When going on the Language Transfer website for the first time, you’re greeted with a simple welcome page that understandably tells you how good it is.

Right from the get-go, things on Language Transfer feel a bit different. It doesn’t have the same polish that big-name language programs offer. Most other platforms tend to come across as very flashy to get you to buy their product.

Language Transfer, on the other hand, works on donations and is completely free. To date, there are nine free courses for you to try out. These include…

• Spanish
• Arabic
• Turkish
• German
• Greek
• Italian
• Swahili
• French
• Inglés

There is also a course about music which dives into metaphysics. 

All the courses are aimed at beginners and the idea is to give you the basics of the language, stimulate your interest in that language, and get you to engage with the material so that you have all the necessary skills needed to continue learning.

I decided to try out Swahili (which I speak) and Greek (which I don’t) to see what the audio lessons are like. I found them to be very useful and I genuinely think you will come away with everything you need to continue your language learning on your own.

The Swahili course, for instance, was very well done and at the end, you come away having learned lots of complex grammar in an easy and non-intimidating way.

Just one guy, Mihalis, creates all of the content and I was very impressed at the quality and the in-depth look he offers up of the various languages on the site.

Overview

The Language Transfer platform is very easy to use as there is just one page which hosts all of the audio files that make up each course.

The amount of material available varies depending on the language you choose. For instance, Greek and Swahili have 120 and 110 lessons respectively. Whereas others such as French, Arabic and Turkish serve more as introductions to the language with only have 40, 38 and 44 lessons available for each of those.

Some of the languages on the Language Transfer are a work in process and so more German lessons should be added to the 50 that are already on the site in the near future. Mihalis will also continue to develop new courses in the future depending on funding.

Format

You can access the audio lessons in several different ways. First, you can listen using SoundCloud right there on the website. You can also download the course app for both Android and iOS, simply download the complete course file to your computer, or go to a YouTube playlist of all the lessons.

I like the YouTube option best. Most of us know how to use YouTube already, and this bypasses the need to download anything or remember where you are at in the course, as you will have to do if you use the SoundCloud files on the website. 

Plus, the YouTube playlist looks nice and streamlined, unlike the (understandably) less fancy free Language Transfer website.

In contrast, you can see what the playlist looks like on the original website:

The audio lessons range in length from about 6 minutes to as long as 15 minutes in some cases.

How It Works

All of the lessons available on Language Transfer take the form of audio lessons. The introductory courses are meant to give you a basic understanding of the language. They cover the skills that you need to continue learning the language on your own.

In each lesson, Mihalis works through the language, looking at vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation. While explaining various aspects of Greek, Swahili or whatever language you’ve chosen, he asks a beginner student questions on the material covered.

The idea here is that the student is exactly like you, hearing the material for the first time. You learn alongside your classmate, hearing both their mistakes and correct answers as they work through the language.

Throughout the course, you should interact and engage with the material, pausing the lessons when necessary to reflect, think, and say your response out loud. You don’t want to just listen and follow but pause the audio, engage and then hear the correct response. 

Consequently, you really can’t listen to the audio files unless you’re completely focused on them.

In this respect, the learning methodology is somewhat similar to the Michel Thomas audio language courses although the Language Transfer is obviously a lot cheaper as it is free!

While there are no exercises, quizzes, writing or reading for you to do, the whole focus is on getting you to engage actively with the language.

Let’s take a more in-depth look at what the lessons are like.

Getting Started with Language Transfer

It couldn’t be easier to start learning a language with the Language Transfer as all you need to do is go to the ‘Free Courses’ page on the website, scroll through the different languages, and choose the one you want to learn.

After that, you choose how to listen to the lessons. As mentioned earlier, you now have the option to go to a more streamlined YouTube playlist, or you can listen to the SoundCloud files or download the full audio of the course to your computer. Of the three options, YouTube offers the best experience and allows easy control such as pausing or selecting which lesson to listen to.

As you listen, you need to pause when necessary to stop, think and give your response to Mihalis’ questions.

The idea here is that you listen through the lessons and stop them as frequently as you want to give answers to Mihalis’ questions. By pausing the audio files, you have time to think over your response and not regurgitate memorized words or sentences, instead thinking for yourself and coming up with your own answers.

After having said your word or sentence out loud, you can continue playing the audio file and listen to a student’s response and Mihalis who will either correct them or confirm that what they have said is correct.

The idea is that you engage with the material and enjoy the thinking process.

This is the most important aspect of the course as you want to engage your brain and not simply memorize everything which he considers to be destructive, stressful and inefficient – just focus on the explanations.

Mihalis also encourages you not to write down words, structures or sentences as it will inhibit the mental processes that you need to learn how to speak Greek, Swahili or any of the other languages that Language Transfer offers.

After the introduction lesson of each course which introduces you to the methodology and whatever language you’ve decided to learn, the second lesson immediately gets you learning how to say certain simple words and phrases.

Starting with the Greek course

In the Greek course, for instance, you immediately learn how to say, ‘I stay’ or ‘I’m staying’ and Mihalis explains some of the grammar behind it and gets the student to pronounce and answer his questions as they build from the simple word.

Over the six-minute-long lesson, the student (and you!) learns how to say ‘he/she is waiting for me’, how to ask ‘is he/she waiting for me’ as well as how to say something in the negative.

While during this simple lesson, you’ll probably be able to answer his questions without pausing the audio, in later lessons you’ll certainly need to stop them for a bit to reflect and say your response out loud.

What was nice about this first lesson is that you come away having learned quite a few words, sentences and basic grammar principles in a very easy and relaxed manner.

The only confusing thing was that Mihalis explains what some of the letters of the alphabet look like despite having said to ignore reading and writing. 

Starting with the Swahili course

The Swahili course starts in a completely different way, and this just goes to show each language has its own learning path.

This contrasts with lots of language courses which simply regurgitate lessons and then translate them into another language, regardless of whether or not that makes sense to do so.

With Swahili, Mihalis starts by looking at what verbs look like so instead of having two words like ‘to sleep’ in English, Swahili just has one ‘kulala’ and this essentially means the same thing.

He then explains that to use the verbs you have to drop the ‘ku’ part and add on a pronoun and a tense marker (well at least in this early stage). If you add ‘ni’ (I) and ‘na’ (the present tense marker) you then get ‘ninalala’ which means ‘I sleep’ or ‘I am sleeping’. The explanations are very clear and simple.

This first lesson looks at various simple verbs such as to sleep, to eat, to laugh and to want.

When Mihalis asks how to say, ‘I want to sleep’, you can feel the student thinking for a second that she doesn’t know how to say it and then realizes that she has all the building blocks necessary to construct ‘ninataka kulala’.

I thought that was very well done.

The only thing I’m not sure about in this early lesson is Mihalis saying that ‘kulala’ is ‘probably’ an echo sound of someone singing someone to sleep through a lullaby and that that’s where the word ‘maybe’ derives from.

He again speculates that ‘kucheka’ – to laugh in Swahili – mirrors the sound that people make when they laugh. This time, however he doesn’t admit that he is speculating and it comes across more as fact.

It seems to me that he is stretching it a bit though by comparing it with to chuckle in English. I have seen a couple of other people complain online that he sometimes indulges in linguistic myths and folk etymology.

While I don’t know if this really matters much, it is something to bear in mind. In any case, ‘kucheka’ certainly does mean to laugh!

While I really enjoyed the lesson and how he built things up, this time the next lesson on Soundcloud was something to do with Rabbis and Moses, completely unrelated to the course. This means you again have to return to the start page if you want to continue your lessons.

So what is it like if you use the Language Transfer for a while?

A Deeper Look at the Audio Lessons

One of the problems I could immediately see with the Language Transfer program is the fact that you don’t ever hear native speakers apart from with the languages which Mihalis grew up speaking.

For instance, while his knowledge of Swahili seems to be very good, it couldn’t really pass as a ‘native accent’ and it sometimes comes off as a bit Spanish. He does, however, admit in the third lesson that you should base your pronunciation on native speakers but unfortunately doesn’t expand on where you could really listen to them.

It could be really helpful to pair these lessons with a language exchange partner or tutor from italki as a means to get more conversation practice.

I checked on the Reddit AMA (Ask Me Anything) post where he answered any questions about the methodology and languages of Language Transfer. It was a bit shocking to see that for Swahili and Italian he says ‘I was recording before I had ever attempted a conversation in them’.

He does go on to say, however, that all courses have been checked by native speakers so that sort of allayed any fears I had about the material and after working through a number of the lessons, I could tell that he really knew his stuff.

Indeed, in the first few Swahili lessons, you come away having learned quite a few sentences, words, and grammar points in what only amounts to ten to fifteen minutes of lesson time. As such you really do progress quite quickly in comparison with some other online language learning courses.

Each lesson also builds on the others, while his calm and soothing tones and encouraging manner to his student makes listening to the audios very easy. It was also quite interactive (despite the fact you’re simply listening to a lesson) and engaging as you focus on what he says, the explanations he gives, and the sentences you build together with him and his student.

I was quite impressed to see how within no time at all, the student knew how to ask questions, give commands and build sentences, using the words and grammar points that Mihalis gave her. She also knew how to adapt verbs and use them according to the information he had already taught her and to me, this showed what the ‘Thinking Method’ is all about.

Indeed, after just about an hour of lessons (so around 13 of the audio files), she knew how to form complicated sentence structures in Swahili and this is miles ahead of where you would be with many other language learning platforms.

There is no time wasted in the lessons and everything is geared to you getting as much out of each of them as possible. At around six to eight minutes in length, they are not too long and so the information is easily digestible.

Both grammar points and vocabulary are given to you in equal measure and so you’re constantly learning how to use them together. I personally prefer this form of learning over other platforms that break lessons down into specific vocabulary, grammar or speaking classes.

One part I was particularly impressed with was how when discussing adjectives in Swahili he used a famous proverb as an example and encouraged learners to look into sayings themselves and try and break them down with the language that has already been used in the class.

Proverbs and sayings are very important in Swahili and so while he doesn’t look at many of them in the lessons, at least he tells you about them. It is only in the last lesson that he quickly takes you through a lot of commonly used proverbs, asking the student how to break them down with the words she knows.

This last lesson is actually the only one that doesn’t really work for me as he speeds through them, and it isn’t as clear as all of the other lessons I went through.

I was quite surprised however to see that Mihalis only teaches you ‘yes’ and ‘no’ right at the end of the 110 lessons in the Swahili course in lesson 109.

While this seems a bit late to me, he ties it in very well to a complicated grammar point on how ‘yes’ is formed in Swahili so I suppose it is just about justified. These later lessons are a lot more complicated than the earlier ones but are still delivered in a calm and relaxing manner where you build on words and grammar points you’ve seen before.

Indeed, I’m quite certain that if you complete the Swahili course, you’ll have a very good starting base from which to continue learning the language.

You’ll know nearly all of the grammar you need to hold conversations and will be able to break down most sentences into more manageable chunks. The amount of content that you cover in what are just short lessons is very impressive and there is absolutely no time wasted at all.

It’s certainly the best Swahili course I’ve come across and so I can certainly recommend using it to learn this wonderful East African language.

The Greek course works largely in the same way as you slowly build up your knowledge of grammar, vocabulary and indeed punctuation over the lessons.

The use of repetition and using words we already know to form new ones and introduce new grammar points really helped me to remember words and construct basic sentences in no time at all.

So after just the fourth lesson, you can already say ‘what are you doing?’ or ‘what are you waiting for?’. Through the early lessons, you play around with different verbs and pronouns and learn how to ask various questions.

The whole course seems like one gigantic audio file which was broken down into the 120 lessons as each one seamlessly flows into the next one.

As such you gradually build up in difficulty and after a while, you can say complex sentences such as ‘we are waiting for the beginning of spring’ and know a couple of expressions.

With the Greek course, the language explanations seem a bit long-winded in comparison with the Swahili course and Mihalis sometimes overcomplicates things a bit in my opinion and it gets a bit confusing to listen to him from time to time.

In general, however, the student who is learning alongside Mihalis seems to pick up most things and there are only a couple of times that he can’t remember what has already been covered. At the end of the course, you will again have a great starting base from which to continue your Greek learning adventure.

It only struck me at the end that Mihalis often introduces you to words you’re unfamiliar with and asks you to pick them apart with the parts you do know. This is again how the ‘Thinking Method’ works as it gets you to view language as building blocks and construct words and sentences with what you know.

This will be invaluable in helping you after the course to learn more Greek and not be afraid of coming across unfamiliar words. Consequently, the course is a great introduction to the Greek language and although over the 120 lessons you don’t get to listen to a native speaker holding conversations, you should have learned enough to not panic when hearing people speak.

Indeed, the whole process encourages you to be very intuitive.

While I came away impressed at both courses overall such as the method that Mihalis uses and the level of depth he goes into while teaching you a lot of content in a short time, I do however have a couple of issues with it.

For instance, a lot of lessons start with a random verb and while I suppose this does teach you to think intuitively and learn how to build sentences through them, the untraditional learning path could put some people off Language Transfer.

While lots of courses start off teaching you introductions and greetings, for example, I didn’t see them come up in either the early Greek or Swahili lessons and basic words such as ‘yes’ and ‘no’ only come up very late on in the Swahili course.

Another issue that some people might find a bit off-putting is that all of the lessons are untitled and so you don’t know what you’ll be covering in each. This too may make it harder to think back over what you’ve covered in each although I’m not sure if that is partially intended as it ‘frees’ your mind and enables you to focus on the content without having it ‘locked up’ in a particular audio or on a particular piece of paper.

In all honesty, it would almost be impossible to give a title to each lesson as you learn a mixture of grammar and vocabulary each time and I really liked this form of learning.

I think that this does show that the Language Transfer isn’t like other courses and that the whole look to it is very basic with all of the focus on providing you with quality content for free.

The Language Transfer courses don’t pretend to have the answer to all of your learning needs.

For instance, while you learn a bit about the culture as you go, you certainly don’t learn much about it and Mihalis encourages you to use the introductory material that he provides you with to start your own journey of discovery whether that is reading books in the language you’re learning, watching films or reading the news. As such, don’t expect to listen to conversations in the courses.

They are only intended to provide you with building blocks and the basics (well, they go much further than that in terms of the grammar) while teaching you how to learn the language yourself from then on.

While the lessons may not be the most fun thing ever and they all follow exactly the same format with no exercises for you to do, I do believe that they are very effective, and you certainly cover loads of material in a very short amount of time. Don’t let the basic look of Language Transfer fool you – all of the material is very well thought out and presented and the audio lessons are well recorded.

As they are introductory courses, you will certainly need to use other resources if you want to become fluent but both the Swahili and Greek courses which I checked out will teach you loads of grammar, quite a bit of vocabulary and will really teach you how to get to grips with each language.

From what I’ve heard, they are very similar to the Michel Thomas audio language courses, but many users swear that the Language Transfer is more effective. In any case, I would recommend giving the Language Transfer courses a try and what do you have to lose? They’re free!

Yes, It’s Really Free

The Language Transfer courses are completely free and so you really can just go to the website and try out the language lessons for yourself.

Mihalis produces the courses out of love for languages and teaching others and has vowed to always keep the lessons free. 

You can, however, fund him and support the project by donating on the website and with each donation you get to vote for which language course he produces next.

You will notice a “donate” button on the website itself. You can also use Patreon to fund the work of Language Transfer. Currently, Mihalis is working on creating a documentary about both the language learning program and activism. Alternatively, you can purchase a language-learning tool from the “Non-Shop” for a low cost, as a way to support the program.

If you like the courses I would definitely recommend making a contribution as it’s just Mihalis producing all of this amazing content.

In my opinion, the courses are definitely worth checking out and as they are free to access, it couldn’t be easier to do so.

While there are some slight negatives which we looked at above, the content which you go through in such a short time is very impressive and you’ll certainly come away having learned more than in most introductory courses.

Mihalis doesn’t intend for them to be the definitive course on any language and so you should see them more as an in-depth beginner course which will teach you all you need to know about how to continue learning your language of choice.

Best Way to Use Language Transfer to Learn a Language

Because Language Transfer is a totally free resource, there is no reason not to give it a try! Check out these tips to get the most out of your time with an LT course.

Plan ahead

Probably the most important tip to keep in mind as you begin an LT audio course is that most of these courses serve as an introduction to a language. You will want to plan ahead and look for a core learning program you can use after you finish this course. You can find some great options in the Alternatives section in this article.

If you find that you love the gentle teaching style in LT, you may want to look for either an in-person class or find an online tutor to continue learning in much the same style. Lots of community colleges offer affordable language classes that you can take without being an official student of the school. 

If you want a more accessible option, try an online language tutoring portal like italki, which can connect you with professional tutors who are native speakers in your target language.

Schedule regular learning time

Another way to get the most out of your LT course is to make sure you set aside time to focus on the course each day. Most of the lessons only take a few minutes to listen to. But you need to actively listen, repeating words and phrases out loud and trying to quickly guess the answers to the question Mihalis poses to his student.

Because you need to focus, don’t try to do your daily lessons while at the gym or on the bus! If you need to multitask, try doing your lesson while doing chores or going on a walk.

Don’t be afraid to review what you learn

LT lessons don’t offer handy review tools like summaries or quizzes. Because of this, you may want to consider repeating lessons to make sure you remember everything you learn. For example, you could do five lessons during the week, and then review them on the weekend to make sure you grasped key concepts.

Get access to native speakers

The big weakness of the LT audio courses, as you know from reading this article, is the lack of native speakers to teach you correct pronunciation. One way to get past this hurdle is to immerse yourself in the sounds of your target language outside of your regular lesson time.

You can do this in many ways. Look for TV shows or movies in your target language. You can often find free streaming providers online if you don’t mind watching a few ads! Big providers like Netflix have also started to up their game and add many films and shows from many different countries and in many languages.

You can also listen to radio shows, podcasts, or news stations from around the world online. This is a great way to build your listening comprehension while also keeping you up-to-date on the culture of that part of the world!

Practice your conversational skills

Finally, the real test of your new linguistic skills is how well you can communicate in a real-life situation. This means you need to practice conversation as you learn your target language. Obviously, this is not something the LT course will help with. The good news is that you can find free conversation tools online.

Apps like HelloTalk help you connect with people who speak your target language around the world. You can hold video, text, or voice conversations with these fellow language-learners to help improve your grasp of the new language.

Alternatives to Language Transfer

Language Transfer has a lot to offer, but you may want to consider alternative learning programs that target language-learning aspects that LT doesn’t, such as focusing on conversation skills or literacy.

Pimsleur

Pimsleur’s app-based programs consist of audio lessons like LT, but they take a different approach. This program uses native speakers to teach basic conversation skills in a new language. 

The program focuses on Spaced Repetition to help you learn a set of core vocabulary. The app does include exercises and drills as well as the audio lessons, but the main way you learn is through listening and repeating key phrases out loud.

On top of this, the top-of-the-line app also features direct speech technology so you can get feedback on your pronunciation. Pimsleur currently offers a whopping 51 different languages you can choose from as well.

The downside is that Pimsleur does not dive as deeply into grammar as LT. It also has a pretty high monthly subscription rate of $19.95/month.

If you want the listening comprehension and speaking skills necessary to hold a conversation in a new language in a short time frame Pimsleur may work best for you. Check it out here!

StoryLearning

If you don’t consider yourself an audio learner, you may want a unique learning program like StoryLearning. This method uses an ongoing narrative to help you learn all aspects of a language, including a deep dive into grammar, literacy, and even some elements of culture.

Every chapter of the course takes you through a new section of a story. You listen to, read, translate, and then break down the story to learn about new linguistic concepts.

This entirely online course does not offer a sleek app like Pimsleur, and the program currently features just 15 languages. While it does feature activities and quizzes, it also does not have direct speaking software to give feedback on your pronunciation. The other negative of this program compared to LT is that it has a high one-time cost of $297.

That said, the basic concept is appealing: you communicate in stories in your native language, so it makes sense that you can most easily learn a new language through narrative as well!

If you like the idea of learning naturally through narrative, check out StoryLearning here.

OuiNo

Ouino offers five popular language courses online, featuring European languages like French and Spanish. You can access the program through the app or online, for a one-time payment of $95.

Ouino is different from most language learning programs in two ways. First, it is designed to work as the core of your program, allowing you to curate your own additional learning resources. This is much more honest than most programs–because, honestly, you will always need to find multiple resources to get the best learning experience!

Second, the program has a non-linear structure. You can listen to lessons in any order instead of in a linear progression. 

Ouino also takes a deep dive into grammar and teaches you things like hundreds of verb conjugations as well as practical vocabulary and pronunciation. It offers a solid foundation in your new language–so long as you want to learn one of the only five languages currently offered through the program. Check out the list of Ouino courses here!

Final Thoughts

The Language Transfer courses I tried were great and serve as fantastic introductions to nine languages.

It is important to remember that they are not meant to be a definitive course that includes absolutely everything in the language you’ve chosen. As such, you shouldn’t expect to hear dialogues, practice reading or writing, or learn much about the cultural context of the language.

Instead, these courses will teach you a lot of grammar, how to break down the language, and how to learn it intuitively and independently after completing the course.

While not everyone will enjoy the structure of the lessons and courses and the fact that all of them are quite similar in terms of how they are presented, as they are free, they are worth checking out just to see if the learning method does suit you.

If you want to focus more on developing conversational skills, you may want to explore a paid program like Pimsleur instead.

But I found the LT courses to be an effective way of learning and was impressed at just how much you come away learning in a relatively short time. I can recommend giving the LT audio courses a go.