All Language Resources is an independent review site. If you click a product link, we may earn money from a seller at no cost to you. Writing and analyses are author opinions. Learn More

Basque

Irakaslea Podcasts Mini Review: Improve Your Listening

Irakaslea

Price:

Free

Summary

Looking for listening comprehension activities in Spanish and Basque? Irakaslea, which means teacher in Basque, has two podcasts dedicated to this: Comprensión oral – Castellano and Ahozko ulermena – Euskera. Each channel features short, slowly spoken narratives in the target language: stories, mock news broadcasts, and more. The tone is humorous but at times cynical. Unfortunately, there aren’t any transcripts, but the text is slow enough that it’s fairly easy to identify what is being said and look it up in a dictionary. Many of the episodes are targeted at children in primary school aged roughly 5–11, and the audio quality can vary, so Spanish learners might find that they prefer other channels. For Basque learners, however, this podcast could be a useful addition to their study routine.

Irakaslea Podcasts Mini Review: Improve Your Listening Read More »

Bagoaz App Mini Review: Translation-Based Basque Course

Bagoaz

Rating 2.4
Price:

Free

Summary

Bagoaz’s Basque course makes a great first impression. Unfortunately, the app doesn’t live up to expectations. It contains lessons, exercises and a Spanish–Basque dictionary. The lessons are the most useful part: they contain a Spanish-language explanation of key Basque grammar and vocabulary with some example sentences. Some lessons introduce a lot of material at once, and the presentation isn’t ideal, either: it’s dense and the text is very small on mobile. However, the information is clearly explained. The exercises make up the bulk of the app, but they’re the most disappointing part. They’re entirely based on translating Basque sentences to and from Spanish, and the questions often include vocabulary that wasn’t in the lesson. The dictionary features snippets from the free dictionary Elhuyar, but you would be better off going directly there: Bagoaz often only includes the first definition listed in Elhuyar. Words like rico only translate to the Basque word for wealthy, not delicious. Bagoaz isn’t without value, but it works better as a reference guide to beginner-level Basque than as a course.

Bagoaz App Mini Review: Translation-Based Basque Course Read More »

Euskera Metodoeseyde Mini Review: Buggy Basque Vocab App

Euskera Metodoeseyde

Rating 2.3
Price:

€2/month via Patreon or lifetime access for €10–€20

Summary

Spanish speakers can use Euskera Metodoeseyde to add gamification to their Basque vocabulary studies. However, we’re not sure it’s the most effective option. The app consists of one simple game: you are shown a Basque word and have to type in the word in Castilian Spanish, press accept, and then press verify. To help you, you can view a photo and occasionally an information board. At times, the choice of photo is misleading or relies on knowledge of Marvel superheroes. We couldn’t see a logical pattern behind how often the words are shown, and you don’t get the chance to view the word lists. As such, we wouldn’t recommend it for beginners. It can be buggy, and the payment and signup settings are frustrating. We opted for the Patreon subscription and so weren’t allowed to access the app until three weeks later. Meanwhile, for one-off payments, you have to purchase via email rather than through Google Play or the App Store. All things considered, Euskera Metodoeseyde is not our first choice of vocabulary tool. Clozemaster is an extremely similar resource, but it’s free and introduces you to vocabulary in context. Meanwhile, Anki automatically shows you the flashcards you find most challenging.

Euskera Metodoeseyde Mini Review: Buggy Basque Vocab App Read More »

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.

Glosbe Mini-Review: Thousands of Languages With Some Errors Read More »

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.

My Language Exchange Mini-Review: Millions of Active Users Read More »

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.

Lexilogos Mini-Review: A Resource Bank For Dictionaries and Books Read More »

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. 

iLoveLanguages Mini-Review: Another Phrasebook SIte Read More »

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.

Tatoeba Mini-Review: A Community Writing Sentences in Context Read More »

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.

iLanguages Mini-Review: Almost Identical to Learn 101 Read More »

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.

Learn101 Mini-Review: A Re-Formatted Version of iLanguages Read More »