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Korean

Korean GG Mini-Review: Great Reference App With Some Bugs

Korean GG is an app that helps you learn Korean pronunciation and Hangul. While it’s not a complete resource for learning Korean, it does offer some interesting features.

Korean GG

Rating 3.3
Price:

$3.99

Summary

Korean GG has a lot of potential, but because of some bugs in its programming, you may want to make sure they have updated the app before purchasing full access. On the first page, you will be able to tap on every possible combination of Korean consonants and vowels, receiving audio pronunciation by native speakers and an example word. You can also dive deeper into every jamo (the characters that make up the Hangul alphabet) to learn their pronunciation, stroke order, origin, and example words. Moreover, the app offers information about the history and principles of creating Hangul and includes mnemonic devices to support your learning. Korean GG is a comprehensive reference guide, but its in-app courses are probably not as effective as in other apps. There is a section on “text reading,” which contains dozens of phrases that incorporate a specific jamo, but the audio recording doesn’t allow much time to repeat after each sentence. Their course sections are useful tools to familiarize yourself with Hangul, but are probably not enough to support you in learning to speak the language.

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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.

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Catch It Korean Mini-Review: Ultra Gamified Language Learning

Catch It Korean

Rating 4.0
Price:

Freemium, Premium subscriptions start at $32.99/mo

Summary

Catch It Korean is an ultra gamified language learning app — with your avatar as a guide, you will travel to different rooms in a number of buildings to practice different skills, challenge and chat with friends, reinforce your vocabulary with different games, and battle against other users or an AI. Although there are some exercises in more advanced levels that will have you spell the words one morphosyllabic block at a time, you will mostly learn new words in context and through chunking words together. This way you can familiarize yourself with common phrases that usually go together. The app uses pretty decent voice recognition software to check your pronunciation, and you can even record yourself as you listen to the audio recording of the phrase. Going through every level will teach you over 9000 Korean words. You should probably familiarize yourself with the Korean alphabet and basic sounds before diving into the app, as it jumps into learning words and phrases right way. You will need another resource to support your learning, but Catch It seems to be a fun and effective resource to expand your vocabulary. It is also available for Korean speakers to learn English in “Catch It English”.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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An Honest Review of iTalki With Image of Man Working on Computer

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.

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An Honest Review of Teuida App With Image of Korean Architecture

Teuida App Review — Learn Korean with a K-Pop Star

Teuida App

Rating 4.0

Summary

Teuida is a Korean learning app that’s available for iOS and Android, with instructions in English or Vietnamese. The app takes a unique approach to language teaching by simulating conversations, including some featuring K-Pop star Nancy from Momoland. Users of the app have the opportunity to get lots of speaking practice and feedback on pronunciation through voice recognition technology.


Quality 4.3

The design is superb, and it’s easy to use, but the voice recognition isn’t perfect.

Thoroughness 4.0

It offers lots of speaking practice as advertised, but it’s lacking detailed pronunciation training.

Value 3.3

There aren’t a lot of similar alternatives, but there are definitely more efficient ways to get real speaking practice.

I Like
  • Quality design and user experience.
  • It’s super engaging.
  • It teaches useful language.
  • There’s lots of speaking practice.
I Don’t Like
  • Pronunciation practice and instruction could be better.
  • No comprehensive review option.
  • You’ll mostly learn set phrases.
Price

The first lesson of every chapter on Teuida is free; a subscription is required for access to the full app.

1 Month: $14.99
3 Months: $20.99
12 Months: $79.99

You can use the coupon code ‘ALR003‘ to get the 3-month subscription for $18.99.

Note that iOS users will need to enter this code as the “Referrer ID,” either when signing up or under Settings > Account > Referrer ID.

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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.

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