Multilingual Mastery

Online language learning coaching & education

Notifications

Ling Review: make language learning light and flexible

by Leave a Comment

Ling is a fun, cute language learning app that believes in making language learning (something inherently difficult) easy. It was originally created to satisfy a lack of resources available for learners of Southeast Asian languages, and today it’s been expanded to include over 60 languages of various popularities.

So how do you decide if Ling is right for you? In this Ling review, we’ll talk about what Ling does well, what it doesn’t, how to know if you should use Ling to learn a language, and Ling alternatives.

Languages you can learn with Ling

The Ling app boasts a frankly huge number and variety of languages offered! You can use Ling to learn:

  • Afrikaans
  • Albanian
  • Amharic
  • Arabic
  • Armenian
  • Bengali
  • Bosnian
  • Bulgarian
  • Burmese
  • Cantonese
  • Catalan
  • Chinese
  • Croatian
  • Czech
  • Danish
  • Dutch
  • English
  • Estonian
  • Finnish
  • French
  • Georgian
  • German
  • Greek
  • Gujurati
  • Hebrew
  • Hindi
  • Hungarian
  • Indonesian
  • Irish
  • Italian
  • Japanese
  • Kannada
  • Khmer
  • Korean
  • Lao
  • Latvian
  • Lithuanian
  • Malayalam
  • Malaysian
  • Marathi
  • Mongolian
  • Nepali
  • Norwegian
  • Pashto
  • Persian
  • Polish
  • Portuguese
  • Punjabi
  • Romanian
  • Russian
  • Serbian
  • Slovak
  • Slovenian
  • Spanish
  • Swahili
  • Swedish
  • Tagalog
  • Tamil
  • Telugu
  • Thai
  • Turkish
  • Ukrainian
  • Urdu
  • Vietnamese
  • Yoruba

As you can see, this collection of languages puts Ling on par with apps that support literally dozens of languages (apps like Mondly and Glossika come to mind). And just like those other apps, supporting 60+ languages means keeping their content pretty surface-level.

But we’ll talk about that more as we continue with this Ling review.

Ling review: getting started

Your Ling subscription grants you access to all 60+ languages, and you can access any of them at any level at any time. Here’s what that looks like.

Whenever you want to switch languages, just tap the flag in the upper left-hand corner and either scroll the list or type into the search box.

And no need to bother with any “checkpoints” or anything – attempt whichever lessons you want at any time. I love this freedom and flexibility; language learning does benefit from a certain level of structure, but I find myself easily unmotivated when an app forces me to study things I don’t want to learn.

So far, Ling is super easy to play around with and use!

Let’s take a look at the very first lesson of the very first section, built for total and complete beginners (I assume – there’s actually no mention of the intended skill level anywhere on the website or the app itself).

This is a curious approach, and there are a couple of reasons why.

Gamification

If the likes of Duolingo have taught us anything in the past several years, it’s that keeping language apps fun keeps language learners coming back. Bright colors, round and easy-to-read designs, and fun sound effects make people feel good.

It’s not nearly as annoying as Duolingo can be, but if you’ve been burned hard enough by Duolingo before, this might turn you off.

You can even see at the end of the above video where the app forces me to set a goal streak. Your opinion of this level of gamification already says a lot about how much you will or will not enjoy using Ling to learn a language.

That said, if gamification is something you need to keep you hooked (no judgment here) Ling might be a great option.

Implicit grammar lessons

Also just like Duolingo, Ling is teaching grammar implicitly, which means you’re led to figure it out as you go without being intentionally taught anything about rules or how the language works as a whole.

This can be seen as a more “natural” way to learn a language, but it can also be frustrating to try to piece the language together without being told how to. It’s a spectrum – how much you need to learn the rulebook, and how much you just need to try it – and every language learner is different.

If you want to use Ling to learn a new language that you have no experience with and is not related to any other language you know, it’s important to understand you will likely need to do some Googling to try to understand some things.

In this way, Ling can be used as more of a general path to be informed about what to learn next. There’s a direction here, but the vehicle you used to take it is completely up to you,

Translating vs “knowing”

One more thing that can make or break a language app for any particular learner is how you’re learning to connect to the meaning of new vocab words.

The best example of learning to understand meaning is Rosetta Stone – there’s no translation happening there, you’re just connecting new words to images that can be described with the new vocab word.

On the other hand, there are various levels of connecting new foreign language vocab to words in your native language, which leaves you translating back and forth between languages all the time.

Ling places you somewhere in the middle: you’re connecting new vocab to its translation, but the text is small, you’re always hearing the word, and you get a picture too. That’s not a bad compromise, in my opinion.

Even more important, though, is that Ling gets you to use the new vocabulary immediately.

Ling review: speaking practice

Ling’s approach to learning languages includes their dedication to the four language skills. An all too common problem is these fun, gamified language apps doing absolutely nothing to get language learners to speak the language. Tapping buttons is easy, but it only gets you so far.

Let’s see how Ling approaches this problem.

Voice recognition, the most common method for language apps to accomplish this, is mostly to motivate you to try. Even in the above video, you can see the voice recognition not being too sure.

It gets the job done, it’s fine.

Honestly, the point is that language learners are led to start. It’s often so hard for people to practice speaking their target language just because after months or years of learning, they’ve never actually tried to speak.

Ling also has chatbot conversations, which are basic pre-made conversations where you just repeat your side of the chat (and try to keep up). Again, it’s meant mostly to get you started speaking, not mastering it.

I wanted to like Ling’s chatbot more…but I couldn’t. I just got annoyed.

If it didn’t recognize my pronunciation, fine. But the message telling you that the chatbot doesn’t understand you over and over and over again is rage-inducing!

That, and listening to the app repeat what I just said after I said it, made me never want to use Ling’s chatbot again.

Hopefully, you have a different experience than I did (voice recognition and chatbots often vary significantly across devices), but I have to be honest.

On the bright side, I am a big fan of the ability to turn off the translations in this section, as well as the push to practice speaking in a safe, controlled environment (this feature cannot be overstated here).

Ling review: difficulty level

In the languages I’ve seen, Ling offers lessons labeled from total beginner to expert. Given how many languages the app supports, I was skeptical, so I took a look at the most advanced Spanish lesson.

Definitely not expert-level vocab.

The grammar is at a more intermediate level, but keep in mind that there are no explicit grammar lessons, so you either need to be very very good at picking up patterns, or you need to find your grammar information elsewhere.

That said, do not expect Ling to get you to advanced (and definitely not expert) levels within your target language. That’s not what it’s been created to do, even if they named their levels a bit too optimistically.

Ling review: pricing

Ling is a paid-only app, with payment structures varying from monthly to annually to lifetime. Only the annual plan includes a 7-day free trial.

I do believe that the quality of the Ling app reflects its price point, especially with how many languages you can learn at any time.

The biggest thing to keep in mind here: no ads (and no changes to try to pressure you into paying more money – what you see is what you get).

Click here for updated pricing.

Should you use Ling to learn a language?

Ling is a great way to learn a new language, but not for everyone.

I’m a fan of the focus on all 4 language skills; even if it doesn’t get you past beginner levels, it’s a good habit to start with such a well-rounded approach. The app is also easy on the eyes and easy to maneuver.

But my favorite part about Ling is that it’s a light path to learning a new language, without having to pass checkpoints or worry about losing so many hearts you can’t learn anymore.

If you want something similar to Ling, read about LingoDeer.

However, Ling will not teach you things beyond the surface level. You will not learn any grammar, or intermediate/advanced vocabulary. If you’re looking for that pathway with a bit more detail, some Ling alternatives include LanguagePod101 or Rocket Languages.

Want to give it a shot? Click here to try Ling.

Lingbe Review: language exchanges without the texting phase

by Leave a Comment

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!

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

by Leave a Comment

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!

Busuu review: the best combo of academic & social

by 1 Comment

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 Duolingo: do you want fun or functional?

by Leave a Comment

Busuu and Duolingo are two of the most popular language apps there are, so how do you make the choice when it comes to how to learn a language? In this post, let’s compare Busuu vs Duolingo, so you can make the best choice for your own language learning.

We’ll address each app’s flaws, where they shine, and which one is more likely to get your language learning where you want it to go.

Busuu vs Duolingo: languages

The following languages are available on both Busuu and Duolingo:

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

Busuu also offers English, and Duolingo’s list of languages is massive, so I’ll leave it to my Duolingo review.

Busuu vs Duolingo: finding your level

Both Duolingo and Busuu are appropriate for total beginners, and both honestly have similar systems. It may be surprising to see how Busuu has evolved to be easier and more addictive, like Duolingo has trained language learners to become.

Here’s Duolingo’s checkpoint test to fast-forward in your Learning Path.

And here’s Busuu’s version.

As you can see, Busuu isn’t actually very different from Duolingo. It’s smooth, easy, and focuses almost entirely on passive skills (i.e. learning to understand the gist of the language, not necessarily reproducing it).

This makes it a fairly easy transition for language learners who enjoy Duolingo, but are tired of the heavy gamification. Busuu does have some gamification, but the way that it’s implemented makes the process of learning a language smoother and more engaging, not just an addiction.

That said, what makes Duolingo and Busuu different?

Using your target language

The base core of learning languages on each language app is pretty similar. However, learning new words, grammar, and other concepts isn’t so hard – it’s using them that gets language learners stuck.

It’s very easy to present you with new information, but not so much to lead you to actively use and produce that information. Let me show you what I mean.

This feature of Duolingo, Stories, is the main way that they attempt to get you to use the language. These Stories are intertwined within the Learning Path, so you have to complete them when presented in order to continue to higher levels.

And even though it’s technically closer (I guess?) to real use of the language, it’s still pretty passive. You’re still tapping buttons, an activity you can do in the background of watching a movie or doing the dishes.

Here’s Busuu’s strategy for comparison.

The Busuu community is full of language learners who speak your target language natively, and use this skill to help critique your submissions and motivate you.

While you are prompted to submit something (whether it be an audio recording or a writing prompt, your decision) consistently after lessons, you don’t have to. I mean, obviously it’s a good idea, but you’re not going to be chastised if you just want to move on.

Suffice it to say, Busuu is much better for helping you to produce the language using the information they teach you.

What you’ll pay to access each language app

This comparison couldn’t be more simple (in theory): Duolingo is free, and Busuu is not.

Being free is very important to the Duolingo brand. While you can invest in a Premium membership, Duolingo states that they will never hide access to their content behind a paywall. Their goal is to make education free for all.

It’s the ads/gamification that is different with a Premium subscription, and many users claim that the Duolingo app becomes less and less usable for free members as time goes on. I personally can’t speak on that particular theory, but you should keep it in mind.

Busuu, on the other hand, is largely a paid app, and offers subscriptions from monthly to annually. You can see updated prices here. You can generally expect to pay $10-15 a month.

Duolingo or Busuu?

This is honestly a short review, but only because there’s not much to say about the difference between Busuu and Duolingo. Duolingo is addictive and surface-level, while Busuu is engaging and well-rounded.

This is one of those cases where the price point accurately reflects the quality of the service – if you’re willing to invest in your language learning just a little bit, Busuu will teach you exponentially more.

On the other hand, if you’d rather keep things fun, low-commitment, and flexible (this part being a reference to the sheer number of languages available to learn on Duolingo) Duolingo is excellent at keeping education accessible and consistent (many Duolingo users complain of addiction to their daily streak, despite not learning as much as they’d like).

If you want to learn more about either of these ways to learn a language, you can read my Duolingo review here, and my Busuu review here.

Duolingo vs Rosetta Stone: the most important comparison

by 3 Comments

Comparing Duolingo vs Rosetta Stone is pretty close to comparing apples and oranges. They’re both great for starting new languages from scratch, but the way it’s done could not be more different. It all has to do with what exactly you want to get out of your first experiences with your new language.

Let’s compare Duolingo vs Rosetta Stone to see how best to start your language learning journey.

Duolingo vs Rosetta Stone: available languages

Duolingo and Rosetta Stone both teach the following languages:

  • Arabic
  • Chinese (Mandarin)
  • Dutch
  • French
  • German
  • Greek
  • Hebrew
  • Hindi
  • Irish
  • Italian
  • Japanese
  • Korean
  • Polish
  • Portuguese
  • Russian
  • Spanish
  • Swedish
  • Turkish
  • Vietnamese

Additionally, Duolingo teaches:

  • Czech
  • Esperanto
  • Finnish
  • Hawaiian
  • Hungarian
  • Indonesian
  • Navajo
  • Norwegian
  • Swahili
  • Ukrainian
  • Welsh

Rosetta Stone also supports:

  • Farsi
  • Latin
  • Tagalog

Duolingo vs Rosetta Stone: lessons

Both Rosetta Stone and Duolingo are built to teach languages from the beginning, but the way that they do that is very different. If you’ve gotten bored over time using Duolingo, I’ll show you how Rosetta Stone is much better at keeping you on your toes.

Duolingo

Duolingo’s bread and butter is short, easy-to-accomplish lessons. They’re around 5 minutes long, and are meant to be addictive; you get through one lesson, and it’s so easy that you keep playing for another 5 minutes…and another, and another.

The point is that Duolingo gets you addicted, fast.

