

    Assimil is a French company that has been selling language-learning resources since 1929. Assimil materials are available as books, CDs, and downloadable e-courses; there are a variety of available course types, and instruction is based on interacting with phrases in the target language. The popular Sans Peine or, With Ease, courses are for absolute or false beginners that would like to reach the B2 level, but we think you’ll need to incorporate some other study materials to make this happen.


    Quality 4.0

    The language materials are reliable, the audio is high quality, and the program is fairly easy to use after a bit of practice.

    Thoroughness 4.0

    Assimil is chock-full of explanations and thorough translations for all material, but you might need more to reach the advertised B2 level.

    Value 4.0

    There are cheaper resources out there, but Assimil provides super solid instruction for the price.

    I Like
    • The audio quality is great.
    • The culture notes add a lot of value.
    • There are plenty of grammar explanations, but they aren’t a focus.
    I Don’t Like
    • The mobile app isn’t super intuitive.
    • The pronunciation feedback method could be better.
    • The exercises aren’t especially engaging.
    Price

    Prices vary by course. The Spanish e-course is €49.90, the Spanish With Ease book (no audio) is €26.90, and the Spanish With Ease Superpack is €74.90

  • Busuu Review: Some Courses Are Better Than Others

    Busuu

    Rating 3.4

    Summary

    Busuu is a digital language-learning app with over 90 million registered users. The resource offers vocabulary and grammar practice through short, self-paced study exercises. It also has a social aspect that allows users to get writing and pronunciation feedback from native speakers. It is available on the web, iOS, and Android.


    Quality 3.3

    The layout is great, and the quality for non-Asian languages is decent, but there were significant errors in the Chinese course.

    Thoroughness 3.0

    It has some good explanations but doesn’t often offer much in the way of in-depth explanations.

    Value 3.8

    Busuu is relatively inexpensive, but there are more thorough and efficient resources out there.

    I Like
    • The layout is easy to use and engaging
    • The conversation lessons are especially useful
    • The social feature is great
    I Don’t Like
    • Translations aren’t provided for some exercises.
    • The Chinese course is low-quality.
    • The grammar explanations and practice could be better.
    Price

    Premium Subscriptions

    One month: $13.95
    Six months: $50.70 ($8.45/month)
    One Year: $40.70 ($3.48/month)

    What Is Busuu?

    Boasting a user base of over 90 million, Busuu is a heavyweight in the digital language-learning landscape. It was launched in 2008 and has remained a popular and relatively low-cost option for language learners.

  • Clozemaster Review: Limited Focus But Fun Way To Grow Vocab

    Clozemaster

    Rating 4.2

    Summary

    Ideal for people who are already at an upper beginner/intermediate level, Clozemaster will help you build your vocabulary and learn new words and sentences in context. While you won’t learn much grammar or improve your speaking and writing much, it is great at what it does and the videogame aspect makes it fun and addictive to work though. Although the exercises are all pretty much identical, there are various ways in which you can increase the difficulty and Clozemaster’s free account is almost as good as the Pro User one.


    Quality 4.0

    Very easy to use with thousands upon thousands of sentences for you to work through, Clozemaster’s main exercises are well-designed though some features are a bit hit and miss.

    Thoroughness 4.0

    Although you aren’t given any explanations, Clozemaster’s huge database of sentences allows you to learn words in context.

    Value 4.5

    The free version offers a ton of value, but for those who use Clozemaster regularly, it may be worth upgrading to a Pro account.

    I Like
    • There is an insane number of words and sentences for you to learn, and you’re exposed to them within the context of a sentence.
    • Just using the free account you are sure to learn a lot with only some extra (and undoubtedly useful) features being included in the Pro plan. This makes learning accessible to everyone.
    • Lots of languages available to learn, and you can do so from a wide range of languages, making it very useful for non-native English speakers or those who want to study two languages at once.
    I Don’t Like
    • A couple of features such as the Cloze-reading and the speaking exercises seemed like they could have benefited from a bit more thought and effort put into them.
    • There is no real progression and you are basically given an endless array of different words and sentences to work through and the various exercises are all pretty much identical.
    • Sentences are sourced from
    Price

    The free version is very useful, but you can upgrade to a pro account for $8/month or $60/year.

    Having never heard of Clozemaster before and having no idea what it was all about, I was immediately taken by its videogame-looking aesthetics and fun fill-in-the-missing-words exercises.

  • Cudoo Review — I Wouldn’t Even Use it if it Were Free

    Cudoo

    Rating 0.6

    Summary

    Cudoo is an online learning platform that offers courses in over 160 languages. The platform also offers courses teaching soft skills and other professional development courses. Certificates are available upon course completion, and courses are provided to libraries and non-profits for free. We feel that the quality of the language courses is quite low, and that the prices are relatively high.


    Quality 1.0

    It’s nice to have native speaker audio, but I personally found the course to offer very little learning potential.

    Thoroughness 1.0

    The course didn’t cover everything listed under “Course Content” and offers no explanations.

    Value 0.0

    This course is way overpriced in my opinion. I wouldn’t even use it if it were free.

    I Like
    • Audio by a variety of native speakers.
    I Don’t Like
    • I wanted more explanations
    • Practice opportunities felt severely limited
    • I found the material unengaging
    • Content doesn’t build on itself logically.
    Price

    Price varies by course, from $4.99 to $24.99, with language bundles costing up to $199.

    This seems like a reasonable list of goals, depending on the meaning of “…and more!” even if it is a little bit light for the $25 price tag.

  • Drops App Review – Decent As A Supplementary Resource

    Drops App

    Rating 3.9

    Summary

    Drops is a phone app for iPhone and Android that covers 33 languages. Daily games test the user on thousands of vocabulary words, and many of these words are ideal for everyday use. Drops has an entertaining, user-friendly interface, but it also lacks grammar lessons, and it works better for some languages than others. For anyone looking to supplement their vocab lessons, this app is worth considering; however, the free version might be more worthwhile than the paid version.


    Quality 4.0

    Though cute and easy to use, some visuals are hard to distinguish.

    Thoroughness 3.0

    Drops will teach you thousands of words and phrases, from transport and hobbies to astronomy and spices. Some languages, such as Japanese, have extra modules for culturally specific vocabulary.

    Value 3.0

    The free app is a great supplementary tool to help round out your vocabulary, but the paid app doesn’t offer many useful extras.

    I Like
    • The daily reminders keep me accountable.
    • If you already know a word, you have the option of swiping up and removing it from your lessons.
    • Though the app works better for some languages, the sheer amount of languages is a plus.
    I Don’t Like
    • It can be difficult to tell certain images apart, which means you’ll likely identify them incorrectly during your review.
    • Some of the categories seem to include random, unrelated words.
    • In languages where a noun’s grammatical gender or case isn’t obvious from the article, you won’t learn that information.
    • Drops only teaches you vocabulary, not grammar.
    Price

    A monthly subscription costs $9.99, a yearly subscription is $69.99, and a lifetime subscription is $159.99. You can use the app up to five minutes every ten hours for free.

    I’d previously heard about Drops on Reddit, where it achieved rave reviews and some pointed criticism.

  • Duolingo Review: Useful But Not Sufficient – 2 Language Learners Test It (With Video)

    Duolingo

    Rating 4.0

    Summary

    Duolingo is a super popular free language-learning app. It’s available for desktop as well as mobile and offers over 90 different language courses in over 20 different languages — there are currently 35 languages with English instruction. The Duolingo approach is gamified and easy to use, but the bite-sized lessons don’t offer much in the way of in-depth practice. The Duolingo tag line is “Learn a language in just five minutes a day.”


    Quality 4.0

    It’s easy and fun to use, but some pronunciation and grammar instruction is of low quality, especially for Asian languages.

    Thoroughness 3.5

    The app works well for learning the basics, but there’s little speaking practice and grammar instruction is limited.

    Value 4.5

    It’s a lot of content for free, but you’ll need to use supplementary resources.

    I Like
    • The short lessons are ideal for quick, convenient practice
    • The game-like features make the exercises engaging and fun
    • The community aspect is motivating
    I Don’t Like
    • There’s no opportunity to create your own sentences
    • Grammar instruction isn’t part of the lessons
    • Text-to-speech audio is sometimes low quality
    Price

    Duolingo is totally free. Duolingo Plus offers a few additional features and is available for:


    $12.99/month (paid monthly) $6.99/month (12-month subscription)


    Their family plan is $119.99 a year

    What is Duolingo?

    Duolingo is one of the most popular language-learning programs out there. It’s been on the scene since 2012 and offers instruction in 35 different languages. It even offers courses in three constructed languages (perfect for brushing up on your Esperanto or High Valyrian).

  • Earworms Review – A Unique Idea But Lacks Substance

    Earworms

    Rating 2.5

    Summary

    Earworms is a unique language resource that relies on audio lessons mixed into music. The theory is that you will find the music catchy and thus remember your lessons easily.  The whole idea behind Earworms is the psychological theory of memory association. You would associate some information with the music and thus remember it easily. However, the music used in these lessons will not appeal to everyone, at least it didn’t for me. Moreover, the lack of visual aid and no exercises to assess your skills make it harder.  I would only recommend this for people who have failed to learn through other online resources or perhaps someone looking to learn a few phrases before a trip.


    Quality 2.0

    With a lack of exercises and visual aids, I can’t really say that it will prove to be a useful resource.

    Thoroughness 2.0

    All the lessons are comprised of various phrases that they think will be useful for anyone willing to learn French. Unfortunately, they’re too shallow and poorly structured.

    Value 3.5

    With such low utility, it is important to have a low-price tag. Fortunately, they have followed this idea and thus you won’t be losing out too much if you opt for this.

    I Like
    • The repetition of the phrases
    • Some of the tracks aren’t half bad
    I Don’t Like
    • Tracks aren’t as catchy as I expected
    • Lack of visual aids
    • Complete absence of a testing system
    Price

    Each volume can be purchased as an mp3 download for £10.42 or £31.26.

    When I first heard of Earworms, I was quite intrigued mostly because I know what it’s like to get a song stuck in my head. Compared to annoying lyrics, getting a new language stuck in there sounds pretty appealing.

  • Glossika Review – Not Cheap But Useful

    Glossika

    Rating 3.6

    Summary

    Glossika has learning resources for over fifty languages that impressively range from Armenian and Czech to Icelandic and Tagalog. While not suitable for absolute beginners, lower intermediates could use the resource to familiarise themselves with sentences in their language of choice using Glossika´s intuitive approach. Listening to native speakers and repeating what they say can help learners to improve their comprehension skills and spoken fluency. While it is amazing that so many languages are included, learners would have to use numerous other resources alongside it. The cost is unjustifiably high.


    Quality 3.8

    The audio recordings are well made but other aspects could be improved

    Thoroughness 3.8

    Glossika covers an impressive number of languages but their method requires you to intuitively learn

    Value 3.5

    Polyglots may find the price to be fair but for most language learners it’s not

    I Like
    • There are lots of languages available, including many that are rarely covered by other resources.
    • The subscription gives you access to all of the languages making it possible to study one language and review another at the same time.
    • It will force you to speak the language which will improve your confidence and prosody.
    I Don’t Like
    • As all of the languages cover the exact same material, the diversity of the languages and cultures are reduced to a simple formula with no cultural context involved in their teaching.
    • There are a fair amount of errors in the materials.
    • The cost is excessively high compared to other resources.
    • There are no explanations of grammar.
    Price

    You can try out Glossika´s learning method for free with their week-long trial. Their basic subscription is $16.99 a month. The monthly subscription costs $30.99 a month. The annual subscription costs $24.99 a month and will set you back 299.88$ in total.

    Click the link below to save $5 on a subscription to Glossika.

    Few resources cover as many different languages as Glossika does. Because of this, I was excited to try it out and see what it’s like to use.

  • HelloTalk Review – Make Friends & Practice Languages

    HelloTalk

    Rating 4.5

    Summary

    HelloTalk is a mobile app for language learners interested in language exchange. It facilitates communication between native speakers and those learning their language with the use of built-in language tools. It also offers audio lessons in 10 languages as part of a separate subscription.


    Quality 5.0

    There’s an active community of dedicated learners, but you’ll have to do some searching.

    Thoroughness 4.0

    The app is easy to use and the language tools are helpful, but you could end up relying on google translate.

    Value 4.5

    Both the basic and VIP membership provide great value. The paid audio lessons probably aren’t worth it however.

    I Like
    • It’s exciting to practice communicating with real people
    • The built-in language tools are helpful
    • It’s easy to pick up and put down whenever you like
    I Don’t Like
    • It’s too easy to rely on google translate
    • It can be hard to find good partners
    • The paid audio lessons probably aren’t worth it
    Price

    The basic features of HelloTalk are free. Audio lessons require a separate subscription after a short trial period.

    HelloTalk VIP is available for:

    $6.99/month and $45.99/year or $175.00 for lifetime access

    Learning a new language when you’re nowhere near other speakers of that language can be tricky. For example, I’m currently in Nepal and trying to learn Italian. I don’t exactly get a lot of opportunities to practice Italian here.

  • HiNative Review: Useful But Not Exceptional Q&A App

    HiNative

    Rating 3.7

    Summary

    HiNative is a Q&A app for language learners that want to have questions answered by native speakers. It’s available for iOS, Android and desktop, and it has over three million registered users. A free version is available that offers the basic features of the app.


    Quality 3.5

    The app is pretty basic, but it works.

    Thoroughness 3.5

    Many users are very helpful, but not all questions receive intelligent responses.

    Value 4.0

    The basic functions of the app are available for free, but you’ll need to pay for audio or video features.

    I Like
    • The community is active. Most of my questions received quick responses.
    • The points system is rewarding.
    • The free version is very useful.
    I Don’t Like
    • Many of the questions in my feed were unanswerable.
    • The community could be better.
    Price

    The basic features of HiNative are free to use. A premium subscription is available for $9.99/month paid monthly, or annually $34.99 payment

    While learning a new language, one of the best resources available is other people. Native speakers are one of the most reliable sources for authoritative answers to your language questions. They know intuitively and deeply how the language is supposed to be used.

  • italki Review – The Good, The Bad, & The Just Alright

    italki

    Rating 4.5

    Summary

    italki is the most flexible and affordable place to find a tutor for the language you’re learning. They have a huge number of teachers offering classes to students of over 100 different languages. As a learner, you’ll be able to find a tutor that best fits your learning style, schedule, and personality. Teachers are able to set their own prices and make their own schedule.


    Quality 4.5

    You’ll find everyone from long-time professionals to brand new teachers.

    Thoroughness 4.0

    The overall platform has tons of useful features but also some room for improvement.

    Value 5.0

    Huge number of teachers, low prices, and flexible scheduling.

    I Like
    • There are large numbers of teachers available even for less common languages.
    • You can find skilled teachers even at low prices.
    • The flexibility to schedule lessons whenever convenient. The huge number of teachers guarantees you’ll find someone to fit your schedule.
    • The extra features in the italki Community make it easy to ask questions, get your writing checked, and find a free language exchange partner.
    I Don’t Like
    • Community features are only available through the app.
    • You may need to try several tutors before finding one that fits your learning and personality style.
    • It’s easy to not take classes as often as you should.
    Price

    The prices vary by teacher and language with some being as low as $5 and others as high as $60 per hour. Most will fall somewhere near the $10 per hour range. Right now italki is offering a $10 credit with your first purchase.

    It’s very rare for me to recommend a particular resource for everyone, regardless of the language that they’re studying. Usually each language will have their own unique resources that are great specifically for students of that language.

  • Language Transfer Review – Better Than A Lot Of Expensive Courses

    Language Transfer

    Rating 4.3

    Summary

    The Language Transfer’s courses approach language learning with what has been coined as “The Thinking Method’. These audio courses serve as a great introduction to the nine languages currently available. They go into lots of depth on how each language works, teaching you all of the main grammar points and giving you the tools needed to learn independently and intuitively. For beginners looking to learn a language, these free courses are an effective and efficient way to start your journey.


    Quality 4.0

    Might look a bit basic but the content is very well designed.

    Thoroughness 4.0

    The courses don’t follow the traditional learning path but have a lot of depth.

    Value 5.0

    It’s completely free and better than most paid resources.

    I Like
    • Lessons are efficient in that they cover a lot of material in a short amount of time.
    • The lessons teach you a mix of grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation each time and so you really come away understanding how the language is formed.
    • Mihalis (the founder) presents everything in a very calm and relaxed manner, thoroughly explaining everything as he goes while encouraging the student who answers his questions.
    • For each language, the course is created independently and follows its own learning path.
    I Don’t Like
    • While the content is very good quality, it could maybe do with varying the presentation a bit as there are no exercises, quizzes or work for you to produce.
    • The lessons kind of progress in a strange manner as you don’t follow a traditional language learning route, such as starting off with greetings, etc.
    • You won’t hear any native speakers on most of the courses and you don’t ever actually hear a conversation.
    Price

    Completely free, but if you find the courses to be useful, consider making a donation.

  • LanguagePod101 — All Languages, Pod101 and Class101

    Updated November 20, 2023

    If you want a language learning podcast that consistently adds new content to keep you motivated, you will find the “Pod101” and “Class101” series quite useful.

    One great thing about LanguagePod101 programs is that they do publish new content ALL THE TIME. And their pricing structure allows language learners of any mastery and commitment levels to find contents that are useful. The pricing starts at a mere few dollars per month, and the top subscription called Premium PLUS gives learners personal feedback and a personalized program to follow.

    Visit Language Learning Programs in the LanguagePod101 Series

    Click the icon to visit the site for the language you want. Purchase or just check it out. Happy Learning!

    You can also read ALR independent reviews for each language’s program in the following section.

  • Ling Review — Gamified Practice in Less Common Languages

    Ling

    Rating 3.2
    Visi Ling

    Summary

    Ling is a gamified language-learning app with courses on over 60 different languages. Practice happens through short themed lessons, making for convenient and entertaining study time. It isn’t the most comprehensive resource out there, especially for more popular languages, but it can make a decent way to get started with a less common language.


    Quality 3.5

    The app is easy to use and visually appealing, but I found some mistakes in the material.

    Thoroughness 3.0

    There aren’t many explanations, and the materials are the same for each language, but practice is varied.

    Value 3.0

    For many of its less common languages, there aren’t a lot of viable alternatives, but the price feels high.

    I Like
    • It uses native speaker audio.
    • The activities are enjoyable and don’t become overly repetitive.
    • It’s easy to use and is visually appealing.
    I Don’t Like
    • There are very few grammar explanations.
    • There are no translations for individual words.
    • Some activities can be buggy.
    Price

    Monthly is $8.99, Annual is $79.99, Lifetime is $149.99

    Gamified learning is here to stay. The large pool of language-learning apps that leverage gamification in their courses is continually growing, and frankly, I’m happy about it..

  • LingQ Review – Extensive Reading Made Easy

    LingQ

    Rating 4.0

    Summary

    LingQ is a language-learning platform that focuses on extensive reading for over 30 different languages. You can import your own content or choose from the community library of books, articles, podcasts, YouTube videos, and more.

    The app highlights unknown words across every lesson and makes them reviewable via different types of SRS flashcards. The more you read, the more accurately you will be able to identify content that is suitable for your level.

    Although I did not find it beneficial for languages I had never studied before, I think LingQ can be helpful for upper-beginner to advanced language learners who enjoy reading. It is especially helpful if you struggle to find graded readers in your target language.


    Quality 4.0

    The LingQ reading app is enjoyable in most languages, easy to use, and can expand your vocabulary. However, I found the user content frustrating to navigate.

    Thoroughness 4.0

    With the import function, users can choose to study almost anything they want.

    Value 4.0

    Now that other apps provide similar functions, the monthly subscription may be a bit overpriced. However, the yearly subscription seems fair.

    I Like
    • I can easily import almost any material I want to study.
    • I can use SRS flashcards to quiz new words from a specific page.
    • Each lesson in the library displays the percentage of known and unknown words based on my reading history.
    • There are many dictionaries to choose from for definitions.
    I Don’t Like
    • Reviewing words is chaotic. Every word you look up gets added to a huge queue that quickly becomes unmanageable.
    • The extra features are overpriced and can be found other places for cheaper.
    • Very little of the content is original. Much of it was uploaded by users from other places.
    • The free version is extremely limited.
    Price

    Premium membership costs $12.99/mo, $71.94/half-year, $107.88/year, $191.76/2-years; single-language lifetime membership costs $199

    When I first signed up for LingQ, I wasn’t very impressed. Its seemingly random lesson library, filled with custom cover photos and inconsistent title formats, made me want to click on just about anything to get away from that page.

  • Living Language Online Course Review – Not Very Good

    Living Language Online Course

    Rating 0.0

    Summary

    UPDATE – it appears that the online course Living Language no longer exists. This review covers the old course when it did exist. You can however find a series of books with this name available on amazon.


    Quality 3.0

    Though the information itself is useful, Living Language’s presentation reads more like a database than an educational/interactive tool.

    Thoroughness 3.0

    Again, a lot of the information is there, but it’s scattered. Additionally, some of that information appears incorrect.

    Value 2.0

    Cheaper options offer the same amount of content with more interactive features.

    I Like
    • You can hop around between levels and topics, including Beginner and Advanced materials.
    • The subscription comes with a grammar guide, glossary, and forum access.
    • There’s a decent variety of games, including some games I hadn’t played before.
    I Don’t Like
    • Although the games are fun, they get stale pretty quickly. It’s easy to guess at answers, thereby completing levels without really having learned.
    • The system doesn’t keep track of your mistakes, so it’s hard to know what areas you need to improve in.
    • I found several translation and presentation errors that made me question the rest of the material.
    Price

    An annual plan costs $150, and half a year costs $75. Three months is $50 and 1 month is $39.

    An Overview of Living Language

    Living Language offers you the opportunity to choose between over 20 languages. Once you pick your language, you’re taken to the home screen which has options for Essential, Intermediate, and Advanced categories. You can start with any of these options and jump back and forth between them.

  • Mango Languages Review – Pretty Good For Beginners

    Mango Languages

    Rating 3.5

    Summary

    Mango Languages is a pretty good resource with numerous languages available along with their regional variations.  It’ll work the best for beginners or for those interested in studying a few languages at the same time. Anybody past the intermediate level won’t find Mango Languages very useful.


    Quality 4.0

    It is well designed, has a beautiful interface, and is intuitive to use.

    Thoroughness 3.0

    There are some gaps in terms of writing and grammar, along with a lack of materials for intermediate or higher level students.

    Value 3.5

    The price is fair and will give you access to materials for over 70 languages.

    I Like
    • It’s very easy to use and has a slick design.
    • The intense drilling of useful real life sentences and words during lessons will really help you remember them.
    • Cultural and grammar notes incorporated in the lessons are well-prepared to help you understand the language you’re learning better.
    • The subscription gives you access to over 70 languages.
    I Don’t Like
    • Most courses finish around the intermediate level with some less popular languages ending before that.
    • There’s not enough grammar practice.
    • During drilling, when a student is prompted to complete a task such as coming up with an appropriate translation of a sentence, the command is read out loud. Listening to someone repeat very similar commands over and over again is tedious.
    • The Google Translate plugin is a rather lazy and disappointing way to give students answers about words or sentences they’d like to translate.
    Price

    A subscription to Mango Languages costs $14.99 a month or 179.99 yearly.

    Mango Languages has high-quality beginner to intermediate level lessons in tons of different languages.

  • Memrise Review – Useful But Don’t Overuse It

    Memrise

    Rating 4.0

    Summary

    Memrise is a super popular language-learning app available online and on mobile. It functions much like a gamified flashcard app, and it offers a lot of content for free. A lot of the content is user-created, and there is a premium subscription that provides access to additional features. Memrise can be a great tool in your arsenal, but you’ll need more to learn a language seriously.


    Quality 4.0

    The mobile app looks great and is easy to use, but the website is clunky. Works very well for memorization.

    Thoroughness 4.0

    There are quite a few official Memrise courses, and the number of user-created courses is massive, but you’ll benefit from using additional resources.

    Value 4.0

    The free version of the app provides a lot of value, but the paid version doesn’t offer much more.

    I Like
    • The spaced repetition software is effective for memorization
    • The huge range of available content
    • It’s more interactive than other flashcard apps
    I Don’t Like
    • It’s not enough for continued language learning
    • Website navigation is clunky
    • Premium version isn’t much more valuable than the free version
    Price

    For the full version of Memrise, the subscription prices are:

    $8.99/monthly $59.99/annually $119.99 – lifetime subscription

    Signing up for a free account with Memrise automatically gives you access to limited versions of their official courses.

    What do you get when a Grand Master of Memory and a Princeton neuroscientist team up to create a language learning app?

  • Michel Thomas Method Review – Avoid At All Costs

    Michel Thomas Method

    Rating 1.7

    Summary

    One of the most famous language teaching courses out there, Michel Thomas is a household name. The platform advertises itself as “The method that works with your brain” and boasts a teaching method “with no books, exercises, memorizing or homework” in several of its course descriptions. It’s available in 18 languages with courses that have material suitable for absolute beginners. I tried out the French foundation course and found it to be severely lacking and as such cannot recommend it at all. You may, however, have more luck with the other language courses that they offer.


    Quality 2.0

    Very easy to use, and the audios are decent quality, but I found that Michel Thomas’ discouraging manner flustered students, which detracted from the content’s quality in my experience.

    Thoroughness 2.0

    In my opinion, Michel Thomas doesn’t go into much depth and any explanations he offers up are just at a surface level.

    Value 1.0

    I wouldn’t use these even if they were free due to Michel Thomas’ teaching style which ruined the material for me.

    I Like
    • Um…in all honesty I’m not sure if I enjoyed any of it!
    I Don’t Like
    • Michel Thomas never praises the students, often interrupts them and creates a negative learning environment.
    • The pacing of the lessons often seems off to me and in certain places they feel very hurried.
    • I thought all of the lessons were almost identical and so it got quite monotonous working through them.
    Price

    There are several different courses available with prices ranging from $11.99 to $100.

    Before working my way through the French foundation course, I had never tried a Michel Thomas course despite hearing so much about it.

  • Mondly Review – Made Significant Improvements Made in 2022

    Mondly

    Rating 2.7

    Summary

    Mondly is a language-learning app that teaches basic vocabulary and grammar structures. It seems most appropriate for learners with little to no exposure to their target language.

    The activities mostly rely on passive recognition of vocabulary and phrases, and therefore are not very challenging. However, they are varied enough that you probably wouldn’t get bored with short, daily practice sessions.

    Although I wouldn’t recommend Mondly to anyone looking to seriously learn a language, it may be appropriate for individuals studying languages with less available resources, or for individuals who are preparing to travel abroad.


    Quality 3.0

    Both the interface and the course itself could be designed better. *Edited on Nov 22* It has made many improvements this year. We will update soon.

    Thoroughness 2.5

    It’s decent for learning vocabulary, but I thought a lot of the material wasn’t explained very well.

    Value 3.0

    It’s fairly inexpensive.

    I Like
    • Daily lessons, weekly quizzes, and monthly challenges – these functionalities encourage you to practice every day.
    • The vocabulary included is useful and drilled in an effective way.
    • It’s fairly inexpensive.
    I Don’t Like
    • The content and exercises are the same for all levels and languages.
    • The exercises are mostly passive.
    • I don’t think the order of lessons and topics is very well thought out.
    • For me, the interface is not user friendly and the platform is visually unappealing.
    Price

    There are three plans… $9.99 per month for one language $47.99 per year ($4/mo) for one language and $99.99 for lifetime.

  • Pimsleur Arabic Review: Conversational Fluency Quickly

    Pimsleur Arabic

    Summary

    Pimsleur Arabic is one of the most popular and longest-standing resources out there for learning the Arabic language. Its courses place a strong emphasis on aural and verbal communication skills, paying less attention to grammar explanations and reading or writing skills. 


    Quality 4.5

    The platform is extremely well designed and easy to use. The content seems to be of high quality at all levels.

    Thoroughness 4.0

    Timely repetition and active practice work well, and lessons build on each other nicely, but the “intermediate fluency in 30 days” claim may be a stretch.

    Value 3.5

    The subscription option provides good value for some, but there may be more efficient ways to learn some languages.

    I Like
    • Egyptian, Levantine, and Modern Standard Arabic are available
    • The lessons are structured well and are an appropriate length
    • There are both male and female native speakers
    • Lessons build on each other nicely
    • The platform is easy to navigate and visually appealing
    I Don’t Like
    • There’s very little visual content.
    • Lesson speed isn’t customizable.
    Price

    Subscriptions of either $14.95/month or $19.95/month are available for courses with at least 60 lessons. Outright purchase prices otherwise range from around $20 to over $500. All purchases come with a 7-day free trial

    Arabic is one of the most widely spoken languages in the world, with over 300 million native speakers across the Middle East and North Africa. It is also an official language of the United Nations, the Arab League, and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, giving it significant global importance.

  • Pimsleur Review — Learn While You… Do Just About Anything

    Pimsleur

    Rating 4.0

    Summary

    Pimsleur is one of the most popular and longest-standing resources out there for learning a foreign language. Its courses place a strong emphasis on aural and verbal communication skills, paying less attention to grammar explanations and reading or writing skills. There are over 50 language courses available with Pimsleur, and the bulk of the material is taught with audio lessons.


    Quality 4.5

    The platform is extremely well designed and easy to use. The content seems to be of high quality at all levels.

    Thoroughness 4.0

    Timely repetition and active practice work well, and lessons build on each other nicely, but the “intermediate fluency in 30 days” claim may be a stretch.

    Value 3.5

    The subscription option provides good value for some, but there may be more efficient ways to learn some languages.

    I Like
    • The lessons are structured well and are an appropriate length.
    • There are both male and female native speakers.
    • Lessons build on each other nicely.
    • The platform is easy to navigate and visually appealing.
    I Don’t Like
    • There’s very little visual content.
    • Lesson speed isn’t customizable.
    Price

    Subscriptions of either $14.95/month or $19.95/month are available for courses with at least 60 lessons. Prices otherwise range from around $20 to over $500. All purchases come with a 7-day free trial.

    What is Pimsleur?

    Frankly, it’s an institution. The name comes from linguist Paul Pimsleur, author of many books on language acquisition and applied linguistics, and developer of what is now known as the Pimsleur Method.

  • Preply Review – Tutors Created Tailored Lesson Plans for You

    Preply

    Rating 4.5

    Summary

    Preply is an online educational platform that matches tutors with students. There are tutors on Preply offering instruction in a wide range of languages and other subjects. As a learner, you can find a tutor that works best for you by browsing their demo videos and filtering by price and rating. Each tutor’s teaching style is their own, but they all receive teacher trainings and resources to improve their style.


    Quality 4.5

    A little bit of everything. There are trained professionals with years of experience and tutors trying it out for the first time.

    Thoroughness 4.5

    The platform is easy to use, and tutors who specialize in subjects beyond languages, such as math and music are available. Lots of supplementary resources help reinforcement of lessons.

    Value 4.5

    There’s a huge range of prices and scheduling options, and tutors offer tailored lesson plans adapted to each student’s objectives and preferences.

    I Like
    • The number of available tutors is massive
    • Searching for a tutor is easy
    • Many tutors are very inexpensive
    • Finding a tutor with a schedule that works is easy
    I Don’t Like
    • You have to purchase a package of hours ahead of time
    • Teachers aren’t paid for trial lessons
    Price

    Each tutor sets their own price, but for most popular languages the average hourly price is around $15.

    Exclusive 50% discount for ALR readers! Make sure to use our link to receive it.

    With nearly every language-learning resource I’ve used, I run into the same problem. I don’t feel like I’m getting adequate speaking practice. I know from experience that learning a language academically and using it in the wild are two very different beasts.

  • Rocket Arabic Review – Not Worth The High Price

    Rocket Arabic

    Rating 2.5

    Summary

    Rocket Arabic has over 120 hours of audio and reading lessons that are aimed at helping beginners learn Egyptian Arabic. While the lessons offer up numerous opportunities for users to improve their reading, writing, speaking and comprehension skills, I think the content is severely lacking and is not very well thought out. Unsuitable for intermediate and advanced learners, beginners will definitely learn some Arabic, although I think they would have to use the resource alongside a couple of others to really make any headway.


    Quality 3.0

    While the platform looks great and is easy to use, the actual content of the lessons isn’t very good.

    Thoroughness 2.5

    The lessons could cover a lot more grammar and use more Arabic, although the cultural explanations are quite good.

    Value 2.0

    The content doesn’t warrant the price as you’d have to use other language learning resources alongside it.

    I Like
    • Lots of practice opportunities, though they rely too heavily on memorization.
    • It’s a pretty well-designed and easy-to-use product.
    I Don’t Like
    • The audio lessons are uninspiring to listen to, don’t cover all that much content and are mainly in English.
    • The extra features are all very similar, quite repetitive and are unlikely to get you speaking and writing Arabic to a very high level.
    • It’s too expensive for what’s included.
    Price

    It’s a one-time purchase that costs $149.95. You can also use their six-month payment plan which costs $27/mo. There do seem to be regular sales which lower the price to under $100.

    Having previously tried out Rocket Portuguese and come away feeling disappointed, I was very eager to see whether Rocket Arabic was any better. Unfortunately, I found many of the same issues facing the Arabic version and consequently can’t recommend Rocket Arabic to the beginners it is aimed at.

  • Rosetta Stone Arabic Review – It May Not Be Very Useful for Most

    Rosetta Stone Arabic

    Rating 3.2

    Summary

    Rosetta Stone is one of the most well-known resources for learning languages. High levels of repetition and an absence of translations or explanations are hallmarks of the course. Rosetta Stone Arabic course could be most suitable for learners that don’t mind repetitive exercises and prefer to learn from pictures and context rather than translations and explanations. It’s probably not a good option for anyone wanting to learn non-Modern Standard Arabic, significantly improve their speaking or writing skills, or those looking for an engaging course.


    Quality 3.0

    The platform is a bit clunky on desktop, but the material is accurate and presented clearly; lesson mechanics are fairly intuitive.

    Thoroughness 3.0

    Without much opportunity to build your own sentences, I don’t think you’ll reach a conversational level with any notable speed.

    Value 3.5

    Rosetta Stone’s Lifetime Subscription ($199 on sale) is quite attractive if you like the Rosetta Stone Method. Shorter subscriptions are quite reasonable, too.

    I Like
    • Lessons progress naturally and logically
    • Both audio and visual learning components
    • The audio quality is very good
    I Don’t Like
    • Only offers Modern Standard Arabic
    • No grammar explanations
    • No writing practice
    Price

    A three-month subscription to one language is $35.97, which works out to be $11.99/month.
    A year-long subscription to one course is $95.88, which is $7.99/month. Both of these subscriptions are automatically recurring.
    Lifetime access to all Rosetta Stone language courses is available for $199.

    ALR Readers Exclusive Holiday Deal!! Get the Lifetime Subscription for 25 languages for $179 (everywhere else it’s $199 right now!). See details on the website.

    Rosetta Stone uses a dynamic immersion method to help you learn Arabic in a natural way. 

    The Rosetta Stone Arabic course contains 12 units focused on everyday situations like family life, shopping, or travel. Each unit consists of multiple-choice lessons that allow you to match images or say words to learn new vocabulary.

  • Rosetta Stone Review — Updated and Improved…And Needs More Improvement

    Rosetta Stone

    Rating 3.2

    Summary

    Rosetta Stone is one of the most well-known resources for learning languages. It takes an immersive approach to teaching and is widely used by corporations and individuals alike. High levels of repetition and an absence of translations or explanations are hallmarks of the course. Rosetta Stone course could be most suitable for learners that don’t mind repetitive exercises and prefer to learn from pictures and context rather than translations and explanations. It’s probably not a good option for anyone wanting to significantly improve their speaking or writing skills, or those looking for an engaging course.


    Quality 3.0

    The platform is a bit clunky on desktop, but the material is accurate and presented clearly; lesson mechanics are fairly intuitive.

    Thoroughness 3.0

    Without much opportunity to build your own sentences, I don’t think you’ll reach a conversational level with any notable speed.

    Value 3.5

    Rosetta Stone’s Lifetime Subscription ($199 on sale) is quite attractive if you like the Rosetta Stone Method. Shorter subscriptions are quite reasonable, too.

    I Like
    • The audio quality is very good.
    • Lessons progress naturally and logically.
    I Don’t Like
    • It’s repetitive and boring.
    • You don’t get to generate your own sentences.
    • Speech recognition doesn’t work very well.
    • No grammar explanations in core material.
    Price

    A three-month subscription to one language is $35.97, which works out to be $11.99/month.
    A year-long subscription to one course is $95.88, which is $7.99/month. Both of these subscriptions are automatically recurring.
    Lifetime access to all Rosetta Stone language courses is available for $199.

    ALR Readers Exclusive Holiday Deal!! Get the Lifetime Subscription for 25 languages for $179 (everywhere else it’s $199 right now!). See details on the website.

    Chances are, this isn’t the first time you’re hearing about Rosetta Stone for learning languages. The company has been hugely successful since its early start in the computer-assisted learning scene in 1992, and part of that is thanks to stellar advertising efforts.

  • Rype App Review: I Wouldn’t Recommend It To Anybody

    Rype App

    Rating 1.8

    Summary

    Rype is a resource that provides language learners with access to one-on-one lessons with teachers. According to its advertising, you’ll be able to “Learn anytime, anywhere, on-the-go.” Users purchase a subscription package that contains a certain number of lessons per month. The lessons are 30-minutes long and are easy to schedule.


    Quality 2.0

    The platform is very easy to use, but there aren’t many teacher details and lessons take place on Skype.

    Thoroughness 2.0

    There seems to be a range of experience levels on Rype and a very small number of teachers.

    Value 1.5

    The hourly rates are higher than similar online tutor options and you have to commit to a subscription.

    I Like
    • The interface is very easy to use.
    • The 30-minute lesson length.
    • A subscription grants access to lessons in all languages offered.
    I Don’t Like
    • There isn’t a lot of information provided on teachers.
    • I don’t think the monthly subscription model is worth it.
    • The selection of teachers for some languages is extremely limited.
    Price

    The price varies per subscription package and number of lessons each month. This ranges from $59.99-179.99.

    The availability of online one-on-one language courses has skyrocketed in recent years, and it’s made it possible for just about anyone with an internet connection to find a suitable language tutor.

  • Speaky Review: Better Than Other Language Exchange Apps?

    Speaky

    Rating 3.7

    Summary

    Speaky is a social language-learning app for people interested in language exchange. It’s available for iOS, Android, and the web. Users can chat with other language learners, share photos, leave voice messages or even have voice calls. The basic features on Speaky are free to use, but access to more than five translations per day requires a subscription.


    Quality 3.0

    There are some dedicated language learners on Speaky but not as many as similar apps.

    Thoroughness 3.5

    The platform is easy to use but lacks advanced features.

    Value 4.5

    Speaky is mostly free to use, extra features are available for a subscription.

    I Like
    • It’s mostly free.
    • It’s easy to use.
    • There are a lot of users.
    • There are tons of languages
    I Don’t Like
    • Many community members don’t actually seem interested in language exchange.
    • The web version doesn’t work well.
    • There are no extra social features.
    Price

    The basic features on Speaky are free to use. A premium membership is available for a subscription.

    Speaky is a language exchange app. It facilitates exchange by allowing users to chat with others in the language they’re learning. Its function is pretty simple and straightforward — search for a partner with a reciprocal language combination and say hello.

  • Talk in Arabic Review – An Extremely Disappointing Experience

    Talk in Arabic

    Rating 1.7

    Summary

    Talk in Arabic is a random collection of lessons rather than a course. The main positive point is that it covers a wide range of Arabic dialects. Unfortunately, it does so very thinly, with many dialects lacking a significant number of lessons. To make matters worse, many of the lessons are quite bad, simply being a few phrases read out loud. The poor quality and lack of cohesion between the lessons makes it impossible to be anything more than a quick peek at some different dialects. Anyone seriously interested in learning Arabic should look elsewhere.


    Quality 2.0

    Some lessons are good but too many are really poorly made.

    Thoroughness 1.5

    Far too many gaps in the content and many dialects have very few lessons available.

    Value 1.5

    You’d probably be better off finding free lessons for different dialects on Youtube.

    I Like
    • It’s great that they attempt to cover so many different dialects of Arabic.
    • Native Arabic speakers teach all of the lessons and as such it is a very authentic resource.
    • Some of the lessons look at scenarios that arise in the country of the dialect you’re learning and it is therefore quite useful seeing the cultural context.
    I Don’t Like
    • Some of the dialects had very few lessons available, and those lessons were often short, disconnected, and poor quality.
    • Learners could never advance from beginner to intermediate using Talk in Arabic as a main resource.
    • A lot of the content is not well thought out or doesn’t cover the topic in much depth with some ‘lessons’ really being only a phrases that are read out.
    • Not worth the cost.
    Price

    Talk in Arabic costs $12.95 per month, $90.40 per year or $197 for a lifetime subscription. All of these get you access to all of the content available on the platform.

    When I heard of the idea behind Talk in Arabic, a platform for lessons from several different Arabic dialects, I was extremely excited to try it out. The vast majority of Arabic learning platforms focus on Modern Standard or Egyptian Arabic. There aren’t a lot of resources to study dialects such as Sudanese or Algerian.

  • Tandem Review: A Tinder-esque Language Exchange App?

    Tandem

    Rating 4.7

    Summary

    Tandem is a popular language exchange app with over one million active users. It’s available for iOS and Android and aims to bring language learners from all over the world together. It’s largely centered around its chat capabilities and language tools that facilitate communication, but there is also a tutoring service offered in the app.


    Quality 5.0

    There are lots of active language learners, especially those looking to pair with native English speakers.

    Thoroughness 4.5

    The interface is intuitive and the language tools are simple and effective, though you’ll quickly run out of free translations.

    Value 4.5

    The free version is all most people will need. Tandem Pro doesn’t add a ton of extra value.

    I Like
    • There are plenty of language partners
    • The interface is easy to use and attractive
    • The free version offers a lot of value
    I Don’t Like
    • You’ll need to use other learning resources as well
    • Though Tandem has some safety features, you may encounter people using the app as a dating tool
    Price

    There is a limited free version of Tandem and a pro version available at $6.99 for one month, $10.67/month for three months, and $6.67/month for a year’s subscription.

  • Transparent Language Review – Not Exciting, But Language Offering Is So Vast That You May Need It

    Last Updated on December 13, 2023.

    Transparent Language

    Rating 2.3

    Summary

    Transparent Language markets itself as “the most complete language-learning system for independent learners.” While there are lots of different exercises for you to work through in their Essentials Course, I thought that the material wasn’t all that helpful and that it got very repetitive. Although the courses might not be all that useful or in-depth, with over a hundred languages on offer it might be worth checking out if you want to learn the very basics of a more obscure language such as Buriat, Kazakh or Turkmen.


    Quality 2.5

    While the exercises are for the most part well-designed, diverse and easy to use, it is the core material itself that I found lacking.

    Thoroughness 2.0

    I hardly came across any explanations at all; practice was almost exclusively memorizing words and phrases.

    Value 2.5

    I would only consider using if I was studying a very rare language.

    I Like
    • I really like the fact that they offer up courses in languages that are usually overlooked.
    • It’s pretty well-designed, easy to use and has lots of different activities to work through.
    I Don’t Like
    • The core material is severely lacking in my opinion; it’s hard for me to imagine you’ll learn much grammar or how to form even a basic sentence yourself.
    • It gets very repetitive and so I didn’t find it that fun to work through.
    • You learn virtually nothing about the different cultural contexts of the languages you’re learning.
    • Their teaching methodology was the biggest issue for me, leaving you memorizing lots of words and phrases in isolation.
    Price

    There is a free two-week trial period for you to try it out. Otherwise, it is $24.95 per month or $149.95 for a whole year if you just select one language. If you want access to all of the languages it is then $49.95 per month and $249.95 a year.

  • uTalk Review – For Beginners Who Want To Learn Key Words & Phrases

    uTalk

    Rating 3.7

    Summary

    uTalk is a software program and mobile app offering learning material in over 140 languages. Its approach is based on learning keywords and phrases through gameplay. It covers a wide range of phrases, each spoken by a female and male native speaker, consequently offering listening and pronunciation practice. uTalk is most useful for beginners who want to get started in a language by learning key phrases. It could also be useful for intermediates looking to fill gaps in their vocabulary and pronunciation, but it does not offer any in-depth language instruction or grammar explanations. It’s also worth mentioning that for some languages, such as Basque, the occasional overly literal translation leads to small errors and unnatural phrasing creeping in. However, we haven’t seen instances in which this would result in you being misunderstood, and there’s no denying uTalk’s value for languages with fewer learning resources.


    Quality 3.5

    The app is very user-friendly, and the content is mostly useful, but little variation in practice activities can become repetitive.

    Thoroughness 3.5

    The app does a good job of teaching key words and phrases, but review opportunities aren’t as transparent or comprehensive as they could be.

    Value 4.0

    The price is very low, there’s a lot of content, and the right learner could get some serious practical use out of the resource.

    I Like
    • The number of languages on offer is staggering.
    • Each phrase is recorded by a male and female native speaker. This was especially helpful in learning pronunciation.
    • You frequently get to hear recordings of yourself producing the language. I found this motivating and informative.
    I Don’t Like
    • The Memory Game exercise felt like a waste of time. It’s difficult to get a perfect score even if you know the language well.
    • I kept wishing there was a way to choose which phrases I could practice in games instead of them being randomly selected.
    Price

    $11.99 a month that can be cancelled anytime. 6 months costs $59.99 and for one year it is $99.99. 

    This was my first encounter with uTalk, so I didn’t know what to expect before trying it out. A quick search on the internet showed third-party reviews saying everything from “It’s just ok” to “Become fluent in another language with uTalk.” My experience was something much closer to the former.

  • Verbling Review: Online Classes With Helpful Revision Tools

    Verbling

    Rating 4.6

    Summary

    Verbling is an online language-class marketplace where you can take lessons with teachers of your choice. It has some student-friendly extra features, including a built-in online classroom, flashcards, homework calendar, and a filing system for lesson materials. There are also useful but disorganized forums where you can discuss languages, share writing for critique, and do free language drills and exercises.

    The lessons are generally high quality and well structured, plus the filters make it easy to find teachers who specialize in everything from accent reduction to interview preparation. 

    However, it can be slightly pricier than alternatives, so if you’re on a tight budget, you may want to look elsewhere. It also has fewer languages than some of the bigger competitors, so it might not be a good choice if you want to study Azerbaijani, Khmer, or Yoruba.


    Quality 4.5

    There are some less experienced teachers, but I found the lessons to be more consistently high quality than on italki.

    Thoroughness 5.0

    The classroom technology, flashcards, and filing system are fantastic for learners and easy to use.

    Value 4.5

    Some teachers charge more than on italki, but you get better classroom technology, more privacy, and fewer disorganized teachers.

    I Like
    • I quickly found great teachers.
    • The platform’s extra features, such as teacher-made, personalized flashcards, help you review the material learned in each lesson.
    • It seems focused on long-term progression as well as immediate student satisfaction.
    • You don’t have to give out your contact details, thanks to the classroom technology.
    I Don’t Like
    • Some teachers don’t use the platform’s flashcards and materials system.
    • There are fewer languages available than on italki.
    • You can only pay in US dollars, plus there’s a hidden fee.
    • The forums need more moderation.
    Price

    Prices are set by the teacher and range from $5 to $75 for an hour-long lesson. You can get discounts for buying packs of 5, 10, or 20 lessons with a teacher. Every student gets one free trial lesson, after which they’re $6 each.

    I’ve got a confession to make: italki is one of my least favorite online language-learning resources. However, it was my go-to option for a long time, and I understand why people love it: it’s cheap, has teachers in nearly every language imaginable, and the app has a bunch of extra community features.

MiniReviews of Arabic Online Language Learning Resources

  • 101 Script Writing App Mini Review: Good for Indian Languages

    101 Script Writing App

    Rating 2.2
    Price:

    Freemium; one-off payment of $1.30 for full access

    Summary

    Kannada 101, Tamil 101, Telugu 101, Marathi 101, Bengali 101: these are just some of the apps from developer Uma Loganathan. You can also download Arabic 101, Vietnamese 101, and even English 101 and German 101. If you’re learning these languages, though, we’d take a look at Write Me instead. We feel that the Write Me app is generally a more well-designed option, especially since it also tests you on your ability to match the right character to an audio recording. However, the Write Me app barely has any Indian languages, and that’s where the 101 series shines. You’ll be able to trace the characters; switch between easy, normal, and freestyle modes; and receive a score out of 100. The stroke order and direction are clearly explained. Whenever you make a mistake, you receive instant feedback: the music stops and the “ink” stops flowing. This allows you to self-correct immediately, rather than practicing it wrong. The series has its flaws: like with most apps, you won’t learn how to join up characters. However, we think it’s a useful tool for beginners.

  • AmazingTalker Mini Review: Not Our Top Pick for Web Classes

    AmazingTalker

    Rating 2.5
    Price:

    From around $10 per 50-minute class

    Summary

    AmazingTalker is an italki and Verbling competitor that lets you book classes with language teachers and academic tutors of your choice. It has a lot of attractive features for students, but teachers complain about high commission rates and lack of support. It boasts a 3% acceptance rate for teachers and a 100% satisfaction guarantee. If you’re not happy with your class, they’ll rebook you another one for free. There are lots of teachers to choose from, or you can also use their AI Matching Service to find a tutor. The teachers’ profiles include videos, reviews, and their résumé. However, AmazingTalker doesn’t seem a great choice for teachers. It charges English and Japanese teachers astonishingly high commission rates of up to 30%. While these rates fall as teachers earn more through the site, they have to make $1,500 a month before the commission reaches levels comparable to italki and Verbling. Making it worse, there’s an additional 8% fee for payment processing and tax that all teachers have to pay, no matter what language they teach.  There have also been complaints on Reddit from teachers claiming to have been harassed by students and fellow teachers. However, we cannot corroborate these. Given all this, we’d recommend trying italki (review) or Verbling (review) first. Alternatively, check out our guide to the best platforms for online language classes.

  • Anki Mini-Review: The Go-To SRS Flashcard App

    Anki

    Rating 4.1
    Price:

    Free

    Summary

    It is the go-to app for free (except on iOS) Spaced Repetition System (SRS) flashcards. It has a simple user interface with various features that more hard-core users can dive into if they choose. Your flashcards will appear according to your natural forgetting curve; the app will test you in increasingly spaced out intervals, with more difficult cards appearing more than once in a session, while easier cards spacing out over weeks — or even months and years. An SRS system is the most effective way to drive information into your long-term memory. The cards can sync between the web, desktop app, and mobile versions to keep your flashcards updated and with you at all times. You can add images and audio clips to your cards and change the text formatting (if you use it on your computer). One feature unique to Anki, as opposed to other SRS flashcard apps, is the “Cloze deletion” function, which allows you to block out parts of your card and create a “fill-in-the-blanks” type card format. If you want a resource for how to make effective flashcards, check out the book, FluentForever. The author leaves a whole section dedicated to understanding how to use your Anki deck to advance your skills quickly.

  • Arabic Online Mini-Review: Learn Basic Phrases

    Arabic Online

    Rating 2.7
    Price:

    Price: Freemium, Courses cost between £59 – £250

    Summary

    Arabic Online is a web-based course with native speaker audio, speaking practice, and recall activities. Although they provide a Guide To Writing Arabic e-book, you may want to check out Arabic Quick! for a more comprehensive introduction. This will help you at the intermediate level when most of the text uses the Arabic script. The section on Advanced Arabic and the Grammar Explorer seem promising: they have interactive activities and texts to improve your grammar, sentence building, and reading comprehension. The rest of the courses, however, focus on memorizing phrases for talking about food, shopping, travel, and formal and informal meetings by listening to and replicating dialogues. There isn’t as much focus on building sentences as there is about memorizing them. If you’re going to pay for a course, Arabic Online doesn’t seem as thorough or straightforward as other options. Additionally, the site has some bugs that can make navigation frustrating. Total beginners should probably look elsewhere to start their learning journey.

  • Arabic Workshop Mini-Review: Limited Features

    Arabic Workshop

    Rating 3.0
    Price:

    Freemium, £7/mo, £60/year, £280/lifetime

    Summary

    Arabic Workshop is a website with over 153 level appropriate comprehensible input videos for levels A1 – B1 on the CEFR scale. They break these videos down into 15 levels so that you can advance the difficulty one step at a time. Although the creators continue to add more videos, there are currently only about 25 videos available at the B1 level. Therefore, it’s probably most appropriate for A1 – A2 learners. Each video uses audio by voice actors and has an animation of a hand drawing each scene of the story or dialogue. The stories follow themes from everyday life, with vocabulary that you can apply to real life situations. Although there are no flashcards, there is a Vocabulary Builder function that highlights the phrases in each video’s transcript. You can click on a word to see a definition and a breakdown of how the word was formed. Unfortunately, there are no translations of full sentences, which may be frustrating for beginners. Additionally, you will need to learn the Arabic alphabet if you want to read the transcript, as there is no romanization. Although Arabic Workshop has a modern interface and attractive videos, there is not nearly as much content or features compared to ArabicPod101 (which goes for about the same subscription price if you catch it on one of its regular sales).

  • Bab.la Mini-Review: Use WordReference or Linguee Instead

    bab.la

    Rating 3.0
    Price:

    Free

    Summary

    Bab.la is a bilingual dictionary for 28 different languages. Their site includes quizzes, games, grammar lessons, phrasebooks, and a forum for users to discuss language learning. You can also look up various verbs in the conjugation tables or find synonyms and examples of how to use words in context. Their quizzes should be taken with a grain of salt — If your purpose is to familiarize yourself with vocabulary and grammar structures, then these are probably a fun way to explore your target language. However, if your purpose is to understand the target language’s culture, beware of any quiz that touches on romance, as the advice is similar to that of the magazines found in grocery store checkout lines. Bab.la may be okay for general definitions, but other sites will probably help you dive further into different languages. Linguee provides examples of words in context sourced from articles and research papers in the target language, and Forvo has millions of words pronounced by native speakers in hundreds of languages. Also, check out WordReference (for a more relevant database of example sentences), Pleco (for Chinese learners), or SpanishDict (For Spanish learners or Spanish-speaking English learners).

  • Beelinguapp Mini-Review: Reading & Listening Practice

    Beelinguapp

    Rating 4.3
    Price:

    Freemium, $29.99/year

    Summary

    Beelinguapp makes it easier to read and listen to interesting content in a number of languages. You’ll find short stories, news, fairy tales, music, and more. Their side-by-side reading functionality highlights the sentence in the language you’re learning, as well as in a language you’re familiar with. The karaoke feature makes it easy to follow the audio with the written text. Some of the content and features are available for free, but there are also premium plans to unlock more.

  • Bluebird Languages Mini-Review: Over 160 Languages Available

    Bluebird Languages

    Rating 2.5
    Price:

    Free, Premium subscriptions cost $13.99/mo, $144.99/year

    Summary

    Bluebird Languages has several types of lessons you can choose from, including a daily lesson, core vocabulary, essential verbs, creating sentences, powerful phrases, and conversation. Each topic seems to have a beginner, intermediate, and advanced lesson, although it’s not clear how advanced “advanced” is. In each lesson, an English-speaking narrator will ask you to listen to and repeat translations of various phrases. The recordings in each language seem to use native speakers’ voices, which is quite the feat considering they have lessons in over 160 languages. Bluebird Languages’ phrases don’t construct a replicable dialogue, so the phrases don’t seem to have a lot of context other than the topic at hand. Furthermore, the topics seem to be identical in all languages, so most of the phrases will not be culture-specific. They also don’t break down complicated pronunciation, but you can try to break it down yourself by slowing down the recording to 0.5x speed. Bluebird Languages seems similar to Pimsleur but appears less organized and will probably not improve your communication abilities as quickly. Nevertheless, it may be a good free alternative for beginners, and the program will probably help you develop some confidence in speaking languages that have less challenging pronunciation. The conversation and personalized lessons require a monthly membership, but there is enough free content that these add-ons may not be necessary.

  • Brainscape Mini-Review: Adaptive Flashcards

    Brainscape

    Rating 4.0
    Price:

    Freemium, Premium subscriptions start at $9.99/mo

    Summary

    Brainscape is a flashcard app that uses a Spaced Repetition System, also often referred to as ‘adaptive flashcards’, to help you memorize new vocabulary and facts. It has a team of scientists, engineers, and education experts working to optimize their program for effective learning. Brainscape is quite similar to Anki, but has a more modern and colourful interface. They also have Certified Classes, which are decks that seem to have been developed by experts in the chosen topic. The app adds what they call Intelligent Cumulative Exposure (ICE) to some of their Certified Classes; it seems to combine a Spaced Repetition System with gradually introducing new concepts, increasing the difficulty of the concepts, and providing context so you can build your own sentences. It has several Certified Classes for various languages (and other topics), and many more decks created by users. Unlike Anki, edits that creators make to user decks seem to sync up even after you have downloaded the deck. With the free version, you have limited access to premium decks but unlimited access to user-made decks.

  • CaptionPop Mini-Review: Use The Free Version

    Caption Pop

    Rating 4.0
    Price:

    Free, Premium subscriptions start at $10/mo

    Summary

    With CaptionPop you can use YouTube videos to pursue your language learning endeavours using subtitles in both your target language and native language. Tap a single key to repeat the last caption, slow down the playback speed, and bookmark subtitles to study with SRS interactive flashcards. The flashcards will not just have you memorize words, but practice dictations with immediate feedback on your accuracy. Unfortunately there are currently some bugs in the programming, and you may only hear part of the caption you are being asked to transcribe. You can search for Youtube videos in your target language within the CaptionPop platform, but only those videos with subtitles in both your target language and your native language are available. This means that you will rely on captions translated and transcribed by the video’s creators, which improves your language learning experience but restricts the amount of available Youtube content. Nevertheless, there is a good amount of content from popular channels in more common languages. The free version of the platform combined with self-made Anki cards may be a better option than subscribing to the premium version, as the bugs in CaptionPop’s programming may not be worth the monthly payment.

  • Complete Language Lessons Mini Review: Almost Useless

    Complete Language Lessons

    Rating 0.2
    Price:

    $8.99 for the CD/$1.29 per track on Amazon, free on Spotify

    Summary

    Complete Language Lessons has audio courses for numerous languages on Amazon, Spotify, and Deezer. We tried out the Swahili audio course, Learn Swahili Easily, Effectively, and Fluently – and were extremely disappointed. The audio tracks we sampled consist of Swahili phrases repeated over and over again, with no translations, explanations, or anything in English. The audio quality isn’t great, either, and the occasional muted club music adds to the bizarreness.  It feels to us like the audio tracks are supposed to accompany a textbook, but we couldn’t find one. If one existed at some point, we suspect it’s no longer available. If you already speak the language and are looking for native audio recordings to help you improve your listening and pronunciation, you might get some value out of Complete Language Lessons. However, if your aim is learn the language, we would skip these CDs.

  • Cooljugator Mini-Review: Conjugations For Uncommon Languages

    cooljugator

    Rating 4.0
    Price:

    $ 0.00

    Summary

    Cooljugator is a free online verb conjugation dictionary for over 40 languages, with special attention to languages without existing free resources. Besides conjugated forms, the website also provides examples, English translations, pronunciation hints, related verbs, and more. On each page, you can also read the translation for your chosen verb into every other language available on the site. Unfortunately, there are no audio files to help you with pronunciation, but maybe that will change in the future. You can directly search for conjugations, or if you’re looking for inspiration, every language has a list of the most common verbs to choose from. On that same page, you can read some facts and a brief overview of what verb conjugation looks like in your chosen language. Although Cooljugator is 100% free, you can purchase the creator’s other project, Interlinear Books, to learn languages through stories. If you would like to practice verb conjugations for some common languages, check out Conjuguemos, another free resource with verb conjugation games. Also, SpanishDict is probably more appropriate for Spanish learners because of the extensive resources and activities that accompany their sections on verb conjugation. 

  • DLI Courses Mini-Review: Free With a Strong Focus on Pronunciation

    DLI Courses

    Rating 4.3
    Price:

    $ 0.00

    Summary

    The DLI and FSI language courses are still some of the most comprehensive resources for language learning today, and probably the most comprehensive free resources you will find.  Although the DLI and FSI courses are comparable in quality, DLI courses focus more on military terminology in the later lessons, while FSI courses focus on everyday communication and communication for diplomats. Another key difference between them is that the DLI courses may go into more depth, and also seem to provide a more comprehensive guide to the study of each language; the FSI courses either have briefer explanations or dive straight into the content. Both of them have outdated content, which is understandable considering that they were developed in the mid-1900s and have scarcely been updated since then. Often the DLI courses outline clear practice strategies to reproduce your target language’s sounds. Also, depending on the language, literal translations are sometimes used so that you get accustomed to each language’s grammar structure. All the PDFs and audio files are available for download on various sites, although Live Lingua has made navigating between the material quite intuitive. If you can’t find your desired language in the DLI courses, check out the FSI courses for different options.

  • Easy Languages Mini-Review: Interviews Around The Globe

    Easy Languages

    Rating 4.3
    Price:

    $ 0.00

    Summary

    Easy Languages gets people involved from all around the globe —from Brazil to Mongolia — to film authentic interviews about everyday life with locals on the street. A typical episode format starts with the interviewer (or interviewers) introducing the topic and location for the day. Then, they will approach various locals to ask their opinion or test their knowledge. Only a handful of languages, like Hindi, and Swahili, don’t follow this format — these are also typically the languages with fewer videos. Easy Languages invites co-producers to join their channel, which means that anyone can apply to create videos, as long as they are filmed according to the Easy Languages guidelines. These co-producers receive multimedia training if they don’t already have experience in the field, so the videos typically have a baseline quality standard (although sometimes the filming can be a bit shaky). Most of the interviewers have a bubbly personality, and some of them appear in multiple language interviews within Easy Languages. Overall, the interviews are enjoyable and will train your ear to understand a range of voices and accents. Also, for anyone who uses Seedlang for German, you’ll be pleasantly surprised to see Cari’s friendly face in the Easy German episodes!  

  • Encore!!! Language Learning Mini-Review: Basically a Phrasebook

    Encore!!! Language Learning

    Rating 1.5
    Price:

    Free

    Summary

    Encore!!! Language Learning allows you to listen to playlists of common phrases, vocabulary, conjugations, and dialogues. It varies in terms of whether it uses native speakers or automated text-to-voice. The app is basically a phrasebook that allows you to practice translating sentences to and from your native language, or simply repeat after an audio in your target language. You can listen to a pre-made playlist, mute or unmute certain phrases within a playlist, adjust the number of repetitions of each phrase, or create your own playlist. You can also test your memory with the Test tool by reading prompts in your native language and translating into your target language. The app seems to focus more on understanding grammar structures than other phrasebook sites like Optilingo or Lingohut. Technically you could learn something by repeating the phrases aloud, but there are many other free apps that provide a clearer learning path and have a more intuitive interface than Encore!!! Language Learning.

  • Forvo Mini-Review: Audio Pronunciation of Millions of Words

    Forvo

    Rating 4.8
    Price:

    Free

    Summary

    Forvo’s mission is to improve spoken communication across cultures. Anyone can explore pronunciations of millions of words in over 390 languages with maps displaying where each speaker is from. The site also organizes popular categories and essential phrases for when you don’t have a specific word in mind. As a registered user, you can contribute to the site by pronouncing words or phrases in your native language or by requesting pronunciations in a specific language. You are also encouraged to vote on audio files in your native language to help others identify the best pronunciation. For those of you who enjoy using Anki, Forvo allows you to download mp3 files to use in your learning endeavours. Forvo also has an e-learning course for French, Spanish, and English; you will find three levels and a group of topics with sets of the most common words in your target language. Using an SRS flashcard system, you will be able to learn the pronunciation of these words and view an example of how to use them in a sentence. If you are looking for a pronunciation reference guide, look no further than Forvo’s extensive database!

  • FSI Courses Mini-Review: Free, Comprehensive, but Also Outdated

    FSI Courses

    Rating 4.3
    Price:

    Free

    Summary

    The Foreign Services Institute developed their language courses to help diplomats quickly reach professional working proficiency in a language. They would attend 5 hours of language instruction per day, plus homework, for 24-88 weeks (depending on the language). The table at the bottom of this page indicates the average time it would take for a student to reach professional working proficiency. The FSI program places a strong focus on listening comprehension, in addition to extensive exercises for grammar and vocabulary. If you follow along with the audio and respond to the prompts in each drill, you will also develop confidence in speaking the language. With hundreds of pages of text, dozens of hours of audio, and several levels in many languages, the FSI courses are still probably the most comprehensive, free courses you can follow. Just remember that they are decades old, so the audio is not very clear and the vocabulary often includes both sexist and obsolete language. Also, some of the topics will not be relevant to your everyday life. Several sites host these free, open-source courses, but the site linked below is  easy to navigate. Beware of any site selling courses “originally made for diplomats,” as these are probably free FSI courses with a price tag. You can also check out the DLI courses, which are equally as comprehensive (and free!).

  • FunEasyLearn Mini-Review: Build Vocabulary The Fun Way

    FunEasyLearn

    Rating 2.6
    Price:

    Freemium, monthly subscriptions starting at $11.99

    Summary

    Not only does FunEasyLearn have a slick app interface, high-quality recordings of native speakers, and a variety of activities to reinforce your learning, but it also allows you to learn from 61 mother tongues. The lessons were developed by a team of certified linguists and acting teachers; they cover reading, listening, speaking and writing. You have the choice of learning individual vocabulary or common phrases, both of which navigate between various common categories such as “Describing people”, “General Conversation”, “ and “Transport”. Unfortunately, FunEasyLearn does not seem to provide a foundation for learning more challenging scripts, such as Chinese or Thai; luckily they have a special feature where you can choose to omit the writing aspect and see transliterations; this will allow you to focus on speaking and listening. Ultimately, FunEasyLearn is a fun and easy way to develop some basic vocabulary, but it is probably not the most effective resource for hard-core language learners; you will need to use another resource if you want to learn more than basic vocabulary words.

