Jamie

Polygloss Review: low effort, high quality

March 9, 2023 by Jamie Leave a Comment

Polygloss is a language learning app developed by a tiny team of language learners who use their spare time to “help language learners be independent and enjoy life using a foreign language”. In this Polygloss review, we’ll see how this goal is executed, and how to know if you should try using Polygloss to learn a language.

Polygloss languages

The Polygloss app has built a huge community of language learners who learn from each other; because of this, they offer flexibility in languages that can be hard to find elsewhere!

Based on the languages offered within the app, most Polygloss users are learning:

Arabic
Catalan
Dutch
English
Esperanto
German
French
Hebrew
Icelandic
Italian
Irish

Japanese
Korean
Mandarin
Norwegian
Polish
Portuguese
Russian
Spanish
Toki Pona
Vietnamese
Welsh

But if there’s at least 1 other Polygloss user who plays in your target language, you can use Polygloss to learn it!

And you can add, switch, and delete languages at any time with just a couple of taps. If your target language isn’t mentioned in the app, it’s incredibly simple to just type it out yourself and see what happens.

Polygloss themselves recommend you’re at an intermediate level in your language when using the app, but that’s of course all subjective; if you’re brushing up on a language you used to be more advanced in, or if you already know a closely-related language, you’re probably good to go.

Basically, you need to know basic words and basic grammar, because you won’t be supplied with it. There are no rules about looking up words behind the scenes and figuring it out as you go, though!

How to use Polygloss

After you create a free account in the Polygloss app, you will immediately be led to a simple tutorial. The tutorial is simple because the app itself is simple! The team behind the app has really excelled in keeping the process of learning a language simple, fast, and straightforward.

This tutorial is exactly like the real use of the app, except you’re playing with a robot instead of a real person. Take a look.

As you can see, Polygloss really is as simple as:

Start a match (make sure it’s the right language if you’re using Polygloss to learn multiple foreign languages)
Select one out of four images to write a sentence about
Write a sentence describing the image in your target language
Submit your sentence

The user you’ve been paired up with (totally random, just someone else who is also studying your target language) has 3 days to read your sentence and try to guess which of the four images you were describing.

Then, once they’ve guessed, it’s their turn to go through the above steps and have you guess which image they chose.

And that’s it! The process is super fun, and it’s easy to keep going over and over again if you have the “⚡ Energy” (more on this later). It feels so easy to create sentences again and again, and I can see how easily this app can turn into an hour of accidental language practice.

There are no rules or recommendations for how simple or complex your use of the language is. As long as the other user can reasonably guess which image you’re talking about, it’s fine. And even if they can’t, that’s okay too!

Polygloss’ motivational features

One of the reasons Polygloss is so simple and easy is because of its design; you’re not struggling to figure out what’s next, and the modern use of language app gamification is motivating but not overwhelming.

While Duolingo, for example, depends almost entirely on its gamification to keep you hooked, Polygloss peppers it in just enough to spice up your language learning journey just a little.

Specifically, Polygloss rewards you with ⭐ Stars, 🌻 Karma, and ⚡ Energy.

⭐ Stars are gained when you complete matches; they unlock new topics (more below)
🌻 Karma is gained when you help other players with corrections or when other players send you a reward
⚡ Energy is consumed to do certain actions in the game. It recovers with time or never depletes if you subscribe to Polygloss Unlimited (more later)

Polygloss review: the Library tab

As you use Polygloss to learn a language, you’ll likely start under the first “Play” tab; as you spend more time, however, head over to the “Library” tab for more options for review.

This way, you have the opportunity to review all of your work at any time. This can also be helpful to keep track of how your writing improves, maybe your use of specific grammar rules or vocabulary, and more.

You can also see that the sky’s the limit when it comes to subjects available on Polygloss! Because these aren’t concrete sentences but rather pictures that could inspire literally unlimited sentences or phrases, and you keep getting access to more until you hit 323 ⭐ Stars, you’ll pretty much never run out of things to write.

And that doesn’t even include the imagination and creativity of the users you’ll be matched with!

For example, you can create sentences as simple as “I like cats” or as complex as “this type of animal might live in a home, or it’s possible to find one out in the wild”.

These are two very different sentences that can both be used to describe the exact same image and are valued at the same level.

Polygloss price

Polygloss is free to all, and it doesn’t seem that will change anytime soon. If you want access to more features (and support the developers), you can opt to pay a few bucks monthly or annually. Paid features include:

Translating submissions*
Bookmarking texts to be reviewed later*
Save received corrections*

See your history, as shown in the above video
Listen to texts using your device’s text-to-speech

*these features are free up to 80 ⚡ Energy; paid users get unlimited access

Here’s the “official” breakdown.

For updated prices of Polygloss Unlimited, go to the app on your device of choice.

Bonus: if you’re so inclined, the Polygloss team is all about transparency; you can do all the financial math yourself here!

Polygloss review: pros, cons, and alternatives

Objectively, I think Polygloss is great! It’s hard to find a language app that effectively motivates users to practice their active use of the language (as opposed to just pressing buttons) without being overwhelming or a huge time suck.

Polygloss is high quality, low effort, and very feel-good.

However, at the time of this Polygloss review, the app does not provide any way to practice speaking the language; the opportunity is 100% there, but it’s not yet a function of the Polygloss app. If speaking practice is a priority for you, I’d recommend similar apps like Yask or Speechling.

Similarly, it can take some time to get any feedback from your exercises – Polygloss users have 3 days to respond to matches. If you’re an “out of sight, out of mind” kind of person, this could be a real sticking point; both Yask and Speechling move much faster (instantly and within 24 hours, respectively), and Busuu’s community feature is another option to help.

Speechling and Busuu are also alternatives if you want to be sure you’re corrected; Polygloss is more focused on the attempt, and corrections for your mistakes aren’t promised.

Regardless, if you’re at all interested in trying it out after this Polygloss review, it’s free – click here to try Polygloss!

Lingbe Review: language exchanges without the texting phase

March 7, 2023 by Jamie Leave a Comment

Many language learners struggle with finding native speakers to practice their target language with; sure, there’s Tandem and HelloTalk, but it can be a struggle to get past the texting stage and into the actual conversation stage. That’s where this Lingbe review comes in.

Lingbe has a slightly different approach to language exchanges: pick up the phone and see who answers! In this Lingbe review, we’ll experience this for ourselves, so you can see if Lingbe is the best way for you to practice your foreign language conversation skills.

How to use Lingbe to learn a language

Lingbe is a free app (with a paid option, but we’ll get into that later) and relies on its community to keep the app alive. Basically, the more you help others learn your native language (and earn “lingos”), the more opportunity you have to practice your target language (by paying in lingos)!

This is the normal premise of a one-on-one language exchange expanded to the community level; while a one-on-one language exchange has some of both languages, with you and your partner consistently switching languages to make sure you both benefit, you and your partner enter a conversation on Lingbe already agreeing on one language.

Language exchanges can be difficult if you struggle to agree with your conversation partner on when or how often you switch languages – Lingbe fixes this problem!

After creating your account and going through the above tutorial (if you can call it that), you’re spat out into the Lingbe community to figure out your options for yourself.

Besides making calls, Lingbe offers two other ways to exercise your language skills:

Rooms – live group chats, like Clubhouse for language learners

Tasks – asking & answering questions about your native & target languages

Unfortunately, it’s not easy to find these options if you’re looking for them. Lingbe’s home screen will show you which rooms and tasks are available, but in order to actually see what’s available, you’ll need to tap the button on the bottom to start a call.

Lingbe review: finding a phone call!

While Lingbe is not the only language exchange app to offer phone calls and video calls, it is unique in how easy it is to find language learners open to chat within a moment’s notice.

Instead of searching through dozens and dozens of language learners, hoping to find one that will not only respond to your texts but will also get on the phone with you, Lingbe removes those first steps and throws users straight into a live conversation.

If you’re on Lingbe, you’re looking for a language exchange without the hassle.

Unfortunately, while it’s super easy to hop on a call, it’s just as easy to drop a call. In the above video, you can see the first of 3 attempts I made to have a Spanish language exchange. The app even told me there were a lot of users online, but not one of them answered my call!

This was super frustrating because whenever you’re in the Lingbe app, you’re constantly told about other Lingbe users looking for a call; but even after tapping the button they wanted me to app to answer the call, the other person had already hung up.

In theory, this would be an excellent system for me: everything is strictly timed, and you know exactly what you’re getting into. But, like any other language exchange experience, it’s heavily hit or miss.

Nonetheless, here’s a clip of a successful language exchange from 2020. The app doesn’t appear to have changed much since then.

In this clip, I had wanted a timed practice session but answered a call from a native speaker instead (even though it cost more “lingos”) because nobody would pick up for a practice session.

Paying for LingbePro

Free users of Lingbe get free access to as many language exchanges as they want – as long as they spend just as much time helping out others who are learning their native language. Otherwise, be prepared to have the call spontaneously drop, like in the above video.

To be honest, this does provide an interesting exit strategy: only commit to so many minutes of a conversation based on how much energy you have. Fortunately, even when the call does drop, Lingbe recommends you “add” your conversation partner for future language exchanges if you two hit it off.

Taking turns sharing your native language and learning someone else’s native language is the concept behind any language exchange, but if you want to skip the whole “earning energy” thing, you can opt for LingbePro for unlimited language exchanges as well as other exclusive options.

For a few bucks a week, month, or year (depending on your plan) Pro users get to do the following:

Unlimited practice sessions
Extend practice sessions
Calls to practice pals
Video calls
Gender filters
Skip users
Greetings

See your visitors
Create practice rooms
Join practice rooms
Make rooms private
Post Lingbe tasks
Prioritized Lingbe tasks

And if you’re not sure if you’ll actually use Lingbe, you can always try a free 3-day trial to start.

Lingbe review: is it for you?

If you want to learn to speak a foreign language, language exchanges are a popular option: they’re free, and you get the chance to build real, lifelong relationships with native speakers.

