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Trancy Review: Language Reactor alternative with tons of potential

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Trancy review

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

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

Trancy languages

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

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

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

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

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

How to use Trancy

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Trancy review: practice mode

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

  • Speaking
  • Listening
  • Selection
  • Filling
  • Dictation

This is how each activity functions.

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

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

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

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

Collections

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

This is what that looks like.

Again, interesting concept, but this could use work.

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

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

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

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

Trancy’s AI functions

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

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

I’m surprised!

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

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

Trancy review: cost

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

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

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

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

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

You can see Trancy’s updated pricing here.

Trancy review: should you try it?

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

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

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

Click here to get started with Trancy!

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

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

Ella Verbs review: your best bet for Spanish conjugation practice

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

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

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

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

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

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

Journey

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

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

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

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

Speaking of levels…

Levels

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

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

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

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

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

Friendly reminder that Ella Verbs is exclusively a verb app!

Vocabulary

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Progress

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

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

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

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

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

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

Custom

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ella Verbs review: who it’s for

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

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

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

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

Ella Verbs review: alternatives

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

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

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

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

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

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

Click here to try Ella Verbs for yourself.

Polygloss Review: low effort, high quality

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

Polygloss languages

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

How to use Polygloss

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Polygloss’ motivational features

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

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

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

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

Polygloss review: the Library tab

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

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

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

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

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

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

Polygloss price

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

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

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

Here’s the “official” breakdown.

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

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

Polygloss review: pros, cons, and alternatives

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

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

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

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

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

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

Lingbe Review: language exchanges without the texting phase

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

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

How to use Lingbe to learn a language

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Lingbe review: finding a phone call!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Paying for LingbePro

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

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

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

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

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

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

Lingbe review: is it for you?

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

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

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

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

Click here to check out Lingbe for yourself!

Language Reactor review: learn languages with Netflix with ease

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

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

Language Reactor: an overview

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Learning new words with Language Learning with Netflix

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

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

Watch the above video to see features in action like:

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

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

Holy options, Batman!

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

Speed options in Language Reactor

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

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

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

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

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

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

How to customize Language Reactor

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

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

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

Clicking around the settings, you can customize options like:

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

Netflix and YouTube Catalogues

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

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

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

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

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

Saved & highlighted vocab

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

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

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

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

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

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

Language Reactor review: the pros and cons

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

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

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

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

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

Kwiziq review: fun AND quality grammar lessons

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Kwiziq is a gamified membership system meant to help French and Spanish language learners understand and conquer grammar concepts, in an intuitive, enjoyable way. In this Kwiziq review, we’ll take a deep dive into what that actually means for you and your language learning.

So, what do we need to know about Kwiziq? Let’s take a deep dive into this website. Is it the right resource for you?

Kwiziq review: how does the AI work?

To date, Kwiziq supports the following languages:

  • French
  • Spanish

Kwiziq’s claim to fame is its artificial intelligence. It uses its AI to determine your proficiency with different grammatical concepts, as well as when to test you on them. The way it tests you feels almost like Anki to me, which is a good thing.

It’s not that it reminds you of these things right before it thinks you’ll forget them, but it really throws one or two concepts at you until you make your way through them and prove that you’re ready to move on to something more advanced.

To master these levels, you take quizzes! The AI determines which concepts you should review, and then offers you quizzes, or “kwizzes”, based on this material. Your mastery of every concept starts at 0% and goes up or down depending on the questions you get right or wrong. As you get closer to 100%, the AI will suggest you move on to an upper level.

Besides the technical stuff, Kwiziq’s grammar is separated into CEFR levels, so both you and Kwiziq know what your actual skill level is: A1-C1, A1 being beginner, and C1 being advanced.

This is a great way to conceptualize your language level based on your knowledge of grammar. Clearly, Kwiziq is laser-focused on improving your grammar and keeping you in the know about what you’ve learned and what you still need help with.

Finally, these levels are presented to you in a progress map (as long as you’re a paid member). A green subject is one that’s been mastered, yellow is in progress, and red occurs when you have performed below 0%. Because the AI wants you to stay above 0%, it advises you not to answer questions if you’re not sure about their answer.

Kwiziq review: all the pros and cons to consider

So, now that you have the basic idea of Kwiziq, is it for you? The next section of this Kwiziq review will address several pros and cons based on my own detailed use of Kwiziq for both French and Spanish.

Pro: Kwiziq provides decent explanations of grammatical concepts

Kwiziq has experienced language teachers who create all of its content, and you can see who has provided this information quite easily. As I said, grammar is hard, and these concepts can sometimes take several different tries to finally get into our brains.

When I found Kwiziq, I was right in the middle of an “I kind of understand the difference, but I generally fumble and fall a lot when I try to use them” phase with the preterite and imperfect tenses in Spanish. Now, Kwiziq’s explanation didn’t really help me a lot. What did help me was their chart for the actual conjugations. Looking at what the ending should be over and over again did help me.

