Jamie

OkyDoky Review: very fun way to get useful vocab

January 11, 2022 by Jamie Leave a Comment

Note: this review is currently being updated. Some information may be outdated.

OkyDoky (formerly Hey! Lingo) is a new resource for foreign language vocab that offers language learners a ton of languages. What it lacks in history it makes up for in diversity (both in languages and in the ways you can learn the vocab in them).

In this OkyDoky review, I’ll explain all the ways in which you can learn all this vocab, and what kind of language learner OkyDoky is best for.

OkyDoky languages

OkyDoky is for learners of 38 different languages, including:

Albanian
Bosnian
Bulgarian
Chinese (Mandarin)
Croatian
Czech
Danish
Dutch
Estonian
Filipino (Tagalog)
Finnish
French
German
Greek
Hungarian
Icelandic
Indonesian
Italian
Japanese

Korean
Latvian
Lithuanian
Macedonian
Norwegian
Polish
Portuguese
Romanian
Russian
Serbian
Slovak
Slovenian
Spanish
Swedish
Thai
Turkish
Ukrainian
Vietnamese

Bonus! Just like Mondly, OkyDoky is great for language laddering: any language you can learn with OkyDoky can used to be learned any of their other languages as well.

Using OkyDoky

Once you create an account, you’ll immediately be walked through a tutorial of the app so that you’re aware of both how to use it, and what options are available to you to learn a language.

https://vimeo.com/1044386409/527c5bd612?ts=0&share=copy

At first glance, this seems like a completely reasonable way to approach learning a language, as long as you already have some beginner knowledge behind you. This tutorial assumes you know beginner vocabulary and verbs, which is worth noting.

Also worth noting? Just from this first glance, all I see is AI. I’m hoping that it’s just the tutorial and the cover art that is AI, and the rest is human made (let’s not take a lesson from Duolingo, please!).

Your path to 3000+ words (which leaves you a solid-sized vocabulary to practice actually speaking)
Courses (start with frequently used words & end speaking long sentences)
Vocabulary (learn useful words related to a single theme)

You can choose to learn vocabulary with either of these two paths, whichever one is more useful or interesting to you. For example, if you want to be conversationally fluent as quickly as possible, you’d go by way of courses; if you want to be able to talk about specific things, you’d go by vocabulary.

This right here is already a pretty good indication of the flexibility language learners can get from OkyDoky! This not only offers us a specific road map to achieve a specific goal, but it also includes several ways to get there.

And, no matter which path you choose, you can pick up whichever course you like, whenever you like. This allows us the flexibility to be spontaneous and creative in what we’re learning, while still working towards the same long-term goal of 300 words.

OkyDoky review: flashcard types

I’m a big fan of resources that allow us to switch up how we’re consuming our flashcards. There’s Anki, which has several different options that we can mix and match however we please. There’s uTalk which takes us through a predictable pattern to build our skills in multiple ways. How does OkyDoky do it?

Here’s what I got when I selected a French course. There’s a lot here, so let’s dissect it.

How many cards in the course, depending on if you’re a plus member or not (more on that later)
Different tabs to go through as you make your way through these cards: “Study”, “Review”, “Difficult”, and “Pinned” cards. These are great tools for keeping track of the terms that are more difficult for you
“Timer Speed”, which you can use to speed things up or slow them down if your comprehension is higher/lower than average. You can also turn this off if it’s putting too much pressure on you
Card types

Card types is the biggun’ here! We’ve got “Translate”, “Listen”, “Build”, “Switch”, and “Blank” (I told you, OkyDoky is all about options and flexibility!).

Here’s what some of the different card types looked like when I just selected “all”.

There’s a couple of things I really liked about how this session went. First of all, even though I left myself open to all the card types, it started easier and slowly got a little harder (i.e. “Build”).

Second, if you like all the fun little sound effects and graphics of Duolingo, you’ll love OkyDoky. With the little clicking sounds and the “success” sound effect, plus a big giant reward star that pops up every time you get 5 or 10 in a row right…OkyDoky’s got the gamification thing down pat. This will absolutely keep you interested in language learning.

Oh, and for the sake of building your comprehension, the term is repeated multiple times, whether it’s a “Listen” card or not.

If you get it wrong? No worries, it’ll show you the answer for you to review, and make a note of it to test you on again later.

And that’s pretty much it for the cards themselves! While you’re not going to get any grammar lessons or explanations, this can make for an excellent way to pick up grammar in context. Simple, yet very fun and effective.

Looking for more information? Scroll down to see a list of all the flashcards you’ve been working on.

Seriously, OkyDoky’s graphics are on point! The whole website gives off a great fun/easy-going/perky feel.

You can see a visual representation of how well you know each phrase, the translation (and transliteration for languages with non-Latin alphabets), two different audio recordings of said phrase, a little emoji describing the phrase, and a link to a forum to discuss (again, much like Duolingo).

Because OkyDoky is still so new, there’s not much in terms of discussion. However, just like Kwiziq was when they first expanded to Spanish, you’ll get a response pretty quickly.

Fair warning: if you head on over to the Discussions sections, you’ll find a lot of users correcting OkyDoky’s content and complaining that there shouldn’t be so many errors.

They make a fair point, but I can’t say how their content is created, and they consistently heed the advice and make the corrections. So, you know, take that bit as you will. A brand new website isn’t going to have all the kinks fixed just yet.

OkyDoky’s chat courses

Recently, OkyDoky has released 80+ new language courses in a new feature called chats! To access them, make sure you have the most recent version of the app (or just use the website on desktop) and click on the brown speech bubble courses.

With these chats, OkyDoky switches it up a little bit and goes from kind of random phrases to phrases that you’ll use in an actual conversation. You don’t have all the options of the other courses, but it is a good option for connecting the information you’re taking in into some more realistic “conversational” practice (you’re not actively having the conversations, i.e. speaking, but you’re still creating those connections between random words/phrases and getting used to real-life chats).

It’s pretty simple: you’re given a phrase, a few fill-in-the-blank options, and a timer. Your job is to make it make sense.

As you can see, your correct answers are in green speech bubbles, and incorrect ones are in red. In the end, you get your stats, which let you know how you did in that particular session.

