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Duolingo vs Rosetta Stone: the most important comparison

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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.

Pimsleur vs Rosetta Stone: from CD sets to apps

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Pimsleur and Rosetta Stone are unique in the language learning world for a few reasons, but most notably are how old they are. They’ve both been around since long before the internet and are still kicking to this day. So how do Pimsleur vs Rosetta Stone compare?

Between Pimsleur and Rosetta Stone, which language learning resource is best for you? Let’s take a look at what their lessons are like, what they teach you, and more so that you can decide on your next language app.

Pimsleur vs Rosetta Stone: languages

You can use either Rosetta Stone or Pimsleur to learn:

  • Arabic
  • Chinese
  • Dutch
  • English
  • Farsi
  • French
  • German
  • Greek
  • Hebrew
  • Hindi
  • Irish
  • Italian
  • Japanese
  • Korean
  • Polish
  • Portuguese (Brazilian)
  • Russian
  • Spanish (Castilian)
  • Spanish (Latin American)
  • Swedish
  • Tagalog
  • Turkish
  • Vietnamese

Rosetta Stone also can be used to learn Latin, and Pimsleur offers double the above list. You can check my Pimsleur review to see those other languages.

Comparing lessons

Gone are the days of spending hundreds of dollars on CD sets to learn a language. Both Pimsleur and Rosetta Stone have had to modernize to keep up with the introduction of language apps, so let’s compare their basic lessons.

Here’s how Rosetta Stone does it.

Here you have the same method, just easily accessible via the internet or your smartphone. Rosetta Stone uses images to help you understand what each word and/or phrase means, without making you go through the extra step of translating everything.

You’ll use the language in all the ways you’d want to learn, too, which is difficult to accomplish in general. Your time is split between listening and speaking and reading and writing, so you get a very well-rounded language education.

This is honestly an excellent way to learn the basics of a language, and I’m glad they’ve been able to seamlessly transition in this way. It really brings users back to the most simple ways that anybody learns a language for the first time.

Here’s a Pimsleur lesson.

Unlike Rosetta Stone, Pimsleur is 100% audio lessons. That’s their shtick. They’ve modernized to bring their strategy to the 21st century, but they also don’t take advantage of all this visual real estate! It’s pretty disappointing, to be honest.

If you’re not familiar, the Pimsleur method is very important to this company. It was created by one 20th-century academic, and they’ve held steadfast to this exact strategy all this time. You’re listening to a simple conversation, repeating words when you’re told to, and that’s it. You can only listen to a single 30-minute lesson a day.

This made a whole lot more sense 50+ years ago. I just wish they’d take more advantage of today’s technology when it comes to the actual method. The modern world has changed so much, but Pimsleur’s method clearly hasn’t.

Regardless of my personal opinion, you will learn to understand simple conversations one at a time, and you’ll get used to speaking the words, too. If you enjoy the process, it does what it’s supposed to do: get you conversational ASAP.

Speaking of…

Pimsleur vs Rosetta Stone: speaking practice

Here is where both apps get a little similar, and that’s not a bad thing! In the spirit of modernization, the easiest and most popular way to add speaking practice to any language app is speech recognition. Both Rosetta Stone and Pimsleur execute this pretty well.

Here’s speaking practice with Rosetta Stone

These lessons are exactly the same as they were back in the age of CD-ROMs. With speech recognition, you’ll get used to saying these phrases smoothly until you feel comfortable expressing them spontaneously. They’re functional sentences that you may actually use, so I’m a big fan.

You can see how Rosetta Stone still does not revert to a native language and instead leads you to figure it out by pairing sentences with imagery. It’s very consistent and reliable.

Now, repeating phrases is the entire backbone of Pimsleur’s lessons, though Pimsleur uses a strategy called “shadowing” where you’re just repeating words and phrases until the words coming out of your mouth sound like the phrases you’re hearing.

But today, Pimsleur also gives learners the option to use speech recognition.

This is what I mean when I say that I wish Pimsleur’s core lessons took more advantage of all the real estate. See how much more engaging this is (at least for visual learners, like me)? See how much easier it is to follow along?

I do wish there were options to have audio in only the target language and/or remove the translation, though.

Still, if Pimsleur decides to continue this particular route, I think it’ll be a great thing for language learners. In a world full of fun sound, bright colors, and quippy notifications, I’d like to see Pimsleur expand its usability a little.

Pricing

Back in the day, both Rosetta Stone and Pimsleur would cost you a few hundred dollars just for beginner lessons. Thanks to modern tech and a brand-new language learning industry exploding in recent years, they’ve been forced to adjust.

