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Ling Review: make language learning light and flexible

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

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

Languages you can learn with Ling

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

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

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

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

Ling review: getting started

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

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

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

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

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

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

Gamification

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

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

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

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

Implicit grammar lessons

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

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

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

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

Translating vs “knowing”

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

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

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

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

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

Ling review: speaking practice

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

Let’s see how Ling approaches this problem.

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

It gets the job done, it’s fine.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ling review: difficulty level

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

Definitely not expert-level vocab.

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

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

Ling review: pricing

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

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

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

Click here for updated pricing.

Should you use Ling to learn a language?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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!

Verbling vs italki for language learners

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One of the best ways to practice speaking a foreign language is to have conversations with native speakers of the language. The two most popular platforms to connect with native speakers are italki and Verbling. Let’s take a look at Verbling vs italki to see which platform is best for you.

It should be noted that Verbling and italki are very similar platforms, and while they may technically be in competition with each other, it may be best practice for language learners to take advantage of both platforms.

Because as we’ll discover as we compare Verbling vs italki, it’s not so much the platform that matters as the teachers who use the platforms.

Verbling vs italki: teaching experience

Each company has different experience requirements for language teachers who are interested in using their platform to find students. This can also be evident in the student’s search for a teacher.

The most popular option, italki, lets you choose between professional and community teachers. The difference is that a professional teacher has some sort of official qualifications or certifications to teach; community teachers are just native or advanced speakers of the language.

On the other hand, Verbling requires potential teachers to have professional experience. If you’re using Verbling, you’re there to learn, not just to practice.

Is professional experience necessary? If you want the structured approach of a teacher, yes; however, if you just want to pay a native/advanced speaker to be available and help you focus on communication, not necessarily.

And of course, community teachers are much cheaper. Professional experience comes at a premium. It’s up to you to decide if professional experience is a priority, and this will help you decide on which platform to prioritize.

italki vs Verbling: trial lessons

Taking a language lesson for the first time can be a daunting experience, especially when you’re meeting the teacher for the first time, and you’re not quite sure what the atmosphere will be like.

Fortunately, both Verbling and italki offer a version of trial lessons. The approach, of course, is different.

First, italki offers 3 free trial lessons ever. These are tied to your account and must be applied to 3 different teachers if you use them. Not all italki teachers offer free trial lessons, so I’m guessing it’s truly free, which means that the teachers are not paid at all (italki does not pay for these lessons for you).

Verbling is a lot less strict and gives its teachers 100% say in their own trial lessons.

If a Verbling teacher decides to offer a trial lesson, they set the price. With this system, each new student gets to trial the teaching style of any teacher.

Plus, Verbling teachers are paid for their trial lessons. It’s half the time of a full lesson, so they can charge half the price. This is compared to italki, which expects its teachers to offer them for free.

In this way, Verbling is a much better option, both for language learners (who get to trial as many teachers as they like) and for language teachers (who get paid for their time, regardless of how much time they’re spending).

Class types

Both Verbling and italki specialize in private language classes, which means 1-on-1. You’re paying someone to focus on your language learning. There is a little bit of wiggle room, though.

For even more ease of commitment (more on this later), some Verbling teachers offer bulk lessons; if you commit to a number of lessons (5, 10, 20, whatever), you get a small discount.

On the other hand, italki has a small collection of group lessons.

On italki, this is definitely not the star of the show. It simply does not compare to a service like Lingoda that truly excels at this. Based only on first impression, it seems to be a low-stakes way to find your next language teacher.

Though, at the time of this writing, this feature isn’t available in most languages. As I said, it seems to be an option to support more private classes, by making them slightly more accessible to start, as opposed to a formal feature.

Booking a class on Verbling vs italki

The process of booking a language teacher differs between platforms, and this is more important than you may think.

Emotionally, it can be difficult to commit to a lesson with a language teacher. It’s not uncommon to be self-conscious about your ability to have foreign language conversations, worried about financial commitment, anxious about committing to a routine, etc.

That said, it’s the responsibility of the platform to make it easy for language learners to book a lesson. If it’s too difficult to book, that just becomes another obstacle stopping a language learner from committing.

There’s one tiny difference between Verbling and italki here: where the lesson is hosted. italki allows you 3 options: their own software, Zoom, or Skype.

To be fair, I am 100% nit-picking. But at the same time, I am well aware of how tiny things like this can make it feel impossible to do things like schedule a lesson with a language teacher, which can be hard enough as it is.

italki offers 3 different platforms (which I’m assuming invites some technical difficulties when it comes to sharing usernames, Zoom/Skype outages, etc.), while Verbling only uses their own software.

Verbling keeps it simpler. When it’s time for your lesson, all you have to do is go to the website and there will be a link for you to join the classroom, right there on Verbling.

Obviously, I can’t say how reliable it is – that’s something to ask your language teacher with much more experience with the tech than I’ll ever have. But from the perspective of a language learner, this is a much better system.

Which platform is best?

While most online creators will mention italki, I personally find Verbling to be just slightly higher quality for language learners: higher quality teachers, easier to book lessons, and easier to join.

Above all else, as I mentioned at the beginning of this review, is that specific teachers on each platform. While looking for a language teacher, the website they’re on isn’t as important as the teachers themselves, so I encourage you to keep an open mind.

Want to learn more about each platform?

You can read my italki review here, and my Verbling review here.

Rosetta Stone review: for beginner language learners only

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Rosetta Stone has been a major name in the language learning world longer than most. This Rosetta Stone review will help you decide if it’s the language app for you.

Can you really get fluent using Rosetta Stone? Is it worth the money? Should you be considering it? In this Rosetta Stone review, I’ll touch base on all these questions, so you can make an educated decision on whether to take the plunge.

First things first, though, is to make sure Rosetta Stone actually teaches the language you’re interested in learning. Rosetta Stone offers the following languages:

  • Arabic
  • Chinese (Mandarin)
  • Dutch
  • English (American)
  • English (British)
  • Farsi (Persian)
  • French
  • German
  • Greek
  • Hebrew
  • Hindi
  • Irish
  • Italian
  • Japanese
  • Korean
  • Latin
  • Polish
  • Portuguese (Brazil)
  • Russian
  • Spanish (Latin America)
  • Spanish (Spain)
  • Swedish
  • Tagalog
  • Turkish
  • Vietnamese

Rosetta Stone review: what works

First off, let’s talk about how exactly Rosetta Stone accomplishes what it says it will accomplish. I’m very particular about making sure I’m practicing all of my language skills and knowing exactly what my goal is with any language.

That being said, how does Rosetta Stone work, and what does it teach you?

The closest thing to immersion

Rosetta Stone’s claim to fame is that it teaches you the language by immersion, which is great! And it’s true – you will never see or hear a single English word using this program. Using Rosetta Stone as an ultimate beginner is great because you’re learning to think using the language right off the bat; compared to other programs, where you’re translating between languages in order to learn, this is undoubtedly the best way to take in a language.

And Rosetta Stone is great for this very reason: it makes you think. With every round of questions, the way it’s designed forces you to actually think in the language. This is the first step in learning a new language authentically and efficiently.

So, if you’re starting out with the language fresh and new, the Rosetta Stone method is incredibly challenging, but in the best way.

The lessons may not go by as quickly and painlessly as Duolingo’s 5-minute lessons – you’ll spend a significant amount of time really using your brain, just like you would in real-life immersion. In fact, I had to take a break after the first 2 lessons because my brain hurt like it does when I’m in actual language exchanges!

Multiple-choice questions that you can’t fake

Another thing about Rosetta Stone that I really love is that you can’t really BS it. The program depends heavily on multiple-choice questions, but they switch it up. For example, you’re given a phrase, and then you’re given 4 pictures – your job is to match the phrase to the correct picture.

Once you’ve done that, not only is the text taken off the picture (so you still have four images to choose from for the next phrase), but the order of the pictures is flipped around. It’s just another level at which you actually have to think, as opposed to “well I’ve already matched up 3 pictures, so I don’t even have to look at the last phrase to know which picture it belongs to”.

It’s a simple thing, but it really makes a world of difference when it comes to making you actually think in the language, which, again, is one of the most important parts of effectively learning a new language.

Speaking from the beginning

Another thing that Rosetta Stone does really well is making you speak from day one. At the beginning levels, this is really helpful, as a lot of newbie language learners don’t realize that getting used to forming the words correctly is a skill in itself.

Foreign languages use different sounds, and just recognizing them by ear isn’t enough – you need to build muscle memory, and Rosetta Stone helps with that.

Rosetta Stone makes very large claims about speech recognition. I personally tend to take this with a grain of salt, because this isn’t the first time I’ve heard that, and it’s usually pretty useless. Most of the time, speech recognition is either easy to fake or says you’re wrong even when you’re right.

In my experience…Rosetta Stone’s speech recognition is about 50/50, as well. In some ways it has alerted me to how I’m pronouncing incorrectly, but whether or not it’s been a convenient fluke…who knows. I say that because after saying the same word with the same exact pronunciation four times and being told it was wrong the first three and right the fourth…it’s still not 100%.

So, take what it tells you with a grain of salt. Listen carefully, and absolutely practice your speaking, but I feel like there are better ways to go about that one.

…and all the other language skills

Yes, speaking is the big thing that most newbie language learners might avoid. Besides speaking, Rosetta Stone is surprisingly good at hitting the other language skills: reading, writing, and listening. Once you get through your core lesson, where you’ll learn all the things you need to learn about that unit, you’re also taken through lessons for each individual skill, which is amazing.

You get all of your language skills, appropriate to your level of learning, right in one go. Honestly, no other independent language learning resource does that, so in this way, Rosetta Stone is way ahead of the game (and has been for more than 20 years now).

That being said, this is a big deal. From the very very beginning, you get in the habit of practicing the language in every way necessary. Pretty good for beginners!

Rosetta Stone review: what doesn’t work

Now that I’m done raving on and on about how wonderful Rosetta Stone is, let’s talk about its failings. Now, keep in mind that it’s not that this program does things wrong necessarily – Rosetta Stone knows who its target audience is, and if these faults are a big deal, it’s not meant for you anyway.

I say this because I’ve seen plenty of reviews talking about how Rosetta Stone is heavily flawed, but so is every other language learning resource. Nothing is one-size-fits-all; if it were, there wouldn’t be a reason for all of these products. Know what you’re looking for in your language learning journey, and that will help you to make the right choice.

It’s repetitive

Right off the bat, Rosetta Stone can get infuriatingly repetitive. If you’re used to learning languages, and it’s easy for you to grasp linguistic patterns, Rosetta Stone is horribly boring and slow. The most basic words and grammatical patterns don’t need to be drilled so incessantly for learners who have already learned these same exact patterns in other languages.

If you’re an ultra-newbie this is great, because you’ll learn the basics and you’ll learn them well. However, if you’ve already done the legwork to recognize and be familiar with these basic patterns, you’re gonna get real bored real quick, which means you’ll give up.

Even with more advanced-level content, this was too slow. I tried to go into the settings real quick to speed it up, but no-go.

Rosetta Stone will provide you with a great base level to build on, which is great if you need it. If you don’t need it, don’t bother with it.

It’s basic

Rosetta Stone has 5 units of lessons for languages that are related to English, but only 3 or 4 for other unrelated languages. There is a lot of content, and the content is very thoroughly broken down into all of the language skills. It involves a lot of drilling and a lot of basic hand-holding.

However, the amount of drilling and hand-holding involved means that the content doesn’t get you very far. If you’re planning a trip abroad and want to feel comfortable understanding and communicating at a basic level, it’s very thorough and efficient. However, you won’t get much farther than that. And if you’re a seasoned language learner, you’re gonna get bored real quick, even if you’re still learning things.

You will not be learning intermediate or advanced words or concepts with Rosetta Stone. If you’re just starting out with the language, you’ll be fine, but there is no real building on the basics using this program. You’ll get a very solid root to the language, and you’ll be at a good place to push onward, but you can’t get onward depending solely on this program.

It’s expensive

This has been a major sore spot for Rosetta Stone since the beginning. Especially since the internet became a thing, and a variety of cheap or even free resources have become available, the steep price tag (think $200 for a single-level CD-set!) has turned a lot of people off.

As time has gone on, Rosetta Stone’s prices have become a bit more palatable by switching to a monthly model like a majority of the industry. The caveat is that you cannot invest month-by-month. You can see current prices here.

Fortunately, they do offer a 30-day guarantee.

Rosetta Stone review: stories

With stories, you get 3 different options for practice: read the story, read and listen, or read and read aloud. These stories are very on-level, and offer you another resource to practice both input and output.

I’m a big fan of listening to text while you read it, plus highlighting each individual word as it’s read? Two thumbs up!

When reading aloud with the story, the concept is exactly the same – the highlight tries to follow along with you word-by-word. It’s not exactly 100%, but it does the job enough.

Use this tool to listen to how you’re pronouncing the words, and then switch back to listening to compare.

My only complaint here is that I wish you had the option to download your recording. That way you could send it to a tutor or language exchange partner for feedback, or even just keep track of your progress for yourself.

Rosetta Stone’s audio companion

Then we have the audio companion. With each lesson, Rosetta Stone offers audio tracks of vocab pronounced correctly and slowly, with a beat after each word for you to repeat.

On mobile, you have the option to rewind, pause, and fast-forward; on desktop (as pictured), you just get the audio tracks downloaded straight to your device. In this case, it’s up to you to have a program that offers these options.

This first lesson had 18 audio clips (including the intro), by the way, not just the 3 shown here.

Rosetta Stone review: is it for you?

Rosetta Stone is a great language learning program that satisfies every language skill (that in itself is hard to come by), meaning you don’t have to look elsewhere for practice. If you’re a total beginner looking for a very confident base in the language, click here to get started with Rosetta Stone.

However, if you’re not a beginner or find the pace to be much too slow, I’d skip it. Instead, I’d recommend these comparisons if you’re interested in something similar: