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multiple languages

StoryLeaning Spanish Uncovered In-depth Review: One-of-a-kind and Surprisingly Effective & Enjoyable

StoryLearning Uncovered Courses

Rating 4.0
★★★★★

Summary

StoryLeaning Spanish Uncovered (and the similar German, French, Italian and Japanese courses) come from Olly Richards, the creator of the super popular blog I Will Teach You A Language. It’s quite a bit different than most courses as it revolves around a story. It can be a bit more challenging than other courses, as you begin reading somewhat long texts right off the bat. Overall, I found it to be a more fun way to approach language learning that will be great for some but not ideal for others.

Quality 4.0
★★★★★

The instruction is clear but can have too much information crammed into a single lesson.

Thoroughness 4.0
★★★★★

You’ll practice every aspect of the language.

Value 4.0
★★★★★

It has a pretty high price, but if you stick with it, you’ll get good value from it.

I Like
  • Centering the lessons around a story makes learning more fun.
  • Good clear instruction with lots of opportunities to practive what you’ve learned.
  • Gets students to actively participate and take control of their own learning.
I Don’t Like
  • Too many unrelated grammar points are included in the grammar lessons.
  • The review quiz is too short.
Price

A one-time purchase costs $297, or for Japanese, $397. There’s also a 7-day free trial.

StoryLearning Uncovered 7-Day Free Trial

Olly Richards, the creator of the popular blog I Will Teach You A Language has also created several language learning courses.

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StoryLeaning Spanish Uncovered In-depth Review: One-of-a-kind and Surprisingly Effective & Enjoyable Read More »

LinguaLift Review – You’d Be Better Off Using A Textbook

LinguaLift

Rating 2.7
★★
★
★★★

Summary

LinguaLift currently offers courses in Japanese, Russian and Hebrew. I chose Japanese and working my way through the lessons was very much like going through an online textbook. Very text-based, the material is best suited to beginners although the slow pace and heavy use of English means that it takes a while to make progress. While it’s nicely designed and includes lots of interesting content about Japanese culture, you don’t learn how to speak or understand conversations as the focus is on learning how to read (which it does very well).

Quality 3.5
★★★
★
★★

Very easy to use and nicely produced but all lessons look the same.

Thoroughness 2.5
★★
★
★★★

Great for teaching reading and the cultural context of a language but not communication skills.

Value 2.0
★★★★★

The material is comparable to a textbook but much more expensive.

I Like
  • LinguaLift is one of the best resources out there when it comes to teaching you about the cultural context surrounding the language.
  • The texts are quite humorous to read and each lesson concludes with a reward which usually comes in the form of a video about some part of the culture.
  • It really succeeds at teaching you how to read Japanese and the course is easy to follow.
  • Don’t have to pay extra to access courses in more than one language.
I Don’t Like
  • All of the lessons look almost identical which gets monotonous.
  • The course is mostly in English and it takes a while for you to actually encounter all that much Japanese.
  • Other courses will almost certainly have you speaking and learning the language at a quicker pace.
  • The focus on reading means you don’t get to listen to much Japanese and there is no way to practice speaking or holding a conversation.
Price

$19.99 a month or one year is $156.00. Languages: Japanese, Russian, and Spanish

Visit LinguaLift

In order to write this review, I subscribed to LinguaLift for one month. And, although they have courses available in Japanese, Hebrew, and Russian, I decided to focus this review on their Japanese course.

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Grammar Hero Review – I Like It A Lot, But Wish It Were Cheaper

Grammar Hero

Rating 4.2
★★★★
★
★

Summary

Grammar Hero is a product from Olly Richards, the creator of I Will Teach You A Language. It follows the story-based method of teaching languages, but this time with a focus on the most difficult grammar points. You start out by reading a story and the grammar point is underlined, later you learn the rules, then you re-read the story with explanations, and finally you’ll practice using the grammar point to express your thoughts and opinions. It’s a comprehensive method that’s meant to help you internalize the grammar.

Quality 4.5
★★★★
★
★

The stories are unique and interesting, while highlighting the grammar points.

Thoroughness 4.5
★★★★
★
★

Covers the most challenging grammar in each language.

Value 3.5
★★★
★
★★

I wish it were cheaper so that more learners can take advantage of it.

I Like
  • The stories are different for every language.
  • Enjoyable to read, clear audio recordings, and more interesting than other ways to study grammar.
  • Focuses on only the most challenging grammar points.
I Don’t Like
  • It’s pretty expensive.
  • The final “Activate” section is just a worksheet. It’s useful but hardly exciting.
Price

It costs $197 to purchase Grammar Hero in each language. There’s also a 30-day money back guarantee.

Visit Grammar Hero

Olly Richards is the creator of the very popular blog, I Will Teach You a Language. He speaks 8 languages and provides a ton of good advice to language learners.

