Seventh Heaven: Babbel Review

 

Babbel was an app that I always thought about downloading on my phone for years, but I just never did. I couldn’t tell you why looking back, all I know is it just never happened. So doing this review is like confronting young-Lauren, and all of her unknown reservations about trying out Babbel, in the face, which feels a little weird. But I’m committed to these reviews and so confront I shall! All for you guys 😉

Prices

Babbel is not a freemium site. Without any type of subscription, you get access to one lesson only, and that’s it. So either you’ll have to choose very wisely for the right one, or you’ll have to pick a plan. Luckily, there are four subscriptions to choose from: $12.95/month every month, $8.95/month for three months, $7.45/month for six months, and $6.95/month for twelve months. You can definitely start to see some savings in the twelve-month plan, especially since it’s nearly half the price of the monthly one. So even though payment plans are necessary for Babbel, there are some deals offered right off the bat; gotta take the good with the bad, I guess.

Languages

Babbel currently has 14 language courses available to learn; Dutch, Danish, English, French, German, Indonesian, Italian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese (Brazilian), Russian, Swedish, Spanish, and Turkish. As far as I’m aware, there are no courses in beta. If there are, then unlike some other sites, you are not able to access them. There also don’t really seem to be any plans to add other languages besides these 14. I could be wrong (and definitely might be) but from digging around on their website and even on some of their social media, it seems as if the languages they have now are what they’re sticking with. So if your target language is up there, yay! You’re golden. If not, I’m not sure if it will be at any point in the future.

Courses

Babbel only has their courses to pick from overall- no custom, user-created content- but there’s no set order to anything, which is cool. They break down courses into sections, among them learning levels like Beginner and Intermediate, but you don’t have to start in any particular place in order to unlock more advanced lessons. It’s a lot like MangoLanguages, where you can pick what you want to learn when you want to learn it. And even if certain lessons are listed as “Beginner 1” or “Beginner 2”, you don’t have to take the first lesson in order to progress to the second. It’s all up to you. If you want to learn Beginner 5 first, and then jump down and take a look at Grammar 5, go right ahead.

Right up above is a list of all the courses you can choose from (at least under the Spanish language). If you click on a course, like Listening and Speaking, it’ll open up a list of individual lessons. Once you find your perfect lesson, you pick the part of the lesson you want to start with, and then the learning begins. I just really like the fact that Babbel is so customizable; your learning path is truly your own, where you decide what you want to study. So if that’s a must-have on your language-learning websites bucket list, then you can check that off right now.

Features

Babbel has a few little extra features that you can use with a subscription to their site:

1. Mobile App: Like a lot of the other websites I’ve reviewed, Babbel has a mobile app to go along with it. Where it differs, though, is that there are also individual apps for each language that’s available on the main site. The icon down there is the icon for their main app; the ones for the individual languages have little flags in the bottom-right corner.
   

   

2. Vocabulary Viewer: This feature is probably exactly what it sounds like: you can view all the vocabulary you’ve learned on Babbel. With this, you can see what words need to be reviewed, but you don’t get access to this feature until you complete a few lessons on Babbel. Can’t review any vocabulary if you haven’t learned any.
3. Daily Challenges: Also pretty similar to how it sounds, the Daily Challenge feature (which requires you to complete the Words and Sentences course) is a way to challenge you in your target language. It’s meant to put you out of your comfort zone and basically quiz you on different words and phrases to help retain the language.
4. Special Courses: If you look up at the course list up above, you’ll see that there’s a little category for special courses. From what I could tell, every language course on Babbel has them, and they consist of neat little things like how to write love letters, idioms, and work conversations, among other things. Just neat little things to learn that you might not find in other places.
5. Babbel Magazine: Babbel has it’s own magazine, which you might’ve guessed from the title, that you can find here. It consists of articles in that give language-learning tips, phrases in different languages, and cultures of different countries. It’s entirely online, and there’s plenty of information to look at even if Babbel doesn’t seem like a good website for your learning.

How it Works 

Babbel, like many other sites, is all about repetition. Their main goal is to fully immerse you in the language, and the best way to do that is to repeat words that you need to know in order for you to memorize them. So, basically, a lesson consists of learning a few words and phrases in your target language- how many depends on the lesson itself- and just being exposed to them over and over in order to fully commit them to your long-term memory.

That might sound boring (how often can you see the same words over and over without melting your brain?) but a Babbel lesson has a few different methods that are designed to help you memorize those words without it becoming too repetitive. The ones that I saw were matching games (you see the word in your target language match it to the English translation), typing games (you spell out the word in your target language, complete with a letter bank), and a fill-in-the-blank conversation (the words/phrases you’re learning are being used in a made-up conversation, and you have to pick which word works where). There could be many more ways to learn in Babbel; these are just the ones I saw in my lessons.

 

Basically, Babbel wants you to learn the words by incorporating them into your long-term memory. The way that they do it is through a bunch of learning games that are designed to make learning a bit more interesting, and a bit less mind-numbing, which is I something I think we can all appreciate.

Final Thoughts

Overall, Babbel is a pretty neat program; it’s won a few awards for a reason, I guess. I really do like how the lessons are structured, with different games that are designed to suit any kind of learner, and I like how much of a variety they have in courses. I also really like how your learning plan is your own, and you can pick and choose what you want to study; it’s not a linear pathway that you have to follow. The one thing that disappoints me overall is how many languages they actually have available; 14 is a good amount, but it’s got nothing on sites like Duolingo and MangoLanguages.

I’m also not a huge fan of the whole “a subscription is absolutely necessary” thing; I wish there was more available to people who are just looking to give the website a try and don’t want to commit right off the bat. One free lesson doesn’t exactly give you a feel for their website as a whole, you know? But the prices aren’t the worst I’ve seen for a language site (looking at you, Glossika), and there are some savings in their subscription plans, so I guess it’s not all bad. As a whole, Babbel definitely seems like a really neat site, and you get access to a lot of content without having to spend an excessive amount of money, and in my book, that’s a beautiful thing.

Sixth Sense: Glossika Review

Glossika’s mascot is an owl, just like Duolingo; that’s how you know it’s legit. Or something. I dunno. All I know is Elina, one of the top supporters of this blog, recommended that I take a look at Glossika. It took a few weeks, but I finally got around to it. Hopefully it was worth the wait 🙂

Price

Unlike the other sites I’ve reviewed, Glossika isn’t a freemium service. Instead, it requires a subscription for you to have access to their courses. And I’m not gonna lie, it’s a bit more expensive than some of the other websites I’ve looked at. There are three subscription packages that you can choose from: $30/month for one month, $24/month for one year, and $199/month for their special Enterprise service. From what I’ve seen, though, Enterprise doesn’t really look like it’s worth that much money. In my opinion, I’d stick to the first two payment plans- they offer just about everything that the Enterprise plan does, with the only big difference being that Enterprise allows multiple users on one account while the others don’t.

Luckily, Glossika lets every user sign up for a free trial of all their courses before they have to buy a subscription, so you can see if you really enjoy the mechanics of the site before spending a single cent. No commitment necessary.

 

Languages

Glossika is home to 50+ language courses, which is a huge amount to choose from, in all honesty. Most of these are languages you have to pay for, which is par for the course (get it?), but there are nine courses that are completely free- Taiwanese Hokkien, Hakka (Sixian), Hakka (Hailu), Wenzhounses (Wu), Kurdish (Sorani), Catalan, Manx, Welsh, and Gaelic. They do not require any subscription whatsoever- you just have to create an account in order to access them. The reason that these specific courses are free is that they aren’t as commonly spoken as other languages, and therefore aren’t as easy to find courses on as a whole. Some are even endangered. So Glossika wants to not only make these languages as accessible as possible for people who have been searching to try and learn them, but they also want to encourage people to learn in order to help preserve these languages.

So, if this site seems a little pricey (and, I won’t lie, it does seem a bit expensive to me) and you really don’t want to sign up for a subscription, take a look at those nine. They’re not as common of languages, which can be a downside for some learners, but they’re completely free with a Glossika account. It’s a good option if you’re interested in the site, but not thrilled with the price. And it’s a pretty cool conversation starter to say you can speak an endangered language. Advantages all the way around.

Courses

Like with most of these sites, Glossika has one main course per language. They have their program, and you have to follow it, which makes sense since they developed the website. What I liked, though, was the fact that you could select languages to learn by their name, their language family, or their language region, which is a really great way to see what languages are similar to what you’re trying to learn- it can lead to more learning in the future, or just a way to know if it’s the right one for you.

