AI Gives incorrect answers
This looks like a great idea but even from the very beginning in Japanese it’s giving incorrect kanji and completely random explanations (it told me that particles in Japanese are adverbs…. What??)
It’s all AI & staff off platform is discriminatory
I first found ðis app on ðe platform Threads, where ðey advertised ðemselves as a better alternative to Duolingo. Many of us looking to learn a new language are sick of Duo because of AI OVERALL, not just ðe fact ðat Duo fired staff in favour of AI. But Lairner has been using ðat specific gripe we have wiþ Duo to advertise ðemselves. Many of us þink ðen ðat ðey must be anti-AI, especially when ðey really only admit to ðe AI when you personally ask ðem, or you look deeper on ðeir website. Ðat’s what I þought at first. I didn’t þink to look deeper into ðeir AI use at first because ðey proudly proclaim to not fire staff over AI use.
But apparently ðat just means ðey used AI first, and ðey NEED to be more forþright about ðeir AI. I was looking to get back into learning Irish, and so I started wiþ ðeir beginner course. Ðe pronunciation inaccuracies were quick to hear from ðe get-go. It pronounced words like “sea” as ðe English word instead of “shah”, and “maith” as eiðer “meyeth” or “math” when ðe th needs to be silent just for example. It’s odd how ðey claim to have language experts on ðe team, yet ðis pronunciation problem is a clear and present issue in many different courses as reported by oðer users. So eiðer ðey’re lying, or ðey just don’t boðer to check ðey’re precious AI voices before making courses public. Or ðeir “experts” are just AI bots. 🤔
Also, don’t get into discourse wiþ ðem unless you like having ad hominems þrown at you. Ðey’re not afraid to be very ableist and fatphobic because staff þrough ðe app I contacted said, and I quote, “People that are toxic don't deserve to be handled with respect”. When I told ðem basically ðat being ableist is harmful to everyone wiþ a disability, including disabled people like ME, ðey defended ðemselves by saying “If you're insecure about something said to someone ELSE, that's sensitivity no one can or should accommodate for you”. Which I find quite amusing, because a few people have reported seeing ðem say to oðers ðat ðey should off ðemselves. I don’t know if it’s true, but it wouldn’t surprise me if it was at ðis point. It’s incredibly entitled and privileged to say a marginalised person is merely insecure about bigotry being on full display. You wouldn’t þrow a racial slur at a non white person because ðey were toxic, would you?
Don’t waste your money on ðis app. At ðis point Duolingo would be preferable, because you KNOW you won’t get discriminated against, AND ðe stuff ðey teach is more likely to be accurate.
But apparently ðat just means ðey used AI first, and ðey NEED to be more forþright about ðeir AI. I was looking to get back into learning Irish, and so I started wiþ ðeir beginner course. Ðe pronunciation inaccuracies were quick to hear from ðe get-go. It pronounced words like “sea” as ðe English word instead of “shah”, and “maith” as eiðer “meyeth” or “math” when ðe th needs to be silent just for example. It’s odd how ðey claim to have language experts on ðe team, yet ðis pronunciation problem is a clear and present issue in many different courses as reported by oðer users. So eiðer ðey’re lying, or ðey just don’t boðer to check ðey’re precious AI voices before making courses public. Or ðeir “experts” are just AI bots. 🤔
Also, don’t get into discourse wiþ ðem unless you like having ad hominems þrown at you. Ðey’re not afraid to be very ableist and fatphobic because staff þrough ðe app I contacted said, and I quote, “People that are toxic don't deserve to be handled with respect”. When I told ðem basically ðat being ableist is harmful to everyone wiþ a disability, including disabled people like ME, ðey defended ðemselves by saying “If you're insecure about something said to someone ELSE, that's sensitivity no one can or should accommodate for you”. Which I find quite amusing, because a few people have reported seeing ðem say to oðers ðat ðey should off ðemselves. I don’t know if it’s true, but it wouldn’t surprise me if it was at ðis point. It’s incredibly entitled and privileged to say a marginalised person is merely insecure about bigotry being on full display. You wouldn’t þrow a racial slur at a non white person because ðey were toxic, would you?
