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

January 14, 2023 by Jamie 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!

German with Laura review – THE course to guide beginners

November 25, 2022 by Jamie Leave a Comment

German can be a scary language for beginners because of its seemingly complicated grammar that has no rhyme or reason. With 3 genders, a billion ways to make a singular noun plural, and even more declensions, it’s not hard to see why beginner German learners give up so quickly. That’s where this German with Laura review comes in.

Laura takes her decades of experience working with German language learners to simplify German grammar in a way that’s intuitive, using grammar rules that just require practice, not endless memorization.

Let’s take a deep dive into German with Laura’s German Foundations course and see why every independent German learner truly needs this course.

Learn to use German grammar like native speakers

If you’re learning a new language, chances are grammar rules seem complicated, overwhelming, and downright impossible – this is especially true for German language learners who are pretty much told upfront that German is hard and confusing.

3 different ways to say ‘the’, the appropriate one is actually important, and there are no rules about which one is which? Yikes. That’s enough to keep most language learners from even giving German a shot.

This is why Laura puts your mind at ease about her course right from the course introduction.

Laura understands the importance of shifting our mindsets about language learning so that we have the right expectations about what it’s like to truly learn German. This means busting myths about language learning in general, like:

Why children don’t learn faster than adults
Adults can truly get fluent in another language
Your German does not have to be better than your English

This is the exact approach that my clients take with The Method, so I can already say that this is a high-quality approach!

The other important part of Laura’s introduction is the Resource Guide, Workbook, and Answer Key. These 3 files are the base of the entire course! Next to the actual video lessons, of course.

The Resource Guide includes all the strategies and tips Laura has created exclusively for her students to learn German grammar in a logical, intuitive way; the Workbook is dozens and dozens of practice words and sentences to practice applying those strategies; and the Answer Key is, well, an answer key for you to check your work independently.

Everything is laid out cleanly and clearly; Laura doesn’t ramble on and on in the worksheets, that’s what the videos are for! The Resource Guide has the tables and strategies you need to review as you practice, and that is it.

German with Laura review – course contents

Once we have our mindset right, download all our course materials, and (optionally) join the private Facebook group, it’s time to learn German!

Note: you’ll notice in these sneak peeks that there’s a “Discussions” button in the upper right-hand corner. If you have questions about any particular lesson, this is the place to ask them, and/or get the answer from a thread someone else started first. It is not necessary to join the Facebook group, it’s just a perk.

German Foundations is broken up into 7 modules:

Noun gender
Noun plurals
The case system
Intro to declension patterns

5. Declension patterns part 2
6. Verbs & pronouns
7. Prepositions & pronouns

If you’d like more details on each individual lesson within all of these modules, you can click here for more details.

Browsing through the lessons, you’ll notice a few symbols:

🎥 a video emoji signals a video lesson – some combination of Laura teaching you her strategies, and walking through practice words/sentences with you for understanding.

✏️ a pencil emoji denotes a simple Google form for you to test your understanding. These are graded, but just for you to see if you’re doing well, or could benefit from reviewing the lesson again.

These Google forms are either checking that you understood general concepts, or testing you: select if these words are masculine, feminine, or neuter, for example. They’re 100% multiple-choice questions to assess your comprehension of the lesson.

🗒 a paper emoji generally means it’s time to visit the practice workbook to really get these new concepts into your brain. Just like the ✏️ Google forms, these are totally optional and incredibly helpful study aids.

And I can tell you from personal experience that this practice works. Going into this practice may feel overwhelming and defeating, but just hang in there for a little bit, and it all starts to make sense; Laura consistently reminds you that it’s okay to review the tables at first, that’s what they’re there for!

How German Foundations teaches language skills

Now that we’ve addressed an overview of the structure of German Foundations, let’s look closer at Laura’s approach. To get a great example of this, we’ll look at Module 4: Declensions (it’s not as scary as it sounds, don’t worry).

To start, Laura explains why the traditional methods of learning German grammar, specifically declensions, don’t work, and why you’re learning with her unique approach. I’ll let Laura speak for herself below.

After understanding the reasoning behind this methodology, it’s time to learn it!

With her video lessons, Laura talks you through all the visual aids slowly and clearly (or quickly – if you’re the type to speed up videos, you can do that too) with plenty of repetition.

First, watch Laura do the exercises herself. Not just once, but several times. You can always skip the video forward if you’re ready to practice yourself.
Then you get time to go through all the steps yourself, pausing and unpausing the video to check your answers with Laura before you move on to the next step. Or do all the steps at once if that’s more your speed.
And then the training wheels come off for independent practice, courtesy of the practice workbook.

Because German Foundations is pre-recorded (and recently updated!), you’re able to take the lessons as slowly or as quickly as you like, as many times as you like. You get lifetime access as well, so you’re free to go back and brush up on these lessons whenever you need.

I, for one, definitely took Module 4 twice to really cement these rules into my brain until Laura’s formula just *clicked*. This included rewatching the videos, going through the ✏️ Google forms, and reprinting the appropriate worksheet pages. I did much better the second time around!

This is notable because some resources will definitely “punish” you for going back to review – or won’t even let you review. No issues here! Review as much as you need to, or don’t. You have the freedom to rewind, skip forward, and do whatever you gotta do.

German words are not part of this language process

Because German with Laura is laser-focused on teaching German grammar quickly, clearly, and efficiently, it’s important that language learners understand what you will not learn using this method.

For the sake of not getting distracted from the grammar, Laura is very intentional about the vocabulary she chooses for her exercises. This means lots of repeated words, plenty of cognates (i.e. words that are similar or the same in both German and English), and consistent reminders to not worry about the vocab or meaning.

You may pick up a few words naturally because you’re working with them, but do not expect to grow your vocabulary using German Foundations. You’re here to get an intuitive understanding of German grammar and get comfortable with the patterns used.

While you cannot expect to learn vocab, practice your speaking skills, or pick up idioms, Laura is very clear from the start about what you CAN expect from German Foundations:

Instead of making German grammar painful and painstaking, Laura has picked up on patterns that make German grammar make sense…without a textbook worth of redundant tables! She’s taken her years of experience to create a shortcut that, quite frankly, all German language learners should use.

German with Laura review: what to do next

For years, I have been told how difficult it is to learn German – there are extra letters, declensions, and a whole other gender, and none of it is logical whatsoever – you just have to memorize it all.

If you’ve also heard this rumor and have avoided learning German for fear of this overwhelm (or even gotten so far as attempting German, just to feel defeated and give up), I highly recommend German with Laura’s courses; you can start with her free course here to try out her approach for yourself.

As you get to know Laura’s approach to teaching German grammar and learn to trust the process, you’ll be just as blown away as I was to see how easy it can be to reach an intuitive understanding of grammar rules, even those as weird and confusing as German!

I am no longer worried about complicated German grammar, because I know that I can trust German with Laura to teach it to me in a simple, logical way so that I can just use it without spending hours memorizing.

German with Laura’s courses are the best way to get a confident understanding of German patterns, without memorizing countless rules or getting frustrated with even more difficult tables and strategies. As long as you’re clear about what you’re there to learn (i.e. nothin’ but grammar), you can’t go wrong!

Click here to get German Foundations for $50 off!

BaseLang Review: pricey, but worth it

January 20, 2022 by Jamie 2 Comments

BaseLang is a Spanish-specific language learning service that connects Spanish learners to native Latin American Spanish speakers. BaseLang is special because it’s the first (though no longer only!) of its kind: unlimited lessons for one monthly price.

In this BaseLang review, you’ll learn everything you need to know about this resource: what you’ll learn, what you won’t learn, and if you should consider BaseLang for your Spanish language learning.

BaseLang review: comparing plans

BaseLang keeps it simple: unlimited 1:1 Spanish classes to get you to speak Spanish quickly. They offer 2 options (which we’ll talk about below) and offer you a free trial of $1. No fluff, not wild marketing schemes…BaseLang gets right to it.