But, while Glossika is like other sites by just having one main course, where it differs is the fact that it is extremely customizable. I even italicized it so you know I mean business. Firstly, you can select the speed at which you learn; if you’re a fast learner that likes to go from topic to topic, awesome. If you like to take a little bit more time to really understand, that’s great, too! You can customize how often words get repeated, if at all, what sentences you want to ignore, if you want more advanced content, all the fun stuff.  But probably the best thing to customize are the actual topics you want to learn in a lesson. 

The picture up above shows all the topics for the Spanish course. For each lesson, you have to pick one of the top three (social, travel, or business) in order to continue, but otherwise, you can select any of the topics to learn. If you want to only learn the one mandatory one, you can. If you want to learn every single one, like I did, then you can do that, too, along with any other combination of topics. And there are some pretty neat ones in there, as well, like crime, traffic, and accidents, among others. But I think this system is really unique, and not one that I’ve seen before. So the customizable content is definitely a huge bonus for Glossika.

Features

Unlike the other websites, Glossika doesn’t really have a huge amount of bonus features that are meant to help you learn. However, they do have different styles of lessons, so I’ll explain that here, instead, along with one other bonus that I really enjoyed:

Lesson Types:

1. Listening:  This is the default lesson, where you listen to a phrase in your native language, and then have it translated into the language you’re learning. No typing or translation involved, just listening and learning.
2. Typing: Here, you either have a phrase in your native language that you type out in your target language or vice versa. You can learn grammar and sentence structure, which are both incredibly important for learning another language.
3. Dictation: This is meant to test your listening skills. You are told a phrase in your target language and have to type it out to show how well you can understand it when it’s spoken.
4. Fill-in: This one is pretty much what it sounds like. You’re given a sentence, written entirely in your target language, with a missing word or phrase. You have to select the right one from a list of options in order to continue.
5. Multiple Choice: Here, you’re given the phonetic transcript of a certain phrase (it could be about anything) and you have to pick what it actually looks like when written. From my personal experience, this one is the most difficult, but it’s also pretty neat, because I’ve never seen a lesson quite like it!

(Kind-of) Bonus Feature:

I don’t really think that this totally counts as an individual feature, but I wasn’t sure where else to put it, and I feel that it deserves a shout-out. So it’s going here. Anyway, before you decide to start learning a language, you can a page dedicated to essentially briefing you about it. It gives you a full rap-sheet of what to expect and how the language is structured. This is an example of the English-to-Spanish page:

It tells you the difficulty of the language, languages that are similar to it, languages that are the least like it, the family of the language, pronunciation, grammar, word order, and vocabulary structure. Honestly, it’s a great introduction to what you’re learning, and a way to really get your toes wet before diving right in. It’s something that really stood out to me when I was checking out this website, and I think it’s incredibly useful to have. It deserved some props (people still say that, right?).

How it Works

Do you remember all the nature metaphors we had in the earlier posts? Cause we’re going back to metaphors to explain Glossika. It’s not outdoors-themed, but hey. A metaphor is a metaphor.

The main idea of Glossika’s teaching system is that learning a language is like building muscle. In order to learn, you have to do “reps” every day to make your brain stronger, just like you have to do reps to make your muscles stronger. For the purpose of language-learning, Glossika counts every new word or phrase as a rep. And the more reps you do, the stronger your muscles get- or, in this case, the better you’ll be at understanding your target language. Basically, this website acts as a gym for your brain, and if you do one session of reps a day (the number of which can vary but is always in the double-digits), you’ll be on the right track to becoming at least conversational in your target language. They even have a handy-dandy chart here to explain their system:

The ultimate goal is to get to 100,000 reps in your target language. Once you do, you’ll basically be fluent, or something very close to it. However, it’s really important to note that on the free trial (which comes with every non-free language) you only get 1,000 reps before you have to pay. That’s it: and it’s a far cry from the 100,000 end-goal. Just something that I think is important to note here. Overall, Glossika=gym, reps=brain-training; keeping it simple.

Final Thoughts

Glossika is a bit different from other sites I’ve looked at mostly because it pretty much requires a subscription, except in a few instances. It doesn’t come with a lot of bonus features added to it, which is especially surprising considering that the subscription is fairly pricey, but it does host an incredible amount of languages to learn. Not to mention the fact that it provides more than one way to actually do the learning, which is something I haven’t seen done quite as well as Glossika does. So they get some brownie points here.

Overall, I’m not sure if the price is honestly worth it for the content. You can definitely find something similar for a lot less, or even free, and it has a lot more added bonuses on the side. BUT I’d honestly consider using it for learning the less common languages- AKA, the totally free courses mentioned earlier in the review. A lot of those languages can be hard to find, and by choosing to learn them, you don’t have to pay a cent. So if Glossika sounds like the perfect site for you, I would suggest checking out one of those languages first for two reasons: 1. it’s a rarely spoken language, and it’s neat to be able to even understand the tiniest bit of it, and 2. you can get a feel for how the website works before you make any commitment, and without waiting for your free trial to expire. At the end of the day, though, it’s up to you to decide what works for you, and if Glossika sounds like the best website you’ve ever heard of and you want to sign up right now, have a ball and enjoy your learning!

As an end note, Elina, the person who recommended I review Glossika, has a blog of her own! She’s trying to learn six languages in one year, and she posts really awesome updates about her (really incredible) journey to polyglot-dom! Check out her blog if you’re interested: http://www.thepolyglotpath.wordpress.com

Mambo Number Five: Bliu Bliu

Bliu Bliu, the topic for this review, has the best name for all language sites in my opinion. I pronounce it like “Blee-u Blee-u” and it’s honestly so much fun to say, even if that’s not how it was intended to be pronounced. And look at their logo- it’s so neat! It’s the simple things in life, you know? Alrighty, now that I’ve got that out of my system, let’s start with this review!

Price

Like the other sites so far, Bliu Bliu is a freemium service. You get complete access to all features without paying anything, which is a wonderful thing. But, there are premium features- such as how much you can learn at one time, and how many books you can read in a day- that require payment to access. There are four different payment plans that you can choose from if you want to upgrade to premium: $9.74/month per month, $8.52/month for three months, $7.30/month for six months, and $6.08/month for twelve months. And you might be wondering what exactly is up with those strange prices, and luckily for you, I’ve got the answer! Bliu Bliu’s pricing on the site is entirely in Euros (the company is based in Europe, after all) so while all of their prices are neatly rounded, translating it over to dollars makes it a bit messier. But, like with most of these websites, paying isn’t really necessary- it’s just a matter of whether or not you want added bells and whistles to your learning experience. I’ll cover more of that in the features tab, though!

The main difference between the premium and free services is how much access you get. I know that’s a weird sentence, but trust me. With the free service, you’re given time limits on how much you can learn a day, whereas with unlimited, you don’t have that restriction. You can learn as long as you want every day, and use the features listed down below as frequently as you want, without going against the timer. You can also upload books to the library with the premium service. So if you’re a fan of uploading and/or no timers, the premium feature has your back! If you really don’t care about either of those things, sticking to the free version works just as well.

Languages

Officially, there are 10 complete language courses– English, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Lithuanian, Russian, Swedish, and Spanish. But, there are tons of courses in Beta that you are still able to access without any problem- they’re just not complete yet, or all the bugs might not be worked out of them. If you want to learn a language that isn’t listed a part of those ten, there’s a good shot that it’s a Beta course,  unless it’s a fantasy language; Bliu Bliu is lacking a bit in that department. You can’t have it all, I guess.

Courses

There’s only one total course for each language on Bliu Bliu, but there are a number of lessons available for each course, which is really neat. And there’s no particular order to what lesson you have to take. It’s all up to you. Bliu Bliu separates everything into skill level- total beginner, beginner, and advanced– to help you get an idea of where you should start, but otherwise, it’s totally up to you. The only downside is there aren’t a lot of courses to pick from. The picture down below is an image of all the lessons for their Italian course, and from what I could tell, it was the same throughout their other languages, too. 

What’s up there are all the lessons that are available to you. So there really isn’t a lot of variety in terms of what you can learn, but the good news is that each lesson is long. And also kinda randomized. So if you pick the same lesson to learn twice in a row, you won’t be learning the same thing over and over again; it’ll match into the theme of the lesson, but it’ll be something new that you probably haven’t seen before. Silver linings and all that.

Features

Bliu Bliu has a lot of neat features designed to help immerse yourself in the language, which are available to everyone, premium member or not:

1. Books: The Books feature is probably exactly what it sounds like; you get to read books, translated into your target language. You can pick from the Bliu Bliu library (which you get complete access to in both free and premium) and pick words you want/need to learn more of. You can also translate the book back into whatever your native language is, but the translation is from Google Translate, so just be aware that it’s not always the most accurate.
2. Challenges: The main goal of the Challenges feature is to complete ten minutes of learning a day, every day, and you should be able to learn a good chunk of the language in thirty days. You get monitored by a native speaker, and you learn with others who are interested in taking the same challenge you are, which is a fun way to get involved in the learning community while also, well, learning!
3. Words: This feature gives you access to words that you need to review, in five-word increments that you can randomize. If you don’t want to review a word, just click right next to it and you’ll be set! With the free version, you can make a custom words list for all the individual words you want, but with the premium version, you can make as many lists as you want! Down below is a picture of what the Words feature looks like. 
4. Language wall: The Language Wall feature is a way for you to meet other people who are learning your target language with you. From my experience, it’s written entirely in your target language, so it gives you some reading and writing practice! It’s also a place where people post links to neat videos, websites, and other things that they use to help them learn.

How it Works

So the mission at Bliu Bliu is to get you to learn a language without ever studying- that’s their goal. Which is neat and something that I, as a college study who already has plenty of studying to do, can definitely appreciate. But this also leads to a platform that’s kinda different from any other language-learning site. So, here’s how it works: you start off by picking your course, and from there, you just read what’s in front of you. You go along, marking words you know, and then the algorithm that runs Bliu Bliu adapts to the words you do/don’t know in order to help you understand their lessons; it picks videos and written pieces from around the web that are at your level of knowledge in the language, so you can gradually learn new words as you go while reinforcing the ones you don’t. Basically, it’s a really adaptive software that’s meant to conform to how you learn.

This is an example of one of the courses- specifically, the “Total Beginner” lesson for Spanish. All the words highlighted in red are ones I don’t know, and the green number up at the top, along with the non-highlighted words, are ones I do know (please don’t judge; I haven’t taken Spanish since high school). What I don’t know helps shape what I have to read on the next slide- that’s what will keep showing up until I mark that I know it. It’s a little bit confusing, I get it. But just know that it’s meant to be adaptive to the individual that’s learning. So that’s good.

Some lessons come with videos, like the one up above, and others don’t. But all give you audio for each passage that you’re reading. The pronunciation, if it’s not a recorded video, is a bit like you’d expect- it sounds like a robot reading the words back to you, which can get a little confusing if you don’t know the language, but it’s not the worst audio I’ve heard for a language site. Also, each lesson comes with translators, so if you’re completely lost on a sentence or passage, you can have it translated to help.  One last point: if you’re a free member, there’s a cooldown period between every five-minute session. Five minutes on, five minutes off. So you can learn all day if you want to, but just know that you can’t learn in back-to-back lessons without paying.

Final Thoughts 

Honestly, Bliu Bliu was a neat little website I looked at a few years ago, and I enjoyed using it but wasn’t really obsessed with it. Now, going over it for this review, they’ve added so many features to this site that weren’t a part of it before, and I feel like it’s better than it had been in the past. So the good news is that this site is growing and changing to meet the needs of the community, which could be really important to some people. Also, it’s a learning experience that’s meant to be totally different from other websites- it’s not based on grammar, or speech, or vocabulary. You just read words in a way that’s meant to help immerse you completely in the language. If that doesn’t sound like it will help you learn at all, if you’re more of an auditory learner or someone who likes to practice vocabulary, then BliuBliu might not be for you.

But if you’re interested in giving it a shot, just remember that it’s honestly not necessary for you to pay in order to experience what this website has to offer. It’s just a matter of whether or not you want to deal with cooldown times between lessons, and whether or not you like to upload your own files. If those things aren’t your style, and if you like the whole learning style of Bliu Bliu, check it out. Maybe it’ll be your new favorite!

Fantastic Four-th: Lingvist

I’m gonna try my best to fit a pun into every title. That’s my new goal.

Anyway, I’d never heard of Lingvist until a few weeks ago. It was on a study guide for languages on Tumblr- or maybe Facebook? Wherever it was, I stumbled upon it accidentally (as I do with most things, honestly), took a peek at it, and decided that it was perfect for this blog.  I’ve been waiting since then (a whole, perilous couple of weeks) to review it, and I’m super excited to finally use this website. So, let’s get started!

Price

Lingvist, like all the other sites I’ve reviewed so far, is a freemium site. What’s cool is that you get a free, 48 hour trial for their paid service, so you can see if you like it before you spend any money. As for actual prices, there are three payment plans available: $22.95/month, $15.98/month for three months, and $7.50/month for a year.  But, like with Duolingo, there’s not really a lot you’re missing out on by not buying the premium version. You can still learn most of the words up on the site- 3,000 out of 4,000, as a matter of fact, which is still a lot. And you can review them as often as you like, which is great. The big thing is you can only learn 50 words a day on Lingvist Free, and can only perform one challenge daily, which I’ll explain later in the post.  But, overall, same basic stuff.

Here’s a nifty little chart from their website to give you side-by-side comparisons:

Languages

Lingvist has four courses available for learning to everyone- German, Spanish, French and Russian.  They also have Estonian, but it’s listed as a specialty course. And specialty courses, according to my handy-dandy chart up there, are only available to Lingvist Unlimited members, so unfortunately it’s not open to the public. But if you’re interested in learning Estonian, there you go.

Courses

There isn’t a lot of variation for courses in Lingvist. You get one course, per language, and, like with the other few sites (minus Memrise) there’s no variation to what course you can take. You get what you get. You also don’t get to pick which words you learn and when- they’re already selected for you, and you have to learn them in order to get to the next word or phrase in the lesson, so it is a bit restrictive in that sense. But everything is built upon- if you learn the word “woman”, you have to know it before you move onto the next card, which is “the beautiful woman.” It all connects together.

Here’s a picture of my lesson for the Spanish course I worked on for this review. I had to correctly answer “mujeres” in order to move on to the next part of the lesson(the word turns green when you get it correctly). But what’s neat are the little tips and tricks you get when you’re learning a new word, which you’ll see underneath the vocabulary card. So that’s always a bonus.

What upsets me the most, though, is the fact that there was no nature theme! Duo has trees, Mango has paths, Memrise has plants- there was a nice pattern going on here! 😡

How it Works

Remember in the last review how I said Memrise was a flash-card site? I’m taking that back. Lingvist is the epitome of flashcard. Even the lesson itself is like you’re looking at a card with a word written on it. Okay, moving on; Lingvist is a site that’s really focused on memorization. Like I stated before, it makes you memorize the current word before you’re even allowed to progress. The goal, however, is to get you to learn one hundred new words in your target language every day. The Lingvist creators say that’s the best way to learn a language, so technically you finish each lesson when you’ve learned those 100 words- which kinda creates a problem when you consider that their free program only allows you to learn 50 words every day.

Despite that little hiccup, though, after you get the word right the first time, it reappears every once-and-a-while throughout the lesson in order to make sure you still know it. And the more often you get it wrong, the more often it appears. As you keep answering correctly, it gradually disappears altogether, only showing up when it needs review. Like I stated earlier, there are little tips and tricks for each word when you first encounter it- points about grammar, parts of speech, the gender of the word, etc.- to help you understand it, which is a really neat feature. If you’re a memorizer, this is a good site to take a peak at. But, be warned, the robot that pronounces each word isn’t the best- actually, it kinda sucks. The letters get jumbled up, and it sounds like a mess, at least in the Spanish course. So if you’re really gung-ho about hearing the word pronounced, this might not be ideal.

Features

Lingvist has a lot of neat features to it that are open to all, subscription or no.

1. Grammar Tips: I know I brought up the grammar tips for new words a few times now, but this is a totally different feature from that. There’s an entire section dedicated to teaching grammar, a picture of which is included below. There’s information about nouns, the alphabet, adjectives, and so much more. It’s a really incredible resource to have right at your fingertips. 
2. Challenges: The feature is like a section full of little tests, to see how well you’re learning. They range in difficulty, with the easiest challenges first, and come in four different categories: Speaking, Grammar, Listening, and Reading. It’s meant to be like a guide for you, to see if you’re really grasping what you’ve been studying on Lingvist, and it’s great to help monitor your progress in your target language. Although, remember, free users only get to complete one challenge everyday.
3. Forum: Like with Duolingo, Lingvist has a forum filled with fellow language-learners that you can access entirely for free. While you can’t filter out by the language you want to learn, you can go to other forums that are written in other languages. It’s full of different tips and tricks to help make learning and practicing easier, all written by people who have tried them out, and know if they work.
4. Mobile app: If you’ve been around for my past posts, you kinda know the deal with this one. I’m planning on reviewing the mobile app later (I’ll get there, I promise) but I think it’s important to make sure anyone interested knows that there is a mobile app that exists for this website.
5. FAQ: This isn’t really a language-learning feature, but I just really liked the fact that the FAQ was so easily accessible on Lingvist. It’s literally a click away, and really just made it seem like you could ask the developers any question you had about the program and receive an answer. So I feel like that deserved a little shout-out.

