The Best Language Learning Apps: My Lockdown Test
Best Language Learning Apps
There’s never been a better time to hunker down and learn a new language than during lockdown.
I started working from home from the first UK lockdown, which meant more flexibility in my daily routine. For people affected by the COVID lockdown restrictions, more time at home has been either a bonus or a bane. Many have not been able to go out and about to visit restaurants with family, cinemas with friends or even pop to the shops for a bit of retail therapy. And, in some cases, lockdown has meant spending more time alone than they would like. Creative pursuits like art and writing, and learning new skills is proven to combat feelings of isolation and boredom.
Reaching fluency in a new language not only takes a commendable amount of dedication but it also takes the right resources. If you did a quick search in the app store for ‘learn a new language’, you would get hundreds of results – but which is your best option? Some language learning apps are limited to teaching you the basics and some have big price tags to download. There’s so much choice and even more reviews to get through if you want to pick the app that is best suited to your chosen second language, your budget, and your preferred learning methods.
Through lockdown I’ve tested and compared these key features of the most frequently rated language learning apps. I’ve done this to help you spend more time learning and less time choosing!
Language Learning Apps
Babbel
Chatterbug
Rosetta Stone
Pimsleur
Language Learning Apps - Babbel
Babbel is a large and popular language course provider and probably one of the most recognisable on this list. In testing out their free lesson in each language, I found it to be an intuitive design with a clear and predictable syllabus in the first lessons. Overall, the main drawback I could find was the unnatural speech samples. Although clearly native speakers, the tone was not always conversational or naturally spoken.
What Languages are Offered?
For English speakers, Babbel offers 13 different languages including the populars like Spanish, German and French. English is also offered as a second language to speakers of Spanish, French, German, Italian, Swedish, and Portuguese. This is a good offering if you’re looking to learn a general language but if you’re searching for a specific regional or more obscure language, this isn’t for you.
What’s the Pricing?
While you can’t subscribe for any less than 3 months, there is the option to trial a free first lesson. After this, you can choose from a selection of tiered subscriptions:
€4.95/month when committing for 12 months
€5.54/month when committing for 6 months
€6.65/month when committing for 3 months
It’s good to bear in mind that this pricing is definitely on the lower end of the spectrum of options out there.
How you Learn
The learning experience is a little divided between languages offerings. In the Spanish and French courses, you are able to develop and then practice your skills in a chat-style conversation scenario. This is a fantastic way to practice and learn at the same time, as you get a feel for the grammar and sentence structure in a true-to-life situation.
Language Learning Apps - Chatterbug
Chatterbug offers web and mobile self-study and live tutor lessons. An important note to make is that the mobile version of this language learning app is more simplified with limited options, and you must use a web browser version to take part in the live lessons, video practices and writing exercises. This might not be an issue for many, but a fully functional app version would improve accessibility.
What Languages are Offered?
Chatterbug mostly publicises the availability of their French, German, Italian, and Spanish teaching. They do offer a few other languages that you can expect from the majority of the popular language learning apps, but again don’t expect any obscure or regional language courses.
What’s the Pricing?
The Chatterbug language learning app works on a monthly subscription basis. Included in your subscription are self-study practices as well as their pioneering feature- live lessons. In these lessons you schedule and are paired with a qualified tutor in your chosen language and are guided through various activities over a 45-minute live language lesson. Their subscriptions tiers are also based on the number of live lessons you choose to have per month:
Lite | Monthly Cost -$23 | Lessons per month -1 | Price per extra lesson -$23
Casual | Monthly Cost -$85 | Lessons per month -4 | Price per extra lesson -$22
Serious | Monthly Cost -$160 | Lessons per month -8 | Price per extra lesson -$20
Ultimate | Monthly Cost -$450 | Lessons per month -Unlimited | Price per extra lesson -N/A
Compared to the other apps tested on this list, Chatterbug ranks as the priciest after Rosetta Stone, and aside from the live tutors, doesn’t seem to have much more learning content than you can find for free.
How you Learn
Chatterbug has a higher price tag for a reason as the live tutor lessons are an effective way to practice what you learn in the self-study sections. You are first met with your learning dashboard, displaying your progress toward meeting your self-study and live lesson goals, where you can then decide which exercises you want to try out or schedule a live lesson.
Language Learning Apps - Rosetta Stone
The paid Rosetta Stone course software comes with access to one of the language learning apps that offers almost the same level of functionality as its desktop version. However, for the live chat and writing exercise aspects you’ll need to use the desktop version as its not supported by the mobile app.
What Languages are Offered?
Rosetta Stone offers a generous list of languages to learn from an English-speaking perspective in particular. Languages available are Arabic, Chinese (Mandarin), English (American), English (British), Dutch, Filipino (Tagalog), French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Irish, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Persian (Farsi), Polish, Portuguese (Brazil), Russian, Spanish (Latin America), Spanish (Spain), Swedish, and Turkish.
What’s the Pricing?
You can download the Rosetta Stone language learning app for free for both iOS and Android, however lessons and functions are extremely limited with frequent prompts to upgrade and that’s not even considering that you aren’t able to access the app unless you first have the desktop version. It’s a ‘chicken and egg’ situation, making the free app almost redundant. If you do opt to pay a subscription, you choose your language and then decide how many levels you want to purchase. For a single level, the software costs $179. Two levels cost $279, three levels costs $379, and if you opt for the full five-level set, the software costs $479.
How you Learn
If the price tag hasn’t put you off, the activities included in your language course are worth trying during lockdown as they have the fun factor. The activities you’re given to work through are more like puzzles than straight memorisation activities. Sometimes it feels as if you’re repeating old words even when you’ve moved on within a level, but this may be down to the learning algorithm and might be useful to some users. It’s easy to power through each level as it often feels as if you’re playing a game. Combined with the studio sessions with live tutors, Rosetta Stone has all of the features you’d expect and does them all reasonably well.
Best Language Learning Apps - Pimsleur
Why does this name ring a bell you ask? Pimsleur was an expert in the linguistics field and developed the Pimsleur language learning method and then a language learning app was created by the same name. In this list of my lockdown best language learning app tests, I’ve saved the best for last. Created by Simon & Schuster, Pimsleur is available on app and desktop.
What Languages are Offered?
Pimsleur offers the widest range of languages that I’ve encountered so far in popularly accessible language learning. Of course, the basics are in there, with Spanish, German, French, Italian, and Portuguese. However, there are some great variations on regional languages like Chinese and Spanish. You can find the full list of languages on offer on the Pimsleur website.
What’s the Pricing?
A nice feature that makes Pimsleur stand out is the 7-day free trial. Usually you can expect to test out a limited and reductive free version if you don’t want to pay up front, but you get almost full access in your free trial. From what I could decipher, there is a simple flat rate monthly cost of $18.95. This is advertised as a pay-as-you-go offer, though I’m not sure how it differs to a subscription model.
How you Learn
Pimsleur’s unique selling point is that they claim you can learn wherever you are, with just 30 minutes a day, and that you’ll be conversing at an intermediate level after just 30 days. The key to the Pimsleur method seems to be listening and not memorising, and your teaching focuses on basic vocabulary and real-life pronunciations. You won’t find so many game-based activities on Pimsleur, but the library of examples is vast and you really can just let your subconscious pick up the ‘right way’ of saying things and practice to yourself, quickly recognising patterns and familiar words.
Idyoma.com is another alternative if you’ve already tried and tested these apps without success. Idyoma offers one on one language sharing with native speakers, to improve all aspects of your chosen language.
You can download the Idyoma language exchange mobile app for free here: