Multilingual Mastery

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Babbel vs Duolingo: only one will truly teach you languages

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Babbel vs Duolingo are two of the most popular language-learning resources on the market. While they’re both great for language learning in general and have really nice platforms, each of them has a different approach. This review will help you decide which app to use to learn a language

We’ll compare behind-the-scenes looks into the apps themselves and see what you can expect from each way to learn a language.

Languages

Babbel and Duolingo both offer a wide variety of languages, which means some significant overlap. Both apps can be used to learn:

  • Danish
  • Dutch
  • French
  • German
  • Indonesian
  • Italian
  • Norwegian
  • Polish
  • Portuguese
  • Russian
  • Spanish
  • Swedish
  • Turkish

The only other language that Babbel supports that Duolingo does not is English. Otherwise, the list of Duolingo languages is honestly massive. Because all the other languages cannot be compared to Babbel, I’ll let you read more in my Duolingo review.

It’s also important to know that not all languages are equal, especially on Duolingo. While you can spend months learning Spanish on Duolingo, a newer language won’t have as much content. Babbel is much more likely to have some uniformity in their languages.

Babbel vs Duolingo: what you’ll learn

The first significant difference between Babbel and Duolingo is the approach each language app takes to teach you a new language. In simplest terms, Duolingo is much more of a game, while Babbel is closer to a high-tech textbook.

In this lesson, while it’s obviously more intermediate (as in, you’re completing sentences, not just matching words with pictures), it’s important to realize that this is all still passive. You’re consuming the language and expressing that you understand it, but that’s only one piece of the puzzle.

This is an important flaw because many language learners get this far into their Duolingo learning path, but end up frustrated because they can understand a lot more than they can communicate themselves.

A surefire way to know that you’re not developing your speaking skills is if you’re not spending a lot of time speaking. Duolingo gives you a little bit of opportunity with some speech recognition exercises, but it’s definitely not enough to truly build those skills.

To compare, here’s a Babbel lesson at a similar level.

The lessons aren’t wildly different, but they are different enough that as you continue through them, you’ll end up with very different skills. You’ll find yourself tired after a few minutes of Babbel, because you’re working your brain and having to figure out the language, not just press the right button.

With Duolingo, you can expect to nail down a solid routine (shout out to that anxiety you get when you’re about to lose your streak!) and be able to understand quite a bit.

With Babbel, your skill set will be more complex, and you’ll be able to do more with the language. It’ll be less fun and less motivating over the short term, but if you can stay reasonably consistent in the long term, you’ll be great.

Duolingo Stories vs Babbel Live

Babbel and Duolingo’s lessons are similar, but the way that each app helps language learners to “immerse” in the target language is vastly different.

With Duolingo, each language has a “Learning Path”, which is essentially a handful of lessons followed by Duolingo Stories. These Stories used to be a separate activity from the Duolingo tree, but now they’re stuck right into the Learning Path, and you’re required to complete them to continue to the next lessons.

Objectively, this is a more helpful strategy to make sure you’re getting more realistic practice.

As you can see, Duolingo Stories takes you through a real-life conversation, so you can see the language in action. It’s still just tapping buttons and figuring out just the general gist of the conversation, but it’s a step closer to functional use of the language, and a step is a step.

In recent years, Babbel has taken a much larger step towards connecting language learners to useful skills: Babbel Live. This feature (outside the Babbel app) makes it easier for language learners to work with professional teachers in group classes.

These are online classes with real-life language teachers who have the material to support your language learning right alongside the lessons you’re learning inside the app.

Unlike Duolingo’s Stories, Babbel Live classes are not required; in fact, they’re an extra subscription (more on that below).

Babbel vs Duolingo: price

When comparing Babbel vs Duolingo, the biggest difference is the price.

One of the major parts of Duolingo’s brand as a whole is that its app is free. There are ways to pay, but you will never be restricted from educational material if you don’t want to or are unable to pay.

While this is true, many language learners believe that Duolingo intentionally changes their app so that it’s next to impossible to use without a paid subscription. Whether this is true, I can’t say, but it is worth noting when comparing paying for Babbel with Duolingo’s paid subscription.

On the other hand, the Babbel app is a paid service, through and through. You can see updated prices here.

Babbel Live, the group coaching platform, is another paid service. Here’s Babbel Live’s prices. Fortunately, if you do invest in a Babbel Live subscription, they throw in full access to the app for free!

Duolingo is always free, Babbel is not (especially not Babbel Live).

Which one?

After comparing Babbel vs Duolingo’s lessons, goals, immersion activities, and price, it should be pretty clear which language app you should be using.

At the end of the day, Duolingo is free and fun, but it’s important to remember that it’s designed to make you feel like you’re making more progress than you really are. And unfortunately, most language learners don’t realize it until they’ve spent many hours in the app and then try to participate in a conversation.

You can learn more in my Duolingo review here.

Babbel is much more structured and is designed to help you build practical skills. Babbel’s primary goal is real-life, functional skills, in a way that’s logical but not boring. It’s not for everyone, but if you decide that Babbel is your best bet, the app (and Babbel Live) will get you far.

Read more about both in my Babbel review here.

Pimsleur review: barely keeping with the times

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Back in the days of pre-internet language learning, you had 2 ways to learn a language: attend a class, or buy one of those CD sets that had you go over words and phrases in the language over and over again until you got a hang of it. The CD method is basically this Pimsleur review – yeah, it’s old-school.

