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Trancy Review: Language Reactor alternative with tons of potential

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Trancy review

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

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

Trancy languages

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

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

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

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

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

How to use Trancy

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Trancy review: practice mode

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

  • Speaking
  • Listening
  • Selection
  • Filling
  • Dictation

This is how each activity functions.

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

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

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

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

Collections

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

This is what that looks like.

Again, interesting concept, but this could use work.

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

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

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

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

Trancy’s AI functions

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

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

I’m surprised!

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

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

Trancy review: cost

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

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

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

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

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

You can see Trancy’s updated pricing here.

Trancy review: should you try it?

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

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

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

Click here to get started with Trancy!

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

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

Ella Verbs review: your best bet for Spanish conjugation practice

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

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

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

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

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

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

Journey

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

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

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

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

Speaking of levels…

Levels

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

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

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

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

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

Friendly reminder that Ella Verbs is exclusively a verb app!

Vocabulary

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Progress

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

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

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

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

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

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

Custom

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ella Verbs review: who it’s for

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

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

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

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

Ella Verbs review: alternatives

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

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

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

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

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

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

Click here to try Ella Verbs for yourself.

Polygloss Review: low effort, high quality

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

Polygloss languages

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

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

  • Arabic
  • Catalan
  • Dutch
  • English
  • Esperanto
  • German
  • French
  • Hebrew
  • Icelandic
  • Italian
  • Irish
  • Japanese
  • Korean
  • Mandarin
  • Norwegian
  • Polish
  • Portuguese
  • Russian
  • Spanish
  • Toki Pona
  • Vietnamese
  • Welsh

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

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

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

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

How to use Polygloss

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Polygloss’ motivational features

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

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

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

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

Polygloss review: the Library tab

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

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

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

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

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

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

Polygloss price

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

  • Translating submissions*
  • Bookmarking texts to be reviewed later*
  • Save received corrections*
  • See your history, as shown in the above video
  • Listen to texts using your device’s text-to-speech

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

Here’s the “official” breakdown.

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

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

Polygloss review: pros, cons, and alternatives

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

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

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

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

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

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

Lingbe Review: language exchanges without the texting phase

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

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

How to use Lingbe to learn a language

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

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

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

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

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

  • Rooms – live group chats, like Clubhouse for language learners
  • Tasks – asking & answering questions about your native & target languages

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

Lingbe review: finding a phone call!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Paying for LingbePro

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

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

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

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

  • Unlimited practice sessions
  • Extend practice sessions
  • Calls to practice pals
  • Video calls
  • Gender filters
  • Skip users
  • Greetings
  • See your visitors
  • Create practice rooms
  • Join practice rooms
  • Make rooms private
  • Post Lingbe tasks
  • Prioritized Lingbe tasks

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

Lingbe review: is it for you?

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

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

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

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

Click here to check out Lingbe for yourself!

Language Reactor review: learn languages with Netflix with ease

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

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

Language Reactor: an overview

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Learning new words with Language Learning with Netflix

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

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

Watch the above video to see features in action like:

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

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

Holy options, Batman!

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

Speed options in Language Reactor

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

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

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

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

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

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

How to customize Language Reactor

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

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

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

Clicking around the settings, you can customize options like:

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

Netflix and YouTube Catalogues

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

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

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

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

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

Saved & highlighted vocab

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

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

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

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

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

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

Language Reactor review: the pros and cons

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

To start, Speakly supports the following languages:

  • English
  • Estonian
  • Finnish
  • French
  • German
  • Italian
  • Russian
  • Spanish

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

Speakly review: My Classroom

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

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

Speakly’s level assessment

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

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

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

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

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

Speaking of beginner levels…

Beginner language learners look elsewhere

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

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

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

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

This left me frustrated, confused, and stuck.

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

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

Speakly Live Situations

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Listening exercises

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

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

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

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

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

Grammar

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

Fortunately, Speakly offers grammar sections for you to reference.

Unfortunately, they’re completely useless.

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

Then there’s German.

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

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

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

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

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

Speakly review: pricing

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

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

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

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

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

Speakly review: should you try it?

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

To summarize:

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

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

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

  • English: CC1
  • Spanish: CC2
  • French: CC3
  • German: CC4
  • Italian: CC5
  • Russian: CC6
  • Estonian: CC7
  • Finnish: CC8

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

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

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

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

Click here to start learning a language with Speakly!