SpanishDict Mini-Review: Doesn’t Get Better Than This

SpanishDict

Rating 5.0

★★★★★

Price:

Free, Premium subscriptions start at $12.99/mo

Summary

There is no online dictionary better at supporting Spanish learners (or Spanish speaking English learners) than SpanishDict. When you search for a word on the website, you will find a series of definitions, examples of how to use the word in context, conjugations, synonyms, and common phrases that include the word. For those of you who create SRS flashcards in Anki or other apps, each dictionary entry contains a relevant picture that you can save to your decks. You can add dictionary entries to their Spaced Repetition System flashcards, find quizzes and flashcards for the most common Spanish textbooks, watch video pronunciations of thousands of words, or engage in video lessons and exercises for various grammar topics. There are also extensive articles on grammar, vocabulary, tongue twisters, and language learning that contain clear explanations, audio pronunciations, and links to related articles. Both the mobile app and website are worth your attention, but the website contains significantly more features and pronunciations by native speakers. The website is free and supported by advertisements, but by subscribing to their Premium membership you can get some extra features and remove the ads.

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Anki Mini-Review: The Go-To SRS Flashcard App

Anki

Rating 4.1

★★★★

★

Price:

Free

Summary

It is the go-to app for free (except on iOS) Spaced Repetition System (SRS) flashcards. It has a simple user interface with various features that more hard-core users can dive into if they choose. Your flashcards will appear according to your natural forgetting curve; the app will test you in increasingly spaced out intervals, with more difficult cards appearing more than once in a session, while easier cards spacing out over weeks — or even months and years. An SRS system is the most effective way to drive information into your long-term memory. The cards can sync between the web, desktop app, and mobile versions to keep your flashcards updated and with you at all times. You can add images and audio clips to your cards and change the text formatting (if you use it on your computer). One feature unique to Anki, as opposed to other SRS flashcard apps, is the “Cloze deletion” function, which allows you to block out parts of your card and create a “fill-in-the-blanks” type card format. If you want a resource for how to make effective flashcards, check out the book, FluentForever. The author leaves a whole section dedicated to understanding how to use your Anki deck to advance your skills quickly.

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Paul Noble Mini-Review: Great for Beginners

Paul Noble

Rating 4.2

★★★★

★

Price:

Complete Audiobooks start at $14.95 on Audible, or 1 Audible credit

Summary

Paul Noble’s audiobook series is for beginners or upper-beginners who want to gain confidence in their target language. There are also crash courses for those who will soon be heading off on a business trip or holiday. The series focuses on cognates (words that are similar in both English and your target language) in order to build your vocabulary more efficiently. It also seems to have been inspired by Michel Thomas’ courses (with a few improvements). Paul introduces vocabulary and gets you to make new sentences through problem solving. For example, he may introduce a sentence, then ask you to make a new sentence using your current knowledge and the new words you have just learned. Although the narrators move a bit slowly, the consistent interaction between you and the material ensures that you won’t get bored. Because Paul breaks down the rules of each language in such a simple and concise way, you can feel confident in building new sentences by yourself.

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Encore!!! Language Learning Mini-Review: Basically a Phrasebook

Encore!!! Language Learning

Rating 1.5

★

★★★★

Price:

Free

Summary

Encore!!! Language Learning allows you to listen to playlists of common phrases, vocabulary, conjugations, and dialogues. It varies in terms of whether it uses native speakers or automated text-to-voice. The app is basically a phrasebook that allows you to practice translating sentences to and from your native language, or simply repeat after an audio in your target language. You can listen to a pre-made playlist, mute or unmute certain phrases within a playlist, adjust the number of repetitions of each phrase, or create your own playlist. You can also test your memory with the Test tool by reading prompts in your native language and translating into your target language. The app seems to focus more on understanding grammar structures than other phrasebook sites like Optilingo or Lingohut. Technically you could learn something by repeating the phrases aloud, but there are many other free apps that provide a clearer learning path and have a more intuitive interface than Encore!!! Language Learning.

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CaptionPop Mini-Review: Use The Free Version

Caption Pop

Rating 4.0

★★★★★

Price:

Free, Premium subscriptions start at $10/mo

Summary

With CaptionPop you can use YouTube videos to pursue your language learning endeavours using subtitles in both your target language and native language. Tap a single key to repeat the last caption, slow down the playback speed, and bookmark subtitles to study with SRS interactive flashcards. The flashcards will not just have you memorize words, but practice dictations with immediate feedback on your accuracy. Unfortunately there are currently some bugs in the programming, and you may only hear part of the caption you are being asked to transcribe. You can search for Youtube videos in your target language within the CaptionPop platform, but only those videos with subtitles in both your target language and your native language are available. This means that you will rely on captions translated and transcribed by the video’s creators, which improves your language learning experience but restricts the amount of available Youtube content. Nevertheless, there is a good amount of content from popular channels in more common languages. The free version of the platform combined with self-made Anki cards may be a better option than subscribing to the premium version, as the bugs in CaptionPop’s programming may not be worth the monthly payment.

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Rocket Spanish Review – Boring But Still A Decent Course

Last Updated on December 13, 2023.

Rocket Spanish

Rating 3.8

★★★

★

★★

Summary

Rocket Spanish is a pretty good Spanish course, but it’s not my personal favorite. Although I find the lessons tend to be very boring, the content is well structured and fairly comprehensive. There is a good mixture of listening, speaking, grammar, and review activities.