Don’t waste your money on ðis app. At ðis point Duolingo would be preferable, because you KNOW you won’t get discriminated against, AND ðe stuff ðey teach is more likely to be accurate.
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AI is often wrong
The courses here are AI based and I used it for a few months and it taught me so many incorrect phrases and grammar explanations that is was ultimately a waste of time. I can see the usefulness of AI eventually in language learning (the app claims hundreds and hundreds of courses) but if it’s not checked by humans it’s hard to trust. I liked the UX.
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Trash AI generated courses
Everything about this is obviously AI generated. There are no experts of any languages looking over these courses. Don’t waste your time and go with a proven language learning app that isn’t just here to try and charge you a premium for AI slop
It needs a LOT of work
UPDATE: Changing to a 1-star. DO NOT USE THIS APP.
I’ve moved through their useless “lessons”. Currently I’m on a “lesson” about present tense adjectives. The instruction is “fill in the blank with the correct word.” That is it. No context for what word they want out of all the words that end with い that are listed. The verbalization of the words only matches some. Then when you pick an answer (and my answers are correct because I’m not the rank beginner that this lesson is aimed at)… the answer is marked incorrect.
Final verdict? This app is trash and is actually infinitely WORSE than Duolingo. Their customer service is useless, their app is badly designed, badly programmed, and will absolutely NOT help you learn anything.
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Previous review: Do I want to like it? Yes. Very much. It could be a good alternative to the stupid AI-heavy owl.
HOWEVER…
Currently this app often shows the wrong language (romanized) in the answer selection, it marks correct answers as incorrect, and even at the “I’ve never tried this language before in my life” level, it presents advanced sentences, ideas, and concepts with no teaching. You just guess and hope you get the correct answer.
Support tickets for issues get a response of “yeah, we know, hope you are okay with it until we get around to fixing it!”
Because I can see potential and because I can see that it is being worked on, this app gets 2-stars, and I can revisit in the future if/when the app improves.
For now? I hate to say it, but you’re better off with the AI Owl.
I’ve moved through their useless “lessons”. Currently I’m on a “lesson” about present tense adjectives. The instruction is “fill in the blank with the correct word.” That is it. No context for what word they want out of all the words that end with い that are listed. The verbalization of the words only matches some. Then when you pick an answer (and my answers are correct because I’m not the rank beginner that this lesson is aimed at)… the answer is marked incorrect.
Final verdict? This app is trash and is actually infinitely WORSE than Duolingo. Their customer service is useless, their app is badly designed, badly programmed, and will absolutely NOT help you learn anything.
_______________
Previous review: Do I want to like it? Yes. Very much. It could be a good alternative to the stupid AI-heavy owl.
HOWEVER…
Currently this app often shows the wrong language (romanized) in the answer selection, it marks correct answers as incorrect, and even at the “I’ve never tried this language before in my life” level, it presents advanced sentences, ideas, and concepts with no teaching. You just guess and hope you get the correct answer.
Support tickets for issues get a response of “yeah, we know, hope you are okay with it until we get around to fixing it!”
Because I can see potential and because I can see that it is being worked on, this app gets 2-stars, and I can revisit in the future if/when the app improves.
For now? I hate to say it, but you’re better off with the AI Owl.
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Good app for learning rare languages
UPDATE: The recent updates have improved the UI considerably. Very happy to see the errors I described below are gone. I am enjoying learning Estonian on this app. Good job!!!
OLD REVIEW: I speak Latvian fluently and placed with a test in advanced lessons, but it’s stuck on super basic vocabulary even though I passed the full exam with a perfect score. I can’t get to an advanced level or delete and re-add Latvian. Learning Estonian from the beginning is ok. Making an account and logging in is pretty buggy and it asks for my Apple ID password multiple times. Still a good resource for learning rarer languages.