And, per the rest of the app/website, you can replay the chat just with the phrases that you struggled with to really dive deep into the more difficult stuff. So it’s a challenge because you’re essentially throwing yourself into the conversation, but it’s not a challenge because you’re still not actually speaking.

OkyDoky’s other tools

Besides the main show, the flashcards, OkyDoky has a few other tricks to help us stay motivated, consistent, and interested in our language learning.

First we have the Leaderboard. As OkyDoky continues to improve I can see this as a really helpful motivation tool to keep us learning!

At the moment there are two versions of the site-wide Leaderboard: one by language, and one for all OkyDoky users put together. It’s pretty easy to rank at the moment because there aren’t that many users, but I hope once enough language learners join you’ll be able to compete just against those in a particular course.

I would love to see this develop into something along the lines of Duolingo’s leagues, where you’re pit against a certain amount of members every week. But, as of right now, they’re working with what they’ve got (i.e. not too many members).

Another option, if you have friends who are also using OkyDoky, is groups! Create a group and give your 4-digit group code to anybody you like in order to compete with your friends (a much easier and personal competition than everyone learning a certain language).

You can create a group with as many languages as you like, and edit which languages are counted at any time.

Next up we have daily goals! Go into your account page and see some simple statistics for your study habits.

Unfortunately, these aren’t really front-and-center – it took me a minute of exploring the website to find this. However, I do really like the calendar view. Some may want some more in-depth stats (especially for paid members), but at the moment this section is pretty simple.

Besides the fact that I really need to focus on one course at a time, you can see the percentage of the words I’ve learned, when I’ve studied, and how long I’ve studied for (excellent fodder for PolyLogger!).

Underneath, you also have the option to set a daily study goal and set a daily reminder, either via email or via the mobile app.

OkyDoky prices

Even for a paid language resource, OkyDoky keeps it pretty accessible. They don’t block out entire courses but instead give you a little bit of everything. Just in the French course I reviewed for this post, it included 38 free words and 329 extra for paid users.

So what does it take to get those extra words? Well, not much!

OkyDoky is very accessible. I recommend getting that membership now; like I said, it’s a pretty new resource, so these prices may very well increase over time.

And keep in mind, OkyDoky currently covers the most often-used vocab of 26 different languages, and we get access to every single one of them with an account. The sky’s the limit folks!

Who should use OkyDoky

That’s the end of this OkyDoky review. Do I like it? Yes. Is it perfect? Absolutely not. Because it’s still in its beginning stages, there are a lot of errors that need fixing. While it’s easy enough to report errors and get them fixed, this does mean we need to take these flashcards with a grain of salt sometimes.

OkyDoky really shines in its use of gamification, giving us those little endorphin rushes whenever we click around the site. It also mixes up the flashcards really well and gives us the power to choose what kind of learning we want to be doing.

And, of course, I love the visualization of the OkyDoky goal. With that specific goal in mind, language learners who are looking to bulk up on phrases in a variety of different languages in a fun way are gonna love this!

It’s a lot like Duolingo, but strictly for vocab and phrases. Like I said, you’re also not going to get any explanations behind grammar rules or anything like that, so if you can’t figure out these phrases via context, you’ll need to go somewhere else for backup.

MosaLingua review: more theory than active language practice

January 11, 2022 by Jamie Leave a Comment

MosaLingua is a combination website/mobile app that boasts its own unique method of learning a language, called The MOSA Learning Method. What is this method, what does it teach you, and how effective is MosaLingua for learning a language?

In this MosaLingua review, let’s find out.

MosaLingua review: languages

MosaLingua is an international company, and it’s pretty clear right from the get-go that they’re not English-centric in their communications. Currently, you can use MosaLingua to learn:

English
Business English
English TOEIC
English TOEFL
Medical English
Business Spanish

Arabic
Chinese
French
German
Italian
Japanese
Korean
Portuguese
Russian
Spanish

Let’s talk about what MosaLingua’s method actually is; the last time I saw a resource so proud of their strategy was Pimsleur, which can be effective for the right learner, but generally (in my opinion) is a bit overrated.

MosaLingua review: the method

As this MosaLingua review goes on, you’ll see why this part is so important. Apparently based on “several cognitive science and psychology concepts”, the MosaLingua method includes:

Spaced repetition (my fave!)
Active recall
Metacognition
The Pareto principle
Learner motivation and psychology

Those are a lot of fancy terms. What do they actually mean for us? I’ll take these concepts and explain them in not-so-formal terms that we can understand pretty easily.

Spaced repetition: this one isn’t new to the language learning world at all, and it’s most popularly used with Anki. But you review words more or less depending on how difficult they are for you; you’ll also be shown old words just before you forget them. Very efficient.
Active recall: multiple-choice questions aren’t the best because it’s easy enough to get them right without thinking. It’s like choosing the correct sentence between 5 sentences, you hear the word for “school”, and you pick the only sentence that has “school” in it. So MosaLingua doesn’t do that.
Metacognition: once you answer right or wrong, report back on how easy or difficult it was for you. Again, something that Anki does very well.
The Pareto principle: something like 80% of the conversations you’ll have in a language will use only 20% of the vocabulary. Learn high-frequency words first to learn more efficiently.
Learner motivation and psychology: this is the concept that half of the struggle with learning a language is the barriers that we have in our minds. Defeat those to learn your language!

All that said, this method seems to be pretty much common sense.

MosaLingua review: getting started

Once you log in to MosaLingua, you’ll first be directed to take a 20-30 minute long test. I have never seen such a time-intensive start to learning a language, and especially not one that begins from such an advanced level.

I won’t put you through my whole test, but here’s how it started.

Feel free to take breaks when necessary (I certainly did), especially when switching sections. You’ll be tested on your use of all the language skills, and it’s tough even if it is multiple choice.

I do have to say it’s pretty accurate – MosaLingua judged my Spanish comprehension at a B2, and my grammar at an A2. At the end, you can submit your email to get these results in your email, but I don’t see any glaringly obvious “start here!” signs anywhere.

MosaDiscovery

Honestly, I spent about a week trying to find the meat of MosaLingua and I think I found it with their Chrome extension. It’s not clearly advertised within the online platform (or even the app, really), but MosaLingua’s strength starts with MosaDiscovery, the Chrome extension.

Find the link to download the Chrome extension within the “Premium” section of the app, as this is a premium feature.