Quality 4.0

★★★★★

The app and the lessons are well designed, but I experienced some minor annoyances.

Thoroughness 4.0

★★★★★

There are lots of practice activities following each lesson, and course structure seems logical.

Value 3.5

★★★

★

★★

Not cheap but not absurdly expensive either.

I Like

Lessons are well structured and use increasingly more Spanish as you move up.
The streamlined interface makes it easy to navigate lessons and activities.
You’ll certainly learn a lot if you complete the exercises and review activities.
Speaking practice is emphasized in the audio lessons and in numerous exercises.

I Don’t Like

I found the audio lessons to be painfully boring.
I thought the cultural lessons were poorly done and felt lazy.
Although the reinforcement exercises are helpful, you’ll likely get sick of them.

Price

Level 1 costs $150.99. Levels 1 & 2 cost $300. Levels 1, 2 & 3 cost $450 (though you can often find discounts).

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…

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Instant Immersion Mini-Review: No Longer a Good Investment

Instant Immersion

Rating 2.0

★★★★★

Price:

1 level costs $29.95, 3 levels cost $44.95

Summary

Instant Immersion offers programs in over 120 languages, narrated by native speakers. It claims to help you build your vocabulary, converse with ease, and perfect your pronunciation. It has interactive activities on the computer, interactive games you can play with your family on a DVD, and MP3 files for your car. Their topics include food, shopping, restaurants, animals, numbers, etc. In other words, Instant Immersion will probably not help you if you are looking to have immediately applicable conversations A common trend in many reviews is the lack of structure in these courses. While other courses build on what you have previously learned and help you learn vocabulary relevant to your everyday life, Instant Immersion seems to provide a large amount of information without transitions or a clear learning path. There is a lot of content, but this doesn’t necessarily mean you will learn a lot. Instant Immersion may have been a good investment several years ago, but now there are many other options for affordable, quality language learning.

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Spanishland School Mini-Review: Maintain Your Motivation

Spanishland

Rating 4.5

★★★★

★

Price:

Freemium, Premium subscription: $59 – $797

Summary

Are you an intermediate or advanced leaner of Spanish looking to elevate your Spanish language skills? We have a great resource for you to check out.

Spanishland School is a language learning platform with both free and paid resources for intermediate and advanced learners. Their free content includes two different types of podcasts, YouTube videos and articles.
Spanishland’s paid option is the Parcero membership which features live classes, group calls, structured grammar courses, a private podcast, and much more. You get a comprehensive library of courses and learning material which include documentary videos, unique dialogues, worksheets and lots of other engaging content. With weekly live classes, you can interact with Andrea directly and get answers to any questions that you may have. You also get to test your learning progress with quizzes and get support from their team whenever you need. The community forum on the Parecero platform allows you to interact with other Parcero members, take part in challenges, participate in contests, and share tips. Spanishland provides an outline and structure, making it easy for you to set your own learning pace and stay motivated.

Spanishland may not be cheap and may require a lot of self-discipline and focus, but it is a great option if you’re looking for a more personalized and specific approach to help you advance your Spanish.

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Readlang Mini-Review: A Must-Have For Language Lovers

Readlang

Rating 4.5

★★★★

★

Price:

Freemium, Premium subscriptions start at $5/mo

Summary

With Readlang as your Google Chrome Extension, you can have instant translations for words or sentences in over 45 languages at the tip of your mouse cursor (or fingertip)! Browse the internet and effortlessly click on unknown words to get a translation that stays on your screen until it is no longer needed. If you can’t find anything to read on the internet, you can access a bank of public texts organized by word count and difficulty, browse the most popular websites for Readlang users, or upload your own text to study. If you read on the Readlang website, you can see words that you have previously translated highlighted across every text. Readlang collects SRS flashcards for you from words that you have translated. It will only record the most useful words for you to practice based on word frequency lists, which could be either a pro or a con depending on your study goals. Each flashcard also includes audio pronunciation and the sentence from which the word was taken. You can choose to reveal the flashcard to check your comprehension, or type in your response for more effective recall. The free version provides enough for the casual user, but upgrading to an affordable premium membership allows unlimited phrase translations and unknown word highlighting across texts. Although there may be some problems with translations in beta languages, and sometimes it fails to recognize text, overall Readlang is an excellent resource for language lovers.

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Quizlet Mini-Review: A Flashcard/Quiz App for Many Languages

Quizlet

Rating 3.2

★★★

★

★★

Price:

$ 0.00

Summary

Quizlet is a flashcard-based learning system. Community-contributed flashcards are available for numerous languages. These vary in quality, but you can preview them to see how well they meet your needs. Each set of flashcards powers other activities: In Learn mode, you demonstrate your mastery of each word or phrase by using multiple choice to select the correct definition. There are also spelling and writing exercises. The spelling exercises can be frustrating, as they sometimes require the addition of alternate word endings that are not always pronounced by the speaker. A space-themed word game and a “Concentration”-style matching game inject some extra fun into your study time. Recent changes to Quizlet mean that you are now required to sign in to use the flashcard sets. As Quizlet is now promoting two premium plans — the modestly priced “Quizlet Plus” and the less-expensive “Quizlet Go” — you may encounter several promotions for these paid versions. We have not tried the paid tier at this time. Overall, Quizlet can be a fun, effective way to learn new vocabulary. It has the tools to help with auditory comprehension and spelling in your target language. It covers many languages, even some harder-to-find ones. However, not all of the flashcard sets are high quality.

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