Pretty good! Not perfect.
There are some really cool features here. Every word is paired with a visual representation, which can help quite a bit (the quick lessons are built entirely around this fact). Being able to scan your favourite films & tv shows for unfamiliar words is pretty neat, as are the paired video-clips of people using the terms being studied. It helps to give context to the term to integrate it more effectively. Surprising that you can’t scan books or podcasts for words (especially since the video clips are almost always from podcasts). Maybe the creators will add this in the future!
Two of the best features are the context tag and scale system. Example: the word “floccose” means covered by soft hairs. So does pubescent, as does puberulent, as does lanate. So it would be very easy to mistake these words for simple synonyms. However, the app notes that these are ‘specialized’ (technical) terms. To help clarify the differences between them, the app puts each of these words on a scale measuring the level of hairiness they denote! Lanate is most hairy, then floccose, then pubescent, and finally puberulent. The same applies for the words nomadic, perambulatory, vagabond, & wanderer; they get placed on a scale measuring mobility, and it notes that perambulatory is an archaic term not often used today. The context tag is especially useful for preventing people from accidentally using slurs, or for learning that a term has an offensive connotation without necessarily being problematic.
Some other cool features include a frequency rating, telling you how often you will come across this term in an average year, as well as a difficulty rating, indicating how many people know the term. Neither of these features matter for the learning experience (at the very least they’ll tell you which words to prioritize if you have practical/pragmatic goals of learning words you’re likely to encounter), but they’re cool regardless!
It also has those basic features you’d expect from a language-learning app: a pronunciation button (although sometimes it gets this wrong, like yarmulke), phonetic spelling, type of word (noun, verb, adjective), examples, synonyms, antonyms, etymological origin, and irregular forms.
The paywall isn’t that bad. A free account gives you access to quick lessons every ~5 minutes, which is more than enough. The app literally tells you on initiation that spaced repetition is the best way to learn for long-term retention (this is supported by empirical research), so forcing you to step away and return later is actually better for the learning process than spending hours plowing through words, getting a false sense of familiarity, only to forget them a week later.
A paid account gives unlimited audio lessons, unlimited speaking lessons, and more streak freezes. The free version really isn’t missing out on much. The paired video-clips are essentially audio lessons, and if the speaking aspect is so important to you, just read it out loud as you go. Obviously the streak freezes don’t actually matter unless you treat the app like a game instead of as a learning tool.
Some obvious blindspots in the app:
- let users scan books & podcasts
- let users remove words they no long care about learning
- allow users to choose which words to prioritize learning.
I have 200 words in my to-be-learned, and some are more important to me than others. Since the app focuses on spaced repetition, it prioritizes the first words added to the lesson plan, slowly phasing them out once they’re integrated into a users vocabulary. Unfortunately, it is very easy to accidentally add a word to the lesson plan: when you scan a film or tv show for new vocab words, it auto-selects a handful of words. If you don’t un-select them, they are now permanently in your lesson plan until you ‘perfect’ them. I already know what inquisitive means, I don’t need to review it!
- pair every word with a video clip.
Most of the words i’ve added do have clips, which is honestly very impressive, but it draws attention to how much i’m missing with those few words without them!
- when learning a brand new word within a quick lesson, always present the definition of the word in those first few encounters before moving on.
Quick lessons present you with a word and 4 images, asking you to choose the image most suitable for the word. If you guess the correct image on your first try, you will never be presented with the definition. Of course, you can always go to the dictionary setting to review the definition, but that kind of defeats the purpose of the app, because I could just be googling the definition instead.
- an algorithm to predict words you’re likely to be interested in based on your existing lesson plan, and offer those words to be incorporated into the lesson plan.
- an algorithm for offering words into the lesson plan that are either growing in popular use or frequently having their definitions googled by the public
- more aesthetically pleasing visual representations for words (the whole app is dependent upon AI, so hard to solve this problem without better AI graphic imaging), and more aesthetically pleasing background for the learn tab.
Two of the best features are the context tag and scale system. Example: the word “floccose” means covered by soft hairs. So does pubescent, as does puberulent, as does lanate. So it would be very easy to mistake these words for simple synonyms. However, the app notes that these are ‘specialized’ (technical) terms. To help clarify the differences between them, the app puts each of these words on a scale measuring the level of hairiness they denote! Lanate is most hairy, then floccose, then pubescent, and finally puberulent. The same applies for the words nomadic, perambulatory, vagabond, & wanderer; they get placed on a scale measuring mobility, and it notes that perambulatory is an archaic term not often used today. The context tag is especially useful for preventing people from accidentally using slurs, or for learning that a term has an offensive connotation without necessarily being problematic.
