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Speaky Review: Better Than Other Language Exchange Apps?

Quick Review

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.

Community

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

Features

The platform is easy to use but lacks advanced features.

Value

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.

Languages

There are over 100 languages on Speaky. These include popular languages like Spanish, French, German, Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Russian, Portuguese, Italian, Arabic, etc.

Price

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

1-month Subscription	$5.99/month
6-month Subscription	$4.83/month
12-month Subscription	$3.91/month

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By Brian Afrikaans Albanian Arabic Armenian Azerbaijani Belarusian Bengali Bulgarian Cantonese Catalan Croatian Czech Danish Dutch English Filipino Finnish French German Greek Haitian Creole Hebrew Hindi Hungarian Icelandic Indonesian Irish Italian Japanese Korean Kurdish Latin Latvian Lithuanian Malay Mandarin Chinese Norwegian Pashto Polish Portuguese Punjabi Romanian Russian Serbian Slovak Spanish Swahili Swedish Tamil Thai Turkish Ukranian Urdu Vietnamese

HiNative Review: Useful But Not Exceptional Q&A App

Quick Review

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.

Features

The app is pretty basic, but it works.

Features

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

Value

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 $5.68/month paid monthly, or $4.96/month paid annually (a $59.63 payment).

Languages

HiNative supports just about any language.

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By Brian Afrikaans Albanian Arabic Armenian Azerbaijani Bengali Bulgarian Cantonese Catalan Croatian Czech Danish Dutch English Filipino Finnish French German Greek Hebrew Hindi Hungarian Icelandic Igbo Indonesian Irish Italian Japanese Korean Kurdish Latin Latvian Lithuanian Malay Mandarin Chinese Norwegian Pashto Persian Polish Portuguese Punjabi Romanian Russian Serbian Slovak Spanish Swahili Swedish Tamil Thai Turkish Ukranian Urdu Vietnamese

Tandem Review: A Tinder-esque Language Exchange App?

Quick Review

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.

Community

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

Features

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

Value

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

Price

There is a limited free version of Tandem and a pro version available at $6.99 for one month, $3.99/month for three months, and $2.92/month for a year’s subscription.

Languages

There are over 160 languages offered on Tandem.

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By Brian French Afrikaans Albanian Arabic Armenian Azerbaijani Belarusian Bengali Bulgarian Cantonese Catalan Croatian Czech Danish Dutch English Farsi Filipino Finnish German Greek Haitian Creole Hebrew Hindi Hungarian Icelandic Igbo Indonesian Irish Italian Japanese Korean Kurdish Latin Latvian Lithuanian Malay Mandarin Chinese Norwegian Ojibwe Pashto Persian Polish Portuguese Punjabi Romanian Russian Serbian Slovak Spanish Swahili Swedish Tamil Thai Turkish Twi Ukranian Urdu Vietnamese

Memrise Review – Useful But Don’t Overuse It

Quick Review

4

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

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

Thoroughness

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

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

Languages

There are currently official Memrise courses for 21 languages.

Among others, these include: Spanish, French, Chinese, German, Italian, Arabic, Korean, Japanese, Russian.

If you count the user-generated courses, the list of languages is nearly endless.

Price

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

$8.99/monthly
$59.99/annually
$99.99 – lifetime subscription

Memrise also offers a ton of content for free. User-created content is available on their sister site, Decks, and signing up for a free account with Memrise automatically gives you access to limited versions of their official courses.

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By Alex Arabic Afrikaans Albanian Armenian Azerbaijani Belarusian Bengali Bulgarian Cantonese Croatian Czech Danish Dutch English Farsi Filipino Finnish French German Greek Haitian Creole Hebrew Hindi Hungarian Icelandic Igbo Indonesian Irish Italian Japanese Korean Kurdish Latin Latvian Lithuanian Malay Mandarin Chinese Norwegian Ojibwe Pashto Persian Polish Portuguese Punjabi Romanian Russian Serbian Slovak Spanish Swahili Swedish Tamil Thai Turkish Ukranian Urdu Vietnamese

Transparent Language Review – Their Courses Are Awful!

Quick Review

1.8

Summary:

The Transparent Language Essentials Courses aim to get absolute beginners engaged and interacting with the language they’re learning and speaking the basics in no time at all. While there are lots of different exercises for you to work through, the material isn’t all that helpful and it does get very repetitive. Although the courses aren’t 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. But, even then, I’d try to find other resources first.

Quality

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

Thoroughness

There are hardly any explanations at all, you just have to endlessly memorize words and phrases.

Value

I would only consider using if it were free and 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 and you won’t 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 is the biggest issue, 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.

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By Nick Arabic Afrikaans Albanian Armenian Azerbaijani Belarusian Bengali Bulgarian Cantonese Catalan Croatian Czech Danish Dutch English Farsi Filipino Finnish French German Greek Haitian Creole Hebrew Hindi Hungarian Icelandic Igbo Indonesian Irish Italian Japanese Korean Kurdish Latin Latvian Lithuanian Malay Mandarin Chinese Norwegian Ojibwe Pashto Persian Polish Portuguese Punjabi Romanian Russian Serbian Slovak Spanish Swahili Swedish Tamil Thai Turkish Ukranian Urdu Vietnamese

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

Quick Review

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.

Teacher Quality

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

Platform

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

Value

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 like answers, notebook, and language partners makes it easy to ask questions, get your writing checked, and find a free language exchange partner.

I DON’T LIKE…

You have to load money onto your account before paying for a class. You can’t simply pay one class at a time without buying credits first.

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 $4 and others as high as $60 per hour. Most will fall somewhere near the $10 per hour range.

Visit italki Now

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By Nick Arabic Armenian Azerbaijani Belarusian Bengali Bulgarian Cantonese Catalan Courses Croatian Czech Danish Dutch English Filipino Finnish French German Greek Hebrew Hindi Hungarian Icelandic Indonesian Irish Italian Japanese Korean Kurdish Latvian Lithuanian Mandarin Chinese Norwegian Persian Polish Portuguese Russian Serbian Slovak Spanish Swahili Swedish Thai Turkish Ukranian Vietnamese

Glossika Review – Overpriced But Fairly Useful

Quick Review

3.2

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

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

Thoroughness

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

Value

Polyglots may find the price to be fair but for most language learners it’s overpriced

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. The monthly subscription costs $30 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.

Try Glossika For Free

Alternatives: Speechling does much of what Glossika can do for free. In addition, for a lower monthly fee, you can get unlimited corrections on your pronunciation. Unfortunately, they offer far fewer languages compared to Glossika.

For those learning Italian, I’d recommend Ripeti Con Me. The course style is very similar to Glossika but it improves upon a lot of Glossika’s weaknesses.

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