Now, instead of one giant investment for physical CDs, both apps have switched to the subscription model. While they differ in what that subscription looks like (monthly, annually, what-have-you), they each average $10-15 per month.

And most of these subscriptions give you access to all their content in one go, which gives language learners the chance to play around a little bit.

Pimsleur vs Rosetta Stone: your choice

Pimsleur and Rosetta Stone are pretty similar apps: both have been around since before language learning was an accessible interest, and both are best suited for beginner language learners.

However, the differences between these two options are much more notable.

Pimsleur is best for aural learners (those who learn best by listening) who enjoy being led step-by-step through simple, real-life conversations. It’s all listening and repeating constantly, so it’s not beneficial to language learners who need visual cues.

You can learn more in my Pimsleur review here.

On the other hand, Rosetta Stone keeps language learners on their toes by consistently switching up how you’re using and learning the language: reading it, speaking it, listening to it…it’s all there. And instead of learning one conversation at a time, you’ll be learning sentences and phrases, piece-by-piece.

Read more in my Rosetta Stone review here.

Pimsleur review: barely keeping with the times

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Back in the days of pre-internet language learning, you had 2 ways to learn a language: attend a class, or buy one of those CD sets that had you go over words and phrases in the language over and over again until you got a hang of it. The CD method is basically this Pimsleur review – yeah, it’s old-school.

This Pimsleur review will talk about what exactly the Pimsleur method is, Pimsleur’s promises, and what to expect if you do choose to buy the course. Is Pimsleur right for you?

Pimsleur review: languages

Right off the bat, Pimsleur boasts a significant number of languages:

  • Albanian
  • Arabic (Eastern)
  • Arabic (Egyptian)
  • Arabic (Modern Standard)
  • Armenian (Western)
  • Armenian (Eastern)
  • Chinese (Cantonese)
  • Chinese (Mandarin)
  • Creole (Haitian)
  • Croatian
  • Czech
  • Danish
  • Dutch
  • English
  • Filipino (Tagalog)
  • Finnish
  • French
  • German
  • Greek
  • Hebrew
  • Hindi
  • Hungarian
  • Icelandic
  • Indonesian
  • Irish
  • Italian
  • Japanese
  • Korean
  • Lithuanian
  • Norwegian
  • Ojibwe
  • Pashto
  • Persian (Dari)
  • Persian (Farsi)
  • Polish
  • Portuguese (Brazilian)
  • Portuguese (European)
  • Punjabi
  • Romanian
  • Russian
  • Spanish (Latin American)
  • Spanish (Castilian)
  • Swahili
  • Swedish
  • Swiss German
  • Thai
  • Turkish
  • Twi
  • Ukrainian
  • Urdu
  • Vietnamese

Pimsleur is an audio-based resource, which means the specific accent of any given language can be very important. So, if a certain “version” of a language is important to you, then Pimsleur may be an excellent match for your needs.

The Pimsleur Method

The Pimsleur Method is based on the research of the late Dr. Paul Pimsleur, whose interest and research were based on memory.

The Pimsleur Method itself is a very strict one: 30 minutes of practice every single day (no more, no less), of pure listening and speaking work. Do not attempt to read or write while you listen.

With this approach, Pimsleur promises you’ll be able to converse at an intermediate level in just 30 days. 30 days of 30 minutes of practice today means Pimsleur promises intermediate-level fluency after just 900 minutes (15 hours) of listening and speaking.

Pimsleur review: lessons

The first 30-minute lesson of every language on Pimsleur is absolutely free. You can work through any language you like, as many times as you like, but it’s only that first lesson. This can give you an idea if the approach is something that you’d like to use, without any financial risk.

For some, this first minute-long snippet is all you need to know about Pimsleur. You’re listening to an audio clip of a man slowly explaining (in English) a basic exchange of basic phrases.

If you find that boring, go to my language app search instead to find something better for you. If the slow pace and the excessive English narration don’t bother you, continue reading this Pimsleur review.

As mentioned early, Pimsleur was designed to be listened to and repeated (a common language learning strategy called “shadowing”) while you’re doing something else, like driving or doing the dishes.

When going through these lessons, you’ll start out with pretty basic, usable phrases: “Excuse me, do you speak English?” and “No, I don’t”, for example. Great for tourist-level learning, and getting a pretty solid background of the language.

Pimsleur will take these phrases apart and really drill you in on each individual aspect of the words and phrases, which is good for absolute beginners. It’s definitely all about training your ear to figure out what you’re listening to and saying. Excellent for listening practice as well as pronunciation – understanding the exact sounds that the language uses, not just the word itself.