This Pimsleur review will talk about what exactly the Pimsleur method is, Pimsleur’s promises, and what to expect if you do choose to buy the course. Is Pimsleur right for you?

Pimsleur review: languages

Right off the bat, Pimsleur boasts a significant number of languages:

  • Albanian
  • Arabic (Eastern)
  • Arabic (Egyptian)
  • Arabic (Modern Standard)
  • Armenian (Western)
  • Armenian (Eastern)
  • Chinese (Cantonese)
  • Chinese (Mandarin)
  • Creole (Haitian)
  • Croatian
  • Czech
  • Danish
  • Dutch
  • English
  • Filipino (Tagalog)
  • Finnish
  • French
  • German
  • Greek
  • Hebrew
  • Hindi
  • Hungarian
  • Icelandic
  • Indonesian
  • Irish
  • Italian
  • Japanese
  • Korean
  • Lithuanian
  • Norwegian
  • Ojibwe
  • Pashto
  • Persian (Dari)
  • Persian (Farsi)
  • Polish
  • Portuguese (Brazilian)
  • Portuguese (European)
  • Punjabi
  • Romanian
  • Russian
  • Spanish (Latin American)
  • Spanish (Castilian)
  • Swahili
  • Swedish
  • Swiss German
  • Thai
  • Turkish
  • Twi
  • Ukrainian
  • Urdu
  • Vietnamese

Pimsleur is an audio-based resource, which means the specific accent of any given language can be very important. So, if a certain “version” of a language is important to you, then Pimsleur may be an excellent match for your needs.

The Pimsleur Method

The Pimsleur Method is based on the research of the late Dr. Paul Pimsleur, whose interest and research were based on memory.

The Pimsleur Method itself is a very strict one: 30 minutes of practice every single day (no more, no less), of pure listening and speaking work. Do not attempt to read or write while you listen.

With this approach, Pimsleur promises you’ll be able to converse at an intermediate level in just 30 days. 30 days of 30 minutes of practice today means Pimsleur promises intermediate-level fluency after just 900 minutes (15 hours) of listening and speaking.

Pimsleur review: lessons

The first 30-minute lesson of every language on Pimsleur is absolutely free. You can work through any language you like, as many times as you like, but it’s only that first lesson. This can give you an idea if the approach is something that you’d like to use, without any financial risk.

For some, this first minute-long snippet is all you need to know about Pimsleur. You’re listening to an audio clip of a man slowly explaining (in English) a basic exchange of basic phrases.

If you find that boring, go to my language app search instead to find something better for you. If the slow pace and the excessive English narration don’t bother you, continue reading this Pimsleur review.

As mentioned early, Pimsleur was designed to be listened to and repeated (a common language learning strategy called “shadowing”) while you’re doing something else, like driving or doing the dishes.

When going through these lessons, you’ll start out with pretty basic, usable phrases: “Excuse me, do you speak English?” and “No, I don’t”, for example. Great for tourist-level learning, and getting a pretty solid background of the language.

Pimsleur will take these phrases apart and really drill you in on each individual aspect of the words and phrases, which is good for absolute beginners. It’s definitely all about training your ear to figure out what you’re listening to and saying. Excellent for listening practice as well as pronunciation – understanding the exact sounds that the language uses, not just the word itself.

Pimsleur’s reading approach

While Pimsleur is primarily focused on practicing speaking conversational phrases, it’s also recommended that you continue on their reading practice (but only after the initial lesson is done).

Here you’ll break down the pronunciation of important words and patterns bit by bit, by preparing you for common pronunciation mistakes as well as comparing the sounds of your target language with the sounds of English.

This is truly a slow, methodical approach to pronunciation via shadowing.

It’s not really reading as much as it is pronunciation, which is confusing. In fact, nothing about Pimsleur’s method could be considered effective reading practice.

Pimsleur review: other activities

The two samples above are really the meat of the Pimsleur app. There are other features (discussed below), however, it should be noted that that is THE Pimsleur Method. The rest of the features mentioned in this Pimsleur review are more of Pimsleur’s attempts to keep up with the times than anything else.

As in, not completely necessary.

For example, here are the practice games Pimsleur uses to help you truly drill the lesson’s vocabulary into your brain.

I do like that they’re trying to make the content just a little more engaging for the 21st century, but remember that Pimsleur is very clear that all these fun and games are after you listen to the initial lesson, not instead of.

While it feels like Pimsleur missed the mark a bit with those games, I do enjoy Pimsleur’s voice coach (it’s a chatbot….anytime you hear a language app talking about chatbots, it’s this).

In the future, I’d really like to see Pimsleur expand this section. Personally, I find this much more engaging than listening to a 30-minute recording that’s mostly in English anyway.

Pimsleur review: price

In the past, Pimsleur was very financially inaccessible – you would plan to spend a few hundred dollars for just a basic language education. Fortunately, time and tech have changed, and Pimsleur has negotiated their prices accordingly.

As aforementioned, you can access the first lesson of any language for free at any time.

If you decide to continue with the Pimsleur Method, you can opt to pay monthly, either for just the language you’re learning or for all languages Pimsleur offers. You can see updated pricing here.

Fortunately, gone are the days of spending $1,000 and waiting for your new CD set to come in the mail (and hoping for the best that you’ll actually use it) – now you can get started instantly!

Pimsleur review: who it’s for

We’ve reached the end of this Pimsleur review, so should you try it?

As I said, if the slow pace, the relaxing cadence, or the heavy English narration are distractions for you, then Pimsleur may not be the best way for you to learn a language. In that case, I would suggest Language Transfer or the LanguagePod101 series.

Or, even simpler, find videos for beginners on YouTube! That free content combined with the Language Reactor Chrome extension…the sky’s the limit.

However, if you enjoyed listening to the videos in this Pimsleur review and are happy to repeat words and phrases until you can have simple conversations, Pimsleur may just be the language app for you. Get your 1-week free trial here!

Glossika review: for all your repetition needs

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Glossika is a highly engaging way to learn 60+ different languages. It does this with AI-supplemented sentences, high-quality audio, and a variety of different types of exercises. In this Glossika review, let’s take a walkthrough of the platform and discuss who can benefit most and who won’t.

And if Glossika doesn’t look like your kind of language app, keep scrolling to see some Glossika alternatives.

Glossika review: available languages

As mentioned, Glossika offers courses in 60+ languages:

  • Arabic (Egypt)
  • Arabic (Morocco)
  • Arabic (Standard)
  • Armenian (Eastern)
  • Azerbaijani
  • Belarusian
  • Bengali (India)
  • Bulgarian
  • Cantonese (HK)
  • Catalan
  • Chinese (Mandarin)(Beijing)
  • Chinese (Mandarin)(Taiwan)
  • Croatian (Ĺ tokavian)
  • Czech
  • Danish
  • Dutch
  • English (British)
  • Estonian
  • Filipino (Tagalog)
  • Finnish (SW dialect)
  • French
  • Gaelic
  • Georgian
  • German
  • Greek
  • Hakka (Hailu)
  • Hakka (Sixian)
  • Hebrew
  • Hindi
  • Hokkien
  • Hungarian
  • Icelandic
  • Indonesian
  • Irish
  • Italian
  • Japanese
  • Kazakh
  • Korean
  • Kurdish (Sorani)
  • Latvian
  • Lithuanian
  • Manx
  • Mongolian
  • Norwegian (Nynorsk)
  • Persian
  • Polish
  • Portuguese (Brazilian)
  • Portuguese (European)
  • Russian
  • Serbian (Ekavian)
  • Slovak
  • Slovenian
  • Spanish (Mexican)
  • Spanish (Castilian)
  • Swahili
  • Swedish
  • Thai
  • Turkish
  • Ukrainian
  • Uzbek
  • Vietnamese (Northern)
  • Vietnamese (Southern)
  • Welsh
  • Wenzhounese

And because Glossika cares about language preservation, a few of them are available for free; you don’t get all the benefits of a paid membership, but you do get unlimited spaced repetition practice to do your part to keep these languages alive.

We’ll talk about that more at the end.

Glossika review: the placement test

To start with Glossika, you can first opt to take a placement test. It’s a very simple test: listen to a few audio recordings of sentences, and select the sentence that you hear. If it ever gets too hard, you can always let Glossika know that you need to start from that level.

Unfortunately, like most placement tests, it’s pretty useless.

While the audio recordings themselves are very clear and high quality (the same goes for the usability of Glossika as a whole), I’d rather they just toss the whole thing.

The sentences are so different that all you need to do is recognize one single word at the beginning to answer correctly. This is regardless of whether you understood the statement itself or could even create it – you can see towards the end of the above video that I could answer correctly based on literally the first word.

And that’s beside the fact that it’s only testing listening (despite claiming to exercise all the language skills) and didn’t even attempt to test me beyond B2. Where the placement test is concerned, I’d rather they just ask me directly.

Glossika review: learning new phrases

Glossika teaches users a new language by introducing new sentences that are useful in day-to-day life. You’ll learn to understand the language implicitly, as opposed to learning new vocabulary words and grammatical terms piece by piece.

You’ll learn 5 phrases like this at a time, through reading, writing, listening, and speaking, as well as using spaced repetition.

Glossika lessons follow this format:

  1. The new phrase is presented written in both your source and target language
  2. You hear a recording of the phrase in both languages, so you can follow along
  3. You type out the phrase in the foreign language
  4. You reread the phrase just in the foreign language
  5. You record yourself saying the phrase in the foreign language

As you can see, you got these phrases drilled into your brain really well. It doesn’t seem to be wildly sensitive to mistakes (I didn’t use any capital letters or accents, for example) which can be a significant drawback if you don’t get used to spelling appropriately, especially with Spanish.

Glossika is very customizable, which is a plus; for example, you can opt out of speaking practice if it’s not convenient for you at the moment, or you can turn the English translation on or off. The only problem is that these customizations aren’t obvious.

Another example: this next video was actually my first attempt at a lesson with Glossika.

I didn’t realize that it had automatically been set to “listening mode” until I started clicking around. There’s no tutorial showing you these options, nor any attempt to even let you know they’re there, so you’ll have to do some experimenting for yourself.

Maybe there’s an option to require correct accents somewhere? If there is, it’s not obvious.

Another helpful setting that Glossika didn’t tell me: if any of the phrases are too easy for you, just click the smiley face, and they’ll be taken out of the cycle.

Nonetheless, if used appropriately, this approach can provide language learners with a very well-rounded language education.

As a whole, I do love Glossika’s approach! In general, it’s engaging, modern, and really attractive.