  • Glosbe Mini-Review: Thousands of Languages With Some Errors

    Glosbe Dictionary

    Rating 3.5
    Price:

    Free

    Summary

    Glosbe is a dictionary that serves over 6000 languages. Most words have a list of definitions, conjugations, declensions, and similar phrases (although these phrases are hit or miss when it comes to how relevant they are to the initial entry). Many of the entries are created by community members, who can add and edit translations, example sentences, pronunciations, and images. Also, the site does not use text-to-voice pronunciation — as a result, some words may not have any pronunciation. It’s important to note that some of the content is not checked by the creators, such as the example sentences. Be careful if you are trying to learn new phrases from these lists, as although many of them are correct, there are a few that may lead you to learn inaccurate vocabulary or grammar. Additionally, less commonly studied languages may be listed as available, but only contain a few lines of content. Overall, Glosbe may be a helpful tool if you can’t find dictionaries that specialize in your target language. However, SpanishDict is a far more comprehensive option for Spanish learners, as is Pleco for Chinese learners and Kanji Study for Japanese. You can also check out Forvo, a dictionary resource for native speaker audio files that has strict rules on community contributions.

  • Hey! Lingo Mini-Review: Has Useful Phrases

    HeyLingo

    Rating 3.0
    Price:

    $5.99/mo, $24.99/year, and $39.99/lifetime access

    Summary

    Hey! Lingo, with its flashy, modern, desktop interface, offers a series of phrasebook-like flashcard courses in 26 languages. Each language is divided into 50 lessons, the first 20 of which don’t require a subscription. A premium subscription will allow you to filter flashcard formats, focus on which cards have been difficult for you, and specify which cards you would like to learn in one lesson. The lessons focus on specific skills and each have 10 flashcards. They use both the official alphabet of the target language and a transliteration of the alphabet. The audio pronunciation for each card seems to use a lower quality text-to-speech program than we’ve seen in other apps, which can detract from the learning experience. Although Hey! Lingo is a phrasebook app, it does not focus on typical travel phrases, like how to order food at a restaurant. Instead, it teaches you practical phrases that get to the heart of expressing oneself. Here are some example sentences in the Korean 1 course: “I feel lonely,” “I envy him” and “Stop following me”. The lessons don’t seem to provide a solid foundation for beginners, and they probably won’t help you have conversations in your target language. However, if you enjoy learning useful phrases and already have a basic foundation of the language, Hey! Lingo could be a good option for you.

  • iLanguages Mini-Review: Almost Identical to Learn 101

    ilanguages

    Rating 1.3
    Price:

    Free

    Summary

    Learn 101 is almost identical to iLanguages; they have the same native speaker audio files, languages, and mostly identical ‘lesson’ layouts. The main differences are that Learn 101 seems to have added some grammar explanations and reformatted a bit, while iLanguages seems to have added some extra phrases. Since every one of the languages’ “lessons” has the exact same format, including the grammar section, you will learn how to say ‘and’, ‘but’, and ‘or’, in 107 languages, but you will not learn where these types of words fit within a specific language’s sentence structure. Every page is just a list of words with a translation (and sometimes an IPA symbol transliteration). This site could be used if you want to hear native speakers pronounce basic words in very rare languages, or if you want to look up the IPA symbols of a rare language’s alphabet — otherwise, you’re probably better off making flashcards yourself on Anki or trying one of the hundreds of other resources we recommend on this site.

  • iLoveLanguages Mini-Review: Another Phrasebook SIte

    ilovelanguages.org

    Rating 1.6
    Price:

    Free

    Summary

    iLoveLanguages seems similar to iLanguages and Learn101 in that every language has the same content and grammar. The eighteen 30-minute beginner ‘lessons’ in every language are essentially lists of phrases and vocabulary words, with audio recordings by native speakers. The site seems to provide a local teacher for each language, but for some reason, the same teacher offers at least 11 of the languages (including Gaelic, Basque, Filipino, Marathi, and Cantonese). Oddly enough, this teacher also appears in stock photos around the internet. Considering that the website advertises each language class as being taught by a native speaker, perhaps be cautious if you are considering taking a class from this site — maybe try italki or SpanishVIP for private lessons instead. iLoveLanguages may be helpful if you want to hear native speakers pronounce words in South-Eastern languages, like Marathi, Gujarati, Vietnamese, or Malay. You can compare the pronunciation with the speakers from either iLanguages or Learn 101 (but not both, as they use identical audio files). You could also check out Forvo, which is probably the most extensive pronunciation database on the internet right now. 

  • Instant Immersion Mini-Review: No Longer a Good Investment

    Instant Immersion

    Rating 2.0
    Price:

    1 level costs $29.95, 3 levels cost $44.95

    Summary

    Instant Immersion offers programs in over 120 languages, narrated by native speakers. It claims to help you build your vocabulary, converse with ease, and perfect your pronunciation. It has interactive activities on the computer, interactive games you can play with your family on a DVD, and MP3 files for your car. Their topics include food, shopping, restaurants, animals, numbers, etc. In other words, Instant Immersion will probably not help you if you are looking to have immediately applicable conversations A common trend in many reviews is the lack of structure in these courses. While other courses build on what you have previously learned and help you learn vocabulary relevant to your everyday life, Instant Immersion seems to provide a large amount of information without transitions or a clear learning path. There is a lot of content, but this doesn’t necessarily mean you will learn a lot. Instant Immersion may have been a good investment several years ago, but now there are many other options for affordable, quality language learning.

  • Interlinear Books Mini-Review: Literal Translations Between The Lines

    Interlinear Books

    Rating 4.0
    Price:

    $9.99

    Summary

    Interlinear Books is a project for intermediate language learners from the creators of Cooljugator. They sell individual e-books in their original language, but with English translations between each line of text. Instead of translating full sentences that capture the spirit of the language, professional translators use literal (but understandable) translations to support you in understanding the original language’s sentence structure. Another technique that the authors use to support your learning is to highlight cognates between languages. You may find translations for words whose English counterpart looks almost identical to that of the target language, even when those English translations are not the most commonly used. The authors suggest that you don’t read the translations as full sentences, but rather that you refer to them only when you encounter words or expressions that you don’t understand. Each purchase also comes with a unilingual version for you to try out for extra practice (and sometimes they even come with an audiobook!). For intermediate learners who are tired of looking back and forth between a dictionary and their book, Interlinear may be a good intermediary to support you in the transition to unilingual books. Chinese is not supported yet, but check out Du Chinese or the Chairman’s Bao for graded reading material.

  • Internet Polyglot Mini-Review: Word Lists With Games

    Internet Polyglot

    Rating 1.3
    Price:

    Free

    Summary

    Internet Polyglot is a website for memorizing vocabulary words in dozens of languages. It has 44 “lessons” that cover topics like cars, time, religion, politics, feelings, measurements, and more. Each lesson is essentially a word list with native speaker pronunciation, an English translation, and a link to a picture to help you remember each word. There are picture games, matching games, guessing games, and typing games, plus a word search and a slide show that reviews all of the words in the lesson. Given that none of the vocabulary words in Internet Polyglot are taught using example sentences or context, learning vocabulary using this site may not be the best use of your time. You are probably better off using Anki to curate personalized vocabulary lists and downloading native speaker audio files from Forvo to accompany your flashcards. Nevertheless, you may find it useful if all you are looking for is a site that already has lists of vocabulary words with native speaker audio. If you are looking for audio files for less commonly-studied languages in context, you can check out iLoveLanguages.

  • iTranslate Mini-Review: 5 Apps To Support Communication

    itranslate

    Rating 4.0
    Price:

    $ 0.00

    Summary

    iTranslate is a dictionary, thesaurus, and phrasebook. At first glance, it seems similar to Google Translate’s free app, but a couple of extra paid features make a big difference. Like with Google Translate, you can take pictures of text in your surroundings, such as signs or newspapers, and receive instant translations into your native language. It differs in that you can also take pictures of objects in your surroundings and receive translations into your target language (although it’s not clear what the boundaries are on this function). Two people who don’t speak the same language can use iTranslate Converse as a mediator between them, translating each sentence to create a transcript on their phone (with a slight delay). You can also use the iTranslate Keyboard in any texting app to receive instant translations. To get the most out of your subscription, iTranslate includes five different apps that can support language learning and communication through text, voice, and games. Although iTranslate translates into over 100 languages, check the website to verify which languages are supported in the other apps. iTranslate seems suitable for traveling and communication in different languages. If all you need is a dictionary to support your studies, try WordReference and Linguee, or Pleco for Chinese and SpanishDict for Spanish.

  • L-Lingo Mini-Review: Textbook Content, Depends On Your Style

    L-Lingo

    Rating 3.0
    Price:

    $14.95/mo, $75/half-year, $120/year

    Summary

    Each language on L-Lingo contains 105 lessons and 5000 words. The lessons seem to be the same in every language, and will teach you typical textbook lessons, such as booking a hotel reservation, naming different colours, or navigating to an airport. If you are looking for something that will help you communicate naturally with native speakers, this probably isn’t the resource for you. Similar to Rosetta Stone, L-Lingo plays an audio recording of a sentence or word, and then asks you to find the image that corresponds to what you just heard. Unlike Rosetta Stone, L-Lingo provides seemingly clear and concise grammar explanations of the concept you are about to learn. They provide three types of quizzes with every lesson, and also use Spaced Repetition Software to help you remember new vocabulary. There are currently some technical difficulties signing up on the website, but you can access their content on your mobile device. The program has mixed reviews on various platforms, but you can check out the first five lessons for free to see if it suits what you’re looking for.

  • Lang Workbooks Mini Review: Thorough Writing Practice

    Lang Workbooks

    Rating 4.0
    Price:

    $5.99

    Summary

    For learners of languages that use unfamiliar writing systems, the Lang Workbooks series can be a helpful and practical way to master the intricacies of writing in their target languages. Among numerous other writing systems, the series includes the Korean, Russian Cyrillic, and Armenian alphabets; Persian and Thai script; the Hindi Devanāgarī abugida; Chinese characters; and Japanese Hiragana and Katakana. The series also covers languages that use the Latin alphabet with diacritical (accent) marks, such as French, German, and Portuguese. Many books in the series have been translated into other languages, such as Italian, French, German, Spanish, and Portuguese. The series also covers writing systems that may have fewer available resources for learners, such as Lao script and the Cherokee syllabary. Each book in the series presents its featured writing system with suggested pronunciations. The practice pages in each workbook have useful features for each letter, symbol, or character, such as a recommended stroke order, font variations, example words, and a “Trace and Learn” section. Each workbook is relatively inexpensive. In addition, the publishers of the series have granted teachers and students a license to make photocopies of the workbook pages for personal use, so you can get unlimited chances to practice. Considering the depth of information in each language’s workbook, the books in this series can provide great value for learners.

  • LangCorrect: Unlimited, Free Writing Practice With Feedback

    LangCorrect

    Rating 5.0
    Price:

    Free

    Summary

    LangCorrect is a free community-driven writing site where users can both contribute to editing others’ work and receive feedback on their own writing. After writing your piece, you may submit it to receive feedback from other site users. In order to ensure accurate feedback, multiple users can cross-check the corrections that were made and add comments. Volunteers and Patrons have access to writing in up to 10 languages, but typical users can write in a maximum of two languages at a time. Everyone is encouraged to both write and correct others’ work on the site. If you are looking to improve your writing skills in one of the over 100 languages available, trying out this resource is a must! However, if you’re studying a less common language and not finding many users to give you corrections, consider trying the exercise section in italki’s community features.

    The rating is our best guess, but we haven’t yet had the opportunity to fully test and review this resource.

  • Language Learning WIth Netflix Mini-Review: Easy to Use

    Language learning with Netflix

    Rating 4.0
    Price:

    Freemium, Free Trial, $4.95/mo

    Summary

    If you want to make language learning more accessible while watching Netflix, this chrome extension is for you. The free version allows you to skip subtitles forward and backward in case you didn’t catch what was said, and you can also choose to automatically pause the movie or show after each subtitle. The full transcript is also displayed on the side. By hovering over a word you can see a short translation and hear an audio pronunciation, or you can click on the word for more context and further links to various dictionary sites. With a Pro membership you can save words or phrases, receive translations that are closer to the meaning in the original language, and create subtitles for dubbed movies. LLN’s catalogue can help you find Netflix movies or shows with high-quality subtitles to improve your experience,

  • Learn101 Mini-Review: A Re-Formatted Version of iLanguages

    learn101

    Rating 1.3
    Price:

    Free

    Summary

    Learn 101 is almost identical to iLanguages, but neither of them seem to be very helpful; they have the same native speaker audio files, languages, and mostly identical ‘lesson’ layouts. The main differences are that Learn 101 seems to have added some grammar explanations and reformatted a bit, while iLanguages seems to have added some extra phrases. Since every one of the languages’ “lessons” has the same format, including the grammar section, you will learn how to say ‘and’, ‘but’, and ‘or’, in 107 languages, but you will not learn where these types of words fit within a specific language’s sentence structure. Although there are examples of various grammatical structures, the explanations for these structures are also identical for every language, which, practically speaking, doesn’t seem plausible. This site could be useful if you want to hear native speakers pronounce basic words in less-common languages, or if you want to look up the IPA symbols of a less-common language’s alphabet — otherwise, you’re probably better off making flashcards yourself on Anki, or trying one of the hundreds of other resources we recommend on this site.

  • Lexilogos Mini-Review: A Resource Bank For Dictionaries and Books

    lexilogos

    Rating 3.5
    Price:

    Free

    Summary

    Although Lexilogos seems to have entirely neglected its aesthetics, it holds more than meets the eye. If you click on one of the 130+ languages listed at the bottom of the page, you will find a series of resources to support your studies. This is especially useful for less-studied languages, like Marathi, Basque, and Pashto. Although the lists don’t provide recommendations for applications, they do provide a list of dictionaries, keyboards, news sites, books, and research papers. Additionally, if you switch to the French version of the site, there are even more languages and resources available for you to explore. Within each language’s page, there is also a dictionary search function. You will notice that more commonly studied languages will have dozens of dictionaries to choose from, while less commonly studied languages may only have one or two. Overall, Lexilogos is a great option for finding resources for less commonly studied languages. They regularly update their site, so make sure to check back if you don’t find what you’re looking for the first time around.

  • LingoHut Mini-Review: Good Intentions, So-So Follow Through

    lingohut

    Rating 2.0
    Price:

    Free

    Summary

    Kendal and Philipp, the creators of the LingoHut, are passionate about teaching languages. Their website supposedly helps A1 and A2 language learners develop their confidence in listening and pronunciation. All audio clips were recorded by native speakers so that beginners can get accustomed to natural pronunciation, and each lesson has a series of matching games for listening comprehension and reading. Unfortunately, the creators’ genuine intention to support beginners doesn’t seem to translate into their lessons. The lessons are essentially a series of phrases that are not adapted to each language’s culture; each of the 50 languages use the exact same set of sentences and lesson formats. This means that you will learn how to say ‘dumpling’ both in Chinese and Italian. There is also no section to learn the script of languages such as Korean, Hindi, or Arabic, nor are there transliterations to help beginners sound out the pronunciation. Furthermore, some sentences switch between formal and informal language without explanation, which would not be intuitive for an A1 learner. If you want a free resource to listen to native speakers’ pronunciation of hundreds of common phrases, LingoHut is definitely a free option. However, there are other resources that can help you learn languages more effectively.

  • Lingua Boost Mini-Review: Use Pimsleur Instead

    Lingua Boost

    Rating 2.2
    Price:

    1 level costs $19.90, two levels cost $33.90

    Summary

    Lingua Boost’s website sells downloadable volumes of phrasebook-like lessons that teach everyday phrases in context. The lessons are about 10 minutes long; they are narrated by native speakers and focus on vocabulary within a specific topic. Although each lesson seems to contain something that resembles a dialogue, every phrase is spoken by the same person. Additionally, many of the lessons initially appear to be dialogues, but end up as a list of sentences. For example, the first line of a lesson might be, “what do you like to do?” followed by a series of statements such as “I like to read books,” or “I like to go swimming.” Furthermore, for languages that have more difficult pronunciation, such as Russian and Hindi, the lessons do not break down pronunciation. In Pimsleur, for example, they use an excellent technique of working backwards with each syllable in a word. In Lingua Boost, it seems that you are expected to just listen and gradually catch on, even from the absolute beginner level. Finally, each volume must be purchased separately, but you can test out the first 5 lessons for free on their website. If you’re looking for a similar course that breaks down pronunciation, has interactive activities and helps you learn full dialogues in context, check out Pimsleur’s subscription plan.

  • Loecsen Mini-Review: Phrasebook App For Absolute Beginners

    Loecsen

    Rating 2.5
    Price:

    Free

    Summary

    Loecsen’s strengths are its attractive interface and drawings that accompany the content. It also uses high-quality audio recordings by native speakers, even in the less-common languages. The website offers 41 different languages, but unfortunately, there are only about 432 phrases to learn, which will not take you beyond even the absolute basics. These phrases are practical, however, so in a pinch, they may save you abroad. Despite the attractive interface, the buttons are not very intuitive, so you may have to click around to figure out what each one does. Below the main interactive program, you can see a list of vocabulary and a progress bar for speaking and vocabulary activities — the vocabulary highlights in green as you complete the quizzes. At the very bottom of the page, you can also see an overview of basic pronunciation. For pronunciation practice, the read-aloud tool provides you with a series of songs or text excerpts that you can record yourself reading aloud and then compare with the original song (or a robot voice). If you’re just looking to learn basic essential phrases and pick up some vocabulary for a trip, Loecsen is an attractive program for the very casual learner. Otherwise, many other resources can take you to at least the intermediate level in most of the same languages.

  • Madinah Arabic Mini-Review: Text-Based Arabic Lessons

    Madinah Arabic

    Rating 2.8
    Price:

    Free

    Summary

    Madinah Arabic is most suitable for learners focused on classical Arabic. It has text-based lessons for beginners and quizzes for intermediate learners. Although the interface is not very modern, it gives a decent introduction to the Arabic script, in addition to basic sentence structures with native speaker pronunciation for every word. After learning the basic script, there are over 100 step-by-step beginner lessons that start with practical sentence structures. Instead of learning basic phrases, such as how to order food at a restaurant, you will learn how to build your own sentences. There are a few fill-in-the-blank and multiple-choice questions in the lessons, plus about 90 beginner to advanced quizzes to test listening and reading comprehension. The site also offers Arabic tutors over Skype with a free trial lesson. Keep in mind that the information may not be as easy to digest as in Duolingo or Arabicpod101, and it will probably take a lot of  discipline to make your way through the lessons.

  • Master Any Language Mini-Review: No Words To Describe the Nope

    Master Any Language

    Rating 0.2
    Price:

    Free

    Summary

    Master Any Language has a counterintuitive interface with activities that are frustrating to navigate. Its only perk is that it supports less-studied languages, but even if you do find yourself lacking resources in your target language, this website will probably detract from your learning. You will jump through hoops trying to find the audio recordings by native speakers, so you may want to try ilovelanguages or Learn101 instead; they have low ratings, but they won’t make you lose your motivation to learn altogether. Most of the activities on Master Any Language are matching games that require you to click on two identical characters, words, or letters: the purpose of this is unclear because it tests neither recall nor recognition. Another activity asks you to form or match nonsensical sequences of words (Ex. Find the sentence identical to “el el el el tchèque tchèque tchèque el el tchèque tchèque”….). Ultimately, you would probably be better off trying to decipher a page of text with absolutely no guidance than to even attempt to wrap your head around MAL’s activities.

  • My Language Exchange Mini-Review: Millions of Active Users

    My Language Exchange

    Rating 4.2
    Price:

    Freemium, Gold Memberships start at $6/mo

    Summary

    My Language Exchange has been growing since 2000. Although the website seems out of date, it still has an active community of millions of language-learners who speak almost 200 native languages (including less commonly studied languages). You can choose a pen pal by reading their bios, or there is a chat room available for you to instantly connect with a language exchange partner — note that if you create a Gold account, you can initiate chats with other users, but as a regular user, you will have to wait to be contacted. Using the Cormier Method, the website provides tools to help intermediate speakers effectively practice with other learners. It advertises a Chat Companion with lesson plans to accompany your exchange, or lesson plans developed by teachers (although the quality of these resources varies drastically).  You can also find language teachers on the site, but given that the transactions take place directly between you and the teacher, you may feel safer using a 3rd party platform like italki or Verbling Although there are outlines on how to participate in language exchanges, how these outlines are followed depends entirely on you and your partner(s). My Language Exchange will help you build connections with other learners, but it’s up to you to plan how to practice. The concepts can also be used with any language exchange platform, such as Lingbe, italki, Tandem, and Amikumu.

  • Optilingo Mini-Review: Use if You Absolutely Love Slideshows

    optilingo

    Rating 1.5
    Price:

    $11.99/mo, $23.97/quarter, $41.94/half-year, $71.88/year

    Summary

    Optilingo is essentially a phrase-bank in slideshow form. Each of the 20 languages available includes 100 lessons, none of which contain information about the topic or learning goals during the writing of this review. You can expect to listen to a series of phrases, and then review (what seems like) the last 45 phrases you have learned before moving onto the next lesson. The phrases are not in flashcard form — instead, they are in a slideshow with both the English and the target language displayed together. Optilingo advertises learning and practicing with over 29 hours worth of phrases, and while you can surely practice with their phrase-bank, actually learning to speak any of the languages offered using their platform is questionable. If you are keen on language learning, check out our bank of reviews for other resources.

  • Polly Lingual Mini-Review: Phrasebook With Simple Games

    Polly Lingual

    Rating 2.0
    Price:

    Freemium, yearly subscriptions start at $2.99/mo

    Summary

    Polly Lingual is a phrasebook app and website with a series of basic word lists, flashcards, and memory games. Some of the phrases are pronounced by native speakers, while others use text-to-voice. Unlike other phrasebook apps that focus on phrases alone, Polly Lingual introduces the basic alphabet in languages with non-romanized scripts. You can quiz yourself on the basic vowels and consonants in Russian, Hebrew, Korean, Japanese, and Arabic. Polly Lingual may be helpful for a quick review of what you’ve already learned, but if you’re keen on learning to write a new script, you may want to check out Write It! or Write Me. There are also Polly Ambassadors — tutors who will provide short videos of language learning tips throughout the site. You can send them a personal message or hire them as a private tutor. Overall, Polly Lingual only teaches basic phrases and will probably not help you learn how to construct your own sentences. If you’re just beginning to learn another language, check out French in Action, Red Kalinka (Russian), Chinesefor.us, 90 Day Korean, Portuguese lab, or Pimsleur to get more out of your time. Also, Italki will give you more options for private tutors, if that’s what you’re looking for.

  • Readlang Mini-Review: A Must-Have For Language Lovers

    Readlang

    Rating 4.5
    Price:

    Freemium, Premium subscriptions start at $5/mo

    Summary

    With Readlang as your Google Chrome Extension, you can have instant translations for words or sentences in over 45 languages at the tip of your mouse cursor (or fingertip)! Browse the internet and effortlessly click on unknown words to get a translation that stays on your screen until it is no longer needed. If you can’t find anything to read on the internet, you can access a bank of public texts organized by word count and difficulty, browse the most popular websites for Readlang users, or upload your own text to study. If you read on the Readlang website, you can see words that you have previously translated highlighted across every text. Readlang collects SRS flashcards for you from words that you have translated. It will only record the most useful words for you to practice based on word frequency lists, which could be either a pro or a con depending on your study goals. Each flashcard also includes audio pronunciation and the sentence from which the word was taken. You can choose to reveal the flashcard to check your comprehension, or type in your response for more effective recall. The free version provides enough for the casual user, but upgrading to an affordable premium membership allows unlimited phrase translations and unknown word highlighting across texts. Although there may be some problems with translations in beta languages, and sometimes it fails to recognize text, overall Readlang is an excellent resource for language lovers.

  • Reverso Translation Mini-Review: Best for French learners

    Reverso Translation

    Rating 3.8
    Price:

    $ 0.00

    Summary

    Reverso is a translation and spell check app. Its features primarily target French and English learners, although it also translates into a handful of other languages. Compared with BonPatron, Reverso’s spell-check function (available only for French and English) is less attuned to general mistakes, such as capitalization or inappropriate commas. Reverso only catches some of the errors related to inappropriate accordance of genders or numbers from “The House of Être” verbs. Nevertheless, it does a decent job of catching obvious mistakes, and it will provide you with synonyms to enrich your writing. You are encouraged to use the spell check function at each stage of the writing process because when you correct one error, the program may identify new ones. The free version allows you to check 1200 characters at a time, and upgrading to a premium version will allow you to check unlimited characters. The Reverso Contexto dictionary is an excellent resource for most of the available languages. While Linguee takes examples from relatively formal sources, Reverso Contexto provides example sentences professionally translated from movies, dialogues, official documents, websites, and newspapers.  Other resources include Reverso’s dictionary (which is usually from Collin’s) a verb conjugator, French and English grammar articles, a thesaurus, and a document translator.

  • Simply Learn Mini-Review: Spaced Repetition Phrases For Travelers

    Simply Learn

    Rating 3.0
    Price:

    $ 9.99

    Summary

    In Simply Learn, by Simya Solutions, you can search for and review over 1000 phrases in over 30 categories. It takes the typical phrasebook app one step further by allowing you to add your favorite phrases to SRS flashcards. Given that its developers also developed Ling, an additional, more comprehensive resource that supports language learning, it seems that Simply Learn is a supplementary app for individuals who need to learn basic phrases for traveling abroad.  The creators don’t seem to have intended for people to use this app to learn a language in its entirety, but rather to support them in memorizing basic phrases for travel. As with Simya Solutions’ other apps, Simply Learn is most helpful for less commonly learned languages, such as Hokkien and Khmer. Beginners can access the basic cards for free, but the advanced traveler will have to make a one-time purchase to access all the content. If what you truly want is to have a set of phrases under your belt, Simply Learn’s SRS flashcards and native-speaker audio can support you. However, if you are studying a less commonly learned language and want to understand the basic sentence patterns and writing system, check out Ling.

  • StoryLearning Olly Richards Short Stories Mini Review: Practical

    Olly Richards Short Stories

    Rating 4.0
    Price:

    Kindle books start at $6.55

    Summary

    Olly Richards, the creator of I Will Teach You A Language, has written a series of short stories for high-beginners to improve their reading skills in several languages. He also has a 101 Conversations series, but this review focuses on his Short Stories. Most of the languages use the most common words in your target language, with natural phrases that you would overhear locals using while conversing amongst each other. In every language, the plot follows the same characters and adventures, with some adjustments for cultural differences. The intro to each book provides a practical overview of how to maximize your learning. At the end of each chapter, you will see a summary of the plot, a vocabulary list of new words (that are also bolded in the stories), and comprehension questions. The comprehension questions are simple, allowing you to find the responses directly in the text. Overall, the Kindle version of Olly’s short stories seems worth the investment for upper beginners to improve their language abilities. If you’re learning Chinese, check out the Mandarin Companion series. Also, A1 – A2 Spanish learners can enjoy several short novels in the ESLC and Read It! series.