Rosetta Stone

In recent years, Rosetta Stone has also caught up to this more modern, easy-to-accomplish approach, while still maintaining the challenge.

That is to say that Rosetta Stone is not brainless. It’ll get you thinking pretty hard for those 5 minutes by stretching your ability to come up with the language itself and limiting the multiple choice.

Duolingo vs Rosetta Stone: your goals

How do you want to use the language you’re learning? What skills are important for you to build? What do you want to be able to do with it after finishing with your language app (if you do finish – both apps teach enough languages to last anyone a lifetime, honestly)?

Your answer to these questions will help you understand which language app will get you closer.

Duolingo

Duolingo is tricky because it’s so good at what it’s supposed to do (be addictive) that many users misunderstand how it’s meant to be used.

Really, Duolingo’s first job is to start a habit and keep the motivation going strong.

Teaching you basic grammar is secondary, honestly.

That said, I would recommend Duolingo if you’re interested in playing around with the languages a little bit and getting used to the patterns and the flow of the language. However, don’t expect Duolingo to get you farther than it’s meant to.

Start a habit, but also keep a healthy distance from the addiction of it.

Rosetta Stone

On the other hand, Rosetta Stone is much better at this part. It’s designed to get you using the language, starting from some basic vocab and ending with useful statements that are simple, but still teach your brain to function in the language.

Rosetta Stone is still for beginners, though, and cannot be expected to teach languages beyond a tourist level of the language. It’s much more adept at doing this than Duolingo, though.

Using your language skills

As you learn a language using either Rosetta Stone or Duolingo, the activities you’re led through have you build your new language skills in slightly more difficult ways. Here’s how each language learning resource does this.

Duolingo

While Duolingo does build up a little bit, it does focus more on the gist of the language. This is evident in comprehension questions like this.

While you do need to know the vocabulary here and the general idea behind some grammar points, this activity is about answering broad questions. While this isn’t inherently a problem, it can cause some language learners to be frustrated that they don’t understand as much as they would like to.

For example, while you may be able to understand the question just enough to answer it, you’ll be disappointed if you try to reproduce it for yourself. This is because Duolingo focuses almost entirely on passive skills, without supplementing the practice required to be able to express yourself in the language.

Rosetta Stone

The thing that makes Rosetta Stone difficult (in a good way) is that it leads you to use the language in a variety of different formats. While it starts out with matching simple phrases with pictures just like Duolingo, it follows up by having you express those phrases yourself.

What many language learners tend to forget is that in order to improve your ability to speak a new language, you need to practice speaking; while a beginner may not be ready to jump into a conversation, simply repeating phrases out loud starts to train your brain to get used to those conversations.

So in activities like those shown above, Rosetta Stone leads to more “useful” use of the language than Duolingo does. You’ll start producing the language much more quickly than the simple button-pressing of Duolingo.

Duolingo vs Rosetta Stone: price

Historically, Duolingo and Rosetta Stone have come and very dramatically different price points. Times are always changing, though, so here are the price points as of this review’s most recent revision.

Duolingo

Another feature that is major to the Duolingo brand is that it’s free. Duolingo’s thing is that they want education to be free and available to all, which is an awesome initiative. While there are paid options for Duolingo users, you won’t be blocked off from any of the lessons with a free account.

Of course, just like Rosetta Stone, Duolingo is a business, which means it needs to make money. Over the years, as its business model has shifted, many free users are worried that the changes make the app less and less usable over time.

Rosetta Stone

Gone are the days of spending hundreds of dollars for Rosetta Stone CDs – it’s the 21st century, and Rosetta Stone has been forced to modernize their pricing to compete with apps like Duolingo.

Just like many other language apps, Rosetta Stone has switched to monthly, annual, and lifetime memberships. Now Rosetta is cheaper…as long as you get through the material in a reasonable amount of time.

Nonetheless, even if you do keep your subscription to Rosetta Stone going, it’ll be a few years before you spend as much as you would have had to spend in prior decades.

Which is better for you?

While Duolingo and Rosetta Stone are both great choices for beginner language learners, they also offer wildly different experiences.

Duolingo can be a great way to get in the habit of learning a language, but be careful about getting addicted to earning XP and using those fun colors and sounds to overinflate your actual ability. Read more about Duolingo here.

While Rosetta Stone is less “fun” and a bit more difficult to accomplish, it’ll draw out your ability to use a new language much better. You’ll finish Rosetta Stone feeling much more confident in your abilities to learn a language. Click here to learn more about Rosetta Stone.