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LyricsTraining review: effective learning thru music

January 13, 2022 by Jamie Leave a Comment

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.

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!

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!

LanguagePod101 Review: A+…except for pricing

January 12, 2022 by Jamie 3 Comments

One of the more popular online resources to learn a language is LanguagePod101 (or JapanesePod101, SpanishPod101, etc.). Should you join the hype? This LanguagePod101 review will help you decide.

Learn about how the LanguagePod101 series (under the Innovative Language umbrella), how they teach languages, and whether it can help you achieve your language goals with this LanguagePod101 review.

LanguagePod101 review: languages

The LanguagePod101 series is available in a ton of languages, including:

For this LanguagePod101 review, we’ll look at SpanishPod101.

LanguagePod101’s free content

When you first sign up for an account, you’ll instantly be smacked in the face with a bunch of sales copy. They really want you to know that they’ll take your money!

Literally, that’s my first impression, that it’s really salesy. Which, I mean, if they can back it up, I’m ready to look past it. It’s when the paid product is crap that this becomes a serious nuisance.

As usual, my first step is to see what options I get for narrowing down the lessons: if it asks me about my experience with Spanish, tests my Spanish knowledge, and whether or not they actually use that information to help me.

SpanishPod101 (boy is that a mouthful) offers a diagnostic test. You can see below how I started with the bottom of the barrel, level 1 assessment, quickly understood what was expected, and then went through the levels until I was stopped.

Definitely beginner grammar. If that’s the level you need, then you’re all set! The issue is if you’re at all above that beginner level. If that’s the case, and you want to start out from where you already are, you’re gonna have to splurge a bit on the paid features.

I will definitely be addressing this, but first, we haven’t actually looked at the actual content yet! For this, I’m gonna stick to just stating that I’m at a vaguely intermediate level.

The next step is to choose a pathway! LanguagePod101 has a ton of content, and their solve for this is to create “pathways” depending on your skill level and goal. Here’s some examples.

As you can see, this pathway feature is almost like my language app search, though just for SpanishPod101 lessons. You can filter by how you like to learn (audio or video only), what subjects you’re interested in, and your current level.

When you click on the pathway of your choosing, you’ll basically get a playlist of the lessons included in the pathway. You can pick and choose lessons as you please.

Let’s get started with the pathway I’ve chosen!

I chose video because I’m not much of an audio person (Pimsleur, for example, bores me to tears), but considering this is basically just a YouTube playlist…it’s not much better.

So let’s go down a pathway that’s a SpanishPod101 “original”.

I’m impressed! What they’ve done here is come up with a short conversation to teach specific vocabulary/concepts, recorded, then split it up in a whole bunch of ways to give you a ton of options to study. With just one audio clip, you can

slow down the original audio
follow along in the target language or English
take the audio one line at a time, with the option of further slowing down each audio
listen to teach line, record yourself repeating it, and compare the two (a strategy called “shadowing”
do all the above with teach individual term introduced

That’s a lot! This is a seriously effective approach if you enjoy dissecting audios like this. You could literally spend hours on each audio.

You can also see lesson notes and grammar, but these are just basic written explanations. This is more functional for those who want to pick up the grammar implicitly (i.e. “figure it out on your own”) and might get stumped somewhere. If you need something more, I’d go elsewhere.

If you don’t want to use the available pathways, LanguagePod101 also offers a variety of vocab lists…with a HUGE caveat.

While you can view all sorts of vocab words, this is clearly built just for paid customers. I really like this platform, but any aspect of this section that would be really really great is stuck behind that paywall.

And I’m guessing part of their strategy is to show you that paywall enough times that you get frustrated and fork over the money.

LanguagePod101 review: paid content

With a free account, you do get access to a lot of stuff – basically, all the content itself. Paid subscriptions have access to all the content presented in a variety of different formats. So, really, it’s up to each individual language learner if a paid membership is worth it.

What’s more, there are three paid options. This makes things kind of confusing (in my opinion), but I’ll let the website speak for itself.

Remember how I talked about how salesy the whole site is? This is where that bait and switch comes back.

Those advertised prices don’t seem too bad at first glance! But see the asterisks? Those asterisks are there to let you know that that monthly rate only applies to 2-year subscriptions…which means you could be paying up to $550.

Holy crap!! That’s…incredibly misleading! Especially because when I go to purchase a $12.58 subscription for one month of Premium Plus, and it ends up being $47. Literally almost 4x the advertised price.

If you’re able to commit, then you’ll start to see the more reasonable monthly cost, but you’ll be paying it upfront and hoping that “new language learning resource energy” doesn’t die out.

Fortunately, these subscriptions also include a 60-day money-back guarantee, which…helps.

Regardless, this is what I really wanted to test out: getting my own teacher and personalized assessments. If this section is decent, then it’ll absolutely be worth $47/month.

The first questions are more qualifying questions: your current level, where you’re from, and the reason you want to learn Spanish.

Then we get into the assessment itself.

In just 10 questions, the assessment quickly goes from beginner Spanish to advanced to see where you’re at. It’s a pretty good test – even I wasn’t sure about a lot of it!

That was a tough test! It tested every aspect of learning Spanish (except speaking), and it touched every level.

When you submit your responses, you’ll get an automatic result, plus a verification by a “resident Spanish expert” within 48 hours.

When that email arrives, it’ll really break down the process that they recommend you use with the content they give you. It’s very, very, very in-depth. Here’s what the email says about the podcast episodes and lesson tools:

Listen to the main audio track
Read the lesson notes
Listen to the audio track with the lesson notes. If you don’t understand 80%, listen a third time
Review difficult vocabulary

On top of all that, you also get a Student Manual which, among other things, basically forces you into a weekly schedule of listening practice, vocabulary review, and writing practice.

Your teacher is there to help answer questions, guide your curriculum, assess your progress, and more.

LanguagePod101 review: should you try it?

If this LanguagePod101 review taught me anything, it’s how detailed and well-rounded this language learning resource is. All of the content itself is free to all users, but paid members get the benefit of a more personalized, hand-held approach to their Spanish.

All that said, who’s it for? Well, the free lessons are great for listening practice. You can find seemingly unlimited free podcasts that guide you from ultimate beginner to native-level audio with transcripts included for you to pick and choose the vocab you need to work on.

And the paid membership?

If you’ll really benefit from taking apart the content in several different ways, then the lower tiers would be beneficial to you. Do keep in mind, though, that unless you commit to 2 years’ worth of lessons (which adds up to a few hundred bucks alone), you’re not going to be paying $4/month. It’s misleading and I really don’t like that.

But the higher tiers? Those are definitely for language learners looking for structure. Like a lot of structure. LanguagePod101 is meant to be treated as seriously as an in-person class, which helps you keep yourself accountable, mixed with the flexibility of a one-on-one tutor, at a fraction of the price.

That Premium Plus level is very much so worth it if that’s what you’re looking for! LanguagePod101 does everything…EXCEPT for speaking practice! You will not get effective conversational practice using this resource.

If you want a great vocab/grammar/reading/listening education, this might be a great option for you. If speaking is your primary concern, though, this might be a waste of your time. In that case I’d recommend something like Language Transfer or Pimsleur (still audio-based, but for speaking).

And even though the advertised rates for the Premium Plus membership are not completely honest, it is a genuinely good deal to have someone holding your hand and providing you with personalized homework for $25-$50/month (depending on how long you want to commit yourself to this).

Click the appropriate language below to get started:

Slowly Review for learning a foreign language

January 12, 2022 by Jamie 1 Comment

Slowly is a free mobile app that isn’t primarily meant to be used to learn languages, nor is it one of the most common ways to practice writing in a foreign language. That doesn’t mean that this Slowly app review doesn’t belong here! I’d be doing you a disservice if I didn’t share this potential method of learning a language with you.

Back before the days of smartphones, instant messaging, and emails, we used snail mail. It would take days (or even weeks, depending on how far away your mail was going) for a letter to arrive, and tons of people miss this method of communication for a variety of reasons.

What does this have to do with learning languages? As it turns out, a lot! In this Slowly app review, I’ll touch on the reasons why it shouldn’t go ignored as a language learning resource, and, as always, what kind of language learners can benefit from it!

Slowly: app walkthrough

When you get your first look at Slowly, there’s no mention of language learning. Like I said, it’s not really meant as a language learning app. That’s not to say that it’s not a great way to get in practice, though!

Slowly is explained as a way to meet pen friends from your smartphone. And it’s free! Which real-life snail mail is not.

After downloading, you’ll plug in a TINY bit of information, but really not much. Fortunately, Slowly is pretty respectful of common sense internet rules, and just requests that you set up an avatar and nickname.

I got a little frustrated when it was telling me my nickname contained characters that were not allowed when really it was just too long, but whatever, I guess.

You can pick out a few subjects that you’d like to talk about (up to 30), pick out up to 5 subjects that you don’t want to talk about, and then pick languages! You also tell Slowly your proficiency in this language, which then shows up on your profile for other Slowly users to see.

Even just here you can see that this app has some potential for foreign language practice! Realistically, all any language learner needs is a person to talk to who speaks the language, and Slowly definitely offers us access to this!

Then Slowly will let you know a couple of important nuggets of info, and you’ll get started finding pen friends.

That first image is the thing that makes Slowly so great for language learners like me!

The awesome part of snail mail is that it takes a while. It’s not instant. A lot of people love the nostalgia of that, which is fair. Personally, I don’t appreciate it for that particular reason.

If you’re like me, you get overwhelmed by too many instant messages (using something like Tandem or HelloTalk), especially if they’re not in your native language and it takes you more effort to read and respond. That overwhelm is a major turnoff and becomes a serious obstacle to getting in more writing practice.

With Slowly, it takes an entire day to send/receive messages. I like how this gives me a chance to breathe. It’s significantly less stressful for me. I don’t have to feel rushed to understand any messages, nor to express myself in the language, which can be really difficult sometimes.

Anyways, Slowly offers you two ways to meet new pen friends: auto-match or manual. I don’t personally like auto-match, but here are the options you can choose from in your new auto-match pen friends.

If that’s not your thing, you can filter through potential pen friends and reach out to the ones that sound (read?) like someone you’d want to talk to. And, of course, everything is pretty anonymous – there’s no real picture, no real name, nada!

You can see which languages these potential pen friends can communicate in as well as which country they’re from, which I love.

The most important stats are when they were last online and their “sent:received” ratio. There’s no limit to how many people you send mail to or how often you send mail, it’ll just take a minute to get there (and get back to you when they respond).

For example, mail that I send to/receive from Spain takes 20 hours to get to its destination. Mail that’s going to/coming from different countries in South America takes just 8 hours.

Nonetheless, send a message to anyone you want! The only requirement set by the app is that your message is at least 100 characters, which makes sense. Imagine receiving an actual piece of mail and it just said “hey”. That’s something that only works in the atmosphere of instant messaging; otherwise, you’d just be wasting your actual money.

Pro tip: I didn’t receive any letters from people I didn’t initiate the conversation with until I wrote a bio. Once I did that, I started getting letters!

A couple of things to note about how all this works.

You’ll always know what letters are coming from who, and when they’ll get to you. Basically, you’ll be able to see everything except for the message itself.
Once you work up a history of talking back and forth with someone, you’ll always be able to see all of your messages together, which is fun!
Because of the nature of this app, conversations have to be…simpler. This isn’t a chat where you can easily reference every little statement – it’s more like you got a letter from someone responding to your letter, but since you don’t have the letter you sent, it can be hard to remember what you’re talking about.
If you’re “friends” with someone, you can share other types of media. It doesn’t really have much to do with the actual “pen pal” part of it all. Basically, if you’ve gotten to the point where you’ve actually built a relationship with a pen friend, it’s another way for you two to connect!
Many people like to collect stamps, just like with normal snail mail. You can collect stamps by having pen friends from a variety of different countries, or you can go ahead and buy them with real money (though it’s totally unnecessary, and goes to support the app).

And, really, that’s it! The Slowly app is a pretty simple concept for connecting with those who speak your foreign language natively, without a lot of the pressure of face-to-face conversations or instant messaging.

It’s not a language learning app, and that might matter

I’ve mentioned that Slowly isn’t built specifically for language learners – it’s more of an “accidental” option for language learners who would really benefit from it.

However, because it’s not particularly meant for language learning…it’s not perfect. For example, in comparing Slowly to HelloTalk, there is quite a bit of deficit.

I mean, HelloTalk supports text, audio, video chats, real-time corrections…there’s a lot of options. And Slowly just doesn’t have any of those features. It’s just like writing physical letters to a pen pal, except it’s digital.

The fact that Slowly is simple is one of the reasons why it’s so great but definitely has its pros and cons. Other features would make Slowly more desirable for language learners, but, at the same time, the lack of features is part of the charm. It’s a bit of a double-edged sword.

But there are three main reasons why Slowly could be more beneficial to you as a language learner (as it is for me):

Like I’ve said, the pressure is gone. HelloTalk stresses me out. Instant messaging is great for real quick conversations, but I get overwhelmed when it takes me a minute to figure out how to write a message in a foreign language, just to have to do it all over again a few minutes later.
Slowly allows you to operate in more than one language for free! HelloTalk makes you pay for more than one language (it’s only a few bucks a month, but it’s more than free!). With Slowly, talk to as many people as you like in as many languages as you like. No worries!
Total anonymity. If you’re feminine-presenting or have a feminine name, you know what it’s like to hop on a texting app and get bombarded with texts from men. That issue is solved with Slowly!

Slowly app review: who it’s for

With this Slowly app review, understand that it doesn’t have a lot of the tools that HelloTalk or other resources have, but I don’t think language learners should necessarily turn their cheeks to the practice or the friendships that are possible either.

For one, if you really value the nostalgia of snail mail, Slowly is a fun app to use no matter if you’re trying to work your foreign language skills or if you’re just interested in connecting with other English speakers.

For two, Slowly is a nice option to slow down (and I just realized that’s why it’s named Slowly!) your communication and take away the instant-ness of modern-day conversations.

Slowly is like the Speechling of speaking practice for the introverts of language learning; let’s take away the pressure of live conversations while still working on our foreign language skills!

Regardless of whether you feel comfortable using Slowly in the language you’re learning or not, Slowly is a really fun way to connect with strangers that you would’ve never connected with before, while also keeping your identity protected for internet safety reasons.

Tandem Review

January 11, 2022 by Jamie Leave a Comment

Tandem is one of the fairly popular names in the language learning world for connecting language learners with native speakers of that language. Right from your phone, you can strike up a conversation with somebody who speaks a foreign language, get in practice, and make a friend!

In this Tandem review, let’s dive into what goes into this experience: the pros, the cons, and if Tandem is right for you and your language learning journey.

Oh yeah – we’ll go into Tandem Pro too, and see if it’s something that you can benefit from, or if you’re good to go with the free app.

Tandem languages

Because of the way Tandem works (meaning Tandem itself doesn’t really create content, it’s all the content [messages] that users create), there isn’t really a limit to languages! As long as you can find somebody on the app that is willing to talk to you in that language, you’re set.

Which is why on the website, Tandem lists its languages as:

English
French
German
Italian
Portuguese
Russian

Spanish
Japanese
Chinese
Korean
Other

In other words, open up the app and give it a shot, you never know!

Tandem app review: getting started

When you first download the Tandem app, you’ll get some pretty basic starting, qualifying questions. Unlike qualifying questions with other apps that want to know your level in the language you’re learning (’cause, spoiler alert, you should have the vocab/grammar down to participate in basic conversation), Tandem’s questions figure out who you are and where you’re looking to go.

