2 Best Language Learning Apps for Speaking In 2023
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Language learning apps for speaking are great for 2 things. Firstly, they’re a good source to fill a gap in your learning process. Secondly, they’re great for beginners to learn the very basics of the language and practice their accent.
This article will introduce you to the 2 best language learning apps for speaking. The first one will serve you if you’re a beginner, need to learn basic words, and practice your accent. The second one will be beneficial if you want to learn how to use vocabulary correctly in sentences and start speaking as a pro.
List Of The 2 Best Language Learning Apps For Speaking
- LANGUAGEPOD101
- LINGOPIE
Before we get to each language app in detail, let’s look at why it’s beneficial to learn languages with these apps and when to use them on your language learning journey.
4 Reasons To Learn A Language With Language Apps
- Many different resources so you can choose which language skill you feel like improving on that day
- Enable you to practice pronunciation and record yourself saying new words
- Teach you basic grammar
- Have lessons based on conversation and use vocabulary in a context
These language apps have everything together in one place. So whether you feel like doing some listening or studying some extra vocabulary, they’ll help you out with it. They are also a good source to understand grammar and simple sentences as a beginner.
But please, don’t stick to them. Remember, it’s better to learn a language by yourself, on your own. It’s much better to create and find your own resources and produce the language on your own.
Why Am I Not The Biggest Fan Of Language Apps?
I am not the biggest fan of language apps. Simply because they just throw at you all bunch of random words and promise you success. So you follow all these words and repeat them over and over again. But you don’t have a clear path of what you’re actually learning.
As a language learner, I think it’s important to know where you are on the language journey and where you’re heading to. That’s why I’ve developed my own language learning method and encourage you to follow it to learn languages. To be fully present and be successful.
However, as I said, as a complete beginner, you need to start somewhere, and language apps are the best tool. But not all of the apps. Only those who give you vocabulary in small conversations and simple dialogues. These language apps I recommend will give you the path for learning the language. They won’t just teach you single words. Instead, they’ll teach you basic conversations every beginner should start with.
When To Use The Best Language Learning Apps For Speaking
I recommend you use the first language app from this list at the beginning of your language learning journey (LanguapePod101). It’ll teach you the basic structure of the language, the right pronunciation of words, and help you understand the basic grammar you need as a beginner.
I suggest you use the second language app (Lingopie) from this list once you know the basics. The app is great to fill the gap in your language learning. If you feel slightly unmotivated and just feel like watching something, use the second app. It’ll also help you to start using vocabulary you learned as a beginner in sentences and real-life conversations.
1. LANGUAGEPOD101 App by INNOVATIVE LANGUAGE
Innovative Language is an excellent platform to learn and practice your language skills as a beginner. You’ll choose your level, and it’ll automatically give you a pre-designed course. Once you complete the course, you’ll achieve a higher level of CEFR. The course has 80 to 90 lessons with 56 assignments.
Innovative Language Learning focuses mainly on communication. This is because they believe that it’s the most important skill for learning a language. Which I believe as well, and that’s the reason why I like the app. Each lesson starts with a dialogue, where you get to listen to people talking about a particular topic. Only after comes vocabulary itself and grammar. Then, the dialogue phrases are repeated several times to get used to the pronunciation and remember the words and sentences.
LanguagePod101 App
Innovative Language platform has the LanguagePod101 App.
They have audio dialogues at the beginning of each lesson. Then they break down vocabulary from the dialogue, grammar and make you even record the words. Below, I am giving you a sample of 1 lesson.
Which Languages Can You Learn with Innovative Language App?
Innovative Language offers currently the following European languages:
- Bulgarian
- Croatian
- Czech
- Danish
- Dutch
- Finnish
- French
- German
- Greek
- Hungarian
- Italian
- Norwegian
- Polish
- Portuguese
- Romanian
- Russian
- Serbian
- Spanish
- Swedish
- Turkish
- Ukrainian
Sample Lesson with LanguagePod101
Let’s take a sample of 1 lesson learning Spanish with SpanishPod101.
In one lesson, you’ll learn a mixture of listening, speaking, and vocabulary skills. For example, you’ll learn to make plans: ‘What are you going to do in South America.’ The lesson is also focused on the future form ‘going to.’
Start With a Dialogue
Every lesson starts with a dialogue. You’ll listen to a conversation where two people are planning their trip to South America. As for the grammar, they are using the form ‘going to.’
After this dialogue, you’ll have a vocabulary practice. Then, you can listen to each word (used in the dialogue), pronounce it, and even record yourself.
Vocabulary Section
SpanishPod101 has a separate section for vocabulary learning, which you can use at the beginning of your language learning journey. As I suggested in my language learning method, it’s great to start with learning vocabulary for one specific topic. After, you’ll create sentences and start practicing and speaking.
