Teach Yourself Library vs Language Soup
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Teach Yourself Library
Access free audio and learning resources to supplement your studies. Download materials to your personal library for anytime, anywhere learning. Sync your content across devices for a seamless experience.
- Free audio resources
- Learning materials
- Offline access
- Cross-device syncing
- Downloadable content
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Discover a world of free audio and learning resources to accompany your Teach Yourself course. Teach Yourself has been trusted by learners for over 75 years to deliver expert learning materials across a wide range of topic areas – languages, business, careers, self-help, creative writing and hobbies. Now for the first time you can access any accompanying audio or learning resources in this free app. Download the resources to your Library and access anywhere anytime. You can even sign in from a different device and all your content will be queued for easy downloading. Teach Yourself: books that make life better.
Language Soup
Practice speaking a new language in a low-pressure, supportive community. Daily voice challenges and feedback from real people help you overcome speaking anxiety and start conversing confidently.
- Daily voice challenges
- Low-pressure speaking practice
- Community feedback
- Support for multiple languages
- Fun avatars
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Stop memorizing new languages and start thinking in them. Language Soup is the first language app that trains your brain how to think in another language and culture. Listen, speak and learn with friends! Listening: Language Soup is based on a method called comprehensible input. In short, when you listen to a lot of content at or above your level, your brain starts to think in a new language (just like how babies learn!) How to listen: Check out top shows from our users. Select a show. Listen for as long as you would like (start with at least 5 min a day!). Record your session. Compete with others on the leaderboard. Tip! You are going to need a LOT of hours of listening to work your way to fluency and daily practice is better than random long bursts! Speaking: Afraid to speak? Don't worry! Everyone gets nervous to speak in a new language! Language Soup encourages speaking from day 1. Yes day 1! With our easy and hard speaking prompts, users can record voice memos and get instant feedback on small things to improve. How to speak: Open the "speak" button, select an "easy" or "hard" prompt. Click record, don't think just speak for at least a minute! Use filler words, try your best to just fill the time by saying as much as you can or repeating the prompt several times. Save your recording, look at the feedback and listen to other learners! Community: Learning is BORING alone so we made this app to create micro language communities! With the community section, you have your own forum to ask users questions. What's the best comedy podcast for Hungarian right now? Ask! Have a favorite hack for learning tones in Mandarin? Post! Want to make a weekly call for beginners to go deeper? Post! Language Soup is a ground breaking language learning app. Please reach out to noah@language-soup.com if you would like to learn more.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is review sentiment: Language Soup at 86% against Teach Yourself Library's 31%. Language Soup also leads on rating (4.6 vs 3.9) and in-app purchases (none vs 16). Teach Yourself Library's advantage is ratings volume (143 vs 11). On price, ads, device support and iOS requirement there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
Both are free to download. Teach Yourself Library sells 16 one-off in-app purchases. Language Soup asks for nothing beyond the download.
Language Soup holds the better App Store score, 4.6 against 3.9. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Teach Yourself Library has 143 ratings behind it against 11, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 31% of Teach Yourself Library's written reviews are positive against 86% of Language Soup's.