Glossika’s “reps”

If you hang around Glossika’s Facebook group enough, you’ll see tons of talk about “reps”. The basic idea is that Glossika teaches through repetition, and your mastery of any given phrase or sentence can be defined by how many reps you’ve completed.

With Glossika’s approach, if you repeat their sentences enough times, you’ll master the language! How many times? According to this page here:

  25,000 Reps → Speak sentences comfortably
  50,000 Reps → Start engaging in casual conversations at natural speeds
  75,000 Reps → Start honing skills with more specialized topics
100,000 Reps → Mastery level where you can say just about anything

This is Glossika’s version of spaced repetition (also known as SRS). This concept is not unique to Glossika; it’s when a computer program predicts how easy or difficult any given term or phrase is for you. If it’s easy, and you get it correct, it puts that term to the side until it thinks you’re just about to forget it. Then it shows you that phrase again, therefore getting that phrase from your short-term to long-term memory.

Does this make sense? Sure. Using this strategy, could you theoretically boil down a language to a specific number [of repetitions]? Makes sense.

The problem is (and this is my personal opinion), repeating the same phrases tens of thousands of times is insanely boring.

You’ll practice each phrase 5 times at a minimum, more often if you’re struggling with it. This strategy is great for the more logical and scientific of minds, less so for those needing more entertainment.

Don’t get me wrong, repetition is very important for every language learner. But for my own personal needs, this level of repetition drives me crazy.

Using your stats

Glossika is very scientifically-lead, so their stats are a bit more interesting than most. For one, I love this feature of the “Memory” tab.

Note: I don’t know if the audio problems are because of my device, or a Glossika error.

As I was doing my spoken reps, I honestly didn’t realize that my audio was actually being recorded, so I was disappointed at first. However, going back into this section I can listen to myself repeating the phrase, and compare it to Glossika’s native audio.

This is a helpful strategy called “shadowing”, where you learn to mirror your pronunciation of a foreign language based on an audio clip. Honestly, it’s pretty tough to come by, which is strange considering it’s a simple way for any given language learning app to help you practice speaking a foreign language.

Another interesting feature: you can choose the topics of Glossika’s sentences.

I appreciate being able to tell Glossika that I have absolutely no interest in talking about the military or science. It’s not quite enough to make the approach less boring (again, as a personal opinion and not at all an objective one), but every little option that users can mess with is a bonus.

Glossika’s pricing

Glossika offers free trials to all new users, and then offers 2 pricing tiers: $30/month for unlimited reps in unlimited languages, and about half that per month to only change your language once every 30 days.

This new lower tier is brand new as of this Glossika review, and I’m very happy to see the compromise to make language learning more accessible!

And finally, in an effort to promote minority languages, the following languages are 100% free to all users:

  • Catalan
  • Gaelic
  • Hakka (Sixian)
  • Hakka (Hailu)
  • Kurdish (Sorani)
  • Manx
  • Welsh
  • Taiwanese
  • Wenzhounese

If going through this Glossika review convinces you to give it a try (more on that below), I highly recommend you at least spring for your free trial. No credit card is required!

Glossika review: who it’s for

Glossika is beautiful, smooth, and high quality, but it’s not for everyone. For one, Glossika does not start from 0, with basic vocabulary and grammar. Instead, you’ll start with beginner phrases. It’s more of the “figure it out as you go” approach, as opposed to the “1+1=2” one.

If you’re a big fan of repetition, Glossika is great for a wide variety of language learners, especially how well they tackle all the language skills. The advanced customization is a huge plus, too, as long as you’re tech-savvy enough to figure it out for yourself.

But if you want usability with a less…sterile approach, you’re not alone. If that’s the case, I might recommend Busuu, which connects the language more by way of living, breathing community, as well as more explicit language lessons.

Hooked on Glossika and want to give it a try? Click here to start your free trial!

Rocket Languages review: scripts from 0-fluent

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Rocket Languages is a genuinely well-rounded way to learn languages that has the potential to help language learners achieve many different kinds of goals. In this Rocket Languages review, we’ll walk through some lessons and talk about what Rocket Languages does well, not so well, and if it’s a resource you should consider.

Language options

You can use Rocket Languages to learn:

  • American Sign Language
  • Arabic
  • Chinese (Mandarin)
  • English (American)
  • French
  • German
  • Hindi
  • Italian
  • Japanese
  • Korean
  • Portuguese (Brazilian)
  • Russian
  • Spanish

For this Rocket Languages review, let’s test Rocket Languages Spanish.

Rocket Languages review: level 1 interactive audio

Rocket Languages has its material organized into 3 levels (as well as some other courses for practice, depending on the language), and each of those levels has its own dashboard. Starting with the very first lesson in the very first dashboard, you’ll learn the very first phrases you’ll ever need: how to say ‘hello’.

First, you’ll get an audio file introducing you to everything, all in English (which makes sense, considering if you’re starting at level 1, you probably don’t understand much Spanish). It’ll introduce you to that first conversation.

Or, as I did in the video below, simply skip past the English introduction and jump right into the audio itself.

I do love the modernized interface – you have complete control over the speed of the audio, which part of the audio you’re listening to, and have a clickable transcript for us visual learners. You can also download the mp3 for independent practice without having to go back into the course itself.

I still don’t like how much if it is in English (that’s my main issue with the Pod101 series, too), but it is easy enough to skip past it and get right into the goods.

Regardless, this script is very slow – excellent for beginners, but not for you if you have experience with the language (at least, not level 1). But you’ll go through a normal greeting conversation with some helpful tips: how native speakers speak, any important cultural knowledge, etc.

If this is too slow for you (and you’ve already purchased the course), you can jump right to the lessons at your level. There is no need to complete any lessons – move around Rocket Languages as you please.

Next, you’ll take that same conversations and break it down even more for you to act out both sides of the dialogue.

In this first lesson, you get an incredibly simplistic conversation, and a ton of options for digesting said conversation:

  • Play the conversation
  • Play Mauricio’s side of the conversation (for you to role-play as Amy)
  • Play Amy’s side of the conversation (for you to role-play as Mauricio)
  • Play each individual piece of dialogue independently
  • Record yourself saying each individual piece of dialogue independently

This offers fresh new beginners plenty of opportunities to learn the way that they need to learn. And if it’s too easy for you (which is totally understandable – this is at a snail’s pace), click the gear at the upper right-hand corner to manage the settings.

With these extra settings either checked or unchecked, you can give yourself more of a challenge by:

  • Blurring the English translation (practice thinking in the language)
  • Blurring the Spanish text (practice listening comprehension)
  • Removing a word or character for a fill-in-the-blank
  • Having Rocket Languages grade your recording

In these sections, Rocket Languages uses speech recognition to grade your pronunciation. I generally don’t like to rely on this tech, but I do like being able to see what it thinks I’m saying.

After this “extra vocabulary” section – vocab that is relevant to this conversation but doesn’t actually appear in it – it’s time to “make it stick with Rocket reinforcement”! Using the same conversation, you’ll continue to:

  • flashcards
  • more speech recognition
  • transcription (type the statements)
  • verbal translation (see the English words, say them in the target language)
  • multiple choice quiz

In all these reinforcement tools, Rocket Languages also prompts you to report how easy or difficult any given term is! This is my absolute favorite and I wish I saw it more.

It keeps track of what you’re learning, kind of like Anki and LingoDeer do – literally just tell Rocket Languages how well you know the term. Then, once you’re through with those flashcards, you have the option to just study the more difficult ones again.

It’s important to notice that the transcription exercise corrects you if you don’t use appropriate accents. Always write the language correctly – the accents are more than just annoying pronunciation marks.

But, at the same time, whether you got it right is completely self-reporting. So technically you could just not make an effort to use the accents, but they did their due diligence to tell you. If you don’t have an accurate understanding of the language, that’s on you.

Language & culture lessons

On the dashboard, under the “interactive audio” lessons, you’ll find “language & culture” lessons. These lessons are here to give you some key background information of the language, including pronunciation tips, grammatical patterns, and more.

Basically, this is where Rocket Languages takes important knowledge that can be dry (and therefore normally avoided), and applies it to their methodology to make it a bit more intriguing.

For example, the first lesson explains the difference between the B and V sound in Spanish – it’s not a make or break kind of thing, but definitely helpful for pronunciation.

This is honestly great – most resources don’t explain things like the alphabet from the get go, as most resources (as well as most learners) don’t tend to find these things important.

Interactive audio level 3

As we’ve already seen, level 1 is very, very slow and simple, great for total beginners. Rocket Languages is broken up into 3 levels, so how advanced does level 3 get?

Honestly, more advanced than I’d expected!

This particular conversation is around an upper-intermediate level. Considering how slow and simple the first level was, I’m pleasantly surprised by the content here. It’s played at a decent speed as well, and very clearly.

If you want a more native-level speed, you’ll have to find native content.

If you want to challenge yourself more (which I highly recommend if it’s not too much of a stretch for you), go into the gear icon and turn off the English translations. At this level, your comprehension likely can take a bit more pushing – do it if you can.

My only issue is that “cheesy” clarity. For some it may be beneficial, as it’s easier to understand, but it’s almost unrealistic unless you’re in an elementary school classroom.

However, this doesn’t reflect on the approach as a whole, which I tend to agree with. For example:

Grammar isn’t crucial to being able to make yourself understood in a conversation.

I mean, it’s true. If conversing fluently is your goal, you don’t have to be too concerned over grammar. Which is probably why they don’t formally address grammar at all. It’s nodded at in contextual examples, but that’s about it.

Nonetheless, I don’t see you ever running out of conversational practices. Once you’re done with all 3 levels, you can click on to “Travelogues” for even more conversational practice: 20-30 minutes of advanced-level conversation, where you need to actively go to the English version if you want the translation.

Rocket Languages review: pricing

I can honestly say that Rocket Languages is a high quality resource, which means it comes at a high quality price. You can spend a couple of hundred dollars for all 3 levels, or if you don’t plan on needing every level, you can lower the price by purchasing courses individually.

Click here to see up-to-date prices.

Buying Rocket Languages includes access to only 1 language.

If this Rocket Languages review shows you that this may very well be the best language learning resource for you, that price tag may make you a bit nervous. Keep in mind that not only does that price include lifetime access to all updates, but you can also always trial the first few lessons of any course for free (this review is based on those very same trial lessons).

rocket languages review

The first free lessons, at every level, are available to you forever. No obligation, no nothing.

Who can benefit most from Rocket Languages?

Rocket Languages is a very well-rounded resource that can take you from day 0 of your language to a pretty advanced level for one program. It presents a variety of different ways to study, based on what’s engaging and important to you, with no obligation to use any of them if you don’t want to.

