Multilingual Mastery

Online language learning coaching & education

Intermediate

Busuu review: the best combo of academic & social

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Busuu is one of the most popular, recognized, and biggest language apps out there (so much so that they bought out Verbling, and are now owned by Chegg, a huge education company), and in this Busuu review, it will be made clear why it’s so well-liked. Get to know all of Busuu’s features and how to best use them for your own language learning so you can reach your language goals faster.

If after this Busuu review you find that it’s not the best solution for your language learning, I’ll also share some alternatives based on Busuu’s flaws so you can make the best choice for your languaeg learning.

Busuu review: languages offered

Busuu is available to learners of the most common foreign languages:

  • Arabic
  • Chinese
  • English
  • French
  • German
  • Italian
  • Japanese
  • Polish
  • Portuguese
  • Russian
  • Spanish
  • Turkish

Busuu is appropriate for all levels of these languages, making it accessible for language learners coming from all over. This is important because some of Busuu’s features are only successful because of its huge audience.

Without further ado, let’s take a look at Busuu and see if it’s the language app for you.

Busuu review: quality of lessons

Thanks to Busuu’s partnership with Chegg (a college education company), you can rely on Busuu for a high-quality education based on the CEFR levels (or Fluency Score, as they put it). Right from the start, this sets our expectations: Busuu is focused on academic use of the language, i.e. passing exams and textbook knowledge.

While many of us language learners have been taught that this is the only and/or best approach to learning languages, but it quite simply is not (always). If your goal is not an academic one, and you instead want to focus on being conversational as a priority…well, we’ll talk about this lower down in this Busuu review.

With this in mind, let’s take a look at Busuu’s first lesson to see how they execute their academic approach.

If you’re not a total beginner in the language, you have the option to take Busuu’s assessment. As a general rule, I take these online language level assessments with a grain of salt; no matter the platform, they’re almost always some variation of inaccurate. I recommend you do the same.

From the start, it’s clear that I was right about Busuu’s approach to learning a language! Very academic, very focused on using the language “correctly” and working towards the eventual goal of taking and passing an assessment.

Busuu’s assessment basically judges my ability in Spanish based on grammar, and much less so on things like communication or understanding. As such, I was really frustrated to be put at the A2 level in Spanish. I understand why – my A2 grammar is top-notch, and my intermediate is fairly functional but not quite textbook – but A2 is much too conservative, and I know that the content will be too easy.

It doesn’t seem like this would be too big of a deal, but in the past (and in the present for many language learners) I’ve followed these assessments, learned what they’ve told me to learn, and then quickly gotten bored and given up because of it.

After completing the assessment, you’re sent off to a comprehension lesson based on where Busuu thinks your level is. And keep watching, because I was genuinely shocked at the end to see some gamification.

As I assumed, the A2 level was boring and repetitive for me. The vocabulary was snooze-worthy, and I was not even the least bit challenged. This isn’t as much of a problem for me because I know how to solve the problem, but it can prove to be an insurmountable obstacle for language learners who are used to being bored and use this as further proof that they don’t like/are not good at learning languages.

Fortunately, Busuu allows you to switch lessons and attempt checkpoints at any time! You have to achieve at least 80% in this checkpoint, and the questions are pretty well-rounded. They prioritize grammar, of course, but also include other ways to use the language.

Regardless, I do really like the lessons themselves (once I get to my appropriate level!). Everything is very smooth and user-friendly, and the video comprehension questions make the language just a touch more 3-dimensional, too. I can tell that they’re trying to make a traditionally boring skill just a bit more engaging.

And like any intentional journey to learn a language, Busuu lessons end with a certificate! Unfortunately, official institutions will not accept a McGraw-Hill (another textbook company!) certificate from Busuu as proof of foreign language fluency.

You can use it as a resume builder for unrelated career paths, or you can frame it for your own personal pride, but it’s not the same as an official CEFR exam.

This certificate is also only available to paid users (which we’ll talk about more in a second).

Vocab review

Need to review? Busuu has a sleek way to have you review the vocabulary terms you come across in the lessons. The platform itself looks great, and I appreciate how you not only have to spell the words, but you also will be marked wrong if you don’t use appropriate accents, but there’s room for growth.

For one, I wish I could tell Busuu that I already know these terms. If I continued on with more at-level vocabulary, it would be easier to kick these easier terms out and focus on what would actually be helpful for me. I don’t see that option anywhere, though.

I do also wish you could add your own vocab! Assuming you’re using more than just Busuu to learn a language, or that you’re not a total beginner, it would be helpful to include other terms that you find off-platform. Spanishdict is an excellent example of this improvement.

Honestly, the fact that you can’t give Busuu any input whatsoever is a major bummer. These words are super easy for me (I told you I wasn’t A2!), and if I follow this lead, I’ll just be studying these terms that I already know until my eyes bleed.

Busuu community

Besides the frankly awesome lesson pathway, Busuu really excels with their community! You can only get so far in your language learning without actively using the language and making any kind of connections; fortunately, Busuu’s got you covered.

Click over to the “Community” tab to participate.

Here you have the opportunity to make connections with other language learners who can benefit from your native skills (hello, potential language exchanges!), as well as to practice your own use of the language in whichever way you see fit.

If your priority is communication, focus on the different ways to practice speaking. Likewise with written skills.

Whichever method of communication you want to improve, your response will be automatically submitted to the community, where native speakers can help correct you and encourage you along the way, just like you can encourage those practicing and learning your native language.

Wait a beat, check your notifications, and you’ll get a handful of corrections from the native-speaking community.

If you like, you can also go through and add respondents as friends and form a mutually-beneficial relationship where you correct each other’s submissions.

Finally, you can see all your corrections, submissions, and potential language friends by visiting your profile.

Busuu’s community may not be their primary talking point, but do yourself a favor and keep it in mind when you consider using Busuu to learn a new language! Even if this isn’t the only version of an online community for language learners, I think it blows communities like HelloTalk out of the water completely.

The difference between Busuu Premium and free

The bulk of Busuu is available for free to all, which is amazing! It’s awesome to see such a high-quality resource accessible to language learners of all different economic backgrounds. If you opt for Busuu Premium, you can also access:

  • No ads
  • Additional “fun” courses (travel, pronunciation, etc.)
  • AI-powered vocab review
  • Faster community feedback
  • The aforementioned Busuu certificates

These features are all not required for basic learning of the language. If you find them beneficial to your language learning and believe they would help keep you motivated, you’ll be happy to know that Busuu Premium is also very reasonably priced!

You can also start out with a 14-day free trial before you commit.

Click here to see updated pricing.

Busuu review: worth the hype for you?

Busuu’s success isn’t a mystery – it combines the academic approach to learning a language with a more motivating platform (meaning modern technology, not boring textbooks) and a strong community of other language learners to help keep you and your language learning on track.

If this sounds like your kind of language app, you can click here to get started with a free trial of Busuu Premium.

However, if grammar is not high on your list of priorities, you may find Busuu boring. If, for example, you want a stronger focus on conversational skills, you might consider finding a tutor on Verbling (which is owned by Busuu, fun fact!)

Or, if you like the structured, step-by-step approach to mastering a language but don’t want to rely so heavily on grammar, LingoDeer may be another option for you to consider.

Busuu vs Babbel: minor differences, major implications

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Busuu and Babbel are in tight competition with each other. It can be difficult to compare the two because they are so similar (not to mention both being named 2-syllable words that start with ‘b’). So for language learners, which is better, Busuu vs Babbel?

In this blog post, we’ll focus on what each language app does differently, for better or for worse, so you can make an educated decision for your own language learning strategy.

Busuu vs Babbel: languages

Both Busuu and Babbel offer their content in the following languages:

  • English
  • French
  • German
  • Italian
  • Polish
  • Portuguese
  • Russian
  • Spanish
  • Turkish

You can also use Busuu to learn:

  • Arabic
  • Chinese
  • Japanese

and Babbel to learn:

  • Danish
  • Dutch
  • Indonesian
  • Norwegian
  • Swedish

Busuu vs Babbel: getting started with each app

Like many other apps to learn a language, Busuu and Babbel both give you the opportunity to assess your current level in the language. However, the way they do this is wildly different.

When assessing your skills, most language learning resources will provide you with a series of activities and see how far you can go before answering consistently incorrectly. This is exactly what Busuu does.

It’s a very simple, black-and-white, “either you know it or you don’t” kind of thing. Very academic.

And while I would also consider Babbel to be a more academic approach to learning a language, their assessment style is…decidedly not.

Here, Babbel is more focused on how your skills can be used in real-life scenarios. Here, Babbel is less focused on helping you get an A on an exam and more focused on what you can do with the information you already have.

When it comes to assessments like these (as in, assessments given by a computer), I’ll tell you what I tell my clients: don’t rely on these results too much. If the app does its tech right, these assessments will get the right level of activity for you, but it’s not a very reliable indicator of your skill in the language as a whole.

And this is an excellent display of this. Do you care more about acing a test or using these skills? How do you want to have your foreign language abilities judged?

Busuu vs Babbel: which skills you’ll build

To the unseasoned language learner, Busuu and Babbel seem to both be excellent quality apps. While this is true, there are some small yet important differences to consider when comparing to two, especially when it comes to which skills you’ll be building.

Let’s look at a Busuu lesson.

In this lesson, you follow along with a simple dialogue and then are tested on your comprehension of the conversation. Exercises like these are really helpful if you want to be able to understand conversations in a foreign language or watch foreign language movies.

These are important skills, but they’re not the only important skills.

One of my biggest critiques of Duolingo is that it’s a lot of button-pushing, not a whole lot of learning to use the language. And in this way, Busuu has the same problem.

To show you what I mean, here’s a Babbel lesson.

In one Babbel lesson, you’re using the content in a variety of different ways, including speaking and writing. Most language apps struggle to fit such a holistic approach into one system, but Babbel does it well!

If speaking and contributing to the language (not just understanding it) is important to you, this is a major distinction.

How each app reviews vocabulary

An important part of learning is the review, and both Babbel and Busuu have slightly different systems to do this. Each platform allows you the option to review instead of learning at any point, and these reviews are similar to their lessons.

For example, here’s a Busuu review session.

Busuu takes the vocabulary terms it’s shown you and has you actively write them out. This is very helpful for recall, as it forces your brain to think about it more deeply than it would if you were just constantly pushing buttons.

Let’s compare it to Babbel’s review.

I love that Babbel starts out by asking you how you’d like to practice. If you’re intentional about your language learning and are clear about what skills you want to develop, this is an A+ way to review.

This is opposed to Babbel, which does not give you any options. Writing out all the answers is excellent, but it can also be frustrating if spelling isn’t your priority.

Busuu vs Babbel: how you’ll practice having conversations

Likely the biggest way that these two apps differ is how you’ll practice using the things you learn in conversation. Neither is better nor worse than the other, but this difference can truly define which app is the better fit for you to learn a language.

Central to the Busuu experience is the community. As you complete your lessons, you’ll be led to submit a recording or written prompt (your choice) to Busuu’s community. You also have the option to truly invest time into Busuu’s community and build up your conversation skills.

This is a hugely important part of the Busuu experience because there are so many options to use the language you’re learning in engaging ways. It’s always your decision when to practice and how in easy, 5-minute exercises that are not just pushing buttons.

Assuming you take the time to build up some relationships and connect with other community members, your functional language skills will skyrocket.

Babbel takes a different approach with their new group lesson service, Babbel Live.

While Babbel focuses on short, community-driven practice sessions that you can execute in whatever ways you need to in your own time, Babbel gets you in front of professional teachers that will lead you appropriately and correct your mistakes.

These are very different strategies, so here’s a basic pros/cons list to help you understand your best fit.

Babbel Live

  • Professional support
  • Scheduled lessons = accountability
  • Labor-intensive
  • Expensive over time

Busuu community

  • Convenient for any schedule
  • Flexible activities
  • Unreliable feedback
  • Less structured focus

How much do they cost?

Both Babbel and Busuu are premium apps. They’re not free, but they’re also not outrageously expensive. If you’re in a position to invest in your language learning, the prices are worth it.

That said, the apps themselves are similarly priced. Their subscription lengths may differ, but the price you pay monthly/yearly/whatever is essentially the same.

You can find updated Busuu prices here, and subscription prices for the Babbel app here.

Babbel Live is a different, more expensive subscription, but real access to language teachers is going to cost more (and be worth more) than an app. Check Babbel Live prices here.

Busuu vs Babbel: make your choice

Now that we’ve compared Busuu vs Babbel in different ways, it should be clear which language app is the better fit for you.

Babbel is considerably more flexible, as it’s always asking you how you want to complete your activities, so you’re always building the skills you want to build. And if you spring for Babbel Live, you’ll be held accountable by your teachers in your lessons to not only study, but also to study correctly.

On the other hand, Busuu’s lessons are a lighter touch, closer to Duolingo’s method of tapping away. It’s not quite so surface level, though, as you can use Busuu’s huge online community of language learners to help correct you and keep you accountable.