Pimsleur’s reading approach

While Pimsleur is primarily focused on practicing speaking conversational phrases, it’s also recommended that you continue on their reading practice (but only after the initial lesson is done).

Here you’ll break down the pronunciation of important words and patterns bit by bit, by preparing you for common pronunciation mistakes as well as comparing the sounds of your target language with the sounds of English.

This is truly a slow, methodical approach to pronunciation via shadowing.

It’s not really reading as much as it is pronunciation, which is confusing. In fact, nothing about Pimsleur’s method could be considered effective reading practice.

Pimsleur review: other activities

The two samples above are really the meat of the Pimsleur app. There are other features (discussed below), however, it should be noted that that is THE Pimsleur Method. The rest of the features mentioned in this Pimsleur review are more of Pimsleur’s attempts to keep up with the times than anything else.

As in, not completely necessary.

For example, here are the practice games Pimsleur uses to help you truly drill the lesson’s vocabulary into your brain.

I do like that they’re trying to make the content just a little more engaging for the 21st century, but remember that Pimsleur is very clear that all these fun and games are after you listen to the initial lesson, not instead of.

While it feels like Pimsleur missed the mark a bit with those games, I do enjoy Pimsleur’s voice coach (it’s a chatbot….anytime you hear a language app talking about chatbots, it’s this).

In the future, I’d really like to see Pimsleur expand this section. Personally, I find this much more engaging than listening to a 30-minute recording that’s mostly in English anyway.

Pimsleur review: price

In the past, Pimsleur was very financially inaccessible – you would plan to spend a few hundred dollars for just a basic language education. Fortunately, time and tech have changed, and Pimsleur has negotiated their prices accordingly.

As aforementioned, you can access the first lesson of any language for free at any time.

If you decide to continue with the Pimsleur Method, you can opt to pay monthly, either for just the language you’re learning or for all languages Pimsleur offers. You can see updated pricing here.

Fortunately, gone are the days of spending $1,000 and waiting for your new CD set to come in the mail (and hoping for the best that you’ll actually use it) – now you can get started instantly!

Pimsleur review: who it’s for

We’ve reached the end of this Pimsleur review, so should you try it?

As I said, if the slow pace, the relaxing cadence, or the heavy English narration are distractions for you, then Pimsleur may not be the best way for you to learn a language. In that case, I would suggest Language Transfer or the LanguagePod101 series.

Or, even simpler, find videos for beginners on YouTube! That free content combined with the Language Reactor Chrome extension…the sky’s the limit.

However, if you enjoyed listening to the videos in this Pimsleur review and are happy to repeat words and phrases until you can have simple conversations, Pimsleur may just be the language app for you. Get your 1-week free trial here!

Glossika review: for all your repetition needs

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Glossika is a highly engaging way to learn 60+ different languages. It does this with AI-supplemented sentences, high-quality audio, and a variety of different types of exercises. In this Glossika review, let’s take a walkthrough of the platform and discuss who can benefit most and who won’t.

And if Glossika doesn’t look like your kind of language app, keep scrolling to see some Glossika alternatives.

Glossika review: available languages

As mentioned, Glossika offers courses in 60+ languages:

  • Arabic (Egypt)
  • Arabic (Morocco)
  • Arabic (Standard)
  • Armenian (Eastern)
  • Azerbaijani
  • Belarusian
  • Bengali (India)
  • Bulgarian
  • Cantonese (HK)
  • Catalan
  • Chinese (Mandarin)(Beijing)
  • Chinese (Mandarin)(Taiwan)
  • Croatian (Å tokavian)
  • Czech
  • Danish
  • Dutch
  • English (British)
  • Estonian
  • Filipino (Tagalog)
  • Finnish (SW dialect)
  • French
  • Gaelic
  • Georgian
  • German
  • Greek
  • Hakka (Hailu)
  • Hakka (Sixian)
  • Hebrew
  • Hindi
  • Hokkien
  • Hungarian
  • Icelandic
  • Indonesian
  • Irish
  • Italian
  • Japanese
  • Kazakh
  • Korean
  • Kurdish (Sorani)
  • Latvian
  • Lithuanian
  • Manx
  • Mongolian
  • Norwegian (Nynorsk)
  • Persian
  • Polish
  • Portuguese (Brazilian)
  • Portuguese (European)
  • Russian
  • Serbian (Ekavian)
  • Slovak
  • Slovenian
  • Spanish (Mexican)
  • Spanish (Castilian)
  • Swahili
  • Swedish
  • Thai
  • Turkish
  • Ukrainian
  • Uzbek
  • Vietnamese (Northern)
  • Vietnamese (Southern)
  • Welsh
  • Wenzhounese

And because Glossika cares about language preservation, a few of them are available for free; you don’t get all the benefits of a paid membership, but you do get unlimited spaced repetition practice to do your part to keep these languages alive.