At the end of the day, one person can only do so much. The descriptions of when and how to use these grammar concepts are pretty well-executed, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they help certain ideas to really click for you.

Pro: Kwiziq rewards you for learning

One of the best parts about Kwiziq is that it rewards you for your efforts. It’s completely gamified, which means you get rewarded every time you answer 50%, 75%, 90%, and 100% of the questions pertaining to a certain grammatical concept correctly.

You get little stars after each of these accomplishments, so sometimes you’ll finish a Kwiz with a couple of dozen stars celebrating your success! These stars are also paired with “kudos”, which you get every time you accomplish literally anything.

Past the individual lessons, you’re rewarded for your success in certain levels, as well! Accomplishing certain percentages of success in your level means you’ll get trophies: a bronze shield for achieving 50%, a silver shield for 75%, a gold shield for 90%, and a diamond for 100%.

These also build up on top of each other: the more high-level trophies you win, the more foundational awards you get. For example, the A1 diamond trophy is yours once you achieve a diamond in A0 and gold in A1.

Finally, Kwiziq also rewards you for landmarks. You get your first one after your first kwiz and are continuously rewarded for the number of kwizzes you take in a day. The more kwizzes you take, the more landmarks you achieve, and the more kudos you receive.

Con: Kwiziq punishes you for your wrong answers

The way that Kwiziq’s AI works is that it takes all your answers at face value. Correct questions help you, incorrect questions hurt you, and questions that you don’t answer remain neutral. Therefore, Kwiziq tells you not to guess answers if you don’t know them in every kwiz.

While there’s nothing wrong with telling you that you’re wrong, the thing I don’t like about that is that the whole reward system is based on percentages: once you get a certain percentage right, you get a happy little green color, more stars, more trophies, etc.

However, this means that the more times you answer a question incorrectly, the more you have to get it correctly to get all these rewards. Which makes it almost impossible to reach milestones for concepts that may be more difficult for you.

This conflicts with one of my own philosophies for motivation: trying and failing are better than not trying at all. If you don’t try, how do you know if you’ll succeed? Kwiziq punishes learners for this.

Personally, it introduces more anxiety into my brain than is necessary because it means I’m constantly second-guessing whether I actually know the thing that I think I know. It means that I’m never confident in myself because the risk is so extreme.

The whole premise of Kwiziq feeds off a reward system, but if you’re having a hard time understanding something, forget about getting rewarded for practicing that concept, because you’re just never going to get that star. Which means I’ve honestly given up on certain parts of Kwiziq. I didn’t like how much negative reinforcement I was getting – I was being punished for trying!

Pro: Kwizzes are short, 10-question, multiple-choice exercises

The thing about Kwiziq is that it’s addictive. You get rewarded for almost every kwiz you take, and kwizzes are only a minute or so long. You don’t have to commit any time whatsoever to this fun little game. It’s easy to, once you go down the rabbit hole of figuring out your grammar, but you can just take 30 seconds to practice.

Plus, the fact that they’re multiple-choice (at first) makes them significantly easier to swallow. When you’re learning these things at first, you only have to choose from a few different options.

They’re not just 10 questions about 1 concept, either; they’re 10 questions on 2-3 concepts that the AI thinks you should be practicing.

Once Kwiziq’s AI thinks that you’ll be able to do it, it’ll throw you a few fill-in-the-blanks. These are the ones you have to be careful with, though, because it doesn’t take too kindly to typos. One mistyped letter, and you throw away the whole question, even if you were right.

As you can see, these questions get tough! These are things that you don’t necessarily need to know for conversational use of the language, so don’t get hung up on them if you’re not taking some sort of assessment.

Con: No mobile app for this Kwiziq review

We all love to do everything mobile. Especially with Kwiziq’s quick little quizzes, it should be fun to whip your phone out every once in a while, and kwiz your way through some Spanish practice! At least, that’s what I would love to do during a boring movie or something.

Unfortunately, as of this Kwiziq review, there is no mobile app. You can open the website on a mobile device, but it’s not the best – it’s too easy to accidentally hit the wrong multiple-choice answer, you have to keep scrolling to see the full sentence, etc.

Pro: Instant gratification

A great part about Kwiziq is the fact that you can instantly get an explanation as to why they marked your answer incorrectly. At the result of every quiz, they give you links to the lesson page, so you can figure out what you did wrong (or, in some cases, which grammatical concept they were even testing!).

This is an easy way to fill those little gaps in your grammar brain instantly, as opposed to creating a list of things that you should look up, and then you kind of forget what you did, and then you have to find the question again and figure out how to answer it, and it just goes on and on.

Even if I do think that Kwiziq punishes you too harshly for failing (as I believe failing should just mean that you put the effort forward, not “bad language learner, you were wrong”), I do appreciate the ability to get a question wrong and then instantly be directed to the lesson page for a quick reminder.