Go to the Vocabulary section and learn various vocabulary sheets. You’ll also get flashcards and vocabulary in sentences. You can listen to them and even record yourself repeating these sentences (which is one of the effective ways to improve your language skills).
Lesson Notes With Easy Grammar Explanations
After, there is a section with Lesson Notes. Inside, you have easy grammar explanations, in this case, future ‘going to.’ There is a conjugation of verbs for each person, one of the most essential things every beginner should learn and understand.
Once you see how the verbs are conjugated, you’ll have specific examples where the grammar is used from the text.
Then it gives you a language tip and a little text with cultural insight.
In the end, they provide you with the dialogue transcript, and you can also download the entire lesson as Pdf.
You have 90 of these lessons. They really go into detail, so you can be sure you won’t miss any important concepts or vocabulary from that language.
Section With 100 & 2000 Most Common Words
There is a section with 100 and 2000 most common words in the language you want to learn. You’ll also have access to key phrase lists and a dictionary to look up the words you are looking for.
Innovate Language Learning will also help you stay on track with your language learning.
They send you a word of the day to your E-mail box to make sure you are keeping up with learning the language.
Best Feature From LanguagePod101 App
I consider it one of the best language app because it’s all based on conversation. You’ll learn all words and grammar in the context, which is the best way to learn a language. It doesn’t just throw random words at you to memorize. Instead, you’ll learn all words in a context, which will make you understand them better and use them in a conversation from the very beginning.
They have a basic plan and premium plan with extra features like flashcards and the 2000 most common words.
You can use its voice recognition tool to record yourself pronouncing words. It’s a great way to learn a language.
I love LanguagePod101 because it teaches you to use vocabulary in a context (in the dialogues). It enables you to record yourself learning new words. And it has other useful resources like flashcards, vocabulary sheets, podcasts, and transcripts on one platform. So once you learn vocabulary, you can immediately read and listen to their dialogues, where this vocabulary is used.
Another great advantage of LanguagePod101 is that it’s based on monthly subscriptions. So you can cancel it anytime, whenever you don’t need it anymore.
How Much Does LanguagePod101 App Cost?
LanguagePod101 App offers monthly subscription plans. You can get the free version with the basics, where you have lifetime access.
Premium Plan is around 10$ per month and Premium Plus around 20$. They often give you a 31% discount when you want to sign up. Then it is worth getting the Premium Plan, where you have all features for 6.90$ per month.
The best plan is the premium one as it gives you all the features, including videos, more grammar, and vocabulary. I don’t think you need the Premium Plus plan with a teacher. If you need a teacher, instead, I recommend iTalki to directly practice your speaking.
LanguagePod101 is very comprehensive and has detailed explanations for each topic. They cover many aspects of a language and go into detail a lot.
Is LanguagePod101 Worth It? Which Plan to Choose?
I recommend you either stick to the free plan or get the premium plan, which is only around 6$ monthly subscription. You’ll get the flashcards and vocabulary lists with it. To my mind, the Premium Plus Plan isn’t worth it. You don’t necessarily need a teacher. You can study the dialogues and vocabulary independently and rather practice speaking with somebody on iTalki later on.
Learn the Most Common European Languages:
Below, you can choose one of the most common European languages to learn with LanguagePod101:
2. LingoPie Language App
As the second-best language learning app, I have something absolutely perfect for you. The Lingopie app offers movies and TV shows in foreign languages. And that’s not enough.
It offers you a variety of amazing features, such as flashcards from the movie tailored to your language needs. It also has voices recognition to practice pronunciation. Its subtitles are in the language you’re learning. This app is revolutionary. It again works with real conversations from movies and TV shows and makes your language learning a lot more efficient.
I’ve been using Lingopie now for a year, and I can confidently say that it is the best language app out there. I have also compared it to other apps (such as Memrise, Duolingo, Babbel), and I can’t express how good it is.
So let’s have a look at how it works more in detail.
Which Languages Can You Learn with Lingopie?
At the moment, you can learn the following languages with Lingopie:
How Can You Learn Languages With Lingopie?
Each movie or TV show comes with English subtitles shown on the screen. Whenever there is a word suitable for your language level, it pops up above the English word on the screen. That word is written in your foreign language.
When you click on it, the movie you’re watching stops automatically. Then you can listen to the pronunciation of that word in your foreign language. What is even better is when you click on the plus sign next to the word, it’ll automatically be added to your flashcards. So if you want to learn the word, click on it and add it to flashcards to work with it later.