From the get-go, you’re directed to choose how you’re planning to use BaseLang: either online, or in-person at their location in Medellin, Colombia. Unless you’re planning to relocate to Colombia, we’ll stick to online.

While we’re here, let’s talk about these differences, starting with BaseLang Real World.

BaseLang Real World

BaseLang’s Real World plan is simple: it’s basically a gym membership for learning Spanish. Pay one monthly fee, and get unlimited access to conversational practice with native speakers.

These classes are taught via Zoom, and are all private, 1:1, with native Spanish speakers.

Your lessons do follow a curriculum, but it’s largely up to you to decide your structure including when you learn, with whom you learn, etc. We’ll see what that looks like in a minute.

BaseLang Grammarless

If BaseLang Real World is your basic 24-hour gym membership where you show up whenever you have the time and take turns using the machines, BaseLang Grammarless is hiring a private trainer.

You choose your teacher and meet with them on a fixed schedule, and while a personal trainer can’t promise you washboard abs in 30 days, BaseLang guarantees zero-to-conversational fluency after 80 hours.

This translates to either four-hour days (conversational in a month) or two-hour days (conversational in 2 months). Very intensive.

And if that’s not enough practice for you, BaseLang Grammarless includes BaseLang Real World.

BaseLang teachers

If you go for BaseLang Real World, where you don’t choose your teacher at the beginning and instead basically use any teacher that’s available for flexibility, there’s somewhat of a process.

Here are your options for finding yourself a BaseLang teacher.

I do love the basic category options on the left in particular. Especially that gender option – one of my main qualms with italki is that you can’t search for teachers by gender. Apparently I’m not the only one!

Side note: in the above video, you’ll see the selected teacher doesn’t have any availability. I didn’t realize it at the time, but this is because I was supposed to click the teacher in the left-hand column. That teacher was simply left over from the initial search.

BaseLang teachers have always had a little get-to-know-you video, but the newer (to me) bit is that bottom bar. That “Private Rating” part is SO helpful – last time I was active on BaseLang, you just got a list of BaseLang teachers to choose from, and you had to remember which ones you liked. Now you don’t have to remember!

I’m a huge fan of the option to favorite a teacher, too.

One of the problems I’ve run into is trying to get onto BaseLang scheduling the minute the next day opened up, only to find my favorite BaseLang teacher, and my favorite time of the day was already taken. That was WAY too much effort so I really like this fix for that.

You can now set up to 3 teachers as favorites. Favoriting a teacher allows you to schedule a lesson with them 2 days in advance.

Nonetheless, in past years BaseLang would just give you a list of the BaseLang teachers available in this time slot, and it would be up to you to go back into the section with their bios and descriptions and everything. Now they’re included right in this scheduling section, which is a serious improvement!

Once you’ve got your timing and teacher all figured out, there’s nothing left but to confirm your lesson!

Important note: BaseLang is known for its extra-high turnover rate, especially with its best tutors. Basically, if you love a particular teacher, they’re always going to be booked out until they just kind of disappear and you have to find a new favorite.

BaseLang review: scheduling a session

The first thing that happens when you go to schedule a BaseLang class is you’re asked to add the email address linked to your Zoom account – it also mentions that Zoom has a much better connection than Skype which is somewhat promising for me, as one of the worst problems I’ve had with BaseLang in the past is really bad connection.

Then you get to schedule a lesson.

In the past, you used to be able to schedule a BaseLang lesson by time or teacher, which I really liked. At some point, they seem to have removed the latter choice, so you can now only schedule a lesson by time on this screen; if you want to schedule by the teacher, you can do so in the “Teachers” tab.

One thing that BaseLang is proud of is the fact that you’re able to schedule a lesson at literally the last minute. You can also show when multiple consecutive classes with the same teacher are available. That’s HUGE! This option makes the BaseLang search so much more efficient than it used to be.

Just make sure that your time zone is correct in the settings tab, or else you’ll have to guess/hope that everything’s all set, and you’re not going to miss any sessions (which I definitely have).

The old adage of “beggers can’t be choosers” is usually pretty accurate in this scenario. While there are a surprising number of teachers available, you can’t be sure that you’ll necessarily hit it off with one of them, if they speak any English, or if you’ll enjoy your lesson.

Sometimes you just don’t jive with a particular tutor, it’s a normal part of finding a teacher in literally any scenario.

BaseLang review: Lessons

While BaseLang Real World is much more loosey-goosey than Grammarless, there is still a curriculum. This curriculum used to be confusing, but they seem to have simplified it a lot, which is great.

Under the “Lessons” tab, you’ll find Core Lessons and Electives.

Core Lessons are broken up into levels 0-9, from beginner to advanced, and are there to support your grammar education.

Each of these core lessons is broken into subjects based on grammar and/or vocab. Just click into any of these lessons that you might want to review and you’ll get some PowerPoint slides to click through.

From here you can see that BaseLang truly offers lessons from beginner to advanced – you can choose to follow this pathway as rigidly as you like, or not really at all, based totally on whether you prefer to focus on grammar or conversational skills.

These lessons aren’t particularly special compared to something you could find elsewhere, but it is nice to be able to reference the material you might’ve been working on in class that day.

Then we have Electives. Same layout and all, just some fun vocab to help you express yourself in your sessions if you’re looking for pure conversational practice.

These lessons are very interesting to me, but they’re clearly best used with BaseLang teachers. By themselves, these slides are lackluster at best. I’m guessing the intention behind them is to give BaseLang students some inspiration/conversation starters, in which case these will definitely keep the conversation flowing.

I know I said it before, but it’s worth saying again – I’m really glad that BaseLang made these lessons much more simple. There used to be an independent intro and all this frankly unnecessary information. This is much more helpful!

Interestingly, BaseLang has also supplemented these courses with their own Memrise flashcards. This makes it super easy to review the vocabulary independently, which is a great study practice.

BaseLang price

Whether you use BaseLang online or in person in Medellin, Colombia, BaseLang Grammarless is $1200. For an 80-hour program with guaranteed, that’s just $15 an hour.

Plus online learners get BaseLang Real World for unlimited classes thrown in for free. You quite literally can’t beat that.

BaseLang Real World online is the most affordable option. But if you need the in-person classes, that drives the price up. You do get the online classes thrown in, though.

You can see BaseLang’s updated prices here.

BaseLang alternatives

So, basically, BaseLang Grammarless takes the structure of Lingoda (and the intensity of Lingoda Sprint) and mixes it with the teacher-student relationship that you (at least should) get with Verbling or italki.

Let’s be clear about the difference between Lingoda Sprint and BaseLang Grammarless because they are both highly intensive Spanish-speaking courses.

Lingoda Sprint is a 2-month course (and only opens to new students every 3 months) that includes 15-30 classes per month (15 classes for Sprint, 30 classes for Super Sprint) and a guaranteed refund (50% for Sprint, 100% for Super Sprint) if you attend all of these classes. These classes happen at varying times with different teachers.

Lingoda also offers a couple of other less intense options.

BaseLang review: should you try it?

After this BaseLang review, I’m a fan. However, it’s not for everyone. They are very intentional about their preferred audience, which is great.

In particular, BaseLang is best for Spanish language learners (total beginners, if you’re going for BaseLang Grammarless; level doesn’t matter for BaseLang Real World) who are looking for highly flexible 1:1 lessons with a native-speaking Latin American tutor, whether in-person or online.

Is grammar important to you? Not for you. More interested in Castilian Spanish? No-go. Your time zones don’t match up (BaseLang functions on Eastern Time)? Look elsewhere. Don’t have the energy to work with a person (i.e. introverts and neurodiverse folks) for close to 100% of your language learning? Definitely not.

However, if you can spare at least $179 a month and are able to commit to a reasonably significant number of hours to learning conversational Latin American Spanish with a private tutor, BaseLang has quite a few options for you to play with.

After reading this BaseLang review, are you still not sure? Another super special feature of BaseLang is their negative risk guarantee: pay only $1 for your first week, and if you don’t like it, get $20 back.

On top of that negative risk, use my link and get $10 off your first month of online practice!