With online language exchanges, one of the most common problems is that it’s easy to send someone a direct message, but it’s not necessarily easy to start a real conversation. This Lingbe review doesn’t totally fix the problem, but it does offer an excellent alternative to cut right to the chase and have a conversation.

That said, if you’ve been trying to find a language exchange on Tandem or HelloTalk but consistently run into this issue, I would recommend giving Lingbe a shot!

However, if this isn’t a problem for you, and you’re not interested in having to either “earn” your practice or pay for unlimited practice, then Lingbe may not be a productive addition to your language learning strategy.

Click here to check out Lingbe for yourself!

Language Reactor review: learn languages with Netflix with ease

February 6, 2023 by Jamie 12 Comments

Language Reactor (formerly known as Language Learning with Netflix [LLN] and Language Learning with YouTube [LLY]) is a fairly new Chrome extension that language learners are loving to help them enjoy foreign language movies and series. And in this Language Reactor review, we’re talking about why.

Let’s dive into how to use Language Reactor, why, and the absolute plethora of options (+ counting!) that are available for language learners who want to use foreign language media to learn a language.

Language Reactor: an overview

Language Reactor’s job is to take the subtitles already available in any given video and present them in a way that is engaging and significantly more useful for learning a language.

This is an important distinction: alone, subtitles are meant for audiences that are hard of hearing, process spoken words a little slowly, or any number of needs that can benefit from accommodations.

And while they are helpful for foreign language audiences, it can take a lot of creativity to get the most out of them…without Language Reactor. That said, let’s look at the opportunities offered to us when watching our favorite Netflix series.

From the get-go, with Language Reactor’s most basic settings, you get the following tools:

current subtitles in the target language, front and center
their translation into your native language
an overview of the previous/next subtitles, with their translations
automatic pausing when reviewing specific words or phrases

And all of these options are completely customizable; over time, they can be used to highlight new words, highlight difficult words, or you can hide them altogether. We’ll look at these options more in detail later.

These options are just the tip of the iceberg of this Language Reactor review – let’s see what else we can do!

Learning new words with Language Learning with Netflix

Language Reactor is most powerful when it comes to how many ways language learners can use subtitles to learn a language. This includes simple features, like getting the translations of words when you roll over them, to the most advanced use cases, like building up your vocab in order of frequency words (i.e. the most common words in the language first, the least common ones last).

While this tool is best for intermediate or advanced language learners – as beginners likely don’t have the comprehension level to understand anything – this does make Language Reactor more of an option for beginners! It’s easy to focus on the most useful beginner words first, before diving into more complex, niche vocabulary.

Watch the above video to see features in action like:

roll over words to pause and translate
click to see:
- translations
- synonyms
- other occurrences of the word in the episode
- links to the word in your favorite online dictionary
find other example sentences with the word in Tatoeba (a commonly-used source of sentences for language learners, like in platforms like Clozemaster)
read, listen to, translate, and save any sentence, be it in the episode itself or one of the sentences sourced from Tatoeba
sorting the words presented in the transcript from most common to least common

And, finally, the option to color-code your vocabulary words to easily differentiate between words that you know, words that you’re learning, and words that aren’t important to you, so you can ignore them.

Holy options, Batman!

Note: in the above video, the audio clips don’t match up at all when choosing other occurrences of a word in the episode, but the Tatoeba clips match up just fine. I can’t say whether that’s a platform glitch or a ‘me’ thing.

Speed options in Language Reactor

Depending on any particular show or movie (or your comprehension level in different languages), it can be helpful to have finely tuned controls when it comes to speed. Fortunately, Language Reactor’s tools here are both helpful and very easy to find and use.

Specifically, it can take a few tries to process the meaning of a sentence. This is why Language Reactor offers users the ability to:

automatically pause after every line
repeat sentences with just a keystroke
speed up and slow down audio in real time

It is worth noting that while it’s super accessible to be able to slow down audio, I don’t personally recommend doing so, or at least not long-term.

If you’re just starting out, that’s fine, but your intention should be building up your foreign language comprehension so that you can understand the audio at its native speed – this is because depending on slower audio will teach you to recognize different sounds.

Therefore, unless you’re only interested in listening to media where you can control the speed (so limited understanding of things like conversations and music), I’d make sure to build up your comprehension to not depend on that particular feature!

How to customize Language Reactor

Because Language Reactor depends on the content already on Netflix and YouTube, this Chrome extension truly succeeds in giving language learners the power to customize the tool for themselves.

Many of these settings can depend on the media you’re watching – for example, if you’re watching Las Chicas del Cable like I was in preparation for Language TV Club, don’t count on switching to something like Thai without double-checking.

In this case, you can use the Catalogues, which we’ll see in a second.

Clicking around the settings, you can customize options like:

audio language (i.e. the language native to the show/movie, or dubbed audio)
subtitle language
translation language (your native language or another advanced language)
show/hide subtitles
playback speed
keyboard shortcuts for efficient playback

Netflix and YouTube Catalogues

There’s no disagreement about how powerful this Chrome extension is, but where do you start? There is so much content on both platforms, it can undoubtedly be overwhelming to not only search for something that any given language learner will enjoy but also supports their target/native language.