Pretty basic stuff, right?

When choosing which languages you’re practicing, you can choose as many languages as you like at any level. And Tandem offers almost any language under the sun – basically, if there’s someone on the app who speaks your language, you’re set!

Once that’s done, you’ll get some more qualifying questions to help pair you up with a conversation partner that you’ll actually enjoy talking to.

Again, pretty basic, reasonable stuff.

I wouldn’t sweat these questions too much; I’m not sure they really show up anywhere major, and even if they do, nobody really pays attention to them. In my experience, you’ll get a GIANT influx of messages once you get going anyways! And, to be honest, I’m not sure anyone really ever sees your answers. Maybe it’s just an internal thing?

Oh yeah, and that last screenshot? I’m not sure if Tandem is trying to push Tandem Pro here or if there’s actually a “waiting line”, but my account was approved within like 20 minutes or so. Use your real name and a real photo of you (yup, that’s required!) and you shouldn’t have any problems.

Nonetheless, you do get this offer:

If you really love using Tandem you could find a lot of value in Tandem Pro. It’s very reasonably priced and gets you a lot more access to more practice as well as partners that you may have more chemistry with.

At the very least, I think the unlimited translation would absolutely be worth it. Find a friend or two that’ll help you build up your vocabulary and it’ll be an awesome learning tool!

After all that setup, it’s time to get in some practice!

Tandem review: finding a partner

The first place you’ll go is the Community tab. Here’s you’ll find a long list of potential conversation partners to help you practice the language you want to learn.

Everybody’s got a picture, their real name, and a “bio”, which seems to be their answer to the “what are your goals” question that we answered before. Sometimes it’ll be a complete sentence, and at the same time I’ve literally seen just “environmental” as a bio, so….grain of salt?

Here you see a couple of things. Most importantly, obviously, there are a few potential candidates for getting in some language practice.

Since I told Tandem that I’m a native English speaker and am learning Spanish, they’re recommending the opposite back: native Spanish speakers learning English.

Above that, you can see “featured learners” which…I’m not entirely sure what that means. Maybe really active texters?

And above that, you can search for members who are geographically near you. That’s only relevant if you’re a paid member and value in-person language exchanges.

BUT this option does provide great opportunities for language learners who are interested in local language learners but want to test the waters a bit and see if you actually enjoy talking to language learners nearby.

If you’re not finding anybody who you have any interest in talking to, hit the “settings” button in the upper-right hand corner to get this screen.

My favorite part of this is where you can select your gender and your age range. Especially considering you have to use your real name and your real photo, I get totally inundated by messages from dudes (like the guy who asked if my dad is an artist [cue massive eye roll]), so that’s incredibly helpful!

I found one person that I wanted to talk to and initiated a conversation with her. Then BAM!

So. Many. Texts. So. Many. Notifications.

I wonder if I was put into that list of “featured” texters?

I mean, it’s great for finding new conversation partners! The sky’s the limit!

It can also be incredibly overwhelming, which is why I’ve left most of these messages unread. Honestly, I just couldn’t keep up!

Oh yeah, peep that last one. What, you thought I was lying?! You think women don’t drown in messages from random men just because they’re women? Think again, mate!

Now, when you’re in a conversation, what options do you have available to you? Well….like all of them. Tandem is primarily a texting app, but you can easily enough also use it to video chat, send audio messages, images, GIFS…you name it, you got it!

Plus, one thing that’s really helpful if you want to be precise, is easy corrections within conversations.

It may be worth mentioning that Tandem doesn’t supply you with any special keyboards or anything, so you’ll need to make sure that your phone’s native keyboard supports the letters (accents and all!) that your target language uses.

Personally, I just use Google’s keyboard, and that gives me access to all the accents I need to text in Spanish, French…and pretty much every accent that I could possibly need for letters in the Latin alphabet.

Honestly, the few conversations I did have before I got overwhelmed (which I already knew was going to happen based on my HelloTalk review) were really enjoyable! It just…texting is really quick, you know? It’s meant to be instant, rapid-fire. Which is hard when you’re doing it in another language!

That includes not only reading and figuring out someone else’s messages in another language but also taking the time and energy to communicate in the language yourself. It’s really hard work.

Most of the conversations I had were mostly (if not all) in Spanish. Most of them also didn’t really volunteer corrections, but that’s an easy enough thing to just ask a person about.

Dani, on the right, was the first one to correct my texts, so I did the same back. It’s really nice, but it also requires a lot of mental energy, when you’re already using so much mental energy to translate these texts!

That mixed with all the messages I was getting from random Spanish speakers…it can be a lot for some people. And one thing we want to avoid with language learning is getting too overwhelmed/expecting too much from ourselves.

Tandem tutors

Lastly, we have one more section of the Tandem app: the “Tutors” section.

This is a kind of interesting model, to be honest. I mean obviously, anybody using this app would have at least some interest in a paid tutor, I guess I just wasn’t expecting it?

Nonetheless, Tandem handpicks tutors for you that they think are interesting to talk to. You pick a tutor, pick a time, and select how long you want your lesson to be: 20, 40, 60, or 90 minutes long (which is a really long lesson!)

This is just one example of one of the tutors you can try out. I mean, there are plenty of ways to learn to speak a language, but if you haven’t found one that you like just yet, maybe you’ll want to give this section of Tandem a go!

Who the Tandem app is for

After doing this Tandem app review, I love it! I think this is a great resource for language learners: the app is attractive and smooth, there are a ton of potential conversation partners (at least for Spanish, I can’t say for less popular languages), and it’s really easy to get thrown into some conversational practice.

But, like I said, I knew going in that it wouldn’t be for me. While the concept is great, Tandem is not for language learners who easily get overwhelmed by a lot of conversations/attention (i.e. introverts). If you have the social energy to keep it up, Tandem is great!

Tandem is primarily best for writing (or texting) practice, but the sky’s really the limit. Considering you can send audio clips or even have a video chat with anybody, that takes care of your speaking practice, as well. That’ll get you your reading and listening practice along with it!

It’s also worth reiterating that Tandem is not for absolute beginners – you should at least be able to carry on a basic conversation, or you’ll be totally lost. Otherwise, though, Tandem is a great way to get in all four of the major language learning skills!

Lingopie Review: the best foreign language subtitles

January 11, 2022 by Jamie 3 Comments

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

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

Getting started watching foreign language TV

You can use Lingopie to learn 10 languages:

Chinese
English
French
German
Italian

Japanese
Korean
Portuguese
Russian
Spanish

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

Lingopie review: watching and learning

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Lingopie’s platform allows you to easily:

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

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

Reviewing vocab with Lingopie

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

Let’s take a look at all 3 options.

Pop Quiz

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

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

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

Flashcards

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

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

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

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

Word Master

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

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

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

Lingopie’s Chrome extension vs Language Reactor

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

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

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

Quantity of content

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

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

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

Quality of subtitles

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

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

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

Vocabulary review

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

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

Lingopie review: pricing

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

Click here for Lingopie’s updated pricing.

Lingopie review: alternatives

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

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

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

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

Should you use Lingopie to learn a language?

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

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

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

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

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

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

Babbel Review: textbook, but make it modern

January 11, 2022 by Jamie 3 Comments

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

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

Babbel is available for learners of the following languages:

Danish
Dutch
English
French
German
Indonesian
Italian

Norwegian
Polish
Brazilian Portuguese
Russian
Spanish
Swedish
Turkish

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

Babbel review: overview

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Babbel’s lessons

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Babbel doesn’t put up these obstacles.

Babbel Live

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Babbel’s pricing

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

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

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

Click here to learn more about Babbel Live.

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

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

Babbel review: who it’s for

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

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

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

Sold? Click here to start with Babbel!