Download MosaLingua’s MosaDiscovery Chrome extension, and collect new terms wherever on the internet you’re using the language! Just right-click, select “Add to MosaLingua”, edit the terms if you see fit, and then add them to your account.

Now you’ll have to download the MosaLingua app; be aware that there is a different app for each language, so pay attention and make sure you’re downloading the right one.

When you open the MosaLingua app, you’ll be directed to review these terms using the context in which they were found.

The app has you learn your new foreign language vocab using these strategies:

Listen & repeat (AKA shadowing)
Memorize
Write
Self-evaluate

It’s a perfectly decent approach, though not executed nearly as well as some other alternatives (which I’ll mention at the end of this MosaLingua review).

The best part of this whole strategy, though, is the process of collecting these words from the internet. This makes vocab collection easy and meaningful.

MosaLingua challenges

Next, on MosaLingua’s homepage (dashboard? The first page you land on when you log in) you’ll first see the option to choose a challenge after (or before, it’s up to you) you take the aforementioned test.

There’s no “challenges” section within the app. So basically, the idea behind these challenges is more of a mental note than anything else. When you select your challenge, you’ll get a few pointers for learning a language with books or music or whichever challenge you choose, but there’s no content or accountability provided.

MosaLingua’s courses

This is very confusing because MosaLingua labels these courses as optional, but they’re the only real content you can see if you’re on desktop. To access all the aforementioned vocabulary collection and review, you have to be on the app.

And no, MosaLingua won’t tell you this itself if you’re on desktop. I had to spend a significant amount of time figuring this out.

MosaLingua’s optional courses include MosaSeries, MosaSpeak, and MosaTraining.

MosaSeries

MosaSeries is a series of audio sessions that help you improve your listening comprehension, mostly. It’s targeted at beginners who are learning how to listen to and understand a new language.

There’s lots of words to read to guide you in a step-by-step for testing and improving your listening.

For the first lesson, for example, the image below the audio helps you gauge your abilities (as opposed to just a black-and-white “either you understand or you don’t” approach).

Then you’ll listen to a short, 2-minute audio clip starting the story of a man who wakes up with amnesia.

Lesson 2 is key vocab words in case you didn’t catch them, and lesson 3 is repeating lesson 1 again.

Finally, MosaSeries introduces the text (with the same audio) to help you build your comprehension.

To be totally honest, it’s nothing special. MosaSeries in particular is best if you want to practice building your listening comprehension with stories, but alternatives like StoryLearning and LingQ don’t quite do it for you.

You’ll quickly run out of these stories, but it can be helpful for nailing down how to use this particular strategy to learn a language.

MosaSpeak

MosaSpeak is more aptly named because its focus is on speaking the language. Though to be fair, a vast majority of this mini-course is texts upon texts upon texts explaining all sorts of aspects of speaking the language, not so much actually practicing.

To illustrate this concept, this lesson was several lessons into the first module. This is a legitimate approach called shadowing, but the app is so clunky it drove me bananas!

Trying to find the next lesson with active use of the language was so difficult because these courses aren’t the primary function of the app; to get here, you have to go more > Premium Courses > and then choose the course you’re working on.

With the amount of effort it takes to use a simple shadowing exercise that’s completely bookended by essays of text, I would just go to another app that does shadowing really well.

This isn’t to say that any of these strategies are wrong, but MosaSpeak is a mini-course, generally sold separately (hence the Premium), but it’s basically just a bunch of blog posts copied & pasted into an app.

MosaTraining

MosaLingua’s final major course, “MosaTraining”, is the priciest. Instead of focusing on one subject or one language skill, MosaTraining is more conceptual and teaches you “absolutely everything you need to know to successfully learn a new language”.

This is accomplished in 12 modules:

Introduction and prep
Immersion
Improving listening comprehension
Learning vocabulary quickly
Improving pronunciation
Learning how to learn

Common mistakes and preparing for your first conversation
Speaking
Grammar
Improving reading skills
Improving written skills
Continued language improvement

And just like MosaSpeak, it seems to be more of a book than anything else; in fact, I think MosaTraining would be easier to consume if it was a PDF, ebook, or audio book. Yeah, there are a few videos sprinkled in here and there, but it’s largely text-based.

While I agree with everything shared within MosaTraining’s lessons, I wouldn’t say it’s absolutely everything. Compared to The Method, MosaTraining lightly scratches the surface of some key elements of how to learn a language. You’ll get lots and lots of theory, but no execution of it.

MosaLingua Premium prices

MosaLingua is a paid service, and unfortunately the payment structure is just as complicated and clunky as the app and website.

I’ve mentioned quite a few different options in this MosaLingua review, and unfortunately they’re all separate payments. And between the monthly/biannual/annual/one-off payment options, it’s enough to go cross-eyed.

Here are the details:

MosaLingua Web: the all-in-one platform that hosts your vocab and whatnot: $4.99/month or $59.90/year; included for free if it’s necessary for another course you’ve purchased
MosaSeries: the audio series about a man who wakes up in the hospital with amnesia: $9.98/month or $58.80/six months
MosaSpeak: speaking practice recommended for levels A2-B2, and only available in Spanish, French, Italian, and German: $99
MosaTraining: teaches you how to learn a language quickly and efficiently, very conceptual: $130 for Premium, $180 for Premium+MosaWeb, $330 for Deluxe+MosaWeb

For the courses that do not come with that 15-day trial, MosaLingua does offer a 30-day money-back guarantee.

MosaLingua review and alternatives

I’ll be honest, this language app was not easy to review; I’m a tech-savvy millennial, and even I struggled to understand what I was supposed to be doing and where I was supposed to go. If ease-of-use is important for you, MosaLingua will not help you learn a language.

Regardless, MosaLingua does have its perks. My favorite is the Chrome extension, MosaDiscovery. This is a decently effective way to immerse yourself in the language while online, and save terms for later. I just wish the app to study said vocab terms was nicer, like Lingvist (much easier to use, and similar functionality).

I also like the concept behind MosaSpeak, though I wish there was more actual speaking practice than mountains and mountains of text. Pronunciation practice is important, though, even if I do prefer how Speechling and Fluent Forever actually accomplish it.

MosaSeries is also good idea, I just wish it were more fleshed out considering it’s a paid program. I wouldn’t be against starting out with MosaSeries, but eventually you may want to move on to something like Trancy or Kwiziq.

