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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.

Language Reactor review: learn languages with Netflix with ease

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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!

Yabla Review: ugly, but practical

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Yabla is a platform for language learners to find listening practice in all levels of the languages that are currently supported. It’s an awesome way to take in new vocab in context, play games, etc.

What does Yabla do well, and what are its flaws? In this Yabla review, let’s talk about what kind of language learners can really benefit from Yabla and who should give it a shot!

Yabla’s languages

Yabla has a ton of video content at every level imaginable, but it’s not available in many languages, at least not yet. Right now, Yabla is an option for those learning:

  • Chinese (Mandarin)
  • English
  • French
  • German
  • Italian
  • Spanish

These are all very commonly learned foreign languages, which makes it a great option for many language learners.

Yabla review: getting started

When you first join Yabla, you’ll get a kind of dashboard with a huge list of videos you can watch. It’s kind of overwhelming at first glance, but I suggest you start from the left-hand side, where you can choose things like:

  • collection (not really sure what that means)
  • difficulty
  • region
  • category

I recommend you start with “difficulty” and narrow down your search from there.

Make whatever choices make sense to your language learning and pick a video to watch!

There are a lot of random buttons and options and I don’t know what any of them mean yet (some sort of tutorial would be helpful here) so I just clicked one…and then was overwhelmed by more options!

On this 2000’s era platform, you can immediately see:

  • target language subtitles
  • English subtitles
  • normal options like fast forward, pause, slow down, etc.

From what I can tell, Yabla really wants you to use its platform to learn new vocab using their videos. So we’ll talk about that function before my preferred one: games.

Yabla review: learning vocab

In recent years, it’s been so much easier to learn a language with free videos with resources like Language Reactor and Trancy. Yabla, however, has been around for around 20 years now. So let’s see how Yabla handles things like translations, saving flashcards, etc.

It’s very simple, but it works.

It’s not nearly as pretty as something like Lingopie, and it doesn’t do things like highlight words you’ve selected, but it functions.

It’s also automatically set to autosave your new words as flashcards. There’s no confirmation or anything that it’s happened, so we have to leave the video and actively find the flashcard section to see what that looks like.

Again, this is perfectly functional, but an eyesore.

It’s fine that the flashcards automatically include SO much information, but flashcards are meant to be simple. Especially for beginner vocab like this, do we really need a whole paragraph from the dictionary?

Yabla may want you to use its platform primarily to learn new vocabulary, but it’s not better than (if not significantly worse than) more modern options.

Let’s move on to my favorite part of Yabla: games.

Yabla review: games

The thing that was super confusing to me when I started this Yabla review were the 2 orange buttons under every video: warmup and workout. There doesn’t seem to be a clear explanation as to what those are and when you should use them.

If you click over to the games section of a video, this starts to make more sense.

The warmup is comprised of 3 games: vocab review, multiple choice, and fill-in-the-blank.

As you can see, there is a small handful of vocab that Yabla expects you to learn from this particular video, and those words are the focus in these games.

I can see why Yabla has survived the test of time thus far; even if it’s not particularly kind to the eyes, this does keep the vocab interesting, and has you practicing it in a variety of ways (and not just vocab).

Using these words to exercise different language skills is a great approach. So far, I’m a fan.

So let’s see what kind of games are considered a “workout”.

The workout games include scribe (aka dictation), speak (shadowing/voice recognition), and recall.

They’re almost the same premise, but a significant step up in difficulty that is, again, exercising a variety of language skills! Scribe is a combination of listening and writing, speak is speaking, and recall is translating (not a necessary skill in my opinion, but you’re not obligated to play that one).

I told you that my favorite part of Yabla is their games!

And again, the platform itself isn’t great…I think if it was updated to look and feel like a more modern platform, it would most definitely be worth the price (more on that later).

Finally, if you just want to review the transcript (or print it) you can do that, too. There’s no audio linked to it, but you can click any of the vocabulary words to get a translation, which can be helpful.

Yabla review: lessons

While Yabla’s focus is vocabulary, they do have a collection of lessons. These are really just blog posts that connect some grammatical concepts to their already licensed clips.

Great in concept, I just wish they took the extra step to make these grammar points as engaging as their vocabulary. And if they were organized/searchable? Now that would be helpful.

In reality, these topics are random at best. There’s a search function, but I wouldn’t rely on it.

As of now, though, I think you’re probably better off using another website that’s more intentional about teaching you grammar.

For example, if you’re learning Spanish or French, Kwiziq is a much better alternative for grammar. For German grammar, I’d go with German Foundations instead.

Yabla’s prices

Yabla is a paid language learning resource. New users get a 15-day free trial, and then you’ll pay around $10/a month.

You can see updated pricing here.

Despite the aesthetics (or lack thereof) of the platform, if it’s something that you’re motivated to use consistently, I would say the price is worth it.

Yabla review: is it for you?

We’re at the end of this Yabla review, and I do have to say that I approve.

Yabla functions very well, and you will get a quality language education if you can get past the 2000’s era platform (literally, I don’t think it’s changed since they opened for business in 2005).

If you can’t, though, and you want the flexibility of choosing your own videos (Yabla licenses their own videos, so you’re stuck with what they give you), I would keep an eye on Trancy. It’s new, and I can Trancy being better and more accessible as time goes on.

Lingopie is another possible Yabla alternative – it’s not the most stable, but it’s beautiful!

And of course, there’s the crowd favorite, Language Reactor, which is super customizable but it’s missing the games and automatic flashcards that Yabla does so well.

Or if you’ve decided that Yabla is in fact the language learning resource for you, start your 15-day free trial now.

LyricsTraining review: effective learning thru music

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The LyricsTraining app and website…well they do exactly as the name suggests! It’s for language learners to train their listening comprehension in a foreign language using the lyrics from popular music. That part of this LyricsTraining review is obvious.

And yes, while you could just go to Spotify and look up lyrics, LyricsTraining has a couple more options meant specifically for listening comprehension that takes using music to learn a foreign language to the next level.

In this LyricsTraining review, let’s talk about what’s to love, and what it could do better, so you can decide if it’s the right resource for your language learning.

LyricsTraining review: languages

LyricsTraining hosts popular, high-quality music videos in a ton of different languages:

  • Catalan
  • Dutch
  • English
  • Finnish
  • French
  • German
  • Italian
  • Japanese (Romaji)
  • Korean (Romanized)
  • Polish
  • Portuguese
  • Spanish
  • Swedish
  • Turkish

That’s a pretty good mixture of foreign languages that are both very commonly learned (like Spanish and French) and not-so commonly learned (like Swedish and Finnish).

An account with LyricsTraining gives you access to music videos in all 14 languages (I love when they do that!) and even specifies which accent each song is in with a flag of the particular country the artists are from.

Very handy for language learners!

LyricsTraining review: using the app

Okay, let’s try this LyricsTraining review out. I chose Spanish not only because it’s my go-to, but also because it’s the only foreign language where my listening comprehension is advanced enough to try to listen to music.

When you first create your account, LyricsTraining sets your level at 0. This level isn’t at all associated with your actual level of listening comprehension, but how much music you’ve listened to and words you’ve “learned” (yes, I put that word in quotation marks for a reason, you’ll see).

So I clicked onto a video, pretty much at random.

lyricstraining review
lyricstraining review

See how this video is from Vevo? That’s always a good sign!

First I was given the option of multiple choice or karaoke; once I chose multiple choice, I was asked what difficulty level I wanted, each level of difficulty differentiated by how many words you have to fill in via multiple-choice; out of the 293 words in this song, I could choose to fill in 34, 66, 129, or all 293 words.

It’s kind of confusing to explain, but it’s a simple concept, don’t worry!

lyricstraining review
lyricstraining review

And there you go! This platform is really smooth, by the way, and I really love using it.

You play the music video you chose, and you get the lyrics all displayed, with however many words you chose redacted. It’s your job to listen to the lyrics and choose the right word. And with music, that’s sometimes easier said than done. Don’t worry – if you get it wrong, you can keep trying until you get it right.

Remember, music takes a lot of liberties with pronunciation, so a lot of these words sound completely different than they would in any normal conversation.

And because it’s music, it goes really fast. The lyrics do help, but with this app, you’re clearly not trying to understand the concept of what they’re saying, but individual words. I wish there was a way to slow it down and take the time to figure it out.

First complaint: give us the option to slow it down!

Nonetheless, this song was really good and I had fun listening to it and just tapping on the words. It’s a genuinely entertaining way of getting in some language practice! And if there’s one issue a lot of language learners face, it’s avoiding boredom.

And hey, if you need to hear the line a couple of times before you can try to answer (totally legit – even with my advanced comprehension, music is tough!)? No problem.

Swipe left to repeat it as many times as you need, or swipe right to skip it altogether. Let me reiterate: even if it is multiple choice, it can be tough to get the correct word the first time! Or the second time. Or third. (Don’t judge me.)

Or you can opt for straight-up karaoke, which is…exactly what you think it is.