Still can’t decide?

You can learn more in my review of Busuu here, or my Babbel review 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 (Štokavian)
  • 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.

Clozemaster review: customizable, engaging, and simple

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Clozemaster is a retro-themed website & app with a huge collection of sentences for intermediate+ language students to practice their vocabulary and grammar. These sentences are grouped into tons of categories, with the option for users to create their own categories, so the sky is the limit with this Clozemaster review.

In this Clozemaster review, you’ll learn where Clozemaster shines, its flaws, and whether Clozemaster is best for your language learning needs. And, if it’s not, keep reading for the Clozemaster alternative for you.

Clozemaster review: languages

While Clozemaster is not for beginners, it is for learners of a ton of languages:

  • Afrikaans
  • Amharic
  • Arabic
  • Armenian
  • Basque
  • Belarusian
  • Breton
  • Bulgarian
  • Cantonese
  • Catalan
  • Chinese (Mandarin)
  • Chinese (Mandarin)(Traditional)
  • Croatian
  • Czech
  • Danish
  • Dutch
  • Esperanto
  • Estonian
  • Filipino (Tagalog)
  • Finnish
  • French
  • Galician
  • Georgian
  • German
  • Greek
  • Guaraní
  • Hebrew
  • Hindi
  • Hungarian
  • Icelandic
  • Indonesian
  • Irish
  • Italian
  • Japanese
  • Kazakh
  • Korean
  • Latin
  • Latvian
  • Lithuanian
  • Macedonian
  • Norwegian (Bokmål)
  • Occitan
  • Persian (Farsi)
  • Piedmontese
  • Polish
  • Portuguese
  • Romanian
  • Russian
  • Scottish Gaelic
  • Serbian
  • Slovak
  • Slovenian
  • Spanish
  • Swedish
  • Turkish
  • Ukrainian
  • Vietnamese
  • Welsh
  • Yiddish

Because Clozemaster sources their sentences from an external website (more on that later), it is clearly accessible to a huge variety of foreign languages.

It is worth noting, however, that the options and opportunities are not equal across all languages. After deciding if Clozemater is a language learning app that you’re interested in using, you’ll then need to take a look at your target language and see the variety of content you’ll have to work with.

But what is Clozemaster?

The name “Clozemaster” wasn’t created out of thin air; if you’re not familiar with “clozes”, they’re a type of activity that’s very common in language learning, basically a fill-in-the-blank deal. Specifically, a “cloze” is defined by them as:

Of, relating to, or being a test of reading comprehension that involves having the person being tested supply words that have been systematically deleted from a text.

Thus, Clozemaster is the master of clozes.

It’s worth mentioning that Clozemaster isn’t the only resource that offers clozes, but clozes are all that Clozemaster offers. And I do have to say, Clozemaster is absolutely the master when it comes to learning a language online with clozes.

Clozemaster review: a walk-through

After creating an account on Clozemaster and selecting a few different options, you’re spat out onto the dashboard. It’s a retro-themed view (with retro sounds, too) that adds a touch more fun to the process, since you feel like it’s more of a game than anything else.

At first glance, Clozemaster isn’t very user-friendly. You’re presented with a ton of different options without any obvious indication as to which option to take or what you’re supposed to do. It’s a little bit better than LingQ’s lack of usability, but it can still take a minute to get your bearings.

Across all languages, you get some form of “beginner” content, like:

  • Most Common Words
  • Fluency Fast Track
  • Cloze-Collections

The third one is your own collection of sentences.

You would think that these would be beginner-friendly, but they are definitely not! Clozemaster requires at least an intermediate understanding of the language, and it’ll be abundantly clear if your language skills are up to snuff the second you try using Clozemaster.

While those “beginner” collections are free for all, premium subscribers also get Grammar Challenges, which are collections of sentences that are meant to help you master traditionally difficult grammatical concepts. These are different in every language, as every language has different grammar concepts.

But again, the concept is simple: fill-in-the-blank sentences.

Depending on the language, you also get a few settings to decide how you want to play:

  • vocabulary
  • listening
  • speaking

Not all languages feature all skills, so make sure you take a look at your target language before you commit. For example, audio recordings are only available in a fraction of these languages. Expect them in more commonly learned languages, not-so-much in others.