Fortunately, right on the Language Reactor website, you can browse their searchable catalogues!

Select the appropriate platform and have fun exploring the content available based on settings like genre, country, number of subscribers, and even just directly searching for a show or keyword you’re interested in.

While you can click directly into whatever you choose, I do wish the Netflix movies/shows linked you to the “more info” page, not directly to the media. This just adds an extra step to browsing media that can get really frustrating really quickly.

You can also see new options available shortly, including using text or video files to create your own experience, which would put Language Reactor in direct competition with LingQ! I’m excited to see how these features turn out.

Saved & highlighted vocab

Once you’ve picked your media and consumed it however you like, Language Reactor’s final magic trick is how it helps you to learn vocab!

This is a powerful ability, although it’s a paid one (but only like $5/month). Based on the aforementioned ranking of words (most commonly used to least) and combined with the words you save as you watch Netflix/YouTube, the options are essentially limitless.

Thanks to Language Reactor’s help, it’s easy to pick out new words as they come up in your watching and fill in the blanks based on your level (or not).

Once you have your words picked out, easily export them into whatever flashcard tool you prefer, like Anki or any other platform that allows you to create your own flashcards by uploading an Excel sheet.

At this point, this Language Reactor review is a bit more for the technologically savvy language learner, or at least those who have their own flashcard system for bulk-uploading terms, especially via .csv or similar.

However, this does have more to do with the flashcard platform than Language Reactor itself; it’s easy enough to download the file, not necessarily quite so easy to upload it to various resources. Looking for a flashcard system? Try the “bulk upload” option in my app search.

Language Reactor review: the pros and cons

This Language Reactor review undoubtedly proves that language learners who already enjoy using YouTube or Netflix to learn a language should not sleep on this tool. Just install the Chrome extension, and you’re good to go – while there are tons of options to customize your subtitles, you don’t have to make any decisions until you want to.

Language Reactor is already wildly helpful just as a free Chrome extension, but the paid subscription (priced at only $5/month) makes the process of learning a language with Netflix and YouTube exponentially more useful. I’ve been a fan of this tool since its inception.

However, because of the immersion style of learning, you’ll likely need to have at least an intermediate level of comprehension in your target language. Beginners can find value in this tool, but you’ll have to be picky about what/how much you want to understand.

You’ll also need regular access to a computer, as Language Reactor is a Chrome extension and therefore only works on a desktop or laptop computer.

Otherwise, you’ve got nothing to lose – click here to try Language Reactor for yourself!

Speakly Review: limited, but can get you speaking fast!

January 14, 2023 by Jamie Leave a Comment

Speakly is a popular language app, loved by those who appreciate its beautiful design and smooth interface. Speakly itself claims to be the fastest way to learn a foreign language based on its approach of teaching you the most relevant words first. In this Speakly review, let’s take an objective look at this approach and see if it’s an appropriate addition to your own language learning strategy.

To start, Speakly supports the following languages:

English
Estonian
Finnish
French

German
Italian
Russian
Spanish

Each of these languages is also offered in a handful of other languages (German for Finnish speakers, for example), but these source languages are not consistent, so they’re not mentioned here.

Speakly review: My Classroom

All the actual learning you’ll do within Speakly happens in the My Classroom section; this is basically your home for everything you’ll be learning with Speakly.

Here, you have a plethora of options – let’s look at what they mean for your language learning.

Speakly’s level assessment

When getting started (or at any time, by scrolling to the bottom of the page), you can have Speakly assess your level in the language based on your responses to a collection of sentences.

In general, I recommend language learners avoid putting too much emphasis on language learning app assessments because they’re not objective, and every assessment is different. For example, just based on the above recording:

Speakly totally ignores my missing accent (accents are important!)
There are many ways to translate some of the provided sentences, and you’re marked wrong if you don’t choose “their” translation
Some translations/tenses change based on context; in different contexts, my answers would have been correct. Instead, Speakly tells me I’m straight-up wrong

That said, take Speakly’s assessment with a big ol’ grain of salt. After this assessment, Speakly went on to teach me very beginner-level lessons that are not appropriate for me.

Basically, this assessment will get you where you are generally if you’re not a beginner, but otherwise, it’s not precise.

Speaking of beginner levels…

Beginner language learners look elsewhere

If you’ve found this Speakly review via my language app search, it’s because you’re looking for intermediate or advanced-level education. This is not because Speakly doesn’t offer content for beginners, but because I don’t recommend it. Here’s why.

For a beginner German language learner (as an example), there are many grammar rules that you need to understand before any of these make sense. Things like:

Gender (i.e. the different endings that signify 1 of 3 genders, and how to know which endings to apply to which words)
Declensions (which endings to put on non-noun words depending on subject/object/context)

Fortunately, thanks to German Foundations I’m familiar with these concepts; however, I started learning German with Speakly, and it did not provide me the education I needed as a beginner language learner.