Teach Yourself Library ships an update every 4 months, Language Soup every 2 weeks. The most recent releases landed on October 21, 2026 and October 24, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Teach Yourself Library | Language Soup |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 3.9 (143 ratings) | 4.6 (11 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 30.5% of reviews | 85.7% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 143 — better | 11 |
| Update frequency | Every 4 months | Every 2 weeks — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | No — better |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases | Free — better |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod | iPhone, iPad, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 15.6 | 15.1 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 96 MB | 83 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 12+ |
| Developer | Hachette UK (Holdings)Limited | Noah Aire |
Customer experience
Teach Yourself Library
Language Soup
Bugs and requests
Teach Yourself Library
Reported bugs
89 issues- App doesn't open
- Crashes on launch
- Downloads not working
- App keeps logging off
- App not opening on iPhone
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- App closing spontaneously
- Requires internet connection when available
- Crashes when features are selected
- Arrow keys don't turn pages on Mac
- UI is confusing
- Clicking on buttons navigates pages
- No way to pop from book to collection
- Visual affordances lacking
- Clicking page makes text appear/disappear
- Book content broken across pages
- Default font tiny, font settings don't work
- App is unstable, crashes frequently
- Doesn't save progress
- Cannot play some downloaded audios
- No way to re-download audios
- App won't sign in
- Buttons too small to click
- Audio doesn't play
- Yellow text on yellow background
- No proper categories for genres
- Little accessibility options
- Menu is terrible, no easy way to select chapters
- App port of a browser page
- App says user has to pay for purchased content
- Audio player doesn't stay on Lock Screen
- Makes everything zoomed in and keyboard larger
- Audio dialogues don't work well
- App is rubbish
- Forced to use phone, not laptop
- Audio doesn't display track numbers
- Video in ebook says highlighting words, but can't
- Dictionary takes to external sites
- App not updated for larger screens
- Basic features like translation lookup missing
- No support received
- App says 'Coming Soon' for books
- Unable to access purchased books or sign in
- App quits or says 'coming soon' for audio
- App closes automatically when reproducing a book
- App closes automatically
- App crashes when opening files
- App crashes and won't open
- Audio doesn't work with iOS 13
- App keeps closed
- App crashes when playing a chapter
- Not compatible with iOS 13
- App crashes constantly when tapping on a book
- Audio app not working
- App doesn't open and listenings can't be heard
- Crashes on iOS 13
- Not working since iOS 13 update
- App crashes
- App automatically shuts down when clicking a clip
- Layout not compatible with iPads
- Cannot play audio content
- App closes when opening audio for Norwegian
- Upgrade stopped French from working
- Program keeps closing when trying to listen to lessons
- Can't open ANYTHING
- App crashing when choosing chapters/audio recordings
- Audio no longer works
- App crashes and shuts down when opening a new language
- App isn't working, program closes when playing French
- Not all languages available in audio library
- Missing language audio (Serbian, Latvian)
- App doesn't work from the beginning on iPhone X
- Terrible to sign into
- Doesn't allow profile creation or sign in via social media
- Error message and sent back to first page when skipping sign in
- No sound in ebook, icon present but no mention of audio
- App crashes after each track play when switching pages
- Downloading audio takes multiple retries
- Confusing app, hard to find/access audio
- No way to buy audiobooks or audio/book
- Audio download is good, but better chapter labeling needed
- App keeps closing even after uninstall/reinstall
- App closes when clicking on a clip to play
- Poor app design
- Cannot download audio to iTunes or media player
- Listening and re-listening is not intuitive
- App is a mess
- No control over content paid for
- No clear pictures, up-to-date phrases, or easy audio access
- Worst educational tool encountered
Requested features
15 requests- Track repeat functionality
- More exercises, words, and grammar
- Chapters listed as default
- Shorter jump forward/back options
- Audio player on lock screen
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- Longer pause between tracks
- Better chapter labeling for audio
- Make all complete language audio available
- Highlighting words in ebooks
- Proper in-app dictionary
- Update for larger screens
- Allow use of other e-reader software
- Download audio files to iTunes/media player
- More pause time for practice
- Add missing units
Language Soup
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
Teach Yourself Library
- Pack of 2 Tokens$1.99
- Pack of 3 Tokens$2.99
- Pack of 10 Tokens$9.99
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- Pack of 11 Tokens$10.99
- Pack of 13 Tokens$12.99
- Pack of 15 Tokens$14.99
- Pack of 17 Tokens$16.99
- Pack of 18 Tokens$17.99
- Pack of 20 Tokens$19.99
- Pack of 25 Tokens$24.99
- Pack of 26 Tokens$25.99
- Pack of 27 Tokens$26.99
- Pack of 30 Tokens$29.99
- Pack of 35 Tokens$34.99
- Pack of 50 Credits$49.99
- Pack of 51 Credits$50.99
Language Soup
No in-app purchases
Questions
Is Teach Yourself Library free?
Is Language Soup free?
Which has better reviews, Teach Yourself Library or Language Soup?
Do Teach Yourself Library or Language Soup have ads?
Which is updated more often, Teach Yourself Library or Language Soup?
Other comparisons