We’ll talk about that more at the end.

Glossika review: the placement test

To start with Glossika, you can first opt to take a placement test. It’s a very simple test: listen to a few audio recordings of sentences, and select the sentence that you hear. If it ever gets too hard, you can always let Glossika know that you need to start from that level.

Unfortunately, like most placement tests, it’s pretty useless.

While the audio recordings themselves are very clear and high quality (the same goes for the usability of Glossika as a whole), I’d rather they just toss the whole thing.

The sentences are so different that all you need to do is recognize one single word at the beginning to answer correctly. This is regardless of whether you understood the statement itself or could even create it – you can see towards the end of the above video that I could answer correctly based on literally the first word.

And that’s beside the fact that it’s only testing listening (despite claiming to exercise all the language skills) and didn’t even attempt to test me beyond B2. Where the placement test is concerned, I’d rather they just ask me directly.

Glossika review: learning new phrases

Glossika teaches users a new language by introducing new sentences that are useful in day-to-day life. You’ll learn to understand the language implicitly, as opposed to learning new vocabulary words and grammatical terms piece by piece.

You’ll learn 5 phrases like this at a time, through reading, writing, listening, and speaking, as well as using spaced repetition.

Glossika lessons follow this format:

  1. The new phrase is presented written in both your source and target language
  2. You hear a recording of the phrase in both languages, so you can follow along
  3. You type out the phrase in the foreign language
  4. You reread the phrase just in the foreign language
  5. You record yourself saying the phrase in the foreign language

As you can see, you got these phrases drilled into your brain really well. It doesn’t seem to be wildly sensitive to mistakes (I didn’t use any capital letters or accents, for example) which can be a significant drawback if you don’t get used to spelling appropriately, especially with Spanish.

Glossika is very customizable, which is a plus; for example, you can opt out of speaking practice if it’s not convenient for you at the moment, or you can turn the English translation on or off. The only problem is that these customizations aren’t obvious.

Another example: this next video was actually my first attempt at a lesson with Glossika.

I didn’t realize that it had automatically been set to “listening mode” until I started clicking around. There’s no tutorial showing you these options, nor any attempt to even let you know they’re there, so you’ll have to do some experimenting for yourself.

Maybe there’s an option to require correct accents somewhere? If there is, it’s not obvious.

Another helpful setting that Glossika didn’t tell me: if any of the phrases are too easy for you, just click the smiley face, and they’ll be taken out of the cycle.

Nonetheless, if used appropriately, this approach can provide language learners with a very well-rounded language education.

As a whole, I do love Glossika’s approach! In general, it’s engaging, modern, and really attractive.

Glossika’s “reps”

If you hang around Glossika’s Facebook group enough, you’ll see tons of talk about “reps”. The basic idea is that Glossika teaches through repetition, and your mastery of any given phrase or sentence can be defined by how many reps you’ve completed.

With Glossika’s approach, if you repeat their sentences enough times, you’ll master the language! How many times? According to this page here:

  25,000 Reps → Speak sentences comfortably
  50,000 Reps → Start engaging in casual conversations at natural speeds
  75,000 Reps → Start honing skills with more specialized topics
100,000 Reps → Mastery level where you can say just about anything

This is Glossika’s version of spaced repetition (also known as SRS). This concept is not unique to Glossika; it’s when a computer program predicts how easy or difficult any given term or phrase is for you. If it’s easy, and you get it correct, it puts that term to the side until it thinks you’re just about to forget it. Then it shows you that phrase again, therefore getting that phrase from your short-term to long-term memory.

Does this make sense? Sure. Using this strategy, could you theoretically boil down a language to a specific number [of repetitions]? Makes sense.

The problem is (and this is my personal opinion), repeating the same phrases tens of thousands of times is insanely boring.

You’ll practice each phrase 5 times at a minimum, more often if you’re struggling with it. This strategy is great for the more logical and scientific of minds, less so for those needing more entertainment.

Don’t get me wrong, repetition is very important for every language learner. But for my own personal needs, this level of repetition drives me crazy.