This left me frustrated, confused, and stuck.

While Speakly does offer some grammatical explanations, they’re not the most useful (more on that later).

Now, let’s move on to where Speakly does well (intermediate+ only).

Speakly Live Situations

As you build your vocabulary more and more, Speakly offers you access to “Live situations”, which are simple, real-life conversations that you may be having in your target language.

It’s a very simple chatbot situation that does connect your skills to real-life use of the language. For language learners who need a small step up between memorizing vocabulary and having foreign language conversations, this is great.

I just wish that (a) I could use the voice recorder feature on the desktop and (b) I could speed up or slow down the audio. These are basic accessibility options that would make a world of difference in the quality of the Speakly app, and are available in many other language learning apps.

For reference, here’s what this same Live situation looks like on the mobile app. It’s honestly not a huge difference.

For example, if they’re recording my speech to use speech recognition, then having me review the conversation at the end, I would love to compare my audio recording with Speakly’s native recording.

This technique, called shadowing, can be helpful to judge your pronunciation and see how your words sound outside your own brain (it can make a difference!).

It’s certainly not the end of the world, and may not make any difference at all to your language learning, but I’d like to see the option.

For example, uTalk does this well, though uTalk teaches individual words instead of sentences; when working through their chatbot exercises, you can listen to either your own voice recording or uTalk’s native speaker recording.

Listening exercises

Next, we have Speakly’s listening exercises. These are short dialogues native to the platform that you can use to practice your listening side-by-side with the exercise’s transcription (and translation).

Similar to the Live situations, these exercises are perfectly beautiful and high quality, but lack options compared to other language apps. For example, I would love to see the ability to save words for later, and replay different words or sentences (you can only replay whole paragraphs at the time of this writing, which can be frustrating if you want to review a single word or sentence a few times), and more.

Honestly, you can’t even copy/paste words if you want to put them into Quizlet for digital flashcards or Forvo for more context. If you want to plug these words or sentences into your own independent review, you have the extra step of typing everything out yourself.

Even better, if there were comprehension questions a la Babbel! Speakly could do so many different things with this content, I’m disappointed by the lack of options.

Even these small changes would make Speakly so much more useful and valuable for language learners! But of course, if you wouldn’t use these kinds of features, you can ignore these complaints completely.

Grammar

One of Speakly’s major ethos is focusing on the bare minimum you need to have a conversation (i.e. your base vocabulary). While this can be true, you do need a touch of grammar; not too advanced, but you need a solid base.

Fortunately, Speakly offers grammar sections for you to reference.

Unfortunately, they’re completely useless.

In the above video, you see the grammar sections of Spanish first, then German (as well as how to switch between languages). In my opinion, the Spanish section is fine, though nothing you can’t find elsewhere with more detailed explanations/targeted practice (I suggest Kwiziq for this in Spanish and French, by the way).

Then there’s German.

To start, here’s Speakly’s opinion about German pronunciation:

Really?! You want to read about pronunciation? No! No! You have to LIVE the language, remember? Listen to the sentences in the program and repeat them out loud to yourself, again and again. That’s really the best approach.

At this point, I’d rather they just not bring up pronunciation if they’re not going to help with it.

Then, as you continue to read about declensions (a notoriously difficult aspect of German grammar), there are no opportunities to practice for understanding. Instead, they briefly list declensions – theoretically for review purposes – and leave you to simply figure it out on your own.

Seriously – if you’re looking for German grammar, you’re better off with Laura’s German Foundations.

Speakly review: pricing

Speakly is a reasonably-priced subscription-based language learning app. The price changes depending on your commitment, from 1 to 12 months. Click here for updated pricing.

But, there are a couple of caveats to Speakly’s pricing.

First, if you commit to more than 1 month’s subscription at a time, you’ll pay for 3-12 months of Speakly upfront.

Second, if you only commit to 1 or 3 months at a time, you also only get 1 language. Subscribers who commit to 6 or 12 months at a time get access to all languages.

Fortunately, with my code, you get 40% off your Speakly subscription! Keep reading for more details on that.

Speakly review: should you try it?

I will be the first to admit that this Speakly review has been a critical one; however, most of my criticisms come from a place of potential opportunities as opposed to details that are just bad.

To summarize:

Speakly’s approach to learning a language is truly holistic (as they claim on the Speakly website), meaning you learn and practice your target language in a variety of ways using a variety of language skills. Speakly also focuses on growing your knowledge of the most important vocabulary that you need to communicate in the language.

This is a genuinely productive way to focus on speaking the language ASAP; no need to worry about fancy grammar rules or perfect pronunciation, just get speaking!

If you enjoy and are fulfilled by the practices that Speakly has to offer, I recommend you take advantage of their 7-day trial. And don’t forget my discount code for 40% off!

English: CC1
Spanish: CC2
French: CC3
German: CC4

Italian: CC5
Russian: CC6
Estonian: CC7
Finnish: CC8

However, if you enjoy the approach but feel limited by some of the criticisms mentioned in this Speakly review, there are Speakly alternatives!