At the end of the day, I can absolutely see the value of MosaLingua web; it’s very well-priced and could be the exact thing that you need to connect to the language. Despite my qualms with how hard it is to maneuver, now that I *get it*, MosaLingua may be just what you need to learn a language.

Click here to try MosaLingua for yourself!

Memrise Review for language learners

January 11, 2022 by Jamie 6 Comments

Memrise is a flashcard platform for language learners (plus a variety of other subjects). They’ve been upping their game over the past year or so, too: a completely new website, new native content, and some extra features popping up on what used to be just your average online flashcard resource.

So how can Memrise help you, a language learner? Is it a resource that’s worth your consideration? What will you get, and what do you have to put into it? This Memrise review will help you decide.

Memrise Pro: what is it?

Memrise is a flashcard website that’s popular with lots of independent language learners out there. It’s pretty nice to look at, comes with its own app, and has both free and paid versions.

There’s close to unlimited content on it, too; some of it was created by the folks at Memrise themselves, and some of it’s from the users of Memrise. This means Memrise’s content is effectively unlimited.

I always say to take user-generated content with a grain of salt, because you don’t know if you’re actually learning the right stuff. It can definitely be helpful, though, since Memrise’s own content might not quite do it for you (more on that in a sec).

Memrise courses

Okay, so Memrise courses are the official content created by the Memrise team. There are plenty of options when it comes to Memrise courses, especially for the more well-known languages. I went looking for Afrikaans help, and Memrise itself doesn’t have any. That isn’t a make-or-break thing, since Afrikaans is not a popular language to learn, but I was personally disappointed just a smidgen.

That isn’t to say you can only learn the most common romance languages, though. Memrise courses are available in the following languages:

Arabic
Chinese (Mandarin)
Danish
Dutch
English
French
German
Icelandic
Italian
Japanese
Korean

Mongolian
Norwegian
Polish
Portuguese
Russian
Slovenian
Spanish
Swedish
Turkish
Yoruba

20 languages is not bad at all! The next question, and arguably the more important one: what exactly does Memrise offer in all these 20 languages?

Memrise review: is experience important?

To start my own Memrise review, I decided to start with Spanish. I’ve found that this is a pretty good way to gauge how much of a challenge different resources will put you to, especially when this was the first thing Memrise showed me when I signed up.

As a language learner, the impression I get when this is the first screen is that your level in that language is important (ie. they cover more than just beginner content, so they ask you if you’re more experienced so you don’t waste your time). The same thing happened when I reviewed Mondly for Spanish and Afrikaans.

And, unfortunately, just like with Mondly, this assumption left me completely disappointed. This is the first lesson Memrise Pro gave me after telling them I was an advanced Spanish learner.

This was a video of a Spanish man saying “emocionante”. In fact, all of Memrise’s content starts out with a video of everyday Spanish speakers saying the word or phrase. This feels a lot more intimate than a robot voice or someone in front of a white screen, so I’m a fan!

While I wouldn’t consider this word advanced (more intermediate), I’m glad that Memrise didn’t ask me what my level was and then throw me into beginner stuff anyways. You might have to do some searching to find the right content for your level (there’s no assessment or anything like that) but it is there.

Memrise review: the Memrise process

Now that we know what Memrise can teach us, how do they go about teaching it? With a touch of SRS, a smattering of repetition, and a bucket of gamification.

Memrise follows the metaphor of a plant: first, you plant the seeds (see the word/phrase for the first time), and then you water those seeds (review the word/phrase) a bunch of times in a few different ways until you have yourself a plant (and have learned the word/phrase). Check the icon in the upper right-hand corner to see how far you are in the word/phrase.

First, they’ll start by showing you the word/phrase. If you’re a Memrise Pro user, this involves that video that I was talking about. After it gives you a couple more, it’ll throw it all together and give you a few multiple-choice & fill-in-the-blank drills.

There are a couple of things that I really like about how Memrise approaches these lessons. The first is that they show you the literal translation of what you’re learning. This is something that I do a lot when I’m learning something new because it helps me understand it in the way that I understand language. Kudos, Memrise!

Second: in that bottom-left lesson, there are no capital letters to denote the beginning of the sentence! I love this because I find myself cheating a lot with these kinds of things by looking for the capital letters to start a sentence. This way, you actually have to figure it out.

It’s the little things, right?

Memrise review: mems

There’s one more aspect of Memrise that is (as far as I know) unique to them. They call it “mems”, and it’s a way to help you remember new words if you just can’t seem to get it. You may refer to this strategy as a mnemonic device.

A lot of you may already be familiar with this, but since Memrise seems to be geared towards beginners, good for them for informing their users about this strategy! Many words and phrases have these “mems” already submitted by other users, but you can make up your own if you want.

Memrise’s TikTok function: Immerse

If you spend a lot of time on TikTok (guilty!), then you’ll probably like Memrise’s new Immerse section! I can’t say for sure which languages this is available in just yet, but it’s real fun.

Literally, tap on the button on the bottom right, and find short, fun little TikTok-esque clips meant to entertain and up your listening and reading comprehension. As you can see from the videos below, you can have the subtitles in either English or the language you’re studying.

Super fun, amiright?! I love this totally low-key, low-effort practice. All these videos I’ve seen are really relatable and very enjoyable to watch. There’s no easy way to save words for later, or get more in-depth lessons on anything said, but who knows what Memrise will do with this as time goes on?

Memrise review: accountability

Another helpful detail that Memrise offers is its reminders to study. If you go into the settings of your account, you can turn on notifications for your device, as well as stipulate when you get those notifications – certain days of the week, a specific time, etc.

This is a fairly new addition to the app, so it’s nice to see language learning apps growing with the times and giving us more tools to keep us moving forward.

Speaking of accountability tools, Memrise also features (much like Duolingo) a daily goal/streak function, based on the daily goal you set for each individual course you’re learning.

You can also just opt in to study your “difficult words”, which are the terms that you seem to be having a more difficult time with (considering you’ve gotten them wrong). It’s not self-reporting so if your finger slips you may have “el sofá” in your list, but it’s one step closer to an Anki-level of SRS.

Memrise Pro statistics

If you choose to go the paid Memrise Pro route, you’ll have access to some statistics on how you’re learning, which may be helpful to you.