Using your stats

Glossika is very scientifically-lead, so their stats are a bit more interesting than most. For one, I love this feature of the “Memory” tab.

Note: I don’t know if the audio problems are because of my device, or a Glossika error.

As I was doing my spoken reps, I honestly didn’t realize that my audio was actually being recorded, so I was disappointed at first. However, going back into this section I can listen to myself repeating the phrase, and compare it to Glossika’s native audio.

This is a helpful strategy called “shadowing”, where you learn to mirror your pronunciation of a foreign language based on an audio clip. Honestly, it’s pretty tough to come by, which is strange considering it’s a simple way for any given language learning app to help you practice speaking a foreign language.

Another interesting feature: you can choose the topics of Glossika’s sentences.

I appreciate being able to tell Glossika that I have absolutely no interest in talking about the military or science. It’s not quite enough to make the approach less boring (again, as a personal opinion and not at all an objective one), but every little option that users can mess with is a bonus.

Glossika’s pricing

Glossika offers free trials to all new users, and then offers 2 pricing tiers: $30/month for unlimited reps in unlimited languages, and about half that per month to only change your language once every 30 days.

This new lower tier is brand new as of this Glossika review, and I’m very happy to see the compromise to make language learning more accessible!

And finally, in an effort to promote minority languages, the following languages are 100% free to all users:

  • Catalan
  • Gaelic
  • Hakka (Sixian)
  • Hakka (Hailu)
  • Kurdish (Sorani)
  • Manx
  • Welsh
  • Taiwanese
  • Wenzhounese

If going through this Glossika review convinces you to give it a try (more on that below), I highly recommend you at least spring for your free trial. No credit card is required!

Glossika review: who it’s for

Glossika is beautiful, smooth, and high quality, but it’s not for everyone. For one, Glossika does not start from 0, with basic vocabulary and grammar. Instead, you’ll start with beginner phrases. It’s more of the “figure it out as you go” approach, as opposed to the “1+1=2” one.

If you’re a big fan of repetition, Glossika is great for a wide variety of language learners, especially how well they tackle all the language skills. The advanced customization is a huge plus, too, as long as you’re tech-savvy enough to figure it out for yourself.

But if you want usability with a less…sterile approach, you’re not alone. If that’s the case, I might recommend Busuu, which connects the language more by way of living, breathing community, as well as more explicit language lessons.

Hooked on Glossika and want to give it a try? Click here to start your free trial!

Rocket Languages review: scripts from 0-fluent

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Rocket Languages is a genuinely well-rounded way to learn languages that has the potential to help language learners achieve many different kinds of goals. In this Rocket Languages review, we’ll walk through some lessons and talk about what Rocket Languages does well, not so well, and if it’s a resource you should consider.

Language options

You can use Rocket Languages to learn:

  • American Sign Language
  • Arabic
  • Chinese (Mandarin)
  • English (American)
  • French
  • German
  • Hindi
  • Italian
  • Japanese
  • Korean
  • Portuguese (Brazilian)
  • Russian
  • Spanish

For this Rocket Languages review, let’s test Rocket Languages Spanish.

Rocket Languages review: level 1 interactive audio

Rocket Languages has its material organized into 3 levels (as well as some other courses for practice, depending on the language), and each of those levels has its own dashboard. Starting with the very first lesson in the very first dashboard, you’ll learn the very first phrases you’ll ever need: how to say ‘hello’.

First, you’ll get an audio file introducing you to everything, all in English (which makes sense, considering if you’re starting at level 1, you probably don’t understand much Spanish). It’ll introduce you to that first conversation.

Or, as I did in the video below, simply skip past the English introduction and jump right into the audio itself.

I do love the modernized interface – you have complete control over the speed of the audio, which part of the audio you’re listening to, and have a clickable transcript for us visual learners. You can also download the mp3 for independent practice without having to go back into the course itself.

I still don’t like how much if it is in English (that’s my main issue with the Pod101 series, too), but it is easy enough to skip past it and get right into the goods.

Regardless, this script is very slow – excellent for beginners, but not for you if you have experience with the language (at least, not level 1). But you’ll go through a normal greeting conversation with some helpful tips: how native speakers speak, any important cultural knowledge, etc.

If this is too slow for you (and you’ve already purchased the course), you can jump right to the lessons at your level. There is no need to complete any lessons – move around Rocket Languages as you please.

Next, you’ll take that same conversations and break it down even more for you to act out both sides of the dialogue.