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Grammar Hero Review – I Like It A Lot, But Wish It Were Cheaper Read More »

Mimic Method Review: Trying Out The Elemental Sounds Courses

Mimic Method

Rating 3.2
★★★
★
★★

Summary

Created by Idahosa, the Mimic Method’s ‘Elemental Sounds Masters Classes’ are not your traditional type of language learning course as you won’t learn any grammar or vocabulary. The focus is instead on learning the elemental sounds of the language. This is because once you can conceptualise them, then you can train your ear to hear and understand them and afterwards train your mouth to produce and pronounce these sounds. Useful for both beginners and advanced learners, you would obviously need to use it in conjunction with a couple of other resources to progress in your target language.

Quality 3.5
★★★
★
★★

Easy to use and navigate, the production quality is fine without being amazing.

Thoroughness 4.0
★★★★★

Quite technical throughout most of the course, Idahosa thoroughly explains the method and sounds in each language.

Value 2.0
★★★★★

Very expensive for what it is, I think it is as interesting take at learning pronunciation but you won’t get anything else from it.

I Like
  • Some of the homework exercises are really interesting and quite unlike anything you’ll find on other language courses.
  • Idahosa goes into quite a lot of depth on how to pronounce the different elemental sounds of each language. At the end of the course you will know all the different sounds from the language that you are learning.
  • It was a fresh way of learning a language that I had never contemplated before
I Don’t Like
  • I found the course to be very technical and while other people will surely find it interesting, it didn’t resonate so much with me unfortunately as it just wasn’t that fun to follow.
  • You would certainly have to use the course alongside other learning resources which actually teach you the grammar, vocabulary, reading, writing, speaking and cultural context of your target language.
  • You do not get much material for the high price that it costs.
Price

For lifetime access to a course, the Mimic Method website has slashed its cost from $394 to $197 although I am uncertain if it always stays that price.

VISIT THE MIMIC METHOD

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Mimic Method Review: Trying Out The Elemental Sounds Courses Read More »

Glossika Review – Not Cheap But Useful

Glossika

Rating 3.6
★★★
★
★★

Summary

Glossika has learning resources for over fifty languages that impressively range from Armenian and Czech to Icelandic and Tagalog. While not suitable for absolute beginners, lower intermediates could use the resource to familiarise themselves with sentences in their language of choice using Glossika´s intuitive approach. Listening to native speakers and repeating what they say can help learners to improve their comprehension skills and spoken fluency. While it is amazing that so many languages are included, learners would have to use numerous other resources alongside it. The cost is unjustifiably high.

Quality 3.8
★★★
★
★★

The audio recordings are well made but other aspects could be improved

Thoroughness 3.8
★★★
★
★★

Glossika covers an impressive number of languages but their method requires you to intuitively learn

Value 3.5
★★★
★
★★

Polyglots may find the price to be fair but for most language learners it’s not

I Like
  • There are lots of languages available, including many that are rarely covered by other resources.
  • The subscription gives you access to all of the languages making it possible to study one language and review another at the same time.
  • It will force you to speak the language which will improve your confidence and prosody.
I Don’t Like
  • As all of the languages cover the exact same material, the diversity of the languages and cultures are reduced to a simple formula with no cultural context involved in their teaching.
  • There are a fair amount of errors in the materials.
  • The cost is excessively high compared to other resources.
  • There are no explanations of grammar.
Price

You can try out Glossika´s learning method for free with their week-long trial. Their basic subscription is $16.99 a month. The monthly subscription costs $30.99 a month. The annual subscription costs $24.99 a month and will set you back 299.88$ in total.

Click the link below to save $5 on a subscription to Glossika.

Try Glossika For Free

Few resources cover as many different languages as Glossika does. Because of this, I was excited to try it out and see what it’s like to use.

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Earworms Review – A Unique Idea But Lacks Substance

Earworms

Rating 2.5
★★
★
★★★

Summary

Earworms is a unique language resource that relies on audio lessons mixed into music. The theory is that you will find the music catchy and thus remember your lessons easily.  The whole idea behind Earworms is the psychological theory of memory association. You would associate some information with the music and thus remember it easily. However, the music used in these lessons will not appeal to everyone, at least it didn’t for me. Moreover, the lack of visual aid and no exercises to assess your skills make it harder.  I would only recommend this for people who have failed to learn through other online resources or perhaps someone looking to learn a few phrases before a trip.

Quality 2.0
★★★★★

With a lack of exercises and visual aids, I can’t really say that it will prove to be a useful resource.

Thoroughness 2.0
★★★★★

All the lessons are comprised of various phrases that they think will be useful for anyone willing to learn French. Unfortunately, they’re too shallow and poorly structured.

Value 3.5
★★★
★
★★

With such low utility, it is important to have a low-price tag. Fortunately, they have followed this idea and thus you won’t be losing out too much if you opt for this.

I Like
  • The repetition of the phrases
  • Some of the tracks aren’t half bad
I Don’t Like
  • Tracks aren’t as catchy as I expected
  • Lack of visual aids
  • Complete absence of a testing system
Price

Each volume can be purchased as an mp3 download for £10.42 or £31.26.

Visit Earworms

When I first heard of Earworms, I was quite intrigued mostly because I know what it’s like to get a song stuck in my head. Compared to annoying lyrics, getting a new language stuck in there sounds pretty appealing.

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