While watching, on your right-hand side, you’ll have a script with each sentence from the movie written in your foreign language. Whenever you want, you can click on a sentence from the movie and listen to the recording of that sentence. After, you can even record yourself saying the sentence out loud. It automatically gives you a score of how well you pronounced the sentence and sounded like a native. It’s absolutely amazing.
What Kind Of Movies & TV Shows Can You Watch?
I’ve recently watched a documentary called ‘Our Trip through el Salvador’ in Spanish. But there are different genres and shows. For instance, you can watch a love story, a documentary, thriller, drama, and even something for kids. In addition, they’re constantly adding new movies and shows each week.
With Lingopie, you can be excited for the following genres to watch:
- beginner friendly shows & movies
- romantic
- historical
- comedy
- short stories
- travel & food
- best TV shows from the country of your foreign language
- suspense
- tearful shows
- soap operas
- telenovelas
- mystery
- around the world
- crazy shows
- thriller
- family & kids
- drama
And the list goes on… What is more, their library also includes:
- audiobooks
- podcasts
Learn New Vocabulary With LingoPie Flashcards
As I mentioned above, another great feature is flashcards. When watching your movie, you’ll have English subtitles on the screen. From time to time, a word in the foreign language pops up above these subtitles that they suggest you learn and save as a flashcard.
You can listen to its pronunciation and add it to your flashcard list when you click on the word. It’s that simple. All the words you add to the flashcards section will be automatically saved. When you finish watching, you can just go to the flashcard section and review all the words you want to learn for the day. On the flip side of each flashcard, there is also an English translation.
If you feel comfortable with the word and remember it, you can click on the ‘I know’ icon. It’ll be automatically transferred to the section ‘Mastered Flashcards.’
If you watch several movies or TV shows, your flashcards will be divided under each movie or show you’ve watched.
This is absolutely amazing because it’s a lot easier to remember words in a foreign language when you can associate them with something. In Lingopie, you have them automatically associated with the movies and stories you watch.
LingoPie Video Dictionary
You can also learn your own words with the Lingopie dictionary. The way it works is that you type in any word you want to hear in context. When you press ‘Search in Video,’ it’ll automatically show you all videos (movies and shows) where the word is mentioned. It’ll display you the section of the movie where the word is mentioned with an entire sentence.
After, you can load more movie options where your word is mentioned. There are usually hundreds of movies. So you can listen to the word in various contexts. This is another great feature I love about Lingopie. It constantly encourages you to learn vocabulary in real conversations and in context.
You can learn various ways to use one word. It’s amazing. It’ll give you more confidence to use words in real conversations and flexibility in your speech.
Can I Switch Languages With Lingopie?
Absolutely. When you start with the app, you’ll choose a language, which level you’re at, and for what purpose you want to learn it. But if you want to change the language even after a month, you can easily do so. Just choose a different language in the top right corner of your learning platform and start learning.
How Much Does LingoPie Cost?
As with LanguagePod101, LingoPie is also based on monthly subscriptions. It offers 3 plans.
The first two plans offer all the features I described above. The only difference between them is that the first plan is billed monthly, and the second plan is billed annually. In this case, the second plan is way cheaper per month, and it has significant discounts.
The third plan also offers all features described above, but you can share your account with 3 other members. This way, it’ll be cheaper for each member of the program throughout the entire year.
You’ll get your 7-day free trial to try the app and see how you like it. After, you’ll be charged for the plan you chose at the beginning. But don’t worry, you can also cancel the plan anytime you’re not satisfied or don’t want to learn a language any more. Simply cancel it if that’s the case.
This is the Lingopie language app with everything it offers. It’s suitable for beginners, intermediate, and even advanced learners. The main point is for beginners to learn new vocabulary and get familiar with the language. And for intermediate and advanced learners to keep up with the language and constantly improve language skills by watching movies and having fun with it.
Which Language Learning App For Speaking To Choose?
To conclude, I recommend you use LanguagePod101 if you’re a complete beginner. It’ll give you an idea of what to learn in a new language and teach you the very basics in real-life conversations.
To complement your language learning journey and enhance it whenever you feel less motivated, use Lingopie and watch some movies and shows. It’ll always motivate you, you can watch your favorite series or a movie, and learn a language along the way.
More Tips On Language Learning
I hope these language learning apps for speaking will be handy for your language learning journey. As I mentioned several times, it’s important to use them as a supplement for your language learning plan. Don’t use them as the only source for learning a language. If you complement the best language learning apps with studying vocabulary on your own, reading books, language magazines, listening to podcasts, and speaking, it’ll get you to fluency.
Learn more about my method to learn a language for travel. If you want to build your language skills, check out my post about 7 types of language skills, where I am also giving you resources to learn languages and practice various skills. Get my 8 language learning tips and start learning a language for travel with me today.