In this first lesson, you get an incredibly simplistic conversation, and a ton of options for digesting said conversation:

  • Play the conversation
  • Play Mauricio’s side of the conversation (for you to role-play as Amy)
  • Play Amy’s side of the conversation (for you to role-play as Mauricio)
  • Play each individual piece of dialogue independently
  • Record yourself saying each individual piece of dialogue independently

This offers fresh new beginners plenty of opportunities to learn the way that they need to learn. And if it’s too easy for you (which is totally understandable – this is at a snail’s pace), click the gear at the upper right-hand corner to manage the settings.

With these extra settings either checked or unchecked, you can give yourself more of a challenge by:

  • Blurring the English translation (practice thinking in the language)
  • Blurring the Spanish text (practice listening comprehension)
  • Removing a word or character for a fill-in-the-blank
  • Having Rocket Languages grade your recording

In these sections, Rocket Languages uses speech recognition to grade your pronunciation. I generally don’t like to rely on this tech, but I do like being able to see what it thinks I’m saying.

After this “extra vocabulary” section – vocab that is relevant to this conversation but doesn’t actually appear in it – it’s time to “make it stick with Rocket reinforcement”! Using the same conversation, you’ll continue to:

  • flashcards
  • more speech recognition
  • transcription (type the statements)
  • verbal translation (see the English words, say them in the target language)
  • multiple choice quiz

In all these reinforcement tools, Rocket Languages also prompts you to report how easy or difficult any given term is! This is my absolute favorite and I wish I saw it more.

It keeps track of what you’re learning, kind of like Anki and LingoDeer do – literally just tell Rocket Languages how well you know the term. Then, once you’re through with those flashcards, you have the option to just study the more difficult ones again.

It’s important to notice that the transcription exercise corrects you if you don’t use appropriate accents. Always write the language correctly – the accents are more than just annoying pronunciation marks.

But, at the same time, whether you got it right is completely self-reporting. So technically you could just not make an effort to use the accents, but they did their due diligence to tell you. If you don’t have an accurate understanding of the language, that’s on you.

Language & culture lessons

On the dashboard, under the “interactive audio” lessons, you’ll find “language & culture” lessons. These lessons are here to give you some key background information of the language, including pronunciation tips, grammatical patterns, and more.

Basically, this is where Rocket Languages takes important knowledge that can be dry (and therefore normally avoided), and applies it to their methodology to make it a bit more intriguing.

For example, the first lesson explains the difference between the B and V sound in Spanish – it’s not a make or break kind of thing, but definitely helpful for pronunciation.

This is honestly great – most resources don’t explain things like the alphabet from the get go, as most resources (as well as most learners) don’t tend to find these things important.

Interactive audio level 3

As we’ve already seen, level 1 is very, very slow and simple, great for total beginners. Rocket Languages is broken up into 3 levels, so how advanced does level 3 get?

Honestly, more advanced than I’d expected!

This particular conversation is around an upper-intermediate level. Considering how slow and simple the first level was, I’m pleasantly surprised by the content here. It’s played at a decent speed as well, and very clearly.

If you want a more native-level speed, you’ll have to find native content.

If you want to challenge yourself more (which I highly recommend if it’s not too much of a stretch for you), go into the gear icon and turn off the English translations. At this level, your comprehension likely can take a bit more pushing – do it if you can.

My only issue is that “cheesy” clarity. For some it may be beneficial, as it’s easier to understand, but it’s almost unrealistic unless you’re in an elementary school classroom.

However, this doesn’t reflect on the approach as a whole, which I tend to agree with. For example:

Grammar isn’t crucial to being able to make yourself understood in a conversation.

I mean, it’s true. If conversing fluently is your goal, you don’t have to be too concerned over grammar. Which is probably why they don’t formally address grammar at all. It’s nodded at in contextual examples, but that’s about it.

Nonetheless, I don’t see you ever running out of conversational practices. Once you’re done with all 3 levels, you can click on to “Travelogues” for even more conversational practice: 20-30 minutes of advanced-level conversation, where you need to actively go to the English version if you want the translation.

Rocket Languages review: pricing

I can honestly say that Rocket Languages is a high quality resource, which means it comes at a high quality price. You can spend a couple of hundred dollars for all 3 levels, or if you don’t plan on needing every level, you can lower the price by purchasing courses individually.

Click here to see up-to-date prices.

Buying Rocket Languages includes access to only 1 language.

If this Rocket Languages review shows you that this may very well be the best language learning resource for you, that price tag may make you a bit nervous. Keep in mind that not only does that price include lifetime access to all updates, but you can also always trial the first few lessons of any course for free (this review is based on those very same trial lessons).

rocket languages review

The first free lessons, at every level, are available to you forever. No obligation, no nothing.