However, if you need fun sounds, bright colors, and heavy gamification, Rocket Languages’ clear, lightweight activities won’t keep you interested.

Same for those who want a thorough knowledge of grammar – you’ll get a basic idea/feel for grammar, but you’re mostly left to pick up patterns implicitly without drills or grandiose explanations.

Otherwise, if you have a bit of cash to invest in your language learning and want to engage almost all the senses no matter where you are in your journey, click here to give Rocket Languages a try.

Mango Languages review: 70+ beginner languages

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Mango Languages is a crowd favorite for language learners because it’s engaging, offers real-world education, and can be accessed for free through institutions everywhere. In this Mango Languages review, learn everything you need to know about this resource for your own language goals: what it does well, what it doesn’t, and who should use it.

And if you fall under the category of language learners who won’t really benefit, this Mango Languages review ends with a couple of other recommendations, based on Mango Languages’ biggest flaws.

Mango Languages available

To start, Mango Languages offers plenty of languages, plus quite a few different dialects/accents within those languages, including:

  • Arabic (Egyptian)
  • Arabic (Iraqi)
  • Arabic (Levantine)
  • Arabic (MS)*
  • Aramaic (Chaldean)
  • Armenian
  • Azerbaijani
  • Bengali
  • Cantonese
  • Cherokee
  • Chinese (Mandarin)*
  • Creole (Haitian)
  • Croatian
  • Czech
  • Danish
  • Dutch
  • Dzongkha
  • English
  • English (Shakespeare)
  • Filipino (Tagalog)
  • Finnish
  • French*
  • French (Canadian)
  • German*
  • Greek
  • Greek (Ancient)
  • Greek (Koine)
  • Hawaiian
  • Hebrew
  • Hebrew (Biblical)
  • Hindi
  • Hungarian
  • Icelandic
  • Igbo
  • Indonesian
  • Irish*
  • Italian*
  • Japanese*
  • Javanese
  • Kazakh
  • Korean*
  • Latin
  • Malay
  • Malayalam
  • Norwegian
  • Pashto
  • Pirate
  • Polish
  • Portuguese (Brazil)*
  • Persian (Dari)
  • Persian (Farsi)
  • Potawatomi
  • Punjabi (Pakistani)
  • Romanian
  • Russian*
  • Scottish Gaelic
  • Serbian
  • Shangainese
  • Slovak
  • Spanish (Castilian)*
  • Spanish (LAm)*
  • Swahili
  • Swedish
  • Tamil
  • Telugu
  • Thai
  • Turkish
  • Tuvan
  • Ukrainian
  • Urdu
  • Uzbek
  • Vietnamese
  • Yiddish

The languages marked with an asterisk(*) also include a variety of different cultural courses, from etiquette to business to superstitions and beyond.

These courses mean that you can also use Mango Languages to learn professional phrases, or even just fun ones (Like St Patrick’s Day Irish, for example). If you’re looking for a clear-cut, specific path in your target language, this is a great, unique approach.

Fun vocabulary options are a great way to make sure you’re enjoying the language learning process! Even if you don’t *need* St Patrick’s Day vocabulary, it still qualifies as legitimate exposure to the language. These fun sections are not reliable across languages, though, so check what’s available before assuming you can use it to learn professional Uzbek, for example.

Mango Languages: an overview

Mango Language’s courses are laid out in a very simple, modern way – no advertising, no outside podcasts or blog posts, nothing – so you can focus on the language and nothing else. It’s been completely redone within the past couple of years, and these updates have made massive improvements to the platform’s usability.

These courses are broken up into units and chapters. Once you start whichever chapter you like (there are no requirements for going through any prior lessons or units, just pick and choose whichever lessons suit your fancy), you’ll see that each chapter is one conversation that you’ll be dissecting. You’ll get a collection of phrases/sentences for a real-life conversation, and break them down bit by bit.

Specifically, you’ll learn to have these conversations by learning the individual words, phrases, and then sentences, with some nice little cultural facts thrown in. You’ll then learn to piece together all of this information yourself, with the option for plenty of help along the way.

As you continue on through these lessons, you’ll learn and understand each individual word and phrase in a variety of different ways. And each of these ways will be repeated many times.

When I say Mango Languages takes sentences bit by bit, I mean bit by bit. The first thing you learn isn’t the entire phrase included in the first piece of dialogue, but just the first word. Mango Languages crawls. Excellent for beginners, but painful for everyone else.

Nope, can’t fast-forward the speed, either.

For each and every little bit, you’ll get:

  • the word you’re learning
  • its translation
  • an audio recording (you can repeat as many times as you like)
  • the option to record yourself saying it (to compare with their audio)
  • the pronunciation

Think you’ve got it? The next step is a chance for you to translate it independently.

These sections are giving you the tools that you need to use the language, it’s up to you to piece the tools together correctly using critical thinking. Using the examples, grammar notes, and cultural notes, you’re led to rise to the challenge of forming foreign language sentences.

Did you notice the color coding? As a visual learner, I do love this part. It makes it easier for me to create the link in my brain between the two phrases and helps me to pick apart what each individual word means, and how the words come together in a way that makes sense.

As you learn new languages, you learn that sometimes the most difficult part is that sentences aren’t built the same across different languages. Words are all out of order, some words don’t even exist in other languages, and some languages need 10 words to say something that another language says in one.

