Vietnamese

VietnamesePod101 Review – Better As A Supplemental Resource

Quick Review

4

Summary:

VietnamesePod101 offers audio and video lessons (though they’re mostly audio) for learning Vietnamese. They’re similar to a podcast with two hosts teaching the language with the help of natural dialogues. They take the time to explain key grammar points, vocabulary, interesting cultural information, and so on. Their tends to be more content for beginners and the lesson structure could be improved. As such, it’s better as a supplementary tool for improving your Vietnamese, rather than a standalone course.

Quality

The lessons are generally well-made, though quality can vary depending on when it was added.

Thoroughnes

Although there’s a lot of content, it’s not structured particularly well.

Value

Good value for a low cost.

I Like…

It’s extremely useful for getting extra listening practice.

They teach using natural dialogues, while explaining important grammar, vocabulary, and interesting cultural information.

As you move up levels, English is used less.

I DON’T LIKE…

Too much English is used in the lessons.

The platform can be confusing to navigate and the recommended lesson pathways aren’t always the best.

Although there are lots of extra features, only a few of them are actually useful.

Price

There are many subscription lengths available which lower the cost. But, a one-month subscription costs:

Basic: $8/mo
Premium: $25/mo
Premium Plus: $47/mo

Use the promo code “ALLLANGUAGERESOURCES” to save 25% on a subscription to VietnamesePod101.

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By Nick Arabic Dutch English Farsi Filipino French German Greek Hebrew Hindi Irish Italian Japanese Korean Mandarin Chinese Polish Portuguese Russian Spanish Swahili Vietnamese

Living Language Online Course Review – Not Very Good

Quick Review

2.7

Summary:

Living Language provides numerous learning materials for multiple languages, including complete and essential courses that come with textbooks and CDs. They also have specialty courses covering business, travel, and several jobs. However, their standard online version isn’t very practical, and it’s difficult to tell if you’re actually learning or simply going through the motions. While the resource might be useful for those who want access to a large vocab list with grammar reading materials, there are better, cheaper options.

Quality

Though the information itself is useful, Living Language’s presentation reads more like a database than an educational/interactive tool.

Thoroughness

Again, a lot of the information is there, but it’s scattered. Additionally, some of that information appears incorrect.

Value

Cheaper options offer the same amount of content with more interactive features.

I Like…

You can hop around between levels and topics, including Beginner and Advanced materials.

The subscription comes with a grammar guide, glossary, and forum access.

There’s a decent variety of games, including some games I hadn’t played before.

I DON’T LIKE…

Although the games are fun, they get stale pretty quickly. It’s easy to guess at answers, thereby completing levels without really having learned.

The system doesn’t keep track of your mistakes, so it’s hard to know what areas you need to improve in.

I found several translation and presentation errors that made me question the rest of the material.

Price

An annual plan costs $150, and half a year costs $75. Three months is $50 and 1 month is $39.

Visit Living Language

Languages: American Sign Language, Arabic, Dothraki, Dutch, English, Farsi, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Irish, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Mandarin Chinese, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Swahili, Tagalog, and Vietnamese

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By Nick Arabic Cantonese Danish Dutch Filipino French German Hebrew Hindi Hungarian Icelandic Indonesian Italian Japanese Korean Mandarin Chinese Norwegian Polish Portuguese Russian Spanish Swahili Thai Turkish Vietnamese

Drops App Review – Decent As A Supplementary Resource

Quick Review

3

Summary:

Drops is a phone app for iPhone and Android that covers 33 languages. Daily games test the user on thousands of vocabulary words, and many of these words are ideal for everyday use. Drops has an entertaining, user-friendly interface, but it also lacks grammar lessons, and it works better for some languages than others. For anyone looking to supplement their vocab lessons, this app is worth considering; however, the free version might be more worthwhile than the paid version.

Quality

Though cute and easy to use, several visuals are hard to distinguish, and some games aren’t too useful for retention.

Thoroughnes

This app won’t help with grammar or verb conjugation. However, it does offer hundreds of unique vocab words.