Final Thoughts

Lingvist is a pretty neat site, overall. And, honestly, you do get a lot from using it. I wasn’t too keen on the way the lessons were structured- there didn’t seem to be much organization in the words they gave you, no overarching topics that would connect them together. It seemed almost random, which isn’t ideal for me. But, where Lingvist really shines, I think, is the incredible amount of resources it has to help you learn about the structure of the language and the words themselves: I haven’t seen any other site give you quite as much information about grammar and gender and parts of speech and nouns and everything else, as Lingvist does. It’s a great resource for learning how exactly the language works, and the challenges are a feature that I really enjoy!

I honestly don’t think I would pay for the service at all, unless you think the challenges feature is really neat and/or you’re really set on this 100 words a day situation. But you get access to pretty much everything Lingvist has to offer without paying a cent, so that’s definitely something to consider. Even if Lingivst doesn’t seem like the right website for you, I’d definitely take a look at it just for the resources they have available. Whether or not you choose to learn from their lessons is entirely up to you.

Three’s Company: Memrise Review

Okay, full disclosure- Memrise is my very favorite language-learning site. I’ve been looking forward to doing this review for a few weeks, and I’m so excited to do it now! It’s probably the most well-known site after Duolingo, and I think that title is definitely deserved. But, let’s see what you think!

Price

Like Duo, Memrise is a freemium service. Without paying a cent, you get access to all the courses Memrise has and all their individual content. It’s not really necessary to pay unless you want access to some bonus features that aren’t imperative to learning, but I’ll explain what they are later in the post. Price-wise, there are a few different payment options: $9/month, $6.33/month for three months, $4.92/month annually, and $129 once for lifetime access. If you’re thinking about subscribing to their premium service, it all depends on how long you’re planning on using Memrise- if it’s by the month, I’d consider the first two options. If it’s more long-term, take a look at the other two: that’s where the savings start to add up.

And, if you’re still thinking that Memrise is a bit pricey, which I totally understand, there are sales on all but the lifetime access pretty regularly. At the time of writing this, a sale just ended for Valentine’s Day, where the annual plan was half-off- and it lasted for nine days. Before that was a sale at the end of January that lasted for seven days, if I remember right. Just something to keep in mind.

Languages

There are so. Many. Languages available on Memrise. Honestly, if you can think of it, it’s probably there. It’s got everything from the top languages- Spanish, German, French, etc.- to Classics- Ancient Greek- to Sign Language (of many different varieties) and Morse code. So it’s pretty expansive, which is awesome, especially if you want to learn a language that’s not very common.

Not to mention the fact that, while it’s mostly a language site, Memrise has courses available for history, geography, science, literature, and a whole slew of other subjects. So if this doesn’t seem like your site for language-learning, it might be neat to check it out for the other subjects they have available. They’ve got plenty to pick from.

Courses

Memrise is a bit different from the other sites I’ve reviewed in terms of courses available to users. While they do have their own, official courses that are free to take, they also have user-created courses that make up the bulk of the site. You can pick any course you want, for any language that you choose- and multiple courses, at that. If you want to learn Spanish Introductions while studying French verbs and Italian present-perfect tense, go right ahead. There’s a lot of flexibility in learning, and it’s all very customizable.

The official Memrise Spanish course; number one out of seven total.

No matter which course you choose- user-created or not- they’re all set up in the same basic way. Firstly, you’re given a time estimate over how long the course should approximately take you. After that, if you click on the course, you’re taken to all the lessons that make it up. Each lesson has varying amounts of vocabulary words and phrases to learn- some can have five, some can have thirty: it all depends on the lesson itself. The goal is to be able to memorize all of them, and once you have, you’ve completed the lesson- complete all the lessons, and you’ve finished the course.

How it Works

Memrise, as the name kinda suggests, is a site that focuses heavily on memorization. It’s a  flash-card style learning system, meant to help you learn all the vocabulary words and phrases by constantly reinforcing them, just like how you study for tests in school- review the information over and over. So, in keeping with the nature theme of the past few reviews (I’m noticing a pattern here…) Memrise uses the metaphor of plants as a way to explain their system of language-learning. 

When you first learn the word or phrase, you’re planting a seed in your brain. When you are repeatedly shown the word, and are forced to type it, listen to it, match it to its definition, etc, then you are watering that seed and allowing it to grow. After a few waterings (I’m making up words now), that seed becomes a plant in your memory, a word you probably won’t forget anytime too soon. But it doesn’t stop there, because in order for you to have that word remain in your long-term memory, you have to review it- harvest the plant, as shown in the picture- in order to help make it stick. And while there is audio to teach you how to pronounce what you’re learning, that isn’t the main focus- the constant review of new vocabulary is. So if you’re more of an auditory learner, this probably isn’t the best site for you to use. But if you’re someone who enjoys the repetition, go have a look.

Features

Memrise has an abundance of features available, all meant to help you learn. Some of them are completely free to use, and others are only available through the premium subscription.

All-access Features: 

1. Mobile app: Like with Duolingo, I plan to review Memrise’s app at a later date.  However, I think it’s important to acknowledge that it exists, in case anyone is interested in the site and wants to check it out. The picture down below is what the app icon looks like, just for reference. 
2. Review:  You can review every word you’ve ever learned on Memrise, whenever you want as often as you want, no payment required. Or in their terms, you’re “watering a word garden.” Gotta stick with the nature theme.
3. Speed review: This is one that I use fairly often because it’s pretty fun. It’s like a regular review, but it’s meant to really test how well you know the words you’ve been learning. You race against a clock, which gets faster and faster as you progress, to match the English version of the word or phrase with its translation in your target language. Plus, you’re only given three lives, so as the timer ticks on faster, you have to be sure that you’re accurate, otherwise the game’ll be over pretty quickly.
4. (Some) Grammar: Memrise has a feature called Grammarbot, which is a name I really enjoy. It’s basically some courses on, you guessed it, grammar, and the amount of courses varies from language to language.  With the free version, you have access to a few lessons, but not all of them. But some grammar is better than nothing, right?

Premium Features:

1. Difficult Words: If you’re consistently having trouble with a word, Memrise marks it as Difficult– not a big deal, just a way to know you need to work on it more. While you can review all your difficult words without paying a cent, and even remove it from the Difficult category, a subscription allows you to review only your difficult words and nothing else, which is something non-premium members aren’t able to do.
2. Listening Skills: This feature allows you to review words only through listening to them. In a usual review session, there’s a combination of many different ways to learn/review words- among them are typing it out and matching it to its definition. It turns review sessions strictly into listening to the word/phrase in your target language, which helps you get used to hearing the language, as well.
3. Learn with Locals:  Admittedly, this is pretty similar to the Listening Skills feature. However, instead of having a more robotic voice speak the words/phrases you’re trying to learn, you get to listen to native speakers of your target language go through the words and phrases you’ve been learning.
4. Chatbot: With Chatbot, you can have a simulated conversation in your target language. It’s like texting your friend, except in this case your friend is a machine that creates a conversation in order to help you use the words you’ve been learning in a more natural sense. It’s like Cleverbot (am I dating myself?) but for language-learning. But it’s great practice, regardless of how old my references are.
5. (All) Grammar: With a subscription to Memrise Premium, you get access to the every Grammarbot course, which is pretty neat, especially if you’re a fan of grammar and/or robots.

Final Thoughts

Like I said at the beginning of this post, Memrise is my favorite language-learning site to use. My guess is because it works well with my learning style- the repetition really helps things stick in my brain. If you’re like me, and the flash-card system works for you, Memrise is definitely something to check out. If you prefer a more auditory style of learning, then this probably isn’t one I’d recommend. Now, as to whether or not you should go pro, that’s up to you; you get access to every course, in its entirety, without it. It’s just a matter of whether or not you want all the bells-and-whistles to go along with it. It’s all up to you, and what works best for your budget and learning style.