For example, Lingvist offers a similar approach to learning languages, though with a lot more flexibility in the vocab you’re learning and the context in which you’re learning it.

Or, if you’re very interested in the Live/chatbot option, LingoDeer’s chatbot is much more thoroughly fleshed out.

Both of these alternatives have very beautiful apps to give you the same smooth feeling that you’ll get with the Speakly app.

Click here to start learning a language with Speakly!

Language TV Club review: watch foreign language TV with friends!

November 26, 2022 by Jamie Leave a Comment

NOTE: Language TV Club is no longer operational as of August 2024

Have you heard of the Language TV Club? Do you think the idea of learning a language with TV shows seems cool and interesting, but you’re not sure if it is the right learning tool for you? Read this Language TV Club review to learn about the club, how to participate, what level is suggested, and the potential benefits you might gain from participating in the Language TV Club.

What is the Language TV Club?

The Language TV Club is not your average language club. It is a month-long club centered around watching TV shows to learn a language and sharing this experience with a small group.

The Language TV Club was founded after its creator, Lauren Williams, found herself watching C-dramas (Chinese dramas) to practice her listening skills in Mandarin. Like most people who watch good series, Lauren wanted to chat with friends about the plot twists in the show and predict what might happen next. She didn’t have any friends around her who were learning Chinese or watching sappy Chinese shows. She needed to find a group on her own!

That is where the idea for the Language TV Club came from, and now it offers groups in several languages, at least two languages per month. People from all over the world have joined to practice listening, speaking, and sometimes reading and writing as well.

How it works:

You pick your club (Spanish, German, French, etc), sign up for a time, and join the private online group.
Each day, you will receive a prompt or idea to help further your studies or knowledge of the culture.
Each week, you will watch specific episodes of a TV show that the rest of the group is watching too. You will have an Episode Guide with pertinent vocabulary and practice questions.
Each weekend, you will meet with your group via Zoom to discuss what happened in the show. Your group will have a moderator who is a native or advanced speaker of the language.

Language TV Club review: which language level is best?

Beginner

Beginners have joined the club before, but the club is not really designed for beginners. So if you are a beginner and really want to join, just let your host know your level and focus on listening to the conversation and learning from your fellow members. It is also important to write down your responses to the practice questions before the meetings, so you can still participate.

You may need to use your native language subtitles while watching the show. Watching the show twice through, once in each language, is a great way for beginners to profit from the club.

Intermediate

Most Language TV Club members are at the intermediate level. This is a great level because you can already have a conversation, but may still be nervous to speak with native speakers or are missing important vocabulary.

Intermediate learners gain the most from this club because they get listening practice from watching the show and listening to their fellow members. Intermediate-level speakers also get a chance to practice writing with the Episode Guide and speaking in multiple sentences with a small group. Ever hear of the intermediate plateau? Yeah, this club will help you turn that back into a hill or mountain.

Many of our members are people who have taken language classes in the past but feel a bit rusty with their skills, or despite having finished classes, still feel nervous about getting out there and speaking (introverts unite!). This club allows them to practice the knowledge they already have in a safe space to improve comfort, confidence, and fluency while speaking.

Advanced

Advanced learners also benefit from the group, as they come across slang or specific vocabulary terms in the shows to add to their repertoire. Practicing speaking is always helpful, no matter your level.

Advanced learners may also try watching the show without subtitles and writing complex summaries about what happened, to get more out of the club. Even language teachers and interpreters have joined the club in order to better understand today’s colloquial terms or gain vocabulary in a specific area.

Please note: the Language TV Club is not a language lesson, but more of an opportunity for discussion between learners. This means that your club host will not be explaining every grammar concept or new vocabulary word in-depth. This is why it may not be the best resource for beginners.

It is recommended that beginner learners also have a structured lesson approach in addition to the Language TV Club if they do wish to participate.

How do I know if I’m ready for the Language TV Club?

Many people may have hesitations about joining because they feel they are not ready. Here are some general guidelines to find out if you are ready to join the Language TV Club.

You are most likely ready for the club if:

You can speak in complete sentences, but still might get nervous about it
You can understand a basic conversation or the gist of a more advanced discussion, but the dialogues of native speakers can still be difficult due to gaps in vocabulary or rate of speaking
You can watch a tv show with original subtitles and not feel completely lost
You already enjoy watching shows in your target language (but may not have anyone to share them with!)

As stated earlier, the tv club is a great place for learners who have done lessons and are ready to branch out into less structured activities. It is also a wonderful choice for learners who have had a higher level in the language in the past, but now feel a bit rusty after some time without it.

How do I know if the Language TV Club is NOT right for me?

The Language TV Club may not be right for you if:

You cannot produce complete sentences AND/OR your vocabulary is less than 150-300 words (please see beginner’s section above)
You judge others’ language levels (the Language TV Club is a judgment-free zone!)
You do not enjoy watching TV

Generally, all language learners are welcome to join. However, the club is a safe, respectful space, so anyone who comes in with hateful or derogatory language will not be allowed to attend.

As far as language level is concerned, all are welcome, but beginners should notify their club host before the meetings start to let them know that they will likely be just listening for much of the time. They should know, as well, that they may not get the same experience as more advanced members, because beginner vocabulary is not frequently highlighted.

Additional note: If you don’t enjoy watching TV, it may be best for you to find another method of learning your language. Enjoying the process of learning is very important. It will help you retain so much more and be able to use that language much more effectively.

Potential Benefits of Participating in the Language TV Club

There are many benefits to participating in the Language TV Club, including but not limited to:

Meeting new people from around the world who are learning the same language as you
Having less anxiety about speaking your new language with others
Improved listening comprehension of TV shows and of conversation

Increasing your repertoire of standard and slang vocabulary
A better understanding of the culture behind the TV show
Improved fluency or naturalness speaking

Members have described the experience as:

fun
rewarding
laid-back
creative
challenging

enjoyable
supportive
well-organized
helpful

Language TV Club review FAQ:

Does the Language TV Club cost money?

Yes, it does cost money to join the club. These costs help pay for the online system that runs the groups, as well as compensate club hosts for their time and effort. Compared to other live events, such as going to a movie theater, or language lessons with experienced teachers, the cost to join the club is relatively low.

If money is tight for you, but you’d really like to participate, Polyglot Station offers free months of the club as prizes at different events throughout the year, and also provides special perks for club hosts, if you are interested and available to host a language one month.

Do I need any special subscriptions?

The Language TV Club does not provide subscriptions to Netflix, where most of the TV series of the club are chosen, so you will need to have access to Netflix on your own. Netflix is a great choice for language learners because of the availability of subtitles in various languages, and there is a browser extension called Language Reactor that can support your learning even more.

Language TV Club review: is my target language available?

The most common languages featured in the Language TV Club are Spanish, French, German, and Italian. Other languages that appear regularly but not as often include English, Polish and Portuguese. Additional languages that have appeared but are not frequent include Korean, Russian, and Mandarin.

The languages offered depend on the level of demand for each club and the availability of club hosts. Subscribe to the website to get notices about upcoming clubs.

Overall, the Language TV Club is a great resource for a learner who: is learning one of the world’s major languages, enjoys watching TV series (especially Netflix), wants or needs to practice speaking, and would like to connect with other learners. 100% of members who participated in the club and responded to the survey would recommend the club to their friends, and many come back for more.

What do you think about this Language TV Club review? Think the Language TV Club will be right for you? Go ahead and give it a shot! You’ll be surprised by how much you can learn by watching TV. We hope to see you there!

Lauren is the Founder and CEO of Polyglot Station, LLC, an online space for people to explore and connect through languages. One of the main divisions of this company is the Language TV Club. Lauren is passionate about learning languages and supporting others to do the same. When she’s not watching Netflix dramas in other languages, you might find her out dancing salsa, sitting in the sun, or playing games with friends and family.

German with Laura review – THE course to guide beginners

November 25, 2022 by Jamie Leave a Comment

German can be a scary language for beginners because of its seemingly complicated grammar that has no rhyme or reason. With 3 genders, a billion ways to make a singular noun plural, and even more declensions, it’s not hard to see why beginner German learners give up so quickly. That’s where this German with Laura review comes in.

Laura takes her decades of experience working with German language learners to simplify German grammar in a way that’s intuitive, using grammar rules that just require practice, not endless memorization.

Let’s take a deep dive into German with Laura’s German Foundations course and see why every independent German learner truly needs this course.

Learn to use German grammar like native speakers

If you’re learning a new language, chances are grammar rules seem complicated, overwhelming, and downright impossible – this is especially true for German language learners who are pretty much told upfront that German is hard and confusing.

3 different ways to say ‘the’, the appropriate one is actually important, and there are no rules about which one is which? Yikes. That’s enough to keep most language learners from even giving German a shot.

This is why Laura puts your mind at ease about her course right from the course introduction.

Laura understands the importance of shifting our mindsets about language learning so that we have the right expectations about what it’s like to truly learn German. This means busting myths about language learning in general, like:

Why children don’t learn faster than adults
Adults can truly get fluent in another language
Your German does not have to be better than your English

This is the exact approach that my clients take with The Method, so I can already say that this is a high-quality approach!

The other important part of Laura’s introduction is the Resource Guide, Workbook, and Answer Key. These 3 files are the base of the entire course! Next to the actual video lessons, of course.

The Resource Guide includes all the strategies and tips Laura has created exclusively for her students to learn German grammar in a logical, intuitive way; the Workbook is dozens and dozens of practice words and sentences to practice applying those strategies; and the Answer Key is, well, an answer key for you to check your work independently.

Everything is laid out cleanly and clearly; Laura doesn’t ramble on and on in the worksheets, that’s what the videos are for! The Resource Guide has the tables and strategies you need to review as you practice, and that is it.

German with Laura review – course contents

Once we have our mindset right, download all our course materials, and (optionally) join the private Facebook group, it’s time to learn German!

Note: you’ll notice in these sneak peeks that there’s a “Discussions” button in the upper right-hand corner. If you have questions about any particular lesson, this is the place to ask them, and/or get the answer from a thread someone else started first. It is not necessary to join the Facebook group, it’s just a perk.

German Foundations is broken up into 7 modules:

Noun gender
Noun plurals
The case system
Intro to declension patterns

5. Declension patterns part 2
6. Verbs & pronouns
7. Prepositions & pronouns

If you’d like more details on each individual lesson within all of these modules, you can click here for more details.

Browsing through the lessons, you’ll notice a few symbols:

🎥 a video emoji signals a video lesson – some combination of Laura teaching you her strategies, and walking through practice words/sentences with you for understanding.

✏️ a pencil emoji denotes a simple Google form for you to test your understanding. These are graded, but just for you to see if you’re doing well, or could benefit from reviewing the lesson again.

These Google forms are either checking that you understood general concepts, or testing you: select if these words are masculine, feminine, or neuter, for example. They’re 100% multiple-choice questions to assess your comprehension of the lesson.

🗒 a paper emoji generally means it’s time to visit the practice workbook to really get these new concepts into your brain. Just like the ✏️ Google forms, these are totally optional and incredibly helpful study aids.

And I can tell you from personal experience that this practice works. Going into this practice may feel overwhelming and defeating, but just hang in there for a little bit, and it all starts to make sense; Laura consistently reminds you that it’s okay to review the tables at first, that’s what they’re there for!

How German Foundations teaches language skills

Now that we’ve addressed an overview of the structure of German Foundations, let’s look closer at Laura’s approach. To get a great example of this, we’ll look at Module 4: Declensions (it’s not as scary as it sounds, don’t worry).

To start, Laura explains why the traditional methods of learning German grammar, specifically declensions, don’t work, and why you’re learning with her unique approach. I’ll let Laura speak for herself below.

After understanding the reasoning behind this methodology, it’s time to learn it!

With her video lessons, Laura talks you through all the visual aids slowly and clearly (or quickly – if you’re the type to speed up videos, you can do that too) with plenty of repetition.

First, watch Laura do the exercises herself. Not just once, but several times. You can always skip the video forward if you’re ready to practice yourself.
Then you get time to go through all the steps yourself, pausing and unpausing the video to check your answers with Laura before you move on to the next step. Or do all the steps at once if that’s more your speed.
And then the training wheels come off for independent practice, courtesy of the practice workbook.

Because German Foundations is pre-recorded (and recently updated!), you’re able to take the lessons as slowly or as quickly as you like, as many times as you like. You get lifetime access as well, so you’re free to go back and brush up on these lessons whenever you need.

I, for one, definitely took Module 4 twice to really cement these rules into my brain until Laura’s formula just *clicked*. This included rewatching the videos, going through the ✏️ Google forms, and reprinting the appropriate worksheet pages. I did much better the second time around!

This is notable because some resources will definitely “punish” you for going back to review – or won’t even let you review. No issues here! Review as much as you need to, or don’t. You have the freedom to rewind, skip forward, and do whatever you gotta do.

German words are not part of this language process

Because German with Laura is laser-focused on teaching German grammar quickly, clearly, and efficiently, it’s important that language learners understand what you will not learn using this method.

For the sake of not getting distracted from the grammar, Laura is very intentional about the vocabulary she chooses for her exercises. This means lots of repeated words, plenty of cognates (i.e. words that are similar or the same in both German and English), and consistent reminders to not worry about the vocab or meaning.

You may pick up a few words naturally because you’re working with them, but do not expect to grow your vocabulary using German Foundations. You’re here to get an intuitive understanding of German grammar and get comfortable with the patterns used.

While you cannot expect to learn vocab, practice your speaking skills, or pick up idioms, Laura is very clear from the start about what you CAN expect from German Foundations:

Instead of making German grammar painful and painstaking, Laura has picked up on patterns that make German grammar make sense…without a textbook worth of redundant tables! She’s taken her years of experience to create a shortcut that, quite frankly, all German language learners should use.

German with Laura review: what to do next

For years, I have been told how difficult it is to learn German – there are extra letters, declensions, and a whole other gender, and none of it is logical whatsoever – you just have to memorize it all.

If you’ve also heard this rumor and have avoided learning German for fear of this overwhelm (or even gotten so far as attempting German, just to feel defeated and give up), I highly recommend German with Laura’s courses; you can start with her free course here to try out her approach for yourself.

As you get to know Laura’s approach to teaching German grammar and learn to trust the process, you’ll be just as blown away as I was to see how easy it can be to reach an intuitive understanding of grammar rules, even those as weird and confusing as German!

I am no longer worried about complicated German grammar, because I know that I can trust German with Laura to teach it to me in a simple, logical way so that I can just use it without spending hours memorizing.

German with Laura’s courses are the best way to get a confident understanding of German patterns, without memorizing countless rules or getting frustrated with even more difficult tables and strategies. As long as you’re clear about what you’re there to learn (i.e. nothin’ but grammar), you can’t go wrong!

Click here to get German Foundations for $50 off!