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Cudoo Review — I Wouldn’t Even Use it if it Were Free

Quick Review

0.6

Summary

Cudoo is an online learning platform that offers courses in over 160 languages. The platform also offers courses teaching soft skills and other professional development courses. Certificates are available upon course completion, and courses are provided to libraries and non-profits for free. We feel that the quality of the language courses is quite low, and that the prices are relatively high.

Quality

It’s nice to have native speaker audio, but I personally found the course to offer very little learning potential.

Thoroughness

The course didn’t cover everything listed under “Course Content” and offers no explanations.

Value

This course is way overpriced in my opinion. I wouldn’t even use it if it were free.

I Like…

Audio by a variety of native speakers.

I DON’T LIKE…

I wanted more explanations

Practice opportunities felt severely limited

I found the material unengaging

Content doesn’t build on itself logically.

Languages

There are courses in over 160 languages on Cudoo. You’ll find languages as rare as Alsatian, Jerriais, and Navajo alongside more popular languages like Spanish and German.

Price

Price varies by course, from $4.99 to $24.99, with language bundles costing up to $199.

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By Brian Spanish Afrikaans Albanian Arabic Armenian Azerbaijani Basque Belarusian Bengali Bosnian Bulgarian Cantonese Catalan Croatian Czech Danish Dari Dutch Estonian Filipino Finnish French Georgian German Greek Hebrew Hindi Hungarian Icelandic Indonesian Italian Japanese Kazakh Korean Kurdish Latvian Lithuanian Macedonian Malagasy Malay Maltese Mandarin Chinese Mongolian Nepali Norwegian Pashto Persian Polish Portuguese Punjabi Romanian Russian Serbian Shanghainese Sinhala Slovak Swahili Swedish Tamil Thai Turkish Ukrainian Urdu Uzbek Vietnamese Wolof

17 Minute Languages Review: I Wouldn’t Recommend Using It

Quick Review

1.5

Summary

17 Minute Languages is a language-learning program that uses spaced repetition and native-speaker audio to teach a wide variety of languages. In our opinion, the courses aren’t very engaging; the courses we tried included significant errors and didn’t offer any language-specific explanations. There are leaderboards for comparing your progress with other users and a language forum that’s available after four days of use.

Quality

Native speaker audio is the only thing that impressed me in the courses I tried; mistakes and glitches were many.

Thoroughness

Explanations are lacking, which I found made some material misleading.

Value

I think there are far better ways to spend your time and money studying a language.

I Like…

It uses native-speaker audio.

I DON’T LIKE…

I came across several bad translations.

I didn’t find any helpful explanations.

Site navigation wasn’t easy or enjoyable for me.

I didn’t find the exercises engaging.

Languages

There are courses in 80 languages.

Price

The Beginner’s Course is $39.95 and the Complete Package is $97. There is a free 48-hour trial.

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By Brian Arabic Afrikaans Albanian Armenian Azeri Basque Belarusian Bengali Berber (Tamazight) Bosnian Bulgarian Burmese Catalan Cebuano Croatian Czech Danish Dutch Dzongkha English Esperanto Estonian Filipino Finnish French Galician Georgian German Greek Gujarati Haitian Creole Hausa Hawaiian Hebrew Hindi Hmong Hungarian Icelandic Indonesian Irish Italian Japanese Javanese Kannada Kazakh Khmer (Cambodian) Kinyarwanda Korean Kurdish Kyrgyz Lao Latin Latvian Lithuanian Luo Luxembourgish Macedonian Malagasy Malay Malayalam Maltese Mandarin Chinese Maori Marathi Mongolian Nahuatl Nepali Norwegian Pashto Persian Polish Portuguese Punjabi Quechua Rohingya Romanian Russian Samoan Sanskrit Scottish Serbian Sindhi Sinhala Slovak Slovenian Somali Spanish Sundanese Swahili Swedish Tajik Tamil Tatar Telugu Thai Tibetan Turkish Turkmen Twi Ukrainian Urdu Uyghur Uzbek Vietnamese Welsh Xhosa Yiddish Yoruba Yucatec Maya Zhuang Zulu

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 Alex Afrikaans Arabic Armenian Basque Belarusian Breton Bulgarian Cantonese Catalan Cornish Croatian Czech Danish Dutch English Esperanto Estonian Filipino Finnish French Galician Georgian German Greek Guarani Hebrew Hindi Hungarian Icelandic Indonesian Irish Italian Japanese Kazakh Korean Latin Latvian Lithuanian Macedonian Mandarin Chinese Norwegian Persian Polish Portuguese Romanian Russian Scottish Serbian Slovak Slovenian Spanish Swedish Turkish Ukrainian Vietnamese Welsh Yiddish

Clozemaster Review: Limited Focus But Fun Way To Grow Vocab

Quick Review

4.2

Summary

Ideal for people who are already at an upper beginner/intermediate level, Clozemaster will help you build your vocabulary and learn new words and sentences in context. While you won’t learn much grammar or improve your speaking and writing much, it is great at what it does and the videogame aspect makes it fun and addictive to work though. Although the exercises are all pretty much identical, there are various ways in which you can increase the difficulty and Clozemaster’s free account is almost as good as the Pro User one.

Quality

Very easy to use with thousands upon thousands of sentences for you to work through, Clozemaster’s main exercises are well-designed though some features are a bit hit and miss.

Thoroughness

Although you aren’t given any explanations, Clozemaster’s huge database of sentences allows you to learn words in context.

Value

The free version offers a ton of value, but for those who use Clozemaster regularly, it may be worth upgrading to a Pro account.

I Like…

There are an insane number of words and sentences for you to learn, and you’re exposed to them within the context of a sentence.

Just using the free account you are sure to learn a lot with only some extra (and undoubtedly useful) features being included in the Pro plan. This makes learning accessible to everyone.

Lots of languages available to learn, and you can do so from a wide range of languages, making it very useful for non-native English speakers or those who want to study two languages at once.

I DON’T LIKE…

A couple of features such as the Cloze-reading and the speaking exercises seemed like they could have benefited from a bit more thought and effort put into them.

There is no real progression and you are basically given an endless array of different words and sentences to work through and the various exercises are all pretty much identical.

The usefulness is primarily limited to learning vocabulary, so you’ll need to use additional resources alongside Clozemaster.

Not very suitable for beginners.

Price

The free version is very useful, but you can upgrade to a pro account for $8/month or $60/year.

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By Brian Afrikaans Albanian Arabic Armenian Assamese Azerbaijani Basque Belarusian Bengali Bosnian Bulgarian Burmese Cantonese Catalan Cebuano Chewa (Chichewa) Croatian Czech Danish Dari Dutch Dzongkha English Esperanto Estonian Fijian (ITaukei) Filipino Finnish Flemish French Galician Georgian German Greek Greenlandic Gujarati Haitian Creole Hausa Hebrew Hindi Hungarian Icelandic Igbo Indonesian Irish Italian Japanese Javanese Kazakh Khmer (Cambodian) Kinyarwanda Korean Kurdish Kyrgyz Ladino (Judeo-Spanish) Lao Latin Latvian Lithuanian Luganda Luxembourgish Macedonian Malagasy Malay Malayalam Maltese Mandarin Chinese Manx Maori Marathi Mongolian Neapolitan (Napoletano) Nepali Norwegian Oromo Pashto Persian Polish Portuguese Punjabi Romanian Russian Sami Samoan Sardinian Scots Scottish Serbian Shona Sicilian Sindhi Sinhala Slovak Slovenian Somali Spanish Swahili Swedish Tajik Tamil Telugu Thai Tibetan Tigrinya Tswana Turkish Turkmen Ukrainian Urdu Uzbek Vietnamese Welsh Wolof Xhosa Yoruba Zulu

uTalk Review – Learn Set Phrases But Not A Language

Quick Review

3.2

Summary

uTalk is a software program and mobile app offering learning material in over 140 languages. Its approach is based on learning set keywords and phrases through gameplay. It covers a wide range of set phrases and offers pronunciation practice. It does not offer any in-depth language instruction or grammar.
uTalk is most useful for people who want to learn key phrases in a new language and aren’t interested in a more comprehensive understanding.

Quality

The app is very user-friendly, and the content is mostly useful, but the features are limited.

Thoroughness

The opportunities for focused practice are somewhat lacking.

Value

The price is very low, and there’s a decent amount of content, but there are more time-efficient ways to learn.

I Like…

The number of languages on offer is staggering.

Each phrase is recorded by a male and female native speaker. This was especially helpful in learning pronunciation.

You frequently get to hear recordings of yourself producing the language. I found this motivating and informative.

I DON’T LIKE…

The Memory Game exercise felt like a waste of time. It’s difficult to get a perfect score even if you know the language well.

I kept wishing there was a way to choose which phrases I could practice in games instead of them being randomly selected.

I’m not a fan of learning a bunch of set phrases. I’d prefer some instruction related to grammar and sentence construction.

Price

$2.99/month on a monthly basis and can be canceled at any time
$1.67/month for a year-long subscription
$1.00/month for a two-year subscription

*This is the price for the more popular languages like Spanish, German, Arabic, etc. Less common languages such as Afrikaans and Tibetan cost slightly more.

VISIT UTALK

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By Alex Arabic Afrikaans Albanian Armenian Azerbaijani Balinese Balochi Belarusian Bengali Bosnian Breton Bulgarian Cantonese Chechen Cree Croatian Czech Dakota Danish Dari Dutch English Esperanto Estonian Filipino Finnish French Georgian German Greek Haitian Creole Hausa Hawaiian Hebrew Hindi Hmong Hungarian Icelandic Indonesian Irish Italian Japanese Kalmyk Oirat Kazakh Khmer (Cambodian) Korean Kurdish Latin Latvian Lithuanian Luxembourgish Macedonian Malagasy Malay Mandarin Chinese Maori Mirandese Mongolian Nepali Norwegian Ojibwe Pashto Persian Polish Portuguese Punjabi Romanian Russian Scottish Serbian Slovak Somali Spanish Swahili Swedish Tajik Tamil Thai Turkish Turkmen Ukrainian Urdu Uzbek Vietnamese Welsh Wolof Yoruba Zulu

Transparent Language Review – Their Courses Are Awful!

Quick Review

1.8

Summary:

Transparent Language markets itself as “the most complete language-learning system for independent learners.” While there are lots of different exercises for you to work through in their Essentials Course, I thought that the material wasn’t all that helpful and that it got very repetitive. Although the courses might not be 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 that I found lacking.

Thoroughness

I hardly came across any explanations at all; practice was almost exclusively memorizing 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 in my opinion; it’s hard for me to imagine you’ll 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 was the biggest issue for me, 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 Aiki (Runga) Ainu Albanian Alsatian Aramaic Argentine Sign Language Armenian Aromanian Assamese Assiniboine Austrian German Avar Aymara Azerbaijani Azeri Bago-Kusuntu Bagri Balinese Balochi Bambara (Bamanankan) Banjar Barawana (Baré) Bari Basque Batak Toba Bats Bavarian Beja Belait Belarusian Bengali Berber (Tamazight) Bhojpuri Bislama Blackfoot (Niitsi'powahsin) Bosnian Brazilian Sign Language (LIBRAS) Breton Bugis Bulgarian Burmese Cantonese Catalan Cebuano Chavacano Chechen Cherokee Chewa (Chichewa) Chibarwe Chiquitano Choctaw Chukchi Chuwabu Coptic Cornish Corsican Cree Croatian Crow Czech Daakaka Dakota Danish Dari Daza Dela-Oenale Dinka Domari Dotyali Drehu Dutch Dzongkha English Erzya Esperanto Estonian Ewe Ewondo (Fang) Faroese Fijian (ITaukei) Filipino Finnish Flemish Fon (Fon gbè) French Frisian Friulian Fulah Fur Ga Galician Gallo Garifuna Georgian German Gikuyu Greek Greenlandic Guambiano Guarani Gujarati Gullah Haitian Creole Hakka Hausa Hawaiian Hebrew Hindi Hmong Hokkien (Taiwanese) Honduran Sign Language Hungarian Iban Icelandic Ido Igbo Indonesian Ingush Inuinnaqtun Inuktitut Irish Italian Ixcatec Jamaican Creole Japanese Javanese Judeo-Tat K'iche Kachin (Jingpho) Kalanga Kalmyk Oirat Kannada Kanuri Kazakh Kekchi (Q'eqchi') Kenjeje Khmer (Cambodian) Khmu Khoemana Kinyarwanda Kirundi Koisan (Tsoa) Konkani Korean Kurdish Kyrgyz Ladin Ladino (Judeo-Spanish) Lakota Lao Latin Latvian Lau Limburgish Lithuanian Litzlitz (Naman) Lombard Luganda Luo Luxembourgish Maasai Macedonian Maithili Malagasy Malay Malayalam Maldivian (Dhivehi) Maltese Mamuju Manchu Mandarin Chinese Mandingo (Madinka) Manggarai Manx Maori Mapudungun Marathi Marri Ngarr Marshallese Masalit Mauritian Creole Mazatec Mekeo Mexican Sign Language Minangkabau Mingrelian Mirandese Miyako Mnong Mon Mongolian Montenegrin Nahuatl Nambya Natchez Navajo (Diné bizaad) Ndebele Neapolitan (Napoletano) Nepali Neverver Newar Nigerian Pidgin North Efate (Nakanamanga) Norwegian Nubian Nuer Occitan Odia Ogiek (Akiek) Ojibwe Okinawan Oneida Oromo Pa'o Palauan Papiamento Pashto Persian Polish Portuguese Punjabi Qashqai Quechua Rohingya Romani Romanian Romansch Russian Sa Sami Samoan Sanskrit Sardinian Scots Scottish Sekani Sena Serbian Sfyria Shan Shanghainese Sherpa Shona Shoshoni Shumashti Sicilian Sign Language Silbo Gomero Sindhi Sinhala Slovak Slovenian Somali Sotho Spanish Sundanese Swahili Swazi Swedish Swiss German Syriac Tajik Tamang Tamil Tatar Telugu Thai Tharu Tibetan Tigrinya Tlingit Toki Pona Tongan Tsonga (Xitsonga) Tswana Turkish Turkmen Tutong Twi Tz’utujil Ukrainian Urdu Uyghur Uzbek Venda Vietnamese Waray Welsh Wolof Wyandot Xhosa Yakut Yiddish Yola Yoruba Yucatec Maya Zaghawa (Beria) Zapotec Zarma Zaza (Northern) Zhuang Zulu

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.

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