Con: if you take a break, don’t get anything wrong

Even though Kwiziq’s robot tells you not to answer questions if you’re not completely sure, there is a scenario in which this is different. I ran into this situation when some new topics had been recently added to the A1 level, which brought my 90+% down to somewhere in the 80s. All I wanted to do was get some questions right on this new subject so that my percentage would go back up to the 90s. It was all basic Spanish concepts, so I knew that I already understood them.

When I went to take a new quiz, I avoided all the other questions; I didn’t want to commit the brain space to the other subjects, just the one where I wanted to up my percentage. According to Kwiziq, I wouldn’t be punished for not trying to answer. Unfortunately, I was wrong.

I was on a beginner quiz, and I got all those questions wrong! Which, of course, brought my entire percentage farther down. Didn’t even matter that I got that one question right, the one that had been at 0%. All my little green areas quickly turned yellow, because Kwiziq had just assumed that I had forgotten all those beginner concepts.

Moral of the story: either stick with your kwizzing, make sure you answer all your old questions or don’t pay too much attention to that percentage. If the AI assumes that you forgot something, it will bring your score down to encourage you to relearn those lessons. I get what they’re trying to do, but they should’ve given me a big red flag saying “hey, our rule about not trying to answer questions that you don’t know doesn’t apply anymore, I will judge you on everything!”.

Pro: Kwiziq’s free trial

Kwiziq offers 10 free Kwizzes per month to everyone. I love this because the free content never expires! You can take free kwizzes as long as you want, they’re just limited. At the start of the new month, these 10 kwizzes are recharged.

This also means that you get your free kwizzes even if you were a member in the past but have since canceled, which is a thing that a lot of companies punish you for. If you cancel, you’ll still get an email once a month reminding you of free kwizzes that you have left, and when they’ll expire. Even if I’m not paying anymore, I still really like to be informed of free content that’s waiting for me.

Kwiziq review

Con: You can get a lot more for free elsewhere

Kwiziq isn’t the only guy out there with free quizzes to test your grammar fluency, but they’re the only one I know about that limits their quizzes. They are in competition with a couple of other resources that offer very similar products, with very similar information, all for free.

For example, Spanishdict is a great website with a free online Spanish-English dictionary, forum, and similar quizzes. These quizzes aren’t led by artificial intelligence, but they do a great job of providing you with the practice for some of these more difficult concepts.

Another popular free resource for grammar quizzes is StudySpanish. This website also has significant amounts of information available to help you understand your grammar, with some more hidden behind a paywall.

Note that both of these options are Spanish only. I’m not aware of similar resources for French as of this Kwiziq review.

Con: Kwiziq might be out of your budget

While Kwiziq is far from the only monthly membership platform to learn a language, it is on the pricey side. I do think the value is absolutely worth the price if you can swing it, and you specifically need to improve your grammar.

You can click here for Spanish pricing, and here for French pricing.

But don’t leave this Kwiziq review yet, there are still important features to talk about!

Pro: Kwiziq is more than just grammar

Primarily, Kwiziq is perfect for improving your Spanish and French grammar, but the other exercises in the “library” are excellent as well.

Just like Kwiziq’s grammar content, the exercises are also organized by A1-C2, so you get a really solid, in-depth understanding of your skill levels across the board, considering all 4 are rarely in the same place at any given time. And, honestly, I highly recommend Kwiziq for all language learners, if even just for these exercises.

In those practices (especially the last one), I love that it has you grade yourself. This is more flexible than the normal kwizzes, so you don’t have to mark yourself wrong for not seeing a word if you don’t find that necessary.

Then, of course, Kwiziq then links you to the individual lessons used in the statement, so you can figure out what you did wrong. If you’re not up to doing that research just yet, the icons to the right of the lesson links let you save them for later.

Still not quite getting it? All users are able to comment on the lessons and ask their questions, and Kwiziq’s Spanish teachers are actually incredibly responsive; if you’ve found something ambiguous and your question helps them see that something is confusing, they also have the power to make changes.

Plus, you can’t forget about the Weekend Workout! Every weekend, members get brand-new writing and listening challenges appropriate for every level sent directly to their email. It’s honestly a really nice reminder to keep up your practice, even if it’s only a little bit.

Kwiziq review: how to know if it’s the language app for you

At the end of the day, this Kwiziq review shows us a really great resource for French and Spanish learners. It has every grammar concept under the sun, and more are being added regularly.

Its gamification and easy-to-swallow kwizzes are addictive, which means that you’ll learn more grammar than you ever would anyways (let’s be real, most of us hate learning grammar). The exercises that are updated regularly are also a major win, I think.

If you’re not looking for grammar help, Kwiziq’s price point may not be worth it for you, depending on how much you use the other exercises. If you’re looking for something similar at a lower price point, I would recommend Yabla instead – not as pretty or user-friendly, but has similar types of exercises.

After reading this Kwiziq review, I would recommend all Spanish and French language learners, no matter the level, at least go through a few free kwizzes (click here for Spanish, or click here for French) and have the AI assess your level.