Multilingual Mastery

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Language app reviews

Ling Review: make language learning light and flexible

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Ling is a fun, cute language learning app that believes in making language learning (something inherently difficult) easy. It was originally created to satisfy a lack of resources available for learners of Southeast Asian languages, and today it’s been expanded to include over 60 languages of various popularities.

So how do you decide if Ling is right for you? In this Ling review, we’ll talk about what Ling does well, what it doesn’t, how to know if you should use Ling to learn a language, and Ling alternatives.

Languages you can learn with Ling

The Ling app boasts a frankly huge number and variety of languages offered! You can use Ling to learn:

  • Afrikaans
  • Albanian
  • Amharic
  • Arabic
  • Armenian
  • Bengali
  • Bosnian
  • Bulgarian
  • Burmese
  • Cantonese
  • Catalan
  • Chinese
  • Croatian
  • Czech
  • Danish
  • Dutch
  • English
  • Estonian
  • Finnish
  • French
  • Georgian
  • German
  • Greek
  • Gujurati
  • Hebrew
  • Hindi
  • Hungarian
  • Indonesian
  • Irish
  • Italian
  • Japanese
  • Kannada
  • Khmer
  • Korean
  • Lao
  • Latvian
  • Lithuanian
  • Malayalam
  • Malaysian
  • Marathi
  • Mongolian
  • Nepali
  • Norwegian
  • Pashto
  • Persian
  • Polish
  • Portuguese
  • Punjabi
  • Romanian
  • Russian
  • Serbian
  • Slovak
  • Slovenian
  • Spanish
  • Swahili
  • Swedish
  • Tagalog
  • Tamil
  • Telugu
  • Thai
  • Turkish
  • Ukrainian
  • Urdu
  • Vietnamese
  • Yoruba

As you can see, this collection of languages puts Ling on par with apps that support literally dozens of languages (apps like Mondly and Glossika come to mind). And just like those other apps, supporting 60+ languages means keeping their content pretty surface-level.

But we’ll talk about that more as we continue with this Ling review.

Ling review: getting started

Your Ling subscription grants you access to all 60+ languages, and you can access any of them at any level at any time. Here’s what that looks like.

Whenever you want to switch languages, just tap the flag in the upper left-hand corner and either scroll the list or type into the search box.

And no need to bother with any “checkpoints” or anything – attempt whichever lessons you want at any time. I love this freedom and flexibility; language learning does benefit from a certain level of structure, but I find myself easily unmotivated when an app forces me to study things I don’t want to learn.

So far, Ling is super easy to play around with and use!

Let’s take a look at the very first lesson of the very first section, built for total and complete beginners (I assume – there’s actually no mention of the intended skill level anywhere on the website or the app itself).

This is a curious approach, and there are a couple of reasons why.

Gamification

If the likes of Duolingo have taught us anything in the past several years, it’s that keeping language apps fun keeps language learners coming back. Bright colors, round and easy-to-read designs, and fun sound effects make people feel good.

It’s not nearly as annoying as Duolingo can be, but if you’ve been burned hard enough by Duolingo before, this might turn you off.

You can even see at the end of the above video where the app forces me to set a goal streak. Your opinion of this level of gamification already says a lot about how much you will or will not enjoy using Ling to learn a language.

That said, if gamification is something you need to keep you hooked (no judgment here) Ling might be a great option.

Implicit grammar lessons

Also just like Duolingo, Ling is teaching grammar implicitly, which means you’re led to figure it out as you go without being intentionally taught anything about rules or how the language works as a whole.

This can be seen as a more “natural” way to learn a language, but it can also be frustrating to try to piece the language together without being told how to. It’s a spectrum – how much you need to learn the rulebook, and how much you just need to try it – and every language learner is different.

If you want to use Ling to learn a new language that you have no experience with and is not related to any other language you know, it’s important to understand you will likely need to do some Googling to try to understand some things.

In this way, Ling can be used as more of a general path to be informed about what to learn next. There’s a direction here, but the vehicle you used to take it is completely up to you,

Translating vs “knowing”

One more thing that can make or break a language app for any particular learner is how you’re learning to connect to the meaning of new vocab words.

The best example of learning to understand meaning is Rosetta Stone – there’s no translation happening there, you’re just connecting new words to images that can be described with the new vocab word.

On the other hand, there are various levels of connecting new foreign language vocab to words in your native language, which leaves you translating back and forth between languages all the time.

Ling places you somewhere in the middle: you’re connecting new vocab to its translation, but the text is small, you’re always hearing the word, and you get a picture too. That’s not a bad compromise, in my opinion.

Even more important, though, is that Ling gets you to use the new vocabulary immediately.

Ling review: speaking practice

Ling’s approach to learning languages includes their dedication to the four language skills. An all too common problem is these fun, gamified language apps doing absolutely nothing to get language learners to speak the language. Tapping buttons is easy, but it only gets you so far.

Let’s see how Ling approaches this problem.

Voice recognition, the most common method for language apps to accomplish this, is mostly to motivate you to try. Even in the above video, you can see the voice recognition not being too sure.

It gets the job done, it’s fine.