If karaoke is your thing, this is a cool option that I haven’t seen elsewhere. It would be really cool to be able to put this on a TV or a computer or something (how awesome would foreign language karaoke parties be with your friends!?), but otherwise it’s pretty simple.

This way, you can focus more on pronunciation and moving your mouth in the right ways to form these words. Still lacking in giving language learners a chance to figure out what the song is even saying, though.

I don’t think LyricsTraining is as great as it could be (we’ll get there in a sec), but the part where you’re casually listening to foreign artists and training your ear to pick up on the words is honestly great listening practice!

Once you finish a song, you’ll get some very basic stats. I don’t personally find these particular stats the most helpful, but I know many language learners might. If anything, this could be great motivation. Green bars in stats = positive emotions!

That first stat, in particular, I don’t like. If you go into the “Vocabulary” section, you’ll find all the words that you’ve filled in the blank. Technically yeah, I’ve added 32 words to this list, but I didn’t choose the words, nor do I struggle with them.

This is not helpful at all for intermediate/advanced learners because, well, look at the words! That’s beginner vocab right there. I don’t need to review those words. LyricsTraining automatically pulled them for me for some reason.

It makes sense why these are the words that were filled in (something like the first 2,000 words of each language make up 80% of all conversations), but this vocab list isn’t helpful for me at all.

In fact, this part reminds me a lot of Beelinguapp: both apps pull out vocab that it thinks you need, based on pretty much nothing (considering this was the very first time I had tried this app), which is an unfortunately wasted opportunity to provide language learners with helpful vocab tools.

Not all of LyricsTraining’s stats are totally useless, though! They may be a little messy, but if you go into the “Activity” section, you get this.

Now that’s pretty helpful! Keep track of the songs you’ve listened to, how many times you listened to them, difficulty, success rate, etc.

LyricsTraining Premium

Again like Beelinguapp, LyricsTraining offers you a set amount of content for free, otherwise, it’s hidden behind a paywall.

Basically, you get to play music for free 3 times every 30 minutes. That’s a slightly strange way to measure free access, but at the same time, that’s a lot of free practice. We like free (high-quality) practice!

Or, if you’ve got $5/month to spare, you can get more out of your language learning.

You get full access to all the music your heart could desire, plus translations!

Now, the ability to translate sounds good, but what does that actually look like? Well, it looks like this.

In my opinion, this translation option is…meh.

On the bright side, you have the option to translate into a million and a half languages (not literally, folks) – no matter your native language (or even another upper-level foreign language), you can probably use it with this translator.

On the not-so-bright side, you can’t do anything with the words you translate. It doesn’t save it in a new flashcard set or give you the option to export it anywhere. If you want to save this word, you’ll have to do so manually, with your Quizlet, for example.

So, at that point, you’re better off using your own preferred method of translations, too. Which would render this tool totally useless.

LyricsTraining review: the verdict

At the end of this LyricsTraining, I find LyricsTraining to be a pretty decent resource. Exploring a language’s artists is a great way to not only practice the language but also get involved in a country’s culture, and this app makes it more accessible.

I do like both the fill-in-the-blank and the karaoke options – both are excellent strategies for building your listening comprehension and practicing saying the words (respectively). So if this is a language learning strategy that you enjoy and will help you build the skills you want to build, I’m a fan!

However, keep in mind that listening to music is rough. Even in your native language. Plus, LyricsTraining doesn’t offer a way to slow it down (which I don’t usually recommend with normal speech, but music is a different story).

The translation/vocab sections are left wanting, too. If you want to use music to find new vocab, you’ll be better off picking out that vocab manually and using another resource.

But if those factors don’t break it for you, give LyricsTraining a shot!

Lingopie Review: the best foreign language subtitles

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

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

Getting started watching foreign language TV

You can use Lingopie to learn 10 languages:

  • Chinese
  • English
  • French
  • German
  • Italian
  • Japanese
  • Korean
  • Portuguese
  • Russian
  • Spanish

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

Lingopie review: watching and learning

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Lingopie’s platform allows you to easily:

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

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

Reviewing vocab with Lingopie

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

Let’s take a look at all 3 options.

Pop Quiz

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

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

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

Flashcards

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

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

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

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

Word Master

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

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

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

Lingopie’s Chrome extension vs Language Reactor

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

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

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

Quantity of content

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

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

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

Quality of subtitles

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

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

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

Vocabulary review

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

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

Lingopie review: pricing

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

Click here for Lingopie’s updated pricing.

Lingopie review: alternatives

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

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

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

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

Should you use Lingopie to learn a language?

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

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

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

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

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

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