OLD REVIEW: I speak Latvian fluently and placed with a test in advanced lessons, but it’s stuck on super basic vocabulary even though I passed the full exam with a perfect score. I can’t get to an advanced level or delete and re-add Latvian. Learning Estonian from the beginning is ok. Making an account and logging in is pretty buggy and it asks for my Apple ID password multiple times. Still a good resource for learning rarer languages.
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Response from developer
Thanks for the feedback! We‘ve improved a lot since then and would love for you to try again!
Excellent alternative to Duolingo
I've been a Duolingo Super and then Max subscriber for years with a 2000+ day streak. Duolingo has been increasingly annoying in its design decisions over the past few years and, when my subscription renewal was due. I had some initial issues getting my account and password setup in Lairner but the team monitoring Threads messages were quite helpful and now I'm really enjoying Lairner!
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Response from developer
Thank you so much for your review! Hope you can catch our constant new updates and features!
Great app
Cool app, learning Georgian now. Helps me a lot!
Bit buggy but good idea
I speak Latvian fluently and placed with a test in advanced lessons, but it’s stuck on super basic vocabulary even though I passed the full exam with a perfect score. I can’t get to an advanced level or delete and re-add Latvian. Learning Estonian from the beginning is ok. Making an account and logging in is pretty buggy and it asks for my Apple ID password multiple times. Still a good resource for learning rarer languages.
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Super good
Amazing app
Response from developer
Thanks a lot!
Pretty much Useless
As former user of Duolingo I hoped to find an app that supports intermediate and higher skill levels.
Started with french to brush up my school skills. No way not to start from absolute scratch! Tried a test to evaluate my english level: what is the use of asking for numbers below 10 over and over? Most people who have not had a single lesson can answer it. Higher skills were not assessed.
Also there are bugs in the app that make it hard to justify paying 4,99€
If you hear this, I’d appreciate a refund.
Tell me when the app is really finished. In terms of bugfixed and tested thoroughly.
Think about a really low alpha-tester discount rate so you can motivate users to report problems.
Your decision to put it out unfinished and for the full rate is a bad one in my humble opinion.
Started with french to brush up my school skills. No way not to start from absolute scratch! Tried a test to evaluate my english level: what is the use of asking for numbers below 10 over and over? Most people who have not had a single lesson can answer it. Higher skills were not assessed.
Also there are bugs in the app that make it hard to justify paying 4,99€
If you hear this, I’d appreciate a refund.
Tell me when the app is really finished. In terms of bugfixed and tested thoroughly.
Think about a really low alpha-tester discount rate so you can motivate users to report problems.
Your decision to put it out unfinished and for the full rate is a bad one in my humble opinion.
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Great for learning any language
Duolingo who? This feels like a much nicer and more intricate learning experience. And it’s cheaper :)
Very bad and incorrect
I downloaded Lairner out of curiosity to see if they had Hebrew. They do. I am no where near fluent, but I know enough to say that this app’s pronunciation is entirely incorrect. In Hebrew, letter vav (ו) is not always pronounced as a “v” sound. בוקר טוב means good morning and transliterates to boker tov. This app has it being said as “B V K R” because it believes vav is pronounced as a v. The same thing happens with shalom, שלום, where they say write the transliteration as shvlm which is said as shuhvlum.
Please, if you’re going to teach a language, do it correctly.
Please, if you’re going to teach a language, do it correctly.
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Response from developer
Hey there! It should be much better now! Please give it another shot! We have a Hebrew-speaking person working in our team and it should be relatively good by now.
Great app but
So far the app is pretty good .
A few suggestions tho. I speak fluent Bulgarian and English and there are a few wrong answers that need to be corrected since they are confusing and simply wrong !
There is no way to report wrong answers so please create a way for users to report that. Try to reach out to users to help with the right pronunciation of words and sentences too that can help
A few suggestions tho. I speak fluent Bulgarian and English and there are a few wrong answers that need to be corrected since they are confusing and simply wrong !
There is no way to report wrong answers so please create a way for users to report that. Try to reach out to users to help with the right pronunciation of words and sentences too that can help
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Response from developer
Hey, thanks for the reply. please check out the app again - it should be much better now! Reporting should also be available to you! Thanks!