Then, each phrase is repeated consistently while you continue to learn more, which is very helpful in turning that short-term memory into long-term memory if you need to take it slow. Later on in this post, we’ll take a look at Daily Review, which helps even more with building long-term memory.

Note: I completely forgot to turn off the narrator’s voice up until now in this Mango Languages review! From here on out, you’ll hear limited English and mostly Spanish. This is easily configured in the settings, in the upper right-hand corner.

Once you have the meaning down, Mango Languages has you actually practice the words and sounds.

So, if you’re an ultimate beginner in the language and have never studied any language before, Mango Languages definitely has a few decent options to offer!

And a lot of simple repetitions. This is, again, excellent for beginners. A lot of the time, there’s no easy way to learn something except seeing or hearing it as many times as it takes for your brain to catch on. Consistency is key, especially when it seems like a word is never going to stick!

Daily Review

Recently, Mango Languages has also included more tools to help baby language learners form a habit. With the mobile app, you can add and customize study reminders by day of the week and the time of day you want to receive your reminder. Very handy for even the busiest or most distractible language learners.

And even if you’re not using the mobile app, desktop users can access the review section at any time. Instead of going through the initial lessons over and over again, you can basically review the flashcards automatically created based on your past lessons.

Click the button, and you get those same options for self-study:

  • switch between “literal” and “understood” translation
  • listen to the audio
  • record yourself saying it

PLUS, unique to this section is the self-reporting buttons on the bottom and the option to take a card out of the deck in cases where you know that card like the back of your hand, so you don’t waste your time.

Self-reporting flashcards are my absolute favorite! They make it easier to get an accurate understanding of what you’re learning, instead of a resource assuming that you know any given term better or worse than you actually do.

I also love the power language learners have over what they need to review. Some language learning resources are much stricter about this, so it’s good to see this level of customization. There’s nothing more irritating than being forced to review terms that you already know.

Plus, it’s such an attractive interface! The only other resource that does this as well is Rocket Languages.

Mango Languages review: pricing and access

While Mango Languages is a paid resource, there’s a good chance you can find your way to free access through local institutions. They partner with public libraries, corporations, schools, and other public entities all over to provide free, unlimited access to all 70+ of their language learning courses at any time.

If you can’t find access through an institution, however, you can always opt for a paid subscription yourself. Fortunately, paid subscriptions are still very reasonably priced at less than $10/ month. Click here for updated pricing.

Who Mango Languages is for

For one, this Mango Languages review makes it clear that beginner language learners would benefit the most. As you grow in your language learning, the speed and repetition become unbearable, but it’s a very generous start for those who process slowly or are simply brand new to the language. This is also true concerning the content itself – it’s just for beginners.

It’s also pretty surface-level, meaning you’re not going to be able to find clear, tangible grammatical explanations to study. I mean, there are some tossed into individual chapters, of course, but it doesn’t suit grammar- and rule-focused learners. You’ll get a general feel of the grammar that you need to understand one particular phrase, and that’s it.

At the end of the day, if you want a simple, modern design with hand-holding through a collection of pretty simple phrases, as well as some cultural education (depending on the language) in a frankly huge variety of languages, I recommend you give Mango Languages a shot.

But for many language learners, Mango Languages will be much too slow. If this is the case, I might suggest uTalk for support in the less commonly learned languages or Glossika for a more advanced approach.

Lingvist review: absolutely gorgeous vocab app

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Lingvist is a beautiful, modern way to learn vocab, both with their curated lists and a great opportunity for you to create meaningful vocab lists for yourself with the tap of a button. In this Lingvist review, you’ll learn all you need to know about this way to learn foreign language vocab.

In particular, this Lingvist review will touch on what kind of language learners can benefit from it, who won’t, and Lingvist alternatives that may be better if you’re of the latter category.

Lingvist languages

For native and higher-level English speakers, you can use Lingvist to learn:

  • Dutch
  • English (American)
  • English (British)
  • Estonian
  • French
  • German
  • Italian
  • Japanese
  • Portuguese (Brazilian)
  • Russian
  • Spanish (Castilian)
  • Spanish (Latin American)

However, Lingvist does teach English from a variety of other languages – in fact, you can learn English from just as many, if not more, languages than the other way around! Simply visit Lingvist’s website to see your options.

Lingvist review: getting started

As you create an account and get funneled into the Lingvist process, you go through an assessment to see where your vocab and reading comprehension is. It’ll start out at the very very beginning, and it’ll go about as far as you can!

To get you started in the Lingvist mindset, this initial assessment is 50 flashcards long. It might take a minute, but be patient and help Lingvist get a good idea of where your foreign language skills are at.

Get an answer wrong? Lingvist will correct you and have you try again – even if the only thing you got wrong was missing an accent. This may seem like a small detail, but it’s an important one – many language learners underestimate the importance of accents.

Without making any decisions on the content you’re learning (you can, and I’ll get to that in a sec), Lingvist puts you through a 50-card set of flashcards every day. Apparently, 4 days of this and you’ll “really start feeling the difference!”.

What else does Lingvist have to offer besides their automatically generated selection of flashcards? Let’s walk through Lingvist decks, Challenges, Insights, and Grammar.

Lingvist review: decks

Basically, Lingvist decks are collections of vocab words organized into themes. You can use the ones that Lingvist generated, or you can generate them yourself.

