MosaLingua Review: overwhelming, but good!

MosaLingua is a combination website/mobile app that boasts its own unique method of learning a language, called The MOSA Learning Method. What is this method, what does it teach you, and how effective is MosaLingua for learning a language?

In this MosaLingua review, let’s find out!

MosaLingua languages

MosaLingua is an international company, and it’s pretty clear right from the get-go considering it’s not English-centric in its languages! Currently, you can use MosaLingua to learn:

I’m pretty sure this MosaLingua review is the first language learning resource I’ve tried that has so much intentional content for English language learners! I don’t use English resources (for obvious reasons), so it’s interesting to see almost as much English as there is non-English!

Languages aside, let’s talk about what MosaLingua’s method actually is; the last time I saw a resource so proud of their strategy was Pimsleur!

MosaLingua review: the method

As this MosaLingua review goes on, you’ll see why this part is so important. Apparently based on “several cognitive science and psychology concepts”, the MosaLingua method includes:

• Spaced repetition (my fave!)
• Active recall
• Metacognition
• The Pareto principle
• Learner motivation and psychology

Those are a lot of fancy terms. What do they actually mean for us? I’ll take these concepts and explain them in not-so-formal terms that we can understand pretty easily.

1. Spaced repetition: this one isn’t new to the language learning world at all, and it’s most popularly used with Anki. But, basically, you review words more or less depending on how difficult they are for you; you’ll also be shown old words just before you forget them. Very efficient.
2. Active recall: multiple-choice questions aren’t the best because it’s easy enough to get them right without actually thinking. It’s like choosing the correct sentence between 5 sentences, you hear the word for “school”, and you pick the only sentence that has “school” in it. So MosaLingua doesn’t do that.
3. Metacognition: once you answer right or wrong, report back on how easy or difficult it was for you. Again, something that Anki does very well.
4. The Pareto principle: something like 80% of the conversations you’ll have in a language will use only 20% of the vocabulary. Learn high-frequency words first to learn more efficiently.
5. Learner motivation and psychology: this is the concept that half of the struggle with learning a language is our own barriers that we have in our mind. Defeat those to learn your language!

All that said, this method seems really formal and fancy, but it’s all pretty much common sense.

Pretty good stuff – let’s take it for a whirl!

The MosaLingua app

I started out with the MosaLingua app (’cause why not, right?), but don’t worry because I tried out desktop, too! All the languages offered by MosaLingua have their own individual apps, so it can be kind of confusing to find the one you’re looking for. That can prove to be a surprisingly major obstacle for less technologically-savvy learners.

Here I started out with the free version of MosaLingua French.

Some pretty simple identifying questions, nothing too crazy. I do love the option to switch the source language, which also makes sense considering how many English language learners MosaLingua seems to help.

Then, choose your level! Either by telling MosaLingua where you’re at or by taking a level test.

Here’s the level test. These were pretty easy for my French, up until I got to the word “safe”. I’m very clearly still a beginner!

Once I was clocked at the A1 level, I got my first selection of 5 terms. Fortunately, MosaLingua offers the option to ignore whichever terms you like, much like Drops does, so I didn’t have to get bored reviewing most of these.

I didn’t realize this until later, but if you follow my lead and only end up with one or two terms, just press the plus icon in the lower left-hand corner. MosaLingua will populate some more terms for you to pick through. It’s an easy way to supercharge you through terms you don’t actually need to review.

Like I said, this method is pretty simple, pretty common sense; there’s nothing “special” about it, but this is a good, solid way to start learning vocabulary!

You already saw the first step, selecting the flashcards. That third one, “Memorize”, is simply flipping through the flashcards one time, seeing if you’re getting them right.

The “Listen & Repeat” and “Write” parts are more interesting, and I like them a lot!

With “Repeat & Record”, you get to practice saying the term, listening to how your pronouncing it, and comparing it with the native audio. It’s the same thing that uTalk and Speechling do, and I mentioned in those reviews as well that I appreciate the pronunciation practice without having to be at the mercy of iffy speech recognition.

Once you get through those (up to) five terms, you’re done for the day! To keep you consistent, MosaLingua only has you go through a few terms per day. Depending on how easy or difficult those terms were for you, you may or may not have any terms to review for tomorrow. Thanks SRS!

MosaSeries

MosaSeries is a series of audio sessions that help work your listening comprehension, mostly. And by the way, I really really like it.

Day 1

As a beginner, I started out with a quick two-minute audio episode about a man who wakes up in the hospital with amnesia. With my limited French comprehension skills, I understood pretty much all of it…after a bit of thinking.

But I do love how bite-sized it was. I personally struggle with getting overwhelmed with language learning sometimes (looking at that last part of the MosaLingua method!), so I appreciated that it was so digestible.

The website itself isn’t the prettiest, I won’t lie. But the information is definitely there!

I listened to the lesson, and was then directed to the MosaLingua study platform, back to the flashcard method. There were a lot more terms this time around! After letting MosaLingua know which ones I didn’t need to study, I was left with 8 flashcards to review based on the audio lesson.

After reviewing this specific words and phrases, I went to the second listening session. On this page, MosaLingua states I should understand more this time, and you know what? I did!

After this, it’s time to stop for the day. Take your wins, put them away, and bring them back tomorrow to work more on this lesson.

Day 2

The next day it was time to listen to the episode again, this time while reading the transcript. If there’s anything I couldn’t understand at this point, I just highlighted the word or phrase and “MosaDiscovery” (MosaLingua’s Chrome extension that is automatically enabled on their website) would automatically translate it for me, plus give me the option to add it to my flashcards.

Next step: listening to the audio one more time, without transcripts. By this listen, I understood 100% of the audio! Suffice to say, this method works for listening comprehension (which I am in desperate need of)!