For some language learners, this might be super motivating. I know it can be hard to realize how much you’re learning, so being able to see it in a graph like this is awesome (ignore the fact that there’s nothing on this particular graph!).

If that’s not helpful for you, Memrise Pro does dive in a little deeper when it comes to your learning statistics. Seriously, for those analytical minds out there, this could get pretty exciting. Take a look!

This is a super interesting take on language learning that nobody else does, only available to Memrise Pro users.

Memrise Pro review: what you get

On the topic of these statistics, let’s talk about the difference between Memrise free and Memrise Pro. Is Memrise free? Well, certain parts are, and they might just be enough for you.

A lot of the things I’ve been talking about so far are only available to Memrise Pro users. The video clips of native speakers, for example, are only on Memrise Pro. Just like those statistics, as well as the Difficult Words section (that SRS bit I was talking about).

It’s not like Memrise Pro is unreasonably priced, either! $9 per month is pretty cheap, especially compared to some of our other language learning options.

Memrise review: who it’s for

At the end of the day, I think Memrise Pro is doing a pretty okay job. They’re targeting a similar audience to Duolingo: language learners who want to dabble in a few languages but don’t feel particularly inclined to dive deeper into more intermediate grammar or vocab.

The thing that sets Memrise Pro apart from everybody else is definitely the analytics of your study habits. What you’re studying, how often you’re studying, when you’re studying it, and how successful you are at studying it. You may be surprised to find what your patterns look like, and you may also find this information helpful for creating new, more productive patterns, too!

If you don’t want to (or can’t) pay for Pro, Memrise can still be hugely helpful for creating your own flashcards in a more engaging way, even without all the bells and whistles. In that case, you may also consider Quizlet!

Lingopie Review: the best foreign language subtitles

January 11, 2022 by Jamie 3 Comments

Lingopie is a platform created by and for language learners who enjoy learning foreign languages by watching TV. The idea behind this Lingopie review is that you’ll be so motivated to keep watching good shows, motivation will be easy peasy.

That said, how do you know if Lingopie is the right language learning resource for you? In this Lingopie review, we’ll discuss its benefits, limitations, and Lingopie alternatives.

Getting started watching foreign language TV

You can use Lingopie to learn 10 languages:

Chinese
English
French
German
Italian

Japanese
Korean
Portuguese
Russian
Spanish

Your Lingopie account grants you access to all 10 languages at any time. There’s no effort in switching languages either, which we’ll see in a second.

Lingopie review: watching and learning

You’ll see a Netflix-like page with all the shows Lingopie has to offer, separated by genre and, more importantly: every show and movie has an icon, front and center, of the country the media is from, which makes it easy to find the most relevant content for your language learning.

This dashboard/TV catalog is truly beautiful and genuinely motivating to start expanding into all sorts of languages. It’s easy to see that using Lingopie to learn a language requires minimal effort, especially if you’re in the habit of watching TV for hours on end once you’re hooked (guilty as charged).

I have one qualm about the search function: I like how you can search for different accents and genres (a la Yabla) but there is no option to search accents AND genre AND length, which is very basic functionality.

Because of this limited searchability, I stuck to Castilian Spanish content and chose something that looked interesting.

Roll over the show you want to watch to get a very brief synopsis of the plot, as well as how long that content is. The show I chose was only 3 minutes long, which surprised me. Usually we think of shows to be anywhere from 20 minutes to over an hour long, which can be overwhelming when it’s in a different language.

These short little clips are more like YouTube videos than anything else, if you don’t want to make the time commitment.

Before the show starts, you get a preview of the important vocab on the righthand side. While it’s labeled “Vocab for your level”, it’s mostly just an indication of the level that show is at – if you’re comfortable with these words, you’ll mostly understand the show.

For what it’s worth, that’s all you’ll need to know if you need to go up or down in difficulty. You don’t need to know all of the exact definitions of all of the words, nor do you need to know which context each word should be used, or all of its conjugations. These are the details that you’ll learn as you immerse yourself in the shows you’re watching.

Then, as soon as I pressed play, I got a “grammar coach” pop up. Judging by the answer I got, this is basic AI. Obviously with my first attempt the grammar is very simple, so I tried it again with a sentence with more complex grammar.

It’s not amazing, but it is a start. As of this latest update, AI is still pretty new so we’ll see how this develops. I hope that it’ll go from just naming the verb tenses (which is undoubtedly better than nothing) to explaining the concepts and/or linking to helpful content.

After clicking out of the grammar coach, here are Lingopie’s basic features in action.

Lingopie’s platform allows you to easily:

read the transcript while watching the show
translate any word or phrase in real time
listen to any word or phrase independently
save vocab to review later
practice shadowing (listening to native audio and repeating)
loop lines from the transcript
change the speed of the show
add/remove the native/target language subtitles

Lots of handy tools that are intuitively placed within the platform itself, and very aesthetically pleasing! These two features help Lingopie to stand out in the world of streaming foreign language content.

Reviewing vocab with Lingopie

After watching for some time, you’ll want to review the vocabulary you’ve collected. Lingopie offers a couple of ways to do this, all of which are slightly different and depend on your goals for any particular study session.

Let’s take a look at all 3 options.

Pop Quiz

The first type of vocab review is right within whatever you’re watching. Just click over to the “My Vocab” tab after collecting a few words and try the Pop Quiz.

This is a very simple way to connect the vocabulary you’re learning with the meaning in which you learned it – review the vocab with the exact video clip you found it in. This is a 10/10 execution of this concept, and blows the competition out of the water (looking at you, Trancy).

The pop quiz function is the easiest way to review a particular piece of media, especially right after seeing the terms for the first time. You don’t have all of your terms from all of your shows all in one quiz, so you can easily get this fresh vocab into your brain.

Flashcards

If you want to review all of your terms from all of your media in one study session, you’ll have to click over to the “Review & Practice” section.

Just like with the pop quiz, the flashcards section reviews your terms paired with their content. There’s slightly more functionality here though: click the card to flip between the word and its translation, and then tell Lingopie how well you know the term: know it, not sure, or no idea.

Lingopie also keeps track of your progress for you, including where you got the term, how many times you’ve reviewed it, when it was last seen, and the option to listen to it again or remove it from the list.

As you can see, if you want the actual native audio, it has to be in one of the features where the term is shown with the video clip. Otherwise, you’ll be listening to the robot recording.

Word Master

Lingopie’s third method for helping you review the vocabulary it teaches you is via Word Master. This vocab game is the only one that does not use the original video content to help you remember the words.

I’m not blown away by this option. The thing that makes Lingopie special is using the video content to connect the vocab words to their meaning.

If this featured another more active activity – typing in the words, for example – it might be more useful, but otherwise this isn’t much different from creating your own flashcards yourself.

Lingopie’s Chrome extension vs Language Reactor

While Language Reactor has essentially cornered the market for using Netflix to learn a language, Lingopie now has a similar Chrome extension that you can use with your normal Lingopie account.

With the Chrome extension you can see which Netflix shows Lingopie has translated for you, giving you that many more options to learn your target language.

As I said, this puts Lingopie in direct competition with Language Reactor, so let talk about some pros and cons, Lingopie vs Language Reactor.

Quantity of content

Language Reactor is a free Chrome extension that helps language learners use YouTube and Netflix to learn a language by pulling out the subtitles that already exist (most of which are automatically generated by YouTube) and make it easier for us to use them.

This means that Language Reactor’s content is essentially limitless; as long as there are new shows on Netflix and new videos on YouTube, there will be new content to learn a language.

Lingopie, however, is limited by the content they have available on their platform.

Quality of subtitles

Because Language Reactor tends to use automatically generated subtitles, they’re not always totally precise. And while this may not be a make-it-or-break-it kind of thing for many language learners, it can lead to confusion.

For example, it can be very difficult to recognize if it’s a particular vocab word that’s new, or if it’s a new phrase, or if it’s region-specific slang. This can require significant research that some language learners would rather not do.

Lingopie’s subtitles are not automatic. So if you want to just be told what a word or phrase means, there’s no competition.

Vocabulary review

As we’ve discussed in this Lingopie review, this platform makes it very easy and enjoyable to review the vocab you learn within its original context. You don’t have to do any other work, besides clicking over to a different section.

Language Reactor, however, takes some elbow grease. If you already have a flashcard system that you enjoy, like plugging new vocab words into Anki for example, then this may not be an issue. However, if you’re looking for a new approach for learning new vocab by watching videos, Lingopie makes all that much easier.

Lingopie review: pricing

Due to Lingopie’s high quality platform and subtitles, it is a paid resource. However, if the ease of use is what you need to learn a language consistently, then it is absolutely worth it. Plus, Lingopie offers a 7-day free trial to try everything out.

Click here for Lingopie’s updated pricing.

Lingopie review: alternatives

While I believe Lingopie is the most beautiful and user-friendly, it’s not the only way to learn a language by watching TV.

If you enjoy the curated content but want some more flexibility in how you’re studying the language, FluentU may be a good Lingopie alternative for you. As I mentioned, it’s not nearly as pretty as Lingopie, but what it lacks in design it makes up for in study strategy.

A similar alternative to both Lingopie and FluentU is Yabla. Again, not very pretty, but it can be fun to play around with.

Finally, if you’re willing to do some behind the scenes tech and macgyver your language learning just a little bit, Language Reactor paired with an Anki or Memrise deck is a budget-friendly alternative that could work just as well.

Should you use Lingopie to learn a language?

Lingopie is an excellent way to learn a language with TV and subtitles. In fact, it’s the best in the market in 2 ways:

teaching you new foreign language vocab with the context of video, and
providing top tier, easy-to-use subtitles.

Especially for that first bullet point, context is key when learning new vocabulary, so if you’re looking for a way to pair new vocab with a TV show you enjoy, I would recommend giving Lingopie a try.

However, it’s important to keep in mind that regardless of what they say, you do need to be at a certain level of listening comprehension to make the most out of a resource like Lingopie. Even in the beginner level video at the beginning of this Lingopie review, it uses intermediate-level grammar.

If you’re a total beginner, I’d recommend you start out with basic vocab first.

Want to use Lingopie’s 7-day free trial? Click here to get started.

Babbel Review: textbook, but make it modern

January 11, 2022 by Jamie 3 Comments

Babbel is a very well-known language learning app that’s been around since 2008. Named after the Tower of Babel (a biblical myth attempting to explain the existence of different languages), Babbel combines educational strategies with real-life conversations to teach users a variety of different languages.

In this Babbel review, let’s talk about how Babbel teaches languages behind-the-scenes, and what kind of language learner can benefit from the Babbel app and Babbel Live.

Babbel is available for learners of the following languages:

Danish
Dutch
English
French
German
Indonesian
Italian

Norwegian
Polish
Brazilian Portuguese
Russian
Spanish
Swedish
Turkish

So, if you’re learning one of these languages, this Babbel review is right for you!

Babbel review: overview

When starting with Babbel, you can either choose your level yourself, or take Babbel’s assessment. While this isn’t a unique concept, Babbel does take a unique approach.

Now, this is interesting because there’s no objective testing when it comes to specific skills; unlike Busuu (one of Babbel’s direct competitors), you’re not tested on your ability to use grammar correctly, or whether you can fill in the blank. Instead, it’s focused on real-life abilities.

And by real-life abilities, I mean your own perception of your abilities. It’s more of a “would you feel comfortable doing this” than a “how do you appropriately conjugate this verb” kind of thing.

Is this helpful? That’s for you to decide. I appreciate how it reflects how subjective language learning is as a whole, but also respect that some feel the need to be “tested”. 9 times out of 10 I do not trust more objective assessments because languages are simply too complex, so I always suggest taking these things with a grain of salt.

And if you’re not satisfied with this assessment, you’re free to choose your own path anyway.

Babbel’s beginner content starts off with basic vocab, grammar, and pronunciation; the advanced stuff finishes with slang, cultural insights, and more of the subtle aspects of the language. It’s all relevant, real-life stuff, for a variety of different language levels.

And none of it is “required” – you can skip around however you like, whenever you like.

Babbel’s lessons

Starting from Babbel’s dashboard, you’re directed to either learn something new or review your past lessons (assuming you’ve used Babbel in this language in the past).

We’ll start with a new lesson, which is a very quick, bite-sized snack that you can either do real quick when you have 5 minutes to spare, or you can “marathon” as many in a row as you want. Great for the busiest of language learners who want to make good use of their limited time.

As you can see, the interface is very modern and smooth and leads you to use the language in a variety of ways to both keep things interesting and give you a well-rounded education. This approach is a decent reflection of the different ways that language is used, so you’re prepared.

Like anything, there are pros and cons to Babbel’s lesson format.

Pro: you can choose between selecting the provided letters/spaces, or just type them yourself

Con: it automatically turns non-accented letters into the appropriate accents, without even suggesting you make the effort yourself. This causes a lot of bad habits!*

Pro: you’re not using rote memorization: you get context via sentences, imagery, and a native audio recording*

Con: you can’t speed up or skip lessons, or even skip the repeating of phrases after completing them

Honestly, I’d consider the statements with the asterisks to be objectively important; the other two are my own personal preference.

So what about Babbel’s review option? Let’s take a look.

You start by choosing the review style that best meets your goals: flashcards, listening, speaking, or writing.

The review you choose is then powered by spaced repetition, which is a common algorithm across many language learning apps.

Basically, Babbel’s spaced repetition is based on levels; the level that particular word or phrase is on dictates when you’ll see it next, and whether you get it right dictates if it stays on that level or moves around:

Level 1: one day
Level 2: four days
Level 3: seven days
Level 4: fourteen days
Level 5: sixty days
Level 6: six months

Correct answer: move up a level
Incorrect (first time): maintain level, review again the next day
Incorrect (more than once): move down a level, review again the next day

Obviously, this is more useful the more often you use Babbel, but as a whole it’s a great approach. Choose when you want to review, and went you want to learn something new! You’ll theoretically be reviewing more often than you’ll learn, and you also get to choose your method of review each time.

Again, I like the amount of choice involved. Especially in more academic settings, it can feel really stifling when you’re done with a particular topic or lesson, but you have to complete a set number of exercises before you get the option to move on.

Babbel doesn’t put up these obstacles.

Babbel Live

Over recent years, Babbel has grown from just the app and lessons to include live group coaching! This is a separate membership not included with the Babbel app (more on that later), but can really make your Babbel experience more engaging and valuable.

Signing up for a Babbel Live class is just as smooth as the rest of the Babbel experience.

To start, you set the parameters of your level and your schedule. From there, you find a group class on a theme that interests you. Sign up with a couple of clicks, and you’re set! Add this class to your preferred calendar and download the material you’ll be using in class to prepare.

Once you add the class to your calendar, I like that the event includes the link shown in the above video, so you have easy access to all that info.

However, the self-study lessons mentioned in that link don’t seem to relate at all to the theme of the lesson; the theme is the society of the future, but the linked lessons are about professional emails?

I would love to see these themes/topics match up directly with Babbel’s lessons, so you can take the lesson independently, and then actively practice it with a professional tutor and other peers. This would really tie the two options together, as well as help solidify these lessons for language learners who like to practice via conversation.

As of the date on the bottom of this post, Babbel Live is only offered in Spanish, German, French, and Italian.

Babbel’s pricing

Freebie seekers look elsewhere! Babbel is offered exclusively at a monthly membership rate. Depending on your commitment (ranging from monthly to lifetime), the Babbel app is available for $8-15/month. Click here for updated pricing.

As aforementioned, a subscription to the Babbel app does not include Babbel Live – however, a subscription to Babbel Live does include free access to the app; suffice to say, this makes Babbel Live that much more valuable.

At commitments ranging from monthly to annually, Babbel Live offers unlimited group classes! At $50-100/month, it’s honestly a steal. It’s important to note that if you commit to more than a month at a time for a lower per-month rate, you will be paying the full financial commitment at signup.

Click here to learn more about Babbel Live.

At these prices, assuming you will reliably attend a Babbel Live lesson at least once a week, I would absolutely consider the Babbel app and Babbel Live worth the price, even just at the monthly rate.

Of course, whether that’s feasible to you depends on your own lifestyle and your goals.

Babbel review: who it’s for

Babbel is an oldie but a goodie in the language learning industry, and I’m happy to see them growing with the times (i.e. offering live coaching). In general, there’s a lot of potential for language learners of the offered languages, especially those ready to invest both the time and money in Babbel Live. Not to mention Babbel’s recent acquisition of the Toucan Chrome extension.

Because Babbel is still pretty academic, it can feel a little stale if you’re not into the strict, structured approach. If you want to avoid language learning that feels like a textbook, you’ll want to steer clear; maybe try Busuu’s similar approach, or head to the other end of the spectrum with something like Tandem.

However, if you appreciate the structure of a textbook combined with a modern platform and convenient access to conversations with professional tutors, Babbel is a safe bet for your language learning.

Sold? Click here to start with Babbel!

Preply Review: great for student, not for teacher

January 11, 2022 by Jamie 10 Comments

Preply is an online platform for teachers of a variety of subjects (not just foreign languages) to connect with online students. Specifically, Preply is well-known for offering dirt-cheap lessons, which attracts language learners who want to save a buck or two.

Honestly, I’m of the opinion that spending a few extra bucks to support an experienced tutor is always worth it, but this Preply review is for all the language learners who want a realistic, no-fluff review of a language learning platform that can help them to push their spoken language skills forward.

In this Preply review, we’ll talk about what I love and what I don’t love, from using the platform to an actual lesson with a (very cheap) Preply tutor, including what Preply does differently than the competition.

Preply review: getting started

When you first get started, you get a screen very reminiscent of Verbling and italki: a list of Preply tutors who teach your target language with an intro video, schedule preview, pricing, intros, and more.

You’ll also notice the menu bar at the tippy-top where you can narrow down specific features that are important to you. Again, italki and Verbling also operate similarly, though each has different options. My favorite is to organize by gender, but I didn’t get that here. Oh well! Preply does allow you to search by:

Language
Price
Country
Availability
Specialties (including learning disabilities and test preparation)
Other languages spoken by tutor
Whether or not they’re a native speaker

….and you can even search by name or keyword, which is great! I’ve definitely run into the problem where I’ve been searching for a specific tutor and just…couldn’t. Such a simple functionality that isn’t nearly as common as it should be!

Anyways, I narrowed my search down to $5/hour (because if you’re on Preply, you’re probably looking for something cheap), and Spain as the country of origin. Only one Preply tutor popped up and she wasn’t available for a few days, so I expanded the country of origin to also include Venezuela. Found my tutor!