  • Strokes International Mini Review: Pricy but Comprehensive

    Strokes International

    Rating 3.0
    Price:

    53.00 CHF

    Summary

    Strokes International sells courses for 24 different languages. They’re more focused on European languages, from the popular German, Spanish, and French through to Slovakian, Czech, and Danish. They do have a couple of non-European ones, though, such as Arabic, Chinese, and Japanese. Using a Strokes International course feels a bit like going back in time. You have to download the program onto your computer (and we had to install additional software to run it). In the days of language apps and on-the-go learning, this seems a little inconvenient. Despite that, the course seems to be fairly effective. You listen to and repeat a natural conversation, before being slowly taught the words and phrases. You practice speaking them aloud, typing them, and playing Match Pairs card games. Although grammar takes a back seat, there are explanatory notes throughout and you can access a detailed grammar guide. There’s also a Pronunciation Trainer and Vocabulary Trainer. The Danish beginner course, which we briefly trialed, has 100 lessons.

  • Sublearning Mini-Review: There Are Better Uses For Your Time

    Sublearning

    Rating 1.3
    Price:

    Free

    Summary

    Sublearning is a very simple website that supposedly helps you learn languages through movie subtitles. You will be presented with 1 to 6 lines of subtitles from your chosen movie, and then you can reveal the translation after thinking about the response. There are 62 source and target languages, which does make one wonder where the translations are coming from; be wary of Sublearning’s translation quality. Just to clarify, the subtitles do not seem to be sourced from the most iconic phrases from your favourite movies; rather, they seem to be random lines from the movie, sometimes as simple as “I don’t think so”. If you’re just looking to reminisce about anything that was said in movies you have seen, you can go to Sublearning to pass some time. However if you’re interested in language learning, I recommend checking out some of the many resource reviews we have on this site.

  • SuperMemo Mini-Review: Not to Be Confused With Super-Memo

    Supermemo

    Rating 3.0
    Price:

    Free trial, $9.90/mo

    Summary

    *The app SuperMemo is often confused with Super-Memo SuperMemo seems to advertise its courses and their efficacy by emphasizing the SuperMemo Method. The website states that it is the only scientifically-proven computer-aided learning method — however, the method is a typical Spaced Repetition System that Brainscape, Anki, Pleco, Skritter, SpanishDict, and countless other resources use. If SuperMemo made any special improvements, they do not stand out. SuperMemo’s courses can be accessed through a monthly membership or through purchasing individual courses. Each course contains a series of flashcards with some interactive activities (such as fill-in-the-blanks, multiple-choice questions, and dropdown menus). In some beginner courses, like Hungarian and Dutch, you can learn basic pronunciation with the International Phonetic Alphabet; this can support you in both understanding and producing the sounds of the language later one. They also use native speaker pronunciation to train your ear. The Fast Track courses may have potential, but there do not seem to be many grammar explanations, and it may be up to you to understand your errors. Additionally, you may find that you are suddenly reading translations from your target language in Polish, whether or not you speak Polish. Overall, Supermemo seems okay, but there are probably other resources that will help you learn a language more effectively.

  • Tatoeba Mini-Review: A Community Writing Sentences in Context

    Tatoeba

    Rating 3.3
    Price:

    Free

    Summary

    Tatoeba is a sentence-focused reference dictionary, not word focused. Therefore, by searching for a word in any language, you are searching for examples of that word in context. The site is community-driven, but you don’t have to be multilingual to contribute to the site — it needs native-speaking writers to expand the example database and proofread user sentences. All of the translations are interconnected: even if there is technically no direct translation from Zulu to Chinese, an English translation for the same sentences in both languages will provide direct translations between them. Although Tatoeba supports about 388 languages, about 200 of these languages have less than 100 sentences, and about 58 have less than 10. Nevertheless, the database is continuously growing, and with more community members, the less common languages may have a chance to develop further. It is prohibited to use a translation tool or copyrighted sentences to contribute to the translation database. Unfortunately, some contributors write in a language in which they are not proficiently fluent. As a result, the site has grammatical mistakes and sentences that don’t sound natural. You may have to do some digging to figure out if the contributor is a native speaker or not. Because of the potential user errors on the site, you may want to check out WordReference, Pleco, SpanishDict, Kanji Study , and Linguee to find words in context for more commonly studied languages.

  • Verbix Mini-Review: Adequate for Less-Studied Languages

    Verbix

    Rating 2.3
    Price:

    Free

    Summary

    Verbix is a verb conjugator website and app developed by an independent non-profit organization. It conjugates over 100 languages, including Old English, Latin, and Yiddish The amount of information on the conjugation page varies depending on how common the language is. At its best, it will display nominal forms, most common verb conjugations, verbs that have similar conjugations, translations, synonyms, antonyms, cognates, and a section on etymology. Sometimes there are sample sentences (without translations) that seem to come from articles and books. The final section on additional information seems a bit random, and its purpose is unclear. To conjugate a verb in another language, you have to know the verb in its infinitive form. Unfortunately, although Verbix has a translation function, it doesn’t seem to cover all of the available languages, so you may not be able to find the verb you are looking for in the first place. A fun page to explore is Verbix’s list of over 6000 languages with a map depicting where each of these languages is spoken. Otherwise, Verbix seems a bit random and incomplete. It may be a helpful resource for less commonly studied languages, but check out Reverso Translation, Cooljugator, and SpanishDict first.  Also, if you want to practice verb conjugations in Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, or Latin, check out Conjuguemos

  • Vocabulearn Mini Review: Unlikely to Teach You a Language

    Vocabulearn

    Rating 0.6
    Price:

    $29.99 on Amazon, free on Spotify

    Summary

    Vocabulearn has so-called audio courses for numerous languages on Amazon and Spotify. We don’t believe you’ll learn much from them, but they could help you practice your pronunciation. For this mini review, we tried out the Vocabulearn Swahili/English Level 1 course. It’s split into four CDs, each with its own theme, and then each theme is divided into four lessons. The themes are: Nouns; Adjectives, Adverbs, Prepositions, Conjunctions 1; Expressions; Verbs. In each track, we listened to long lists of words and phrases. First, it was said in English; secondly, it was said in Swahili. However, there were no grammar or contextual explanations, drills, or activities to help you remember the material. In short, we’re not convinced that you’d be able to make your own sentences or even remember the vocabulary after listening to these CDs. However, if you’re studying a language with fewer resources, we think you could use it to practice your pronunciation by repeating each word after the speakers say it.

  • Vocly Mini-Review: Expand Your Vocabulary in Less Common Languages

    Vocly

    Rating 3.0
    Price:

    $ 11.99

    Summary

    Vocly is a vocabulary learning app that uses a couple of different techniques to reinforce new words (although it’s unclear whether or not the app uses an SRS system). Each word comes with audio pronunciation by native speakers and a toggle to either reveal or hide the romanization of the word. As with most of Simya Solution’s apps, Vocly is best for languages with fewer available resources. Instead of using English translations in the flashcard activities, the app will prompt you to associate the new word with a small picture. On one hand, this will help you make fewer translations into your native language. On the other hand, the pictures can be ambiguous and you may forget what they symbolize. The flashcard activities include matching activities, identifying new words that fit under a specific category, matching the sound of a word to an image, and asking you to spell the word in the language’s script. Unfortunately, the free version only allows 7 minutes of learning per day, which can feel rushed. Ling is a more comprehensive option for learning multiple facets of a language, but if your goal is to expand your vocabulary, Vocly has over 1600 words. The paid version is quite expensive for what it offers compared to other resources, but for less common languages it is a fun and interactive option.

  • Wordbit Mini-Review: Innovative Flashcards for Short Term Use

    WordBit

    Rating 3.0
    Price:

    Free

    Summary

    WordBit is a free app that minimizes the effort and thought that goes into deliberate practice by presenting you with the opportunity to practice each time you open your lock screen. Each time you open your phone, the app will overlay the lock screen and present you with either multiple choice translations for a given word, or a flashcard. You can choose to close the app to access the lock screen, or respond to the prompt. Although this app interferes with tasks on your phone that require immediate attention, it is no doubt effective at consistently exposing you to new vocabulary. It is available in multiple languages, for both target and source languages, and there is a large vocabulary category bank to choose from, including vocabulary from each of the levels A1-C2. There are some bugs in its programming, such as restarting your progress through each deck if you add or remove a category, and the ads at the bottom of the screen are easily tapped by accident.

  • WordReference Mini-Review: Thorough and Professionally Translated

    Wordreference

    Rating 4.5
    Price:

    Free

    Summary

    WordReference is one of the best websites for single-word translations. It uses a combination of its own dictionaries and Collins’, depending on the language, and relies on professional translations rather than machine-translations. With each word you look up, you will receive multiple examples of how to use it, nuances of each meaning, and a list of how to incorporate it into multiple phrases. Whereas sites like Bab.la seem to have machine-translated examples that sound quite random at times, WordReference’s examples can be applied directly to your everyday conversation. You can also find conjugation tables and the Collins COBUILD English Usage dictionary, which shows you how to use individual English words correctly — through its explanations, English learners will be able to differentiate between words that are easily confused (such as ‘current’ and ‘currant’). If the explanations don’t make sense, you can ask questions in the WordReference Language Forum — there you will find an active community of language learners discussing language learning topics. Unfortunately, not all words have audio pronunciation, but those that do can be played back at different speeds and with different accents (depending on the language). Although WordReference is a thorough resource, SpanishDict is probably a better option for Spanish learners, and Pleco is the only dictionary you will ever need for Chinese. Linguee is also similar to WordReference but specializes in formal language, and Forvo has millions of words pronounced by native speakers in hundreds of languages.

  • Write Alphabet Mini-Review: Try Our Other Recommendations Instead

    Write Alphabet

    Rating 1.5
    Price:

    Free

    Summary

    Write Alphabet seems to be a less developed version of Write It! Its purpose is to help users learn to write in different languages, guiding you through the alphabet of several scripts and allowing you to practice by drawing the characters with your finger. Like Write It!, Write Alphabet is free, but it has a lot of advertisements without an option to buy them off. Additionally, the app does not recognize your attempt to replicate each language’s script unless you start and finish within the lines of the template. Instead of this app, you can test Write it! (free), Write Me (paid lifetime access), and Scripts by Drops (monthly or lifetime access) to see which one best suits the language you are learning. For more comprehensive apps, check out Eggbun for Korean or Skritter for Chinese and Japanese.

  • Write It! Mini-Review: Simple and Straight-Forward

    Write it

    Rating 3.5
    Price:

    $ 0.00

    Summary

    Write it! will teach you the basic scripts of several different languages, using audio by native speakers to familiarize you with proper pronunciation. You can first practice learning to write a small set of characters, then you can test yourself through answering multiple-choice questions and more writing exercises. Although the interface is less flashy than Write Me, Write It! may be a better option for Korean learners because you will learn how to write Hangul from the start. Similar to Write Me and Scripts by Drops, Write It! doesn’t seem to give much background about each script. However, the creators of Write It! also developed Infinite, which you can use for free to learn and practice beginner words that use your chosen alphabet. You can test out Write it! (free), Write Me (paid lifetime access), and Scripts by Drops (monthly or lifetime access) to see which app best suits the language you are learning. For more comprehensive apps, check out Eggbun for Korean or Skritter for Chinese and Japanese.

  • Write Me Mini-Review: Learn Basic Scripts

    Write Me

    Rating 3.2
    Price:

    One language costs $9.99, Access to all languages costs $67.99

    Summary

    Write Me seems to be a decent app to learn different scripts, especially for lesser studied languages like Bulgarian and Khmer. Each character in a given script is accompanied by a sample word that contains those characters. You will watch an animation of the proper stroke order before having the opportunity to write by yourself. Later you will be quizzed in various formats to help you retain what you have learned. Write Me seems to support the act of writing and recognizing individual characters — however, similar to Write It! and Scripts by Drops, it doesn’t seem to give much background about each script. You won’t learn that Korean Hangul consists of morphosyllabic blocks, or that its consonants are pronounced differently at the beginning of a word than in the middle. You also won’t learn that Khmer stacks consonant clusters, or that you are writing Hebrew cursive script but receiving a print script prompt (which gets confusing without a little research). You can test out Write it! (free), Write Me (paid lifetime access), and Scripts by Drops (monthly or lifetime access) to see which app best suits the language you are learning. For more comprehensive apps, check out Eggbun for Korean or Skritter for Chinese and Japanese.

  • YouGlish Mini-Review: Thousands of Words in Context From YouTube

    YouGlish

    Rating 4.0
    Price:

    Free

    Summary

    YouGlish is a website that has indexed millions of video clips to put words in context for language learners. After searching for a word in your target language, you will see a YouTube video with subtitles and your target word highlighted in yellow. When you have heard the word, you can continue listening to the video or move on to the next example. You can also slow down the speed of the audio, click on a sentence in the transcript to replay it, or skip backwards 5 seconds to listen again. Sometimes you can watch over 1000 videos with your target word, other times there may only be a couple dozen available. Some languages also allow you to choose between different regional dialects, such as: French from Canada or France; Chinese from Taiwan or China; and Spanish from Spain or Latin America. You will need to search for the word in your target language, so you can check out WordReference or Linguee to get a translation. Forvo also provides audio clips of native speaker pronunciation, but with YouGlish, you can practice listening to these words in context. If you want help with reading the subtitles, you can download Readlang for on-screen translations. The Zhongwen Chrome extension will be better for Chinese learners, as it provides the pronunciation of each character as well as a definition.