Honestly, the point is that language learners are led to start. It’s often so hard for people to practice speaking their target language just because after months or years of learning, they’ve never actually tried to speak.

Ling also has chatbot conversations, which are basic pre-made conversations where you just repeat your side of the chat (and try to keep up). Again, it’s meant mostly to get you started speaking, not mastering it.

I wanted to like Ling’s chatbot more…but I couldn’t. I just got annoyed.

If it didn’t recognize my pronunciation, fine. But the message telling you that the chatbot doesn’t understand you over and over and over again is rage-inducing!

That, and listening to the app repeat what I just said after I said it, made me never want to use Ling’s chatbot again.

Hopefully, you have a different experience than I did (voice recognition and chatbots often vary significantly across devices), but I have to be honest.

On the bright side, I am a big fan of the ability to turn off the translations in this section, as well as the push to practice speaking in a safe, controlled environment (this feature cannot be overstated here).

Ling review: difficulty level

In the languages I’ve seen, Ling offers lessons labeled from total beginner to expert. Given how many languages the app supports, I was skeptical, so I took a look at the most advanced Spanish lesson.

Definitely not expert-level vocab.

The grammar is at a more intermediate level, but keep in mind that there are no explicit grammar lessons, so you either need to be very very good at picking up patterns, or you need to find your grammar information elsewhere.

That said, do not expect Ling to get you to advanced (and definitely not expert) levels within your target language. That’s not what it’s been created to do, even if they named their levels a bit too optimistically.

Ling review: pricing

Ling is a paid-only app, with payment structures varying from monthly to annually to lifetime. Only the annual plan includes a 7-day free trial.

I do believe that the quality of the Ling app reflects its price point, especially with how many languages you can learn at any time.

The biggest thing to keep in mind here: no ads (and no changes to try to pressure you into paying more money – what you see is what you get).

Click here for updated pricing.

Should you use Ling to learn a language?

Ling is a great way to learn a new language, but not for everyone.

I’m a fan of the focus on all 4 language skills; even if it doesn’t get you past beginner levels, it’s a good habit to start with such a well-rounded approach. The app is also easy on the eyes and easy to maneuver.

But my favorite part about Ling is that it’s a light path to learning a new language, without having to pass checkpoints or worry about losing so many hearts you can’t learn anymore.

If you want something similar to Ling, read about LingoDeer.

However, Ling will not teach you things beyond the surface level. You will not learn any grammar, or intermediate/advanced vocabulary. If you’re looking for that pathway with a bit more detail, some Ling alternatives include LanguagePod101 or Rocket Languages.

Want to give it a shot? Click here to try Ling.

Trancy Review: Language Reactor alternative with tons of potential

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Trancy review

In recent years, the concept of learning a language on YouTube and Netflix has made way for lots of new opportunities to learn foreign languages for free. First, there was CaptionPop, then Language Reactor, and now we have this Trancy review.

So how does Trancy compare to the competition and how do you know if you should use it to learn a language? Let’s discuss what this Chrome extension does well, what it doesn’t, and what kind of language learner it’s for.

Trancy languages

While you can use Trancy to learn a language with any YouTube video or Netflix show/movie, it only supports the following languages:

  • Chinese
  • Egnlish
  • French
  • German
  • Italian
  • Japanese
  • Korean
  • Portuguese
  • Spanish

Now, when I say ‘only’, that isn’t to say that it’s a bad thing; on the contrary, if it’s designed to support just a handful of languages, the quality of the translation is probably better than much of the competition.

I’m not a translator so I can’t speak on this for sure, but it is a pattern that I see across language learning resources: the fewer the languages, the higher the quality of the education.

That said, let’s dive into what it’s like to use Trancy to learn a language!

How to use Trancy

Trancy is a Chrome extension, so once you enable it in your browser, booting it up is just a matter of clicking the little icon in the bottom right-hand corner of your video.

It is worth noting that Trancy is not compatible with AdBlock, so if you rely on it for your viewing experience that may prove to be an obstacle. There is a tutorial preventing AdBlock from stopping Trancy from working, but honestly, it’s a lot of work and if I’m using Trancy myself, I’ll just turn off AdBlock temporarily.

After you click the logo, you’ll get a theater-esque screen with bilingual subtitles and a few icons in the corner. These icons initiate the features of Trancy that I feel are really special. But we’ll talk about those in a second.

First, let’s talk about the functionality of the subtitles themselves (keeping in mind this isn’t where this Chrome extension truly shines).

They’re smooth, functional, and easy to read. You can easily turn the original and translated subtitles on and off, and save either entire sentences or single words for later.

While you don’t get the option to blur out the translated subtitles when you’re watching a video like Language Reactor does, this feature does show up in practice mode which we haven’t gotten to yet. Just in case you were missing that part in the video above like I was.

Trancy also gives you the option to switch modes between focusing on the video itself or the subtitles, which can be a nice customizable feature. You can get the benefit of the video while also being able to really focus on the words. A little bit of customization like that can really go a long way.

Suffice it to say that the subtitles themselves are beautiful. No real complaints here – if anything, I’m just being nit-picky. So let’s look at my favorite feature of Trancy: practice mode.

