uTalk review: tons of vocab in tons of languages

uTalk is a vocab app that brings languages to us that can be hard to find elsewhere; so whether you’re learning something common like Spanish or not-so-common like Cebuano, uTalk pretty much as you covered.

With 140+ languages, there are plenty of options to choose from. But that’s not all you should be thinking about when it comes to your language learning strategy! In this uTalk review, let’s discuss the pros and cons of using this app to learn a language.

uTalk review: languages

One of the best reasons to use uTalk to learn a language is that there are so many languages available that you can’t find anywhere else. uTalk currently supports 140+ different languages to learn, with new languages being added all the time.

You can use uTalk to learn:

Suffice to say…it’s a lot (151, to be precise). So many different languages, including different accents! Now let’s talk about what uTalk does with them.

uTalk walkthrough

When you first open up the uTalk app, you’ll be shown this screen, featuring every single one of those 140+ languages, with your most recent language at the top.

As you can see, it’s pretty straightforward! No fancy tutorials or overwhelm, really. This can be nice for those who don’t need the complicated AI features or techy chatbots; uTalk keeps it simple.

1. Select your language
2. Select your category
3. Go!

Each category of phrases is provided with the following exercises.

Phrase practice

Your first exercise introduces these phrases to you. There are quite a bit of them, honestly, so you may want to take a few tries to get through them.

https://vimeo.com/1045387465/7d524a7bbc?ts=0&share=copy

And if this is too difficult for you, go back to the prior “first words” lessons.

Study each of these phrases by listening to the audio, understanding the phrase (try to depend just on the image to figure it out! It may be difficult, but I promise it’ll be worth it), and repeating it until you get the pronunciation down.

This is the last time you’ll see the English translations – for the rest of these quizzes, you’ll be identifying each vocab word by either its picture or its audio.

And it’s self-correcting, as well, so you can decide if your understanding is “good enough”. Like I said, no AI or speech recognition to complicate things!

Easy game

If you’re not sure if you studied the first exercise well enough, the next exercise will immediately tell you. Easy game takes your knowledge of the phrases a step further and gives you some multiple choice selections of the audio clips and imagery.

https://vimeo.com/1045390342/14c6123301?ts=0&share=copy

In this way, uTalk is very similar to Rosetta Stone: teaching you the language by letting your brain “figure it out”. As I said, this is more difficult in the short term, but much more effective in the long-term. If you’ve ever struggled with getting stuck translating in your head when you’re trying to communicate, this approach will circumvent that entire step.

And don’t worry: even if you don’t understand every single word at this point, that is totally normal. This sort of game trains your brain to differentiate between different inflections, vocab words, etc., not necessarily to have “correct” grammar or vocabulary.

Speaking game

In this activity…well, you can see for yourself how I tricked myself by trying to trick uTalk! Basically, it’s time for you to prove if you’re pronouncing the phrases correctly enough to understand yourself compared to the native audio.

This can technically be helpful for pronunciation (though I recommend Speechling more for that), but I’d say this would be more helpful for retaining the vocabulary into your memory.

1. Easy game
2. Speaking game
3. Hard game
4. Memory game
5. Recall game

Hard Game

The Hard Game is where you start testing to see how effectively you’re learning, and whether or not you need to study more. This is active use of your memory.

You get a number of images and an audio track. Your job is to select the image that belongs to that audio track. No more text, no more translations. Now it’s up to you to know which words mean what.

Once you get to this point, you should have a decent idea of if you need more practice or not. By now you’ll be tested on whether or not you kind of have a hang on this or not.

Memory Game

Memory Game takes it a step further by cutting your time shorter. With the Hard Game, you get plenty of time to process and think, and then make your choice.

With Memory Game, you’re flashed with images for a couple of seconds, and they’re instantly covered back up. Then audio plays, and you have to select which image (remembering which image is where) goes with the audio clip you’re hearing.

This is where uTalk gets intense! You only get to see these images for like 3 seconds before they’re covered up. When you tap on one card, only that one card flips back over, so there’s no getting around it!

Recall Game

Last but not least we have Recall Game! In this final exercise, you’ll be tested on this vocab with every skill you’ve been practicing: you get the English word/phrase and the image, and your job is to record yourself saying the correct foreign phrase.

Just like with the Speaking Game, there’s no attempt at speech recognition – you’re trusted to know for yourself whether or not you’ve got it. Once you make your recording and the English is translated, you have the option to:

• replay your own recorded audio
• play uTalk’s native audio
• report that you got it wrong
• report that you got it right

I love that it’s totally up to you to say how well you did on your own speaking portion, and whether or not you got the phrase right. Self-reporting is where it’s at!

uTalk review: prices

uTalk’s payment model is super interesting! uTalk gives you the option to earn more time, earn more information. Or, to make things simpler, you can just pay to play.

Click here for uTalk’s updated pricing.

For one, uCoins gives you the option not only to work your way through (earning uCoins as you play uTalk’s games) but also to only pay for a little at a time.

If 60+ different topics spanning 140+ different languages is too much for you (’cause that is definitely a lot), just pay for the topics that are actually beneficial to you.

uTalk review: who it’s for

I do genuinely love uTalk, both because it’s an excellent way to learn a new language, but also because of their ethics, and their commitment to making endangered and less common languages more accessible.

As for actually using uTalk to learn a language, this uTalk review proves that it’s a great app for those who are looking for a quick route to effective use and understanding of the language in very specific situations, without the hullabaloo of fancy add-ons or confusing features.

uTalk is simple, direct, and effective.

If that’s your way to learn languages, similar alternatives to uTalk include Rosetta Stone and Speechling; both are just as simple and focus on speaking, but Rosetta Stone is more modern while Speechling isn’t as effective for teaching the language as it is promoting your pronunciation.

Alternatively, if you need heavier gamification to keep you interested and engaged long-term, I might recommend something like Polygloss or Speakly.

Suffice to say, uTalk is a great option for language learners looking for resources to support lesser-known languages that aren’t available elsewhere. Click here to get 20% off uTalk!