The next session after this was grammar. Thanks to my Duolingo work I understood all of the grammar in this first lesson, so I didn’t need to bother with this. MosaLingua also notes that “grammar is ‘extra’, particularly at the beginning. There’s no need to study it religiously or you’ll get sick of it”. Which is true for some, not for others.

And that’s it (for the first audio lesson – there’s a whole series for you to work through)! Unfortunately for those motivated learners, you’ll be waiting 4 days for the next episode to be available. This way, MosaLingua helps keep you consistent and not burned out.

MosaSpeak

In the intro video, you’ll learn a few general things about how MosaLingua’s “MosaSpeak” works. There’s one point they make that I love: pronunciation help will really skyrocket your speaking and listening comprehension. Which is the entire concept behind Speechling!

A lot of MosaSpeak isn’t actually actively speaking, but understanding important concepts of speaking, including how it contributes to mental obstacles and a snippet about physical pronunciation. So there’s a bit of reading.

From here you get some audio that clearly shows you the subtle differences between these sounds, and you can also add these sounds to your flashcards!

And if you want some more info? Tap on any one of these words or sounds that you want some more help with.

Just in this screen we get:

• the translation
• audio of the sound
• audio comparison the sounds of ‘tout’ and ‘tu’
• links to WordReference, Tatoeba, Twitter, and Google Pronunciation for even more context

Well…theoretically. When I tried tapping onto Twitter or WordReference, it didn’t work quite right. I did report an error though, and in my experience MosaLingua is very responsive. So there is still hope!

I do have to say, I haven’t seen pronunciation practice this effective since I reviewed the Mimic Method!

And pursuant to the MosaLingua method, you get one module every 4 days. Fortunately, MosaSpeak’s first day includes all of the sounds we need all in one go – the rest of the modules go to actually speaking, not just pronunciation.

MosaTraining

MosaLingua’s final major course, “MosaTraining”, is the priciest. Instead of focusing on one subject or one language skill, MosaTraining is more conceptual and teaches you the theory of how to learn a language, any language.

There are a few options just here:

You’ll start off with the stories of MosaLingua’s creators, Luca and Sam, and the lessons they’ve learned while trying to learn languages. They’re very similar to some of the things I teach in The Multilingual Mastery Method, so I can vouch for what they have to say here.

Just like the other courses…there’s quite a bit of reading. I mean there are some videos mixed in, but lots and lots of reading at first. And I won’t lie…it’s a whole bunch of really solid myth-busting and practical concepts for what it takes to really learn a language.

And, just like the rest of MosaLingua, you’re forced to take your time. Modules 1-3 are open immediately, but you can’t get to Module 4 for another week.

But, just like MosaSpeak, MosaTraining is highly conceptual, which I really appreciate. Honestly, there is almost no limit to the amount of language resources out there, but so I appreciate how MosaLingua likes to focus on the metacognition of it all.

Other MosaLingua French resources

While MosaLingua does limit you a bit to make sure you’re not burning yourself out or trying too force too much info into your brain at once, they do still supply a few resources outside of their programs.

For one, considering MosaLingua is pretty heavily flashcard-based, you can use both MosaLingua web and the Chrome extensions MosaDiscovery to add new flashcards yourself!

They do note that their Chrome extension translates with Google Translate, which isn’t always the best translator. I would like to see them use DeepL, or, even better, a translator dedicated specifically to one language. To try it out, highlight anything on the MosaLingua website and it’ll pop right up!

For more comprehension help, MosaLingua also offers audiobooks and videos! There’s not a whole lot of them (at least not for French), but both the audiobooks and the videos are paired with transcripts to help you with your comprehension.

MosaLingua Premium prices

MosaLingua is a paid service, however it offers an extensive free trial for MosaLingua Web, the main attraction: 15 days! That is more than enough time to test it out.

Now, that’s…quite a few different products to choose from! What are the differences?

• MosaLingua Web: the all-in-one platform that hosts your vocab and whatnot: $4.99/month or $59.90/year; included for free if it’s necessary for another course you’ve purchased
• MosaSeries: the audio series about a man who wakes up in the hospital with amnesia: $9.98/month or $58.80/six months
• MosaSpeak: speaking practice recommended for levels A2-B2, and only available in Spanish, French, Italian, and German: $99
• MosaTraining: teaches you how to learn a language quickly and efficiently, very conceptual: $130 for Premium, $180 for Premium+MosaWeb, $330 for Deluxe+MosaWeb
• MosaLingua Apps: the mobile app for vocab, where this MosaLingua review began: $7.49/month or $43.99/year

For the courses that do not come with that 15-day trial, MosaLingua does offer a 30-day money-back guarantee. Plus, if you’re experiencing any issues, they are incredibly responsive, so I have no doubt that all of MosaLingua’s courses are at least worth a try.

MosaLingua review: what I think

Clearly, MosaLingua is GIANT. There are a lot of options that do a lot of things and a lot of different prices. I got really overwhelmed and it was hard for me to differentiate between the different products (or even realize there were different products!) for a little while.

The website and app are both clunky, and it can be hard to maneuver around. It’s not necessarily clear that MosaLingua is broken up into all these courses, or how they play into each other.

However, the content itself is incredibly helpful. It’s very well thought-out and definitely unique. I love the way that it’s broken up into digestible pieces, and how your hand is forced into consistency (i.e. the modules are dripped to you little by little).

And if you’re struggling with something? MosaLingua’s staff is there for you. A+ customer service, even if you’re contacting them because you’re asking for your money back.

From the listening comprehension exercises to the pronunciation practice of this MosaLingua review, from the SRS to the mindset work….I’m a fan! Once you get past the really complex onboarding.

Click here to try MosaLingua for yourself!