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An Honest Review of Speechling With Image of Girl Looking at Phone

Speechling Review – I Didn’t Know I Was Saying That Wrong!

Speechling

Rating 4.3
★★★★
★
★

Summary

Speechling is a website and app that makes it easy to improve your speaking skills in several languages. The free version is an incredbily valuable resource that makes it easy to practice mimicking native speakers. The Unlimited Plan provides unlimited corrections of your recordings by a teacher.

Quality 4.5
★★★★
★
★

Speachling makes it easy to improve your speaking rhythm and pronunciation.

Thoroughness 4.5
★★★★
★
★

Lots of different ways to practice speaking.

Value 4.0
★★★★★

The free version is better than most paid resources and the paid version provides outstanding value.

I Like
  • An excellent method to improve your speaking abilities and get feedback from a real teacher.
  • Answer the Question, Describe the Image, and Freestyle mode are great for higher levels.
  • You can switch languages at any time. I like seeing translations in my second language while studying my third language.
  • Truly unlimited recordings with quick feedback.
I Don’t Like
  • Absolute Beginners should learn the basics elsewhere first.
  • You’ll need to learn how to make the sounds of your target language on your own.
  • The amount of time given to record sentences can be too short.
Price

The Forever Free Plan is complete free. A monthly subscription to the Unlimited Plan costs $19.99 per month.

Click the link to save 10% on Speechling’s Unlimited Plan.

Visit Speechling

Speechling has quickly become one of my favorite language learning resources. The free version includes a ton of useful features and the premium plan is great value for the cost.

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Improve Your Korean with 16 Fabulous Podcasts

Now that K-Pop has made its way to the top-40 charts in North America, you may be keen to start learning Korean. Or, you may have already decided to improve your language skills after finishing season 5 of your favorite K-drama.

Wherever you are in your Korean studies, podcasts are an excellent medium to listen to authentic conversations with Korean speakers and improve your listening comprehension.

We have searched the internet for these 16 podcasts to support your learning endeavors. We hope you find something educational, or at least entertaining, to take with you wherever you go with your digital device.

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14 Best Korean Courses: We’ve Tested Them

For many, there’s just something irresistible about Korean culture. K-Pop and its die-hard fans span the globe, Korean food classics like kimchi and bulgogi tempt millions each year, and Korean cinema attained broader global recognition with Academy Award-winning film, Parasite.

There are plenty of reasons to learn Korean, and there are just about as many ways to learn it. if you’re interested in online courses, you’re anything but starved for choice. This is mostly a great thing — a course that fits your budget, learning style, and specific needs is almost definitely out there.

On the other hand, it can be difficult to sort the good from the bad; many online reviews are clearly biased or simply don’t consider the fact that what works for one may not work for another. 

We’ve gone through our extensive list of online Korean courses, selecting only those that we’ve rated 3.5 stars or higher, and compiled them into this collection of high-quality resources. It’s our hope that this guide points you in the right direction and gets you closer to your ideal course.

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The 20+ Best Apps To Learn Korean In 2022

K-pop, bulgogi, Korean cinema, soju… There are plenty of reasons to learn Korean, and there are plenty of ways to learn.

Although this list of Korean apps is quite large, it still doesn’t cover all the options out there. The fact is, most learners will need to combine a number of resources together in order to learn Korean.

We’ve tried out a ton of them ourselves.  Hopefully, this helps you figure out which ones really stand out and which ones may not be so worthwhile.

There are some great resources that didn’t make this list simply because they don’t fall into the app category, and there are surely more apps that didn’t make this list, but here are some of our favorites.

Best Korean Courses as Apps

Best All-Around Course: 90 Day Korean

Best Course for Oral Communication: Pimsleur

Best Interactive Course: Lingodeer

Best Grammar-Focused Course: Talk To Me In Korean

Best TOPIK Test Prep App: TOPIK ONE

Vocabulary Acquisition Apps

Best for Learning Hangul: TenguGO (Apple) / Hangul (Android)

Best for Learning Vocabulary Easily: Memrise

Best Customizable Tool for Studying Vocabulary: Anki

Best for Learning Vocabulary from Context: Clozemaster

Best Dictionary Apps: Naver Korean Dictionary and Naver Papago

Apps for Practicing Reading and Listening

Best for Podcast-Style Lessons: KoreanClass101

Best for Interesting Content at Various Levels: LingQ

Best for Free Reading Content: Manga Method

Best for Side-by-Side Reading and Listening: Beelinguapp

Best for Watching K-Dramas: Viki

Apps for Practicing Speaking and writing

Best for Improving Pronunciation: Speechling

Best for Simulated Speaking Practice: Teuida

Best for Learning to Write Hangul: Write it! Korean

Best for Getting Feedback on Writing: italki

Best Chatbot: Eggbun

Best Q&A App: HiNative

Apps for Tutors and Language Exchanges

Best for Finding a Tutor: italki

Best Language Exchange Apps: Tandem and HelloTalk

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Mondly Review – Made Significant Improvements 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.

Visit Mondly

To see all of our favorite programs, online subscriptions, apps, podcasts and YouTubes for the language you’re learning, look for your language in the table below.

Most Recommend Resources By Language
ChineseSpanishGermanFrenchItalian
PortugueseKoreanRussianJapaneseArabic

First Impressions

I’ve previously tried out several language learning apps like Duolingo, Busuu, Babbel, and Mango Languages, that on the surface seem to be fairly similar to Mondly.

However, after testing out Mondly for a few different languages, I couldn’t help but feel disappointed.

Immediately, I felt that their interface wasn’t very intuitive to use and the aesthetics were underwhelming.

I wish I could say that Mondly makes up for it with quality content, but that just wasn’t the case. It was nothing special and, in my opinion, below average compared to similar platforms.

There is a pathway for users to follow, but it seems a bit random. For instance, parts of the body is the last topic covered and that comes after the vocabulary related to emergencies.

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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.

Visit Lang Workbooks

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

VISIT LINGQ

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.

However, after exploring every function I could find, I realized that the reading tool has several useful functions for anyone trying to learn a language through extensive reading. Most importantly, it makes reading in other languages feel manageable.

The site has three main pages: Lessons, Tutors, and Community. Within them, you can find free and purchasable lessons, coins, an avatar, writing exchanges, a community forum, audio playlists, and challenges.

I mostly used LingQ for reading in Spanish and dabbled in French, Chinese, Japanese, Swedish, and Korean.

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OPLingo Mini-Review: Community Driven, Non-Profit

OPLingo

Rating 3.5
★★★
★
★★
Price:

Freemium, Premium Subscriptions cost $6.99/mo, $60/Year

Summary

OPLingo is a community-oriented, non-profit language learning site. It essentially combines the functions of LingQ, LangCorrect, Readlang, iTalki, and HelloTalk. The free version gives you limited access to some functions, but by paying for a membership you support ethical causes — such as building a primary school in Tanzania. You can browse user-contributed texts or easily import your own YouTube videos, articles, or ebooks into the Reading Tool. OPLingo has also developed hundreds of audio conversations in several languages, including Tagalog, Cebuano, Thai, Swahili, and Russian. Within each page, you can read a transcript and get definitions and pronunciations of unknown words. By identifying which words you don’t know, the next passages you read will highlight the number of known or unknown vocabulary words. In their Write & Correct section, you can write in over 100 languages and exchange corrections with other users, although Spanish, French, and English learners have a better chance of receiving corrections than other languages at the moment. You can also practice a language by texting with fellow community members, or by hiring a teacher in your target language. OPLingo has a lot of potential and is a good alternative to LingQ, but it needs a community of learners to help it grow — so check it out!

Visit OPLingo

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.

Visit AmazingTalker

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.

VISIT VERBLING

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.

So when I got the chance to try out Verbling, I was excited to see how it would really match up. Could it be an italki replacement? And if so, which type of learner would it be best for?

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