Trancy review: practice mode

Once you boot up Trancy, slide your mouse over and click “Practice mode”, the headphones icon. Or just tap P on your keyboard. Here you’ll get the video’s subtitles already created into 5 different activities:

  • Speaking
  • Listening
  • Selection
  • Filling
  • Dictation

This is how each activity functions.

Trancy is a new Chrome extension. These features aren’t amazing yet, but there’s a lot of potential.

For example, I would love it if you could go into settings and turn on/off different things, like if the audio clip repeats after you get it correct, access to letters and accents that you may not have on your keyboard, and that pesky timer in the upper right-hand corner.

Some might like the timer, but it gives me a lot of anxiety. I feel like I have to rush to find the answers. Let me disable that clock!

Regardless, the basic concept is unique and a real benefit to language learners. And if activities like this are what you’re already doing but with fewer steps, I do recommend you switch over to using Trancy.

Collections

As you’ve seen in the videos above, you can “heart” any word or sentence to save and study it for later. When you’re ready to do that, you can visit the Trancy website/platform and easily see what you’ve saved.

This is what that looks like.

Again, interesting concept, but this could use work.

I would love to see Trancy using the audio from the actual video as opposed to a robot voice. This would be more helpful for understanding the language as it’s used by native speakers and actual humans, which is an entirely different experience.

Learning to understand a new language means training your brain to connect different sounds to the same words, which is why watching videos is excellent for listening comprehension. Losing that quality of the words you’re saving is really more significant than you may think!

Secondly, I understand that subtitles don’t always break at natural sentence endings. But that sentence isn’t a sentence. It’s 2 and a half sentences. This means that either you just deal with funky practice, or you go in and manually shift your sentences around.

You do get the option to download your saved terms as a PDF or .csv, but it doesn’t include audio. If you want to add audio to your flashcards (assuming you already have a chosen study tool), you’ll have the extra step of finding or creating your own audio.

Trancy’s AI functions

When visiting your collections, you may have noticed a couple of AI functions. They honestly feel kind of random and out of left field when you’re just trying to study your material, but they could be beneficial if you give them a shot.

For example, Trancy offers AI chatbot conversations. This isn’t a new concept at all, but I’m genuinely impressed by the functionality! With other chatbots (say, Lingodeer or Mondly), the conversation is pre-planned. It’s practice, but it’s stale. Trancy, on the other hand, uses AI to bring this tech to life.

I’m surprised!

This was a whole conversation that would be incredibly helpful when it comes to thinking in and using a foreign language. Definitely a helpful step between learning words and real-life conversations.

P.S. You can also access all these functions on mobile via the Trancy app! On both Android and Apple, you can practice all of your saved collections and the AI features on any mobile device. It doesn’t include watching the functionality of the Chrome extension, so you can’t watch videos and collect new terms, but it’s something.

Trancy review: cost

The basic premise of this Chrome extension is free. If you find yourself using Trancy consistently, you can opt-in for upgrades including:

  • save unlimited words and sentences
  • unlimited practice
  • enhanced translation
  • AI-powered word/syntax explanations
  • speaking practice

Fortunately for us, Trancy keeps it cheap; here’s the explanation behind their pricing:

Trancy Premium is a paid option, as most Premium features require Trancy to pay addition fees to third parties such as data center providers and openAI. Contributions from premium users allow us to cover these costs and help keep trancy free for everyone.

I hope this approach is successful for Trancy, because it keeps language learning accessible to all. Honestly, it’s only a few bucks a month, which is a no-brainer if you find yourself using it a lot.

You can see Trancy’s updated pricing here.

Trancy review: should you try it?

Now that we’ve reached the end of this Trancy review, is it the Chrome extension for you? Here are some thoughts.

If you enjoy watching videos in your target language and would get even more practice with Trancy automatically creating activities from subtitles, I highly recommend Trancy. I love how it automatically creates engaging, functional activities out of the media you’re already watching, so you can activate all of your language skills, not just your listening skills.

Plus, the chatbot is surprisingly great! That feature in itself is a 10/10.

Click here to get started with Trancy!

However, there are a lot of small, nit-picky issues that are only really cons when compared to other options that have been around longer, and therefore have had more time to iron these things out. So if you’re perfectly happy using Language Reactor to create your own activities and avoid some small functionality issues, you may be just fine doing that.

Or, if you want a heavier focus on the activities and don’t really care about the videos themselves, I might recommend Yabla or FluentU to help with that.

StoryLearning review: lazy, but you’ll learn to read

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StoryLearning is a well-known language learning course developed by polyglot Olly Richards, and its approach is pretty self-explanatory: learn a language through story. The internet is chock full of five-star reviews, but is the heavy price tag worth it for you? In this StoryLearning review, that’s exactly what you’ll find out.

Keep reading this StoryLearning review to find out what these courses do, what they don’t do, and how to decide if you should give them a try.

Languages you can learn with StoryLearning

While not all languages are created equal (as in, some offer more content than others), you can use StoryLearning to learn:

  • Arabic
  • Chinese (Mandarin)
  • Danish
  • French
  • German
  • Italian
  • Japanese
  • Korean
  • Latin
  • Norwegian
  • Portuguese
  • Russian
  • Spanish
  • Swedish
  • Turkish

Now let’s dive into the course itself.

StoryLearning review: course structure

As you log in to your StoryLearning course for the first time, you’ll have several pages introducing you to the course, including an introduction to your language teacher (Olly does not teach the languages himself, he just hosts a platform for others to teach using his methodology) and the basic gist of what makes StoryLearning special.

Here’s a clip.

You’ll also learn more details about how you will be learning a language through story. Specifically, each chapter corresponds with a chapter of a story created just for StoryLearning. They’re all broken up into the following lessons:

  • Read and listen to the chapter of the story
  • Learn the cognates (words that sound similar and mean the same in English [not to be confused with false friends, which sound similar but mean very different things]) present in the chapter
  • Break down vocabulary words deemed important
  • Learn the basic grammar used
  • Simple pronunciation lesson
  • Cultural tidbit
  • A speaking lesson meant for you to share with a language teacher and/or language exchange partner

Then you’ll move on to the next chapter and do it all over again until you finish the story.

The idea is that if you’re consistent, you’ll understand more and more of the language until you finish the story and have successfully reached a certain level within said language.

All that said, let’s check out a StoryLearning lesson.

Chapter

The basis of every chapter of the StoryLearning courses is the chapters of the book. Here’s what that looks like.

As you can see, there’s even more explanation about how the course works before the first actual lesson.

  1. Listen to the audio recording a few times
  2. Read the foreign language translation a few times while listening to the audio recording
  3. Read the English translation to see how much you understood correctly

It goes on to explain (again) how to use the course; basically, be ready to repeat the same section over and over and over again, and understand little to none of it. It’s all part of the process, and it’ll work if you can stick to it.

Repetition, repetition, repetition – it’s like Pimsleur in this way, except you understand what’s going on in Pimsleur’s lessons. Here, you’re specifically meant to understand very little.

Cognates

Now that we have the sounds of the chapter in our brains, and maybe we’ve even made some connections between words ourselves, it’s time to acknowledge cognates.

This is a fairly common practice across some language learning resources, like Language Transfer. Anything to make it easier to connect to languages that are very different from your native language!

At this point, you should be starting to make sense of the language. It’s kind of like the first lesson is trying to get your brain to understand it by purely brute force, and then the following lessons give you a little step up solidifying the meaning behind these new sounds.

So now that we’re understanding a bit more of the general meaning behind the chapter, let’s learn some vocab.

Vocabulary

Even for such a short chapter, a total beginner of the language is not going to know any of the vocab presented. You might be curious as to which vocab words the teacher things are the most important to be explicitly taught. Most strategies go:

words > sentences > story

but this one seems to go:

story > words

Here’s what I mean.

Out of all the words I don’t understand in the chapter (which is all of them, for the record), these are the ones chosen to study specifically. It’s so weird to be learning “yes” and “no” after drilling the chapter of a story!

Then we have the practice. It’s a simple Quizlet plugin, where the words have been uploaded to the Quizlet platform and the link is copied and pasted into the course.

You’ll drill some chosen vocabulary by:

  • matching (as shown in the video above)
  • test (try to get the right answer)
  • spelling
  • flashcards

Can I be honest here?

This is lazy.

For such a well-known, expensive language course, I would expect more from the vocabulary section. I can’t even get it to work! Given that it is a Quizlet plugin, I would literally rather be given the vocab words in a list and put them into my own Quizlet account, or another flashcard system.

Using the StoryLearning approach, you’re not supposed to be memorizing lists of words, which is fine. If that’s the case, why include a vocab section at all?

Next is grammar, which is also not meant to be studied like a textbook, but instead picked up naturally.

Grammar

Olly is very clear that the StoryLearning approach is not your boring, basic textbook approach to a language, which is generally very focused on grammar. So, let’s see how they do it.

In this section, the specific concepts seem a lot less random.

While the strategy is the exact same one used in the previous lesson on vocabulary, the key difference here is that grammar is basically the patterns of the language. I like how the words can be pulled out of the chapter as examples of the beginner grammar pattern, which creates context and makes it much easier to learn.

It didn’t work this well for vocab, which felt like random words that were *chosen*.

However, the Quizlet activity is exactly the same. This is frustrating to me because I know there are much better options for practicing grammar! Again, I would rather be directed to high-quality grammar activities than this.

Next up: pronunciation.

Pronunciation

I’m curious about this section because most language learners don’t worry about pronunciation. Perfect pronunciation doesn’t tend to be a priority.

I approve!

Most language learners don’t realize that improving your pronunciation also improves your ability to understand a foreign language because you’re tuning your ear to understand the sounds that are used by native speakers.

StoryLearning is largely about input (understanding the language, not as much producing it yourself), and simple pronunciation lessons like this one are really helpful for listening comprehension.

The next lesson, culture, is another topic that isn’t always considered to be important.

Culture

Personally, I love culture. It tends to be one of my favorite parts of learning languages! Not always because of how it helps me to understand and use a language correctly, but just because I find it interesting.

Here’s how StoryLearning connects culture to language learning.

I’m going to be brutally honest again.

This StoryLearning review has proven this course to be dynamic, with videos, audio lessons, and activities to practice the concepts. So why is the lesson on culture…not?

Especially with the specific phrases used to explain the concept, they would be 10x more interesting and engaging with simple audio clips of the teacher saying the words and phrases. It would also really help with listening comprehension and being able to contextualize the lesson.

Time for the last section of each chapter.

Speaking

Speaking is not a big priority in the StoryLearning courses. The priority is reading, maybe listening to, stories meant for language learners. So I was surprised to find a speaking section in every chapter. Here’s what that looks like.

Once again…I’d rather they stick to what they’re good at.

This isn’t speaking practice as much as it is a free lesson to give to a language teacher or language exchange partner if you’re working with one. It is a good way to connect other language learning to what you’re learning with StoryLearning, but it’s not particularly effective by itself.

So once again, I would be more impressed if they stuck with what they’re good at – stories, reading, and listening comprehension – and leave all the other stuff to other resources that are much better at them.

I’d bet good money that at least 50% of all their students are just skipping right past the speaking section, finishing their StoryLearning courses, and then being frustrated that they can’t hold a conversation.

StoryLearning review: community

As you work through the StoryLearning courses, it’s suggested you join the private student community. Like, on every page. Each language has its own community. Here’s what it’s like inside.

As you can see, each language is broken up into the following categories:

  • Say hello
  • The level(s) you’ve purchased
  • Live coaching
  • Fun & motivational stuff

But, really, it just appears to be a timeline of unanswered tech issues.

One more time: stick to what you’re good at!

Judging by the rest of the StoryLearning course, the team is perfectly good at recording lessons and putting them where they belong, but not so much at keeping things updated and engaging in conversation.

That said, is the private student community a bonus to the StoryLearning courses? I’m honestly not sure.

StoryLearning review: price

For lifetime access to any one of the StoryLearning “Uncovered” courses, you’ll pay $297. This makes these courses one of the more expensive options on the market.

That’s really all there is to say about that. They’re commonly on special sales, or at least said to be on sale, but they’re pricey regardless.

Fortunately, you can get a 7-day free trial before you commit.

StoryLearning review: is it for you?

In this StoryLearning review, I’ve been more critical than most. A big reason for this is that those who are most excited about these courses are Olly’s personal friends, which makes their reviews far from objective.

So how do you know if StoryLearning is the right approach for you to learn a language?

First: reading has to be a priority. Listening too, but mostly reading. The point is to learn a language by reading stories, so if your goal isn’t to be able to read books in your target language, you’re better off using another method.

Second: either speaking the language isn’t important to you, or you’re getting your speaking practice elsewhere, whether that be with a language teacher or a language exchange. While there is technically a section for speaking practice, it does not suffice for those who really want to be conversational.

And third: you’re patient. While StoryLearning will teach you the language, you basically have to be willing and able to trust that it’s going to happen without being able to see a lot of the progress for yourself. Now this is normal for intermediate and advanced language learners, but true beginners are likely to give up before it really pays off.

In fact, you should probably meet all 3 conditions to benefit from any of Olly Richards’ resources, even his line of Short Stories books. 

If you don’t, I would recommend another language learning resource that’s more geared toward teaching the skills that matter most to you, and that’s why I created my language app search. 

But if you do, give StoryLearning a shot with a 7-day free trial here!

Ella Verbs review: your best bet for Spanish conjugation practice

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Ella (not pronounced like “she” in Spanish, but like “elephant”) Verbs is a language app that specializes in helping users to understand and conquer their Spanish verb conjugations – if you have any experience learning Spanish, you know that this is a sorely needed resource. In this Ella Verbs review, let’s take an honest look at the app, including what it does well, where it can be improved, and if it’s the Spanish language app for you.

Ella Verbs review: their “Learn, Quiz, Repeat” ethos

Before we look at what it’s like to use Ella Verbs, it’s important to understand the bare-bones strategy of Jane and Brian (the Irish couple behind the app)’s approach: learn, quiz, repeat. This is how these words are executed in your learning of Spanish verb conjugations:

  • Journey: Ella Verbs guides you through the major Spanish tenses, in the order that they are most used in conversation, allowing you to put them into practice as soon as possible and get speaking faster – AKA, worry about the fancy “correct” tenses later, after you can have a basic conversation
  • Levels: each level is made up of bite-sized lessons introducing a concept, followed by interactive quizzes to test your knowledge*
  • Vocabulary: Ella Verbs gradually introduces new popular verbs at every level, so by the time you are finished, you will know the top 300 verbs used in most conversations
  • Progress: a detailed progress map, showing you each corresponding CEFR level (A1 – C2), and highlighting the areas you need to focus on to get to the next level
  • Personalized: quizzes tailored to you, help you focus on your weak points – be it a certain tense, pronoun, or verb. These quizzes change daily based on your practice
  • Custom: learn the way you want and completely customize your quizzes, whether that be typing, multiple choice, or in sentences. You can also add boosts to increase the difficulty

*Consistently quizzing your conjugations is proven to facilitate long-term retention better than reading, so this is one of Ella Verbs’ most important and core ideas.

Let’s take this ethos and see how each point is executed!

Journey

First, let’s look at the Ella Verbs journey. Here you can see that users are guided through verb conjugations in the order that they’re actually useful (and as compared to the CEFR levels):

Ella Verbs does this really well! It’s simple, easy, and gets the job done. Plus, I love that it waits for you to spell the words correctly – when you get it right, it automatically continues to the next question (this can be changed in settings if you prefer); if it’s wrong, it’ll wait til you figure it out for yourself (and it won’t ding you for wrong answers!).

This is excellent for Spanish language learners who can be sensitive to negative reinforcement (I will get so anxious about consistently getting these wrong that it’ll ruin my day).

As you prove your understanding of more beginner levels, you’ll slowly be pushed to the more advanced ones. And if you’re already more intermediate/advanced? Just click over at any time, you don’t even have to “prove” your understanding of the conjugations.

Speaking of levels…

Levels

Each level is made up of short, easy-to-consume lessons to explain the concepts. When you’re ready, it’s time to quiz!

In the video below, watch as I complete Level 6: Learn, Test, and Vocabulary.

As you can see, while the lessons themselves are insanely bite-sized, they also quickly build up to enough of a lesson that I had to quit early because my brain got tired!

It really only takes a few minutes of truly targeted, active use of these Spanish verb conjugations to get your brain working pretty hard and get this information truly internalized. This is how you know you’re using your time effectively, as opposed to passively pushing buttons because you’re supposed to, not because you’re learning anything (*cough cough* Duolingo).

And that’s how you know this Ella Verbs review is legit! Next up: vocab.

Friendly reminder that Ella Verbs is exclusively a verb app!

Vocabulary

As aforementioned, new vocabulary is introduced in the order that is most useful for Spanish language learners. Not only that, though – the verbs you see in your quizzes are insanely customizable!

Like many language apps, Ella Verbs gets better and better at knowing what you need when you need it the longer you use it. One of the (many) features that I love in this vocabulary section is the use of My Verbs.

But I’m getting ahead of myself here. Tap over to the “Verbs” section of the app to easily personalize which verbs you’re using and learning.

You can easily search for, and practice, verbs based on:

  • alphabetical order
  • top 100 most commonly-used verbs
  • the verbs you’ve saved for later
  • top 300 most commonly-used verbs
  • regular verbs
  • irregular verbs
  • most popular irregular verbs
  • AR verbs
  • ER verbs
  • IR verbs
  • reflexives
  • highly irregular verbs
  • stem-changers
  • irregular gerunds
  • irregular past participles

…and if all those options STILL don’t work for you at the moment, you can always search for the verb you’re looking for using the search bar at the top of the screen.

Of course, you’ll still have to find your nouns elsewhere, but that’s just something to be aware of when using a language app that focuses exclusively on Spanish verb conjugations.

Progress

Next on the list of Ella Verbs’ list of priorities is Progress. Despite the fact that the straightforward nature of their Journey makes it easy enough to see your progress, I honestly think this section of the app is pretty excellent!

I say this because there’s less (not zero, but less) focus on daily streaks and other fun-but-useless statistics, and more on how you’ve performed and, most importantly, what you can learn from your performance.

I love how this section is focused mostly on how you’ve done on your quizzes and how long it’s been since you’ve practiced – you can see exactly what you’ve done well and what you can work on.

I find it interesting that they mention “Tense Fluency” – the idea being that the tenses you’ve practiced relate to a specific CEFR level, but at the same time, it’s only one piece of the puzzle. You’re not expected to take an official exam and succeed just based on the conjugations you know, but it is a familiar marker.

My favorite part is the Smart Quizzes. It’s one thing to tell you which conjugations and tenses you should be reviewing, a whole other thing to easily practice those exact concepts with one little button tap.

These are great examples of Progress and Personalized, so our last bullet point is Custom.

Custom

One of the biggest problems with most language apps is the one-size-fits-all approach. Every app comes with a different approach, and that approach will work just fine for some people. Unless you know how, though, there’s no way to know if that approach will work for you until you try.

This is the beauty of Ella Verbs’ simplicity – because it’s so simple, it’s just as simple to customize your study sessions in a variety of different ways.

Really want to focus on conjugating one verb tense? Okay.

Want to double down on one word and master all of its conjugations? No problemo.

Only in the mood for 5 questions? Or have the space for 80 questions? Cool.

You can quiz any concept at any time as many times as you like, however you like. Excellent!

Ella Verbs review: who it’s for

Point-blank, I think Ella Verbs is an excellent resource for Spanish language learners of any level who want to improve their ability to conjugate any Spanish verb in any tense. There are little mini-lessons that explain the conjugations, but the vast majority of your time will be spent quizzing, which teaches your brain to use the information and figure it out naturally.

And Ella Verbs is reasonably priced, too. You can use the app for free and get limited access:

  • 99 out of 1,800 verbs
  • 9 out of 39 levels
  • 1 out of 16 tenses
  • no access to Smart Quizzes
  • no access to custom quizzes
  • no access to My Verbs

But if you do give Ella Verbs a shot, and you enjoy it, it only costs around $5/month, which directly supports a small family in their side hobby.

Ella Verbs review: alternatives

And if you don’t enjoy Ella Verbs? I’d suggest these alternatives for your Spanish verb conjugation practice:

Kwiziq: the best option for die-hard grammar fans, also teaches Spanish grammar with quizzes (or “Kwizzes”)

Conjuguemos: definitely offers much more variety of things to practice (and ways to practice them), but not nearly as attractive

Clozemaster: for intermediate & advanced learners only; you practice grammar with fill-in-the-blank sentences

Each of these alternatives is primarily desktop-based, which may be better Ella Verbs alternatives if you prefer a different device. They all also touch upon a little bit more Spanish language content than Ella Verbs does, as Ella Verbs does only one thing (really well).

Regardless, I highly recommend giving Ella Verbs a try if verb tenses are something you’re really struggling with. It’s easy to use and incredibly affordable, so you’ve got nothing to lose!

Click here to try Ella Verbs for yourself.

How to learn a language consistently: a step-by-step guide

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If you want to learn a language consistently step by step, but you have tried to learn languages in the past, and it just has not worked, you’re in the right place.

In this post, I’m going to teach you exactly what you need to know to be consistent, step by step. And I’m going to teach you through the eyes of my three-phase framework, The Method, because it summarizes and encompasses every single thing that you need to know. And I know this because that worked for me and it’s worked for all my clients. So without further ado, let’s get into it.

Phase 1: Mindset

Most people will tell you that your first step to learning a new language is either (1) choosing the language you want to learn, or (2) vocabulary. While that’s not incorrect, it’s also ignoring a big problem that a lot of language learners get stuck in.

The first phase of The Method is Mindset.

Limiting beliefs

When people talk about limiting beliefs, some of them mean simply:

“Just be grateful, put a smile on, and be confident!”

I believe your language learning mindset is much more complex than that.

You can have all the materials, time, and money in the world to learn a language, but if you feel that you are unable to learn a language for whatever reason, you will not be able to continue forward.

This may look like this:

  • believing that it’s truly impossible to learn a language because of a history of negative experiences, whether it’s based on a specific language or language learning as a whole
  • a paralyzing fear that you’ll make mistakes and be not good enough, embarrassed, or made fun of, resulting in the inability to even try
  • assuming that once you reach a certain age, it will be too difficult or even impossible to learn a second language if you were raised monolingual
  • concern that long-term language learning requires a lot of time, which is incompatible with a busy life

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While it may seem like these fears are true, they are just limiting beliefs. It’s easy to go on Duolingo or start researching beginner vocabulary; what’s difficult is sticking to it long term, long enough so that you’re actually making progress in learning the language instead of giving up in a week or so.

Language learning goals

It’s easy to say, “I’m going to learn a language!” And it’s very easy for people to say, “I have learned a language!” But here’s the thing: that is a vague statement.

While deciding to learn a new language is motivating enough to get anyone started, setting this as your goal gets a lot of language learners stuck because it’s more of an umbrella goal that encompasses infinite language learning goals.

For example, a language learner who just wants to memorize a few key phrases, like

  • “Hello, my name is ___”
  • “I am from ____”
  • “I speak a little ____”
  • “Where is the bathroom?”

…can “learn a new language” in an afternoon; on the other hand, someone who wants to be comfortable having fluent conversations in a new language can spend 6 months building the language skills they want.

My experience

While I’m a language coach today, I didn’t always know how to learn languages.

For the 2015-2016 school year, I spent the year living in Spain, teaching English in a secondary school. One of the biggest reasons for that decision was that I wanted to speak a new language, and I had taken several years of Spanish language courses in high school and college.

I assumed that if I was immersed in a Spanish-speaking country, I would inevitably learn conversational Spanish.

I was disappointed. Why?

Living in Spain, my language learning strategy was to practice verb conjugations and memorize vocabulary, just as I had been taught to do for years in school.

3 months later, my Spanish was at the exact same level.

While I had spent 3 months studying and practicing Spanish at all hours of the day, I wasn’t practicing the skills that I wanted to build. I wanted to have conversations in Spanish and was perfectly poised to learn how, but I was faced with 2 problems:

  1. I was afraid of having Spanish conversations because I didn’t want to be a burden on the native speakers I was practicing with
  2. My goal at the time was simply “learn Spanish”. If my goal had been more specific, like “get conversational in Spanish”, I would have been much more likely to prioritize those conversations

Unless you have those fears acknowledged and supported, and you know exactly what you’re trying to accomplish, you’re going to get stuck every time.

Phase 2: Methods

Everybody wants to learn the best way to learn a language right off the bat. This includes

  • language apps
  • online courses
  • language learning strategies
  • & any other way to learn a language you could possibly imagine

Here’s the rub: by itself, Phase 2 is a lot of information. That is why you spend Phase 1 really understanding your language learning goals. When you understand the skills you want to build, it’s easy to focus on the strategies that will be beneficial to you to achieve these goals, and simply ignore all the rest.

There are many different methods for learning a language, including:

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Many voices on the internet will recommend one particular strategy or resource, but I disagree – there is no one-size-fits-all approach to language learning, and you should experiment with different strategies to find what works best for you.

Relying on someone else’s language learning strategy is a good way to keep yourself stuck.

My experience

Before I was a language coach I was a struggling language learner; and in those years, there were only a few big language learning resources available: Duolingo, Babbel, Busuu, Rosetta Stone, and Pimsleur.

But as time has passed and language learning has become more accessible, the number of options has exploded. The good news is that it makes it easier to intentionally learn a language in a way that’s both fun and goal-oriented – the bad news is that it’s more difficult to choose between all these resources.

I remember feeling overwhelmed and unsure about what I wanted to achieve and which resources would best help me reach my language learning goals.

Over time, I’ve done a lot of research and experimentation with various language learning resources. I’ve compiled all that research into my language app search so that you can use it to find the resources that will best suit your needs, based on things like the language you’re learning, your current level, your budget, and more. It’s organized and designed to help direct language learners to the resources that will work best for them, based on their goals, learning styles, and preferences.

I’ve analyzed and pulled out the key features that make certain resources more effective for certain skills, and I use those commonalities to help you find the language learning resources that will work best for you and your language goals.

For example, you can find different resources that offer:

It’s never been quite so easy to learn a language online, which means that these resources are constantly growing and changing. That’s why I make sure these reviews stay up-to-date on all updates and changes.

Plus, I make it easy to compare and contrast different language learning resources. I do this most often on my YouTube channel, where I recommend different resources to solve different problems, but I have a few important comparisons here on my website, as well:

Phase 3: Metrics

Learning a language consistently is about more than choosing a strategy and hoping for the best – as we know from Phases 1 and 2, there are essentially unlimited expectations to have with a language and even more ways to learn it. Once we start, how do we make sure that we can keep going?

Metrics refers to the strategies that we use to stay consistent long-term, like:

  • routines
  • schedules
  • habits
  • taking breaks
  • when to change your strategies
  • tracking

Most important is that last bullet point: tracking.

Just like most people don’t talk about the mindsets necessary to learn a language, tracking is also commonly forgotten.

Tracking isn’t just putting “study” on your to-do list and checking it off, or maintaining your Duolingo streak every day; tracking includes the skills and information that are most important to you, like

  • which vocabulary words you want to learn to use
  • how engaged you are in your current approach
  • how much of the language you understand over time
  • your expectations compared to how much/often you actually study

This information is most helpful on those days when you feel like you’re really struggling, or if you feel like you’ve been slacking, and you start feeling anxious or guilty about these emotions. If you have this kind of data, you can double-check your tracking and not have to rely just on emotions.

For example, if you’ve been using a particular learning resource for a month but don’t feel like you’re making progress, you can use your tracking data to figure out why you’re not making progress, as opposed to getting upset and giving up. Maybe the resources you’re using are meant for a higher level than you are at the moment, or maybe you’re learning that you don’t actually enjoy learning languages in that way.

If you’re tracking your language learning and keeping tabs on the information that’s most important to you, it’s surprisingly easy to find the problem and adjust your language learning strategy.

My experience

For years, I used to beat myself up for not fulfilling my language learning routine. I thought it was a personal failing, a reflection of my laziness or lack of discipline.

For example, at one point I had bought a book full of introspective questions, and I decided that I was going to answer one in Spanish every single day. It seemed easy at the time, and I was really motivated to open up this pretty little book every day. Plus, it sounds easy enough to spend 5 minutes every day…10 minutes if I skipped a day and wanted to make up for it.

I still have that book in my closet. I think it lasted 2 days, maybe 3 before I gave up. I remember feeling disappointed in myself, and overwhelmed because I had skipped a few days so the “work” was just piling up and felt more and more stressful.

If I knew about tracking the metrics of my language learning at that time, I would have realized a few things, and been able to adjust:

  • while I liked the idea of this book, I didn’t enjoy using it enough to motivate me every day (or at all, really)
  • I wasn’t building the skills that were important to me
  • I was effectively punishing myself when I missed a day; instead, I should have allowed myself a break when I wanted it

At the time, I thought giving up on that book was a personal failure. I couldn’t stick to my own commitment to myself, so I didn’t “deserve” to learn the language, or I hadn’t “earned” it.

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Now I know that this was just information that I can use to improve my language learning strategy, and I won’t try this method in the future. No guilt, shame, or anxiety necessary!

Remember: don’t worry about being perfect. It’s about getting 10% better every day, and being willing to experiment with different strategies until you hit the jackpot.

And don’t be afraid to make changes when something isn’t working! It’s not personal.

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Polygloss Review: low effort, high quality

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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:

  1. Start a match (make sure it’s the right language if you’re using Polygloss to learn multiple foreign languages)
  2. Select one out of four images to write a sentence about
  3. Write a sentence describing the image in your target language
  4. 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!