On the tutor page, you get a few key details, including their “about” section, reviews, how many lessons they’ve booked in the last 48 hours (implying success/popularity), and a little intro video. While intro videos probably won’t say too too much that the “about” section already says, this is a good opportunity for you to listen to how your potential tutor speaks, and see if you can understand their accent/way of speaking.

This particular tutor didn’t have a resume on their profile, but many of them do. Of course, you likely won’t get a decorated teacher for $5 an hour, nor would you want to if you want a high-quality education from someone who has spent the time and money to earn various certifications and work highly-skilled jobs.

Scrolling down, you’ll also get a peek at the tutor’s availability in your time zone and their past clients’ reviews.

As you can see, Dargy was wide open!

If you look closely, you can see that instead of just blocking out the times when she’s not available, there are greyed-out letters. If you guessed those are the initials of the student scheduled in that time slot, you’d be correct. In my opinion, that’s kind of weird. Why is it important what a student’s initials are, except to the tutor? Why did Preply make that choice instead of simply blocking the time out? I have questions here!

Anyways, I went ahead and booked a trial lesson with Dargy. I’m not really sure what makes it a trial lesson though…it was full price, for an hour! An hour is a long time for a 1:1, especially for a first lesson. 1-hour lessons wear me out, and I wish there was an option to schedule a 30-minute lesson, especially since the schedule is broken up into 30-minute chunks. Weird.

There were a couple of interesting perks, at checkout, too!

Specifically, Preply has some major fail-safes in place. For one, you get free lesson cancellation until 4 hours before your lesson. I’m not sure what happens if something comes up and you have to cancel after that – maybe you pay a fee, or maybe you work it out with your tutor.

More importantly, though, is that Preply’s got your back if your tutor doesn’t show up or you’re not satisfied: either a full refund or free replacement! I wonder if they’ve had problems in the past with tutors bailing? That’s the most aggressively secure guarantee I’ve seen anywhere!

Once you have your lesson scheduled/paid for, Preply directs you to prepare in a few different ways. Some directions are to prepare for the lesson itself, others are to motivate you to consistently set up more lessons.

The first is the option to make sure you can get into the Preply classroom smoothly, and that all your tech works. I love that they have their own classroom as opposed to relying on something like Zoom or Skype (which hasn’t been the go-to for foreign language tutor platforms in a while, fortunately).

Very simple and smooth: I approve!

When you get your email confirming your lesson date and time, it also includes a link to this classroom, which I love! I copied & pasted it directly into my Google calendar so I didn’t have to go searching through the Preply website when the time came. This is what I do with all my Zoom meetings, so I love that I could seamlessly add it to my schedule.

After that, I was given the option to test my level and set goals. You can edit these at any time in the settings of your account.

If you can stick to this…it honestly seems pretty legit! The levels are based on CEFR guidelines, and Preply does a decent job of breaking down how to get from where you are now to your goals…though it is important to keep in mind that this is based on the speaking skill only, so don’t expect the certification to be good for anything besides putting it up on the wall.

Like I said, way to get language learners to stick to it! If you want some light structure, this is not a bad start!

Oh, and one more thing: this guy popped up while I was on my lesson page.

Ideally, if the trial lesson goes well, you can get a monthly subscription to your tutor and save another few bucks! Consistency is absolutely key to improving your speaking, so this is a super interesting move into the Netflix era of the internet. This is the kind of thing that BaseLang has been doing from the start but at a much less intensive/expensive scale.

Preply review: the problem

Before attending my lesson with Dargy, I did some searching to see the inner-works of the platform. Most anyone can be a tutor (unsurprising – that’s usually the case), but I did find one key feature of Preply that was….upsetting, to say the least: the pay that tutors receive.

Yup – Dargy wasn’t even getting paid for my first lesson with her!

Not only that, but she was losing at least a quarter of my payment until we had 201 hours together.

Holy crap!

Don’t get me wrong, I totally understand that the platform needs to be financially supported, and I absolutely believe that Preply should receive some sort of commission for hosting and maintaining all these tutors. I also get the value of promoting long-term tutor/student relationships. But I don’t like these numbers.

Considering I didn’t want a full-hour lesson in the first place and Dargy wasn’t even getting paid for her time with me, the first thing I did when our lesson started was request a 30-minute lesson instead.

By the way, Dargy was very gracious, kind, and intentionally asked me how I felt about our lesson together/if I had any feedback for her. She got 5 stars from me!

After our scheduled time together, I got a BUNCH of notifications pushing me to schedule more time with her. Specifically, I was prompted to schedule another lesson/buy a subscription to her:

as a notification in the app
in an email
in a pop-up after I rated our lesson

This is a good way to keep students accountable, honestly. Especially considering you have to spend over 200 hours with a single Preply tutor for them to keep more than 75% of their income from you…and keep in mind that with subscriptions, they’re earning even less from you. Yeesh!

Nonetheless, when it comes to the success of a language student, I am a fan of any tactic that removes obstacles between the learner and their commitment to studying. It wasn’t spammy – more like you have to make the decision to turn down more lessons three times. I’m sure it works, and if it convinces more learners to improve their foreign language skills, I’m all for it!

What you need to know about Preply

Like I said, I was honestly not expecting this Preply review to be very high quality – I figured it was a matter of “you get what you pay for”. I do have to say, though, that I was pleasantly surprised!

I love the platform. It’s incredibly user-friendly. The app is really nice, too, and gives you notifications for your lessons. I love the option to commit to a long-term relationship with a Preply tutor, and all the other methods that really encourage you to stick with it and stay accountable, like setting reasonable goals and expectations for having conversations a few days per week. I mean they really hook you in!

I don’t love the payment model. It was already kind of strange that a trial lesson was a full hour (a long time for even a normal 1:1 lesson), but Preply tutors aren’t even paid for it? That’s gross. Plus, you have to commit over 200 hours to a particular tutor for them to keep over 75% of their pay? Even after the student discount with a monthly membership? Yikes.

All in all: this Preply review shows that for the student, Preply is great. For the tutor, not so much. Nonetheless, there are tons of highly qualified Preply tutors with great resumes and lots of experience, so one has to assume it’s not all bad!

Want to give Preply a shot? Click here to get 50% off your first lesson with Preply!