Who can benefit most from Rocket Languages?

Rocket Languages is a very well-rounded resource that can take you from day 0 of your language to a pretty advanced level for one program. It presents a variety of different ways to study, based on what’s engaging and important to you, with no obligation to use any of them if you don’t want to.

However, if you need fun sounds, bright colors, and heavy gamification, Rocket Languages’ clear, lightweight activities won’t keep you interested.

Same for those who want a thorough knowledge of grammar – you’ll get a basic idea/feel for grammar, but you’re mostly left to pick up patterns implicitly without drills or grandiose explanations.

Otherwise, if you have a bit of cash to invest in your language learning and want to engage almost all the senses no matter where you are in your journey, click here to give Rocket Languages a try.

Mango Languages review: 70+ beginner languages

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Mango Languages is a crowd favorite for language learners because it’s engaging, offers real-world education, and can be accessed for free through institutions everywhere. In this Mango Languages review, learn everything you need to know about this resource for your own language goals: what it does well, what it doesn’t, and who should use it.

And if you fall under the category of language learners who won’t really benefit, this Mango Languages review ends with a couple of other recommendations, based on Mango Languages’ biggest flaws.

Mango Languages available

To start, Mango Languages offers plenty of languages, plus quite a few different dialects/accents within those languages, including:

  • Arabic (Egyptian)
  • Arabic (Iraqi)
  • Arabic (Levantine)
  • Arabic (MS)*
  • Aramaic (Chaldean)
  • Armenian
  • Azerbaijani
  • Bengali
  • Cantonese
  • Cherokee
  • Chinese (Mandarin)*
  • Creole (Haitian)
  • Croatian
  • Czech
  • Danish
  • Dutch
  • Dzongkha
  • English
  • English (Shakespeare)
  • Filipino (Tagalog)
  • Finnish
  • French*
  • French (Canadian)
  • German*
  • Greek
  • Greek (Ancient)
  • Greek (Koine)
  • Hawaiian
  • Hebrew
  • Hebrew (Biblical)
  • Hindi
  • Hungarian
  • Icelandic
  • Igbo
  • Indonesian
  • Irish*
  • Italian*
  • Japanese*
  • Javanese
  • Kazakh
  • Korean*
  • Latin
  • Malay
  • Malayalam
  • Norwegian
  • Pashto
  • Pirate
  • Polish
  • Portuguese (Brazil)*
  • Persian (Dari)
  • Persian (Farsi)
  • Potawatomi
  • Punjabi (Pakistani)
  • Romanian
  • Russian*
  • Scottish Gaelic
  • Serbian
  • Shangainese
  • Slovak
  • Spanish (Castilian)*
  • Spanish (LAm)*
  • Swahili
  • Swedish
  • Tamil
  • Telugu
  • Thai
  • Turkish
  • Tuvan
  • Ukrainian
  • Urdu
  • Uzbek
  • Vietnamese
  • Yiddish

The languages marked with an asterisk(*) also include a variety of different cultural courses, from etiquette to business to superstitions and beyond.

These courses mean that you can also use Mango Languages to learn professional phrases, or even just fun ones (Like St Patrick’s Day Irish, for example). If you’re looking for a clear-cut, specific path in your target language, this is a great, unique approach.

Fun vocabulary options are a great way to make sure you’re enjoying the language learning process! Even if you don’t *need* St Patrick’s Day vocabulary, it still qualifies as legitimate exposure to the language. These fun sections are not reliable across languages, though, so check what’s available before assuming you can use it to learn professional Uzbek, for example.

Mango Languages: an overview

Mango Language’s courses are laid out in a very simple, modern way – no advertising, no outside podcasts or blog posts, nothing – so you can focus on the language and nothing else. It’s been completely redone within the past couple of years, and these updates have made massive improvements to the platform’s usability.

These courses are broken up into units and chapters. Once you start whichever chapter you like (there are no requirements for going through any prior lessons or units, just pick and choose whichever lessons suit your fancy), you’ll see that each chapter is one conversation that you’ll be dissecting. You’ll get a collection of phrases/sentences for a real-life conversation, and break them down bit by bit.

Specifically, you’ll learn to have these conversations by learning the individual words, phrases, and then sentences, with some nice little cultural facts thrown in. You’ll then learn to piece together all of this information yourself, with the option for plenty of help along the way.

As you continue on through these lessons, you’ll learn and understand each individual word and phrase in a variety of different ways. And each of these ways will be repeated many times.

