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.

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Langu Mini Review: A Quality-Focused italki Alternative

Langu

Rating 4.2

★★★★

★

Price:

Classes start at $10.50, some teachers offer a free trial

Summary

Langu is an italki competitor with some compelling factors in its favor. Just like with italki, you search its online database of teachers to book private lessons with them at times of your choosing. You can read other students’ reviews and take trial classes. Unlike italki, there are no booking fees and you can purchase in a range of currencies, including euros and British pounds. Langu also boasts its own intuitive, web-hosted classroom software, meaning you don’t have to download a program or give your teacher your contact details. This also means that all shared links, videos, and worksheets are stored on Langu. The biggest downside to Langu, in comparison with italki, is that you’ll have a smaller choice of teachers and there are no community features (forum, exercise tools, etc.). The classes also tend to be slightly more expensive. On the other hand, Langu claims that all its teachers are “top teachers” – they have to submit a video application and be approved before joining the website – and offers to give students personal recommendations for specific teachers via email, if needed. While we’ve taken classes with one Langu teacher and were impressed by the quality of the classes, we can’t comment on whether all Langu’s teachers meet the same standards.

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Voscreen Mini-Review: Understand a Variety of English Accents

voscreen

Rating 3.5

★★★

★

★★

Price:

$ 0.00

Summary

Voscreen is a simple, free app to help English learners improve their listening comprehension. If you like movies, it can also give you some inspiration for what to watch next! To use the app, you will watch a very short clip (a couple of seconds long) and listen to a sentence from a film. Then, you will click on the translation in your native language that matches what you just heard. The faster you respond to the questions, the more points you will receive — although the points don’t seem to serve any other purpose than to show you where you rank amongst other users. The clips depict dozens of different accents from around the world, so Voscreen can support you to improve your listening comprehension for all types of English. You can sort the videos by level, by the grammar structure you want to practice, or by the number of words you want to hear. Also, Voscreen advertises an Artificial Linguistic Intelligence for Visual Education system (ALIVE), which tailors the videos to each learner’s needs (although it’s unclear exactly how it does this). Overall Voscreen is a fun, visually appealing app, but it is best used as a supportive tool for your language studies (check out iTalki to start speaking English right away!).

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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.

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Speekoo Mini-Review: Dip Your Toes in a Language and Culture

Speekoo

Rating 2.5

★★

★

★★★

Price:

Classes start at $15/hour

Summary

Learning with Speekoo is more of a cultural journey than an intensive language learning app. With every lesson, you will explore some tourist attractions, unusual aspects, and funny anecdotes about different cities that speak the language you are studying. With each correct answer, you “walk” a kilometre further on your journey and gradually unlock videos and articles. Unfortunately, all of these features are in English (or French if you are learning from French). Speekoo’s free lessons build on one another, and you can easily apply new words to your everyday life. Unfortunately, although you will effectively learn what the app teaches you, the extent of the material will only give you the absolute basics of each language. You will not be able to have even simple conversations once you have finished all the levels. The app also doesn’t introduce new scripts, so you won’t learn how to read Japanese or Chinese; instead, you will write the sounds using the English alphabet. Despite its simplicity, Speekoo is a fun, free option for the extremely casual learner who wants to dip their toes in a language. Hopefully, the developers will take the levels further.

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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.

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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).

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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!

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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.

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Scripts Mini-Review: Flashy and Fast-Paced

Scripts by Drops

Rating 3.0

★★★★★

Price:

Freemium, $9.99/mo, $69.99/year, $159.99/lifetime-access

Summary

Although it has a flashier interface, Scripts by Drops offers similar content to Write it! and Write Me. However, unlike these other apps, which sound out the name of each character, Scripts by Drops seems to focus on how the letter would sound if it were in a sentence. For example, instead of pronouncing the Hebrew character ב (vet or bet) you will hear /v/ or /b/. You can practice writing different characters with your fingers, and there are a variety of fast-paced activities to help you remember the different alphabets. Under the same membership as Scripts by Drops, you can also use the Drops app to learn and practice words that use your chosen alphabet. Similar to Write Me and Write It!, Scripts by Drops doesn’t seem to give much background about script. Also, some people may find the animation is too flashy and time-consuming; you can test 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.

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