Value

The free app is a great supplementary tool to help round out your vocabulary, but the paid app doesn’t offer many useful extras.

I Like…

The daily reminders keep me accountable.

If you already know a word, you have the option of swiping up and removing it from your lessons.

Though the app works better for some languages, the sheer amount of languages is a plus.

I DON’T LIKE…

It can be difficult to tell certain images apart, which means you’ll likely identify them incorrectly during your review.

Some of the categories seem to include random, unrelated words.

This app isn’t ideal for beginners, as it skips over basic lessons.

Drops only teaches you a single verb form, meaning you’ll need different apps to learn how to conjugate.

Price

A monthly subscription costs $9.99, a yearly subscription is $69.99, and a lifetime subscription is $159.99. You can use the app up to five minutes every ten hours for free.

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By Magdalena English Afrikaans Arabic Bulgarian Croatian Czech Danish Dutch Finnish French German Greek Hebrew Hindi Hungarian Indonesian Italian Japanese Korean Mandarin Chinese Norwegian Persian Polish Portuguese Romanian Russian Spanish Swedish Turkish Ukranian Vietnamese

Mondly Review – Far From My First Choice For Learning A Language

Quick Review

2.7

Summary:

Mondly is a below average online language learning resource. It does some things right and other things poorly. It’s pretty cheap, and a decent enough crash course that could help you before a trip abroad. Still, it wouldn’t be my first choice.

Quality

Both the interface and the course itself could be designed better.

Thoroughness

It’s decent for learning vocabulary but a lot of material isn’t explained very well.

Value

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 and won’t help you use the language.

The order of lessons and topics isn’t very well thought out.

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
$47.99 per year ($4/mo) for all languages

Strangely, I was able to access multiple languages even though I only signed up for one month at $9.99.

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By Nick French English German Japanese Korean Mandarin Chinese Portuguese Russian Spanish Vietnamese

Lingodeer Review – A Better Alternative To Duolingo, Busuu, Rosetta Stone, etc.

Quick Review

4.3

Summary:

Lingodeer may not be as well known as other language learning apps, but it’s actually better and cheaper than most of them. You’ll practice the language by completing lots of different types of exercises. They also include plenty of grammar explanations and opportunities to review what you’ve studied. All in all, it’s one of the better options for getting started learning a language.

Quality

It has a great design and everything works well with only a few minor issues.

Thoroughness

Not as thorough as some other courses but it’s good for what it is.

Value

Quite a bit of content is free and the premium plan is very affordable.

I Like…

Lots of different exercise types in the lessons.

Detailed grammar explanations.

Clear audio recordings.

Inexpensive!

I DON’T LIKE…

The content isn’t always ordered well with some unusual words thrown in too early.

Not sufficient for developing oral communication skills.

Not yet available in lots of languages.

Price

$8.99/mo, $19.99 for 3 months, $41.99 for a year. There’s also a lifetime option for $69.99.

Save 15% on any subscription to Lingodeer by using the coupon code “ALR123″

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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 Alex French Arabic Dutch English Filipino German Greek Hebrew Hindi Irish Italian Japanese Korean Latin Mandarin Chinese Persian Polish Portuguese Russian Spanish Swedish Turkish Vietnamese

Rosetta Stone Review (Subscription) – Painfully Repetitive And Overpriced

Quick Review

2.3

Summary:

One of the most famous language learning resources out there, the Rosetta Stone method relies on immersive teaching so students will only find the material in the language they’re learning. Starting off with the basics, the units get progressively harder and cover a large range of topics. Suitable for beginner and intermediate students, it is more expensive than competitors and the exercises get very repetitive after a while. While it isn’t a bad resource, you can definitely find something better.

Quality

Very easy to use and navigate, the content is well presented but the similar format becomes deadly boring after a while.

Thoroughnes

While a lot of material is covered, you have to infer everything from the pictures that you are given. As such, there are no explanations at all.

Value

It’s not as good and more expensive than other resources.

I Like…

It’s easy to use and navigate – the content is very clearly laid out.

The extra features in the ‘Extended Learning’ pack make the material a bit more interesting to engage with.