These flashcards follow the same rules as the others: Lingvist will start you out basic and easy, and continue to push your knowledge of the language until it can get a gist of your level.

When you go to create a course, you have several options:

  • Type in a couple of words and let Lingvist expand for you
  • Upload an image with words on it
  • Copy & paste text from somewhere else

Lingvist has their own walkthrough for you to see these options at work.

Note: the following 2 videos are from a previous version of Lingvist (hence the different look), but I left them in as more examples of this unique feature.

When you select this option, all you have to do is throw a couple of related words in there, and the app will automatically (like, within seconds) spit out a whole list of related words for you to add to your arsenal. Excellent feature for those who need specific jargon!

And, like Lingvist’s own curated decks, you’ll automatically get sentences to provide some context.

Don’t like those particular sentences? You also get the option to choose from a variety of other sentences that uses that same word in different contexts.

Or, if you already have your own context or something like a book or magazine that you want to study, Lingvist has a similar feature for pulling out the vocabulary words in any given text and creating a deck straight from that.

And yes, if the app already knows you know any of the words, it’ll put those terms to the side.

Honestly, this feature in itself is worth the price. No other language learning resource on the market does anything like it!

In my professional opinion, don’t sleep on this feature if it’s something you’re likely to use.

All three of these options are meant to improve your vocabulary, and they all do so through sentences to A) not get boring and B) be much more efficient.

So, if you’re looking to work your vocabulary muscle, Lingvist gets an A+!

Lingvist review: Challenges

The second tap of the Lingvist app is labeled Challenges. You can either pick one from the whole list of Lingvist challenges, or you can filter by Conversations, Grammar, Listen, or Read.

These challenges are all very quick, very easy activities that you can use to practice speaking, grammar, listening comprehension, and reading comprehension, respectively. They’re also all labeled by level, so if you’re at a more advanced level, just scroll down.

While the platform is undoubtedly gorgeous, you can see the challenges can be a little glitchy. As a user of Lingvist for German (which isn’t yet advanced enough to use these challenges), I don’t personally use this section of the app, so don’t let this feature make the decision for you.

The Conversations challenges feature an honestly really beautiful chatbot to help get you used to the flow of a conversation. Just follow along with the pre-made script, practice some pronunciation, and get yourself in the mindset of someone fluently speaking the language.

Suffice it to say, the challenges are a cool bonus, but definitely not the star of Lingvist’s show.

P.S. The actual fun facts at the end of these challenges are pretty good! You’ll come across more obscure language facts, rather than something simple, like “in Spain, people greet each other by saying ‘buenas’!”.

Lingvist insights

Another handy tool for consuming mass amounts of vocab: Lingvist’s insights. Under this section of the Lingvist app, you can not only see your 5 last seen vocab words, 5 most practiced vocab words, and your entire word list complete with:

  1. native audio
  2. contextual sentence
  3. how long it’s been since you last saw it
  4. and how often you’ve practiced it

…but also fun numbers like your success rate, how much time you’ve spent, and more.

These statistics are language-specific, so you’ll have to switch to studying a different language if you want the statistics for another one.

I’m normally not a fan of in-app statistics, but I love this. This view is on par with Anki’s statistics; they’re much more aesthetically pleasing than Anki’s stats, but a little less detailed.

Lingvist review: Grammar

While Lingvist does have grammar explanations and examples from beginner to advanced – which is a good sign that there is plenty of room for growth in your language – these sections don’t connect to any practice.

Lingvist does flashcards really well, so I’m disappointed that this grammar section doesn’t have flashcards (or at least some sort of fill-in-the-blank practice) connected to it. I would love to see these lessons paired with the beautiful, contextual sentences that Lingvist does so well.

What I would love is to be able to go into the grammar section, review a concept, and have the opportunity to actively practice that concept, either on the same page or through a simple link.

Unfortunately, this section looks like something that was just copied and pasted from a textbook or something. There’s no opportunity to truly use this information.

Lingvist Pricing

Lingvist is a paid app, and in my opinion, it is 100% worth the price! This is a wildly high-quality and effective method for learning foreign language vocabulary, as well as some comprehension and speaking practice on the side.

You can view Lingvist’s current pricing here, but it’s generally around the $10/month range (less if you pay annually).

Whichever subscription type you choose, you can also start out with a free trial, during which Lingvist will show you how it matches up with your level based on your initial 50-term deck.

Plus, all subscribers get access to all languages at the same time and are able to switch languages as they please.

And remember: you’re not just limited to the vocab they’ve put together, you can also (instantly & easily) create your own vocab lists that are relevant to whatever it is that you’re working on.

Who should use the Lingvist app?

Lingvist is genuinely beneficial to language learners of all levels, from total beginner to advanced, who want to improve their vocabulary with a beautiful, effective resource. Personally, I am a huge fan and hope that Lingvist expands to more languages for English speakers in the future.

I’m honestly hard-pressed to think of language learners who wouldn’t benefit: those who don’t want to grow their vocabulary, obviously, and maybe those who need excessive levels of gamification. While the Lingvist app is absolutely gorgeous, it’s definitely more modern and “grown-up” than many other vocab apps.

If you’re looking for that heavy gamification, you may be better off with something like Quizlet, though it doesn’t have the handy “create a course” features, advanced vocab, or comparable high-quality context built-in.

For what it does, I feel safe saying that Lingvist can’t be beat!