Some other cool features include a frequency rating, telling you how often you will come across this term in an average year, as well as a difficulty rating, indicating how many people know the term. Neither of these features matter for the learning experience (at the very least they’ll tell you which words to prioritize if you have practical/pragmatic goals of learning words you’re likely to encounter), but they’re cool regardless!
It also has those basic features you’d expect from a language-learning app: a pronunciation button (although sometimes it gets this wrong, like yarmulke), phonetic spelling, type of word (noun, verb, adjective), examples, synonyms, antonyms, etymological origin, and irregular forms.
The paywall isn’t that bad. A free account gives you access to quick lessons every ~5 minutes, which is more than enough. The app literally tells you on initiation that spaced repetition is the best way to learn for long-term retention (this is supported by empirical research), so forcing you to step away and return later is actually better for the learning process than spending hours plowing through words, getting a false sense of familiarity, only to forget them a week later.
A paid account gives unlimited audio lessons, unlimited speaking lessons, and more streak freezes. The free version really isn’t missing out on much. The paired video-clips are essentially audio lessons, and if the speaking aspect is so important to you, just read it out loud as you go. Obviously the streak freezes don’t actually matter unless you treat the app like a game instead of as a learning tool.
Some obvious blindspots in the app:
- let users scan books & podcasts
- let users remove words they no long care about learning
- allow users to choose which words to prioritize learning.
I have 200 words in my to-be-learned, and some are more important to me than others. Since the app focuses on spaced repetition, it prioritizes the first words added to the lesson plan, slowly phasing them out once they’re integrated into a users vocabulary. Unfortunately, it is very easy to accidentally add a word to the lesson plan: when you scan a film or tv show for new vocab words, it auto-selects a handful of words. If you don’t un-select them, they are now permanently in your lesson plan until you ‘perfect’ them. I already know what inquisitive means, I don’t need to review it!
- pair every word with a video clip.
Most of the words i’ve added do have clips, which is honestly very impressive, but it draws attention to how much i’m missing with those few words without them!
- when learning a brand new word within a quick lesson, always present the definition of the word in those first few encounters before moving on.
Quick lessons present you with a word and 4 images, asking you to choose the image most suitable for the word. If you guess the correct image on your first try, you will never be presented with the definition. Of course, you can always go to the dictionary setting to review the definition, but that kind of defeats the purpose of the app, because I could just be googling the definition instead.
- an algorithm to predict words you’re likely to be interested in based on your existing lesson plan, and offer those words to be incorporated into the lesson plan.
- an algorithm for offering words into the lesson plan that are either growing in popular use or frequently having their definitions googled by the public
- more aesthetically pleasing visual representations for words (the whole app is dependent upon AI, so hard to solve this problem without better AI graphic imaging), and more aesthetically pleasing background for the learn tab.
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speaking feature not working at all
subscribed for a year and found speaking practice feature is not working at all. every time I try to practice,it just gives me a illustration and nothing starts,,, I would like to request a refund, I was thrilled to find this app, recommended to all my friends then I found this,,,so dissapointing.
Condescending A.I. slop app.
To begin, the app has you take a little test. If you’re someone who enjoys reading, learning, or is otherwise curious for information… it’s pretty simple. Examples of the words it considers tough are “baliff”, “treacherous”, and “extraordinary”. The A.I. voices and images are extremely jarring and weird as well. Mostly, when it asks you to set up a plan, it tells you that “you’re wrong” or lying when you want to adjust your goals. It kind of just gives you the illusion of a personalized and customizable study plan. I took the little test, and then immediately uninstalled. If you want to learn languages, don’t do it from a tool that’s designed as a money hungry cash grab made by a teenager in their mom’s basement.
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Too Much AI Nonsense
Cool idea for an app, however all the loading screens are random dumb images and videos clearly made from generative AI. I refuse to use any app that is so blatantly using generative AI. Hard pass from me. Hire a real artist.
Ótimo
Excelente aplicativo, muito boa a proposta, porém achei o plano pago muito caro.