While it is not particularly fun to use overall, I do believe that learners would improve their language skills using Rosetta Stone.

I DON’T LIKE…

The main units are very repetitive and I think I would find it demoralising after a while if I kept using it.

It doesn’t explore the cultural context of the language at all.

There are no explanations about any of the content and so you have to infer the meaning of everything through pictures.

It’s too expensive.

Price

The price varies by subscription length:

$79 for 3 months
$119 for 6 months
$179 for 12 months
$249 for 24 months

Visit Rosetta Stone

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By Nick Spanish Albanian Arabic Armenian Cantonese Croatian Czech Danish Dutch English Filipino French German Greek Haitian Creole Hebrew Hindi Hungarian Icelandic Indonesian Irish Italian Japanese Korean Lithuanian Mandarin Chinese Norwegian Ojibwe Pashto Persian Polish Portuguese Punjabi Romanian Russian Swahili Swedish Thai Turkish Twi Ukranian Vietnamese

Pimsleur Review – Secret Subscription Option Is Much Cheaper

Quick Review

4.3

Summary:

Pimsleur’s courses primarily focus on oral language. They are one of the biggest names in language learning but was something I had a hard time recommending to people in the past because of the insanely high prices.

They recently added a subscription model with much more reasonable prices and a new app that is much better designed. This review focuses on the new subscription model which isn’t yet available to the general public from the Pimsleur website but you can find it here.

I was really impressed with the quality of the lessons and now that the price is much better, I’m happy to recommend studying with Pimsleur.

Quality

The lessons are very well structured and the new app works great

Thoroughnes

Pimsleur primarily focuses on oral language at the expense of grammar.

Value

The new subscription cost is very affordable.

I Like…

The lessons focus on oral language which gets students speaking right away.

The lessons are very active. You’re constantly being prompted and need to produce the language you’re learning.

The lessons build upon each other exceptionally well with previously learned material constantly being reinforced.

The app is well designed with lots of beautiful images and interesting cultural notes.

I DON’T LIKE…

The lessons aren’t terribly exciting.

The written language is much more of an afterthought and not heavily featured in the lessons.

The practice activities included in the premium plan aren’t particularly well done.

Price

A basic subscription costs $14.95 per month and a premium subscription costs $19.95 per month. This is a massive improvement over the old prices which cost as much as $550 for five levels.

You won’t find any information about this new subscription price on their website. The link below will take you to a page with more information on their subscription plans.

Try a free 7-day trial of Pimsleur

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By Nick Arabic Afrikaans Albanian Armenian Bulgarian Cantonese Croatian Czech Danish Dutch English Filipino Finnish French German Greek Haitian Creole Hebrew Hindi Hungarian Icelandic Indonesian Irish Italian Japanese Korean Latin Lithuanian Mandarin Chinese Norwegian Ojibwe Pashto Persian Polish Portuguese Punjabi Romanian Russian Spanish Swahili Swedish Thai Turkish Twi Ukranian Vietnamese

Verbling Review – An Alternative to italki?

Quick Review

4.2

Summary:

Verbling is a language learning platform where you can find and book classes directly from a teacher. It’s very similar to italki with a few minor differences. Unfortunately, on Verbling, the cost of lessons are generally higher and the number of teachers to choose from fewer. Still, it’s a fairly good option for finding a teacher.

Quality

Professional teachers that have to submit an application

Thoroughnes

Doesn’t use Skype for lessons

Value

Cheaper than most options, but more expensive than italki

I Like…

Teachers are experienced and professional.

No need to deposit money or buy credits first. Can simply pay one lesson at a time. Also has many payment options including Bitcoin.

Well designed platform that makes booking lessons easy.

I DON’T LIKE…

Lessons are more expensive compared to italki.

Far fewer teachers to choose from compared to italki.

Fairly expensive if you’re only looking for conversation practice.

Price

The cost of lessons varies depending on the teacher and the language. The average cost for an hour long Spanish class is $18, for French it’s $24, and for German it’s $31. There are many other languages available as well.

Visit Verbling

Visit italki

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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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