You can also choose how many sentences you’re shown per round: 5-∞ (yes, the site really says that). Then, either multiple choice or text input. Choose text to really challenge yourself! You’ll also earn 2x the points.

If I’m already at an intermediate level in a language (or at any point, personally), I prefer to manually type in the answer. This helps cement words and conjugations into your brain, as you’re forcing yourself to spell correctly as opposed to going off a general idea of what the correct word looks like.

This is the difference between vaguely recognizing a word and truly learning it.

I also love that Clozemaster holds you accountable for appropriate accents (including offering the letters if you don’t have your keyboard set up for that yet), and encourages you to try, one letter at a time. That can make the difference between making an educated guess and just giving up.

Clozemaster also approaches languages less from an academic standpoint and more from a colloquial one. In the lesson above, you learn phrases that are actually used every day in Spanish, and not necessarily the ones you’ll learn in a textbook.

And then, at the end of all that, you’ll level up with a super fun GIF. Doesn’t quite match up with the retro theme, but I’m willing to let it slide 😉

Creating flashcards with Clozemaster

Clozemaster’s premade collections can do a lot of good (my favorite being the grammar stuff), but some language learners may have specific goals, or find these general and unpredictable collections boring.

No worries – using the Clozemaster system, you can create all the collections you want! You can either create them manually, or you can search through already-created cloze sentences and organize them as you like.

When using these options, it is totally possible to use Clozemaster for beginner content; however, it does take some extra work and is probably not great if you’re not a seasoned language learner.

Experienced language learner starting a new language? Sure. New language learner just trying to figure everything out? Not ideal.

Speaking of options, you also get the freedom to dictate how you’re learning the language every single time you press play. These settings take Clozemaster’s sentences and create entirely different exercises based just on the skills you want to practice.

(Again, not all languages will necessarily have all these options.)

How Clozemaster gets its sentences

Clozemaster has access to so many sentences because they’re sourced straight from Tatoeba.org, which is an open collection of sentences and translations. Anybody can hop onto the website, search for a word, and find sentences to give their words some context.

While it is an amazing use of an open-source website, it has limitations.

For one, it’s not unusual to get sentences like these.

No need to read too into it – they’re just sentences that someone in the world uploaded in Spanish/English, and maybe they’ll pop up as you study. At any time, you also have the option to remove these sentences from your collections.

Besides that, Clozemaster provides not only sentences with a single cloze, but you can also use it for a whole passage!

This is an option to vary up your studies and keep you on your toes, as well as throw some reading comprehension into the mix.

Okay, clearly it’s not perfect, but it is an option. Once you apply the right settings, this could be great for reading comprehension and finding new vocabulary, which you can easily add to any cloze collection at any time.

Clozemaster review: should you go pro?

Let’s talk about becoming a Clozemaster subscriber. Certain aspects of Clozemaster are always free, i.e. the “Fluency Fast Track” and all the reading practice.

Honestly, though, Clozemaster Pro opens up a ton of doors when it comes to both reading and listening practice.

Pro subscribers get access to all of these lessons, both as reading and listening, all as fill-in-the-blank, contextual questions. It’s a lot of simple yet very useful content and considering Clozemaster themselves don’t “create” anything per se, Clozemaster Pro is very reasonably priced: $8 a month, and even cheaper as an annual subscription.

Honestly, if Clozemaster is something that keeps your interests and matches your language goals, I’d spring for Pro. For $8/month, you’ll get a step more of a holistic language education. If you enjoy Clozemaster free, I’d recommend Clozemaster Pro for pretty much any kind of language learner and their goals.

Clozemaster review: who’s it for?

Clozemaster is an excellent resource for intermediate-advanced level learners looking to build their vocabulary and drill some of the more difficult grammar concepts they face. It’s also excellent for language learners looking for more context in general: just search for a term and Clozemaster will bring you all the sentences you need from Tatoeba for you to create a collection.

Easy as pie.

However, beginner language learners should definitely be looking elsewhere, maybe at something like Lingvist (a bit more pricey, but provides similar context) or maybe Anki (much less user-friendly, but great for clozes).

If you need more direct, clear-cut grammar lessons, go somewhere else (maybe Busuu or Babbel?), because Clozemaster assumes that you know the basic idea of these concepts, and you only need practice and repetition.

Or, if you’d rather apply clozes to texts you’re already reading, VocabBoost may be for you.

That said, repetition is important for any language learner, and Clozemaster is an excellent option!

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!