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Portuguese

Mondly Review – Made Significant Improvements Made 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.

Spring Sale! Get 96% off Lifetime Access to Mondly Premium, plus bonus access to Mondly AR & Mondly Kids! See details on the website. Offer ends on 4/30/24.

Visit Mondly
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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.

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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.

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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!

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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.

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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.

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Instituto Camões Portuguese Mini Review

Instituto Camões Portuguese

Rating 3.7
★★★
★
★★
Price:

Courses cost between €180 – €320

Summary

The Instituto Camões Portuguese is a website developed by the Portuguese government that offers self-study Portuguese courses for A1 – C1 learners. Each twelve-week course requires about five hours per week of self-study. The self-study modules incorporate reading, listening comprehension, and grammar, while the basic and premium plans add speaking and writing practice (with the support of a weekly or bi-weekly tutor). The courses appear to follow a natural progression through the levels, although you will probably find it difficult to go from A1 – C1 without a regular tutor. They also offer a beginner course tailored to Spanish speakers, which may accelerate your learning if you already have a strong grasp of Spanish. Although the courses are significantly more expensive than those in Practice Portuguese, the self-study program is comparable to a monthly membership with Portuguese Lab. The premium option may be helpful for the intensive learner who wants to thoroughly cover the CEFR levels. Alternatively, you could use an italki tutor with the self-study plan.  We have not tested the course ourselves, but this Reddit post includes the experience of another user.

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Easy Portuguese Mini Review: Not Sure Why Anyone Uses This

Easy Portuguese

Rating 1.5
★
★
★★★★
Price:

Free

Summary

Easy Portuguese is a simple website that presents a handful of vocabulary words, phrases, verb conjugations, and grammar explanations. There is no audio pronunciation anywhere on the site, nor are there any activities to promote recall or interaction. One part of the website that you may find useful is the grammar section, which explains 24 different grammar points. On the other hand, Practice Portuguese‘s free learning notes may be a better option, as they cover all of the same topics and more, with native speaker pronunciation. Overall, there are lots of other websites that are more effective at supporting your Portuguese studies. Check out Cooljugator for hundreds of Portuguese verb conjugations that include multiple examples of how to use each verb in context. If you just want useful phrases, Lingo Hut provides hundreds of them recorded by native speakers. Lastly, Portuguese Lab and Practice Portuguese provide lots of free and paid resources to support you on the road to fluency.

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Practice Portuguese Mini Review: Learn European Portuguese

Practice Portuguese

Rating 4.3
★★★★
★
★
Price:

€15/mo, €153/year

Summary

Practice Portuguese’s website provides podcasts, videos, conjugation exercises, grammar notes, and more for A1 – B2 learners to improve their European Portuguese. It was developed by a Portuguese-Canadian duo, which seems to allow the site to develop from both a native speaker’s and a learner’s perspective.  Full transcripts are only available through the members-only course, which includes over 100 units that continually adapt themselves to your current level. However, there are lots of free videos, podcast episodes, and learning notes for your enjoyment. The learning notes use audio recorded by native speakers to pronounce new vocabulary words, which appear as buttons with an English translation beneath them. For listening comprehension, there are audio recordings with time-stamped transcripts, a vocabulary list, and a quiz. You can listen to the recordings at 0.5x – 2x speed and click on the transcript to skip to different parts of the recording. There is also the option to download the MP3 or PDF transcript. Overall, Practice Portuguese seems most effective at improving your listening comprehension, and if you engage with the dialogues, it will probably improve your speaking abilities, too. There is no free trial, but you can try Practice Portuguese with a 30-day money-back guarantee. Portuguese Lab is a similar, equally high-quality option with a free trial, but it is twice the cost of Practice Portuguese.

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Lingo Mastery Conversational Dialogues Mini Review: Dual-text

Lingo Mastery Conversational Dialogues

Rating 3.5
★★★
★
★★
Price:

Kindle books cost $4.60

Summary

Lingo Mastery provides over 100 short dialogues in a series of advanced beginner books (about A2 on the CEFR scale) for various languages.  Lingo Mastery’s Conversational Dialogues doesn’t take the immersive approach that you will find in other graded readers. Instead, they provide a full English translation of each text. There are no vocabulary lists or comprehension questions like in their Short Stories series, but you will read conversations that take place in over a hundred different scenarios. If your goal is to accumulate vocabulary based on situations that you may encounter in your everyday life, then Lingo Mastery is probably a good investment. If you want to follow real-life conversations that are part of a continuous story, you may want to check out Olly Richards’ 101 Conversations. Also, if you are looking for a series of books that will keep you captivated, Mandarin Companion and ESLC provide graded readers that simplify famous stories into Chinese and Spanish. If you do decide to invest in these readers, make sure to buy the Kindle version, which is about 20% of the paperback price. There are also previews available on Amazon.

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