When I say Mango Languages takes sentences bit by bit, I mean bit by bit. The first thing you learn isn’t the entire phrase included in the first piece of dialogue, but just the first word. Mango Languages crawls. Excellent for beginners, but painful for everyone else.

Nope, can’t fast-forward the speed, either.

For each and every little bit, you’ll get:

  • the word you’re learning
  • its translation
  • an audio recording (you can repeat as many times as you like)
  • the option to record yourself saying it (to compare with their audio)
  • the pronunciation

Think you’ve got it? The next step is a chance for you to translate it independently.

These sections are giving you the tools that you need to use the language, it’s up to you to piece the tools together correctly using critical thinking. Using the examples, grammar notes, and cultural notes, you’re led to rise to the challenge of forming foreign language sentences.

Did you notice the color coding? As a visual learner, I do love this part. It makes it easier for me to create the link in my brain between the two phrases and helps me to pick apart what each individual word means, and how the words come together in a way that makes sense.

As you learn new languages, you learn that sometimes the most difficult part is that sentences aren’t built the same across different languages. Words are all out of order, some words don’t even exist in other languages, and some languages need 10 words to say something that another language says in one.

Then, each phrase is repeated consistently while you continue to learn more, which is very helpful in turning that short-term memory into long-term memory if you need to take it slow. Later on in this post, we’ll take a look at Daily Review, which helps even more with building long-term memory.

Note: I completely forgot to turn off the narrator’s voice up until now in this Mango Languages review! From here on out, you’ll hear limited English and mostly Spanish. This is easily configured in the settings, in the upper right-hand corner.

Once you have the meaning down, Mango Languages has you actually practice the words and sounds.

So, if you’re an ultimate beginner in the language and have never studied any language before, Mango Languages definitely has a few decent options to offer!

And a lot of simple repetitions. This is, again, excellent for beginners. A lot of the time, there’s no easy way to learn something except seeing or hearing it as many times as it takes for your brain to catch on. Consistency is key, especially when it seems like a word is never going to stick!

Daily Review

Recently, Mango Languages has also included more tools to help baby language learners form a habit. With the mobile app, you can add and customize study reminders by day of the week and the time of day you want to receive your reminder. Very handy for even the busiest or most distractible language learners.

And even if you’re not using the mobile app, desktop users can access the review section at any time. Instead of going through the initial lessons over and over again, you can basically review the flashcards automatically created based on your past lessons.

Click the button, and you get those same options for self-study:

  • switch between “literal” and “understood” translation
  • listen to the audio
  • record yourself saying it

PLUS, unique to this section is the self-reporting buttons on the bottom and the option to take a card out of the deck in cases where you know that card like the back of your hand, so you don’t waste your time.

Self-reporting flashcards are my absolute favorite! They make it easier to get an accurate understanding of what you’re learning, instead of a resource assuming that you know any given term better or worse than you actually do.

I also love the power language learners have over what they need to review. Some language learning resources are much stricter about this, so it’s good to see this level of customization. There’s nothing more irritating than being forced to review terms that you already know.

Plus, it’s such an attractive interface! The only other resource that does this as well is Rocket Languages.

Mango Languages review: pricing and access

While Mango Languages is a paid resource, there’s a good chance you can find your way to free access through local institutions. They partner with public libraries, corporations, schools, and other public entities all over to provide free, unlimited access to all 70+ of their language learning courses at any time.

If you can’t find access through an institution, however, you can always opt for a paid subscription yourself. Fortunately, paid subscriptions are still very reasonably priced at less than $10/ month. Click here for updated pricing.

Who Mango Languages is for

For one, this Mango Languages review makes it clear that beginner language learners would benefit the most. As you grow in your language learning, the speed and repetition become unbearable, but it’s a very generous start for those who process slowly or are simply brand new to the language. This is also true concerning the content itself – it’s just for beginners.

It’s also pretty surface-level, meaning you’re not going to be able to find clear, tangible grammatical explanations to study. I mean, there are some tossed into individual chapters, of course, but it doesn’t suit grammar- and rule-focused learners. You’ll get a general feel of the grammar that you need to understand one particular phrase, and that’s it.

At the end of the day, if you want a simple, modern design with hand-holding through a collection of pretty simple phrases, as well as some cultural education (depending on the language) in a frankly huge variety of languages, I recommend you give Mango Languages a shot.

But for many language learners, Mango Languages will be much too slow. If this is the case, I might suggest uTalk for support in the less commonly learned languages or Glossika for a more advanced approach.