Earworms vs DMLS
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Earworms
Learn languages effectively using the "earworm effect" with catchy music and lyrics. This method anchors foreign language words and phrases into your long-term memory through engaging, brain-based audio-visual lessons. Improve vocabulary and grammar with bite-sized tracks and native speaker pronunciation.
- Learn languages with music and lyrics
- Brain-based learning technique
- Audio-visual experience with karaoke lyrics
- 6-9 minute learning tracks
- Content-rich language based on CEF
- Native speaker pronunciation
Read full descriptionHide full description
Do you know what “earworm effect” is? Experience it while you learn languages with catchy music and lyrics that you just can't get out of your head. This highly effective award-winning learning technique uses music as the medium to transport words and phrases of a foreign language into your long-term memory. Start your language learning now! Learn Spanish, French, Portuguese, German, Italian, Mandarin, Japanese, Brazilian Portuguese, Maltese, Dutch, Greek, Russian, Arabic, or Turkish and improve your vocabulary and grammar using the power of music. Earworms plant the words of a foreign language into your head with easy language courses. Try our language learning with music lyrics demo for free. THE EARWOMS METHOD 1. Brain-based: The Earworms method not only provides the words, phrases and grammar that you need for language learning, it also actively anchors them into the auditory cortex of your brain! It’s much more than language courses, it's language learning! Learn French, Spanish, English, Italian, German or Dutch listening to music lyrics. 2. Music is the key: Using music as the medium to learn languages is not only fun, it is also effective. Firstly, music puts the learner into the optimum state of consciousness for learning different languages. Secondly, music lyrics learning allows repetition (a prerequisite for language learning). On top of that, music engages and stimulates both hemispheres of the brain, unleashing more learning potential. 3. Chunking: Instead of language learning in terms of individual words and grammar, the Earworms approach immerses the learner in real-life dialogues and expressions with lyrics. These are broken down into bite-size chunks, practiced rhythmically with music and then reconstructed into full sentences. This gives the learner a strong sense of how real language courses are constructed and learning French, Spanish, German, Italian, English and other different languages and their vocabulary becomes easy. IMPORTANT FEATURES * Developed by language teaching experts. * Convenient. 6-9 minute tracks. Listen and learn track by track, any time, anywhere. * Audio-visual experience with 'karaoke-like' live lyrics feature. * Specific unambiguous goals. 200+ optimally selected sets of words and phrases for language learning. * Measurable. Easy tracking of progress of your language courses. * Target language spoken by native speakers - so correct pronunciation is acquired automatically. * Relevant. Carefully chosen content-rich language. Based on the CEF (Common European Framework) and immediately useful to the learner. * Time-bound. The musical memory method enables real rapid progress. E.g. you can learn to count up to 999 in Mandarin in an hour (!) or retain and recall words, phrases and structures in one language level within a couple of weeks. * Educational discounts are available. Visit https://www.earwormslearning.com/edu LANGUAGES CURRENTLY AVAILABLE French + German + Italian + Spanish (European) + Spanish (Lat. American) + Mandarin + Cantonese + Japanese + Arabic + Portuguese (European) + Portuguese (Brazilian) + Russian + Greek + Turkish + Polish + English + Dutch LEVELS There are 3 learning levels available, which will take you up to intermediate level (CEF level A2). * Volume 1. Within a few hours of listening to this volume, you'll have enough vocabulary knowledge of a language to be able to deal with real-life situations like taking a taxi, at the hotel, at the restaurant, requesting, polite phrases, finding your way, numbers, dealing with problems and so on. * Volume 2. This language course will soon have you talking about yourself, chatting and even flirting! * Volume 3. Here you learn more useful everyday situations while going more into the structure, the grammatical rules of the language while improving your vocabulary. NB. The app includes a demo album, full tracks of all languages available – and is free to download. You can then in-app purchase full courses.
DMLS
This app helps advanced language learners maintain and improve fluency through contextual exercises. It offers various practice methods, including translation, listening, and reading comprehension, with smart error tracking and instant translations.
- Contextual learning from diverse sentences
- Practice any language pair
- Sentence translation exercises
- Listening and reading comprehension
- Smart error tracking
- Instant word and sentence translations
- Bookmark favorite sentences
Read full descriptionHide full description
Drill My Language Skill: keep your learning momentum with beyond-the-basics lessons. Practice your English, Spanish, French, Italian, German, Dutch, Polish, Russian, Ukrainian. A basic language course may get you to A2 or B1, B2 level - but probably won't take you further. What's worse, without constant practice your language proficiency will decline. With the free DMLS app you can maintain your fluency and improve your reading and listening skills, by building upon what you already know with continuous practice. Key features that set us apart: * Learn from context: This app is not about starting from scratch; it's about building upon what you already know. Engage with tens of thousands of diverse sentences to refresh known words and grammatical concepts and learn - sometimes infer - new ones. * Any language pair: Exercises "from" and "to" any of the supported languages: English, Spanish, French, Italian, German, Dutch, Polish, Russian, Ukrainian. * Variety of Exercises: Translating sentences both ways: to and from your target language. Listening and reading comprehension tasks. Constructing complete sentences from standalone words, either by listening to the target language's audio without seeing the text, or by translating from your known language. * Instant translations: Stuck on a word or sentence? Use our instant translation feature to translate a single word or the whole sentence, and keep practicing. * Smart Error Tracking: No one's perfect, and mistakes are a part of learning. The app intelligently tracks your errors, prompting you to revisit and master those tricky sentences later. * Your own favorite sentences Bookmark interesting sentences in a list to review at a later point. * Easy registration Full functionality with an anonymous account. Premium features: We offer a premium subscription that would make your language practice even more enjoyable: * Focus on specific exercise types Just reading (no sound required) or just listening: chose the exercise type that feels the most appealing right now. * Dual Language Learning: If you want to learn a language that is similar to the one you somewhat know, but don't know quite well. Or just up for a brain teasing, to challenge and enhance your cognitive skills? Learn two languages simultaneously! Add translations of all sentences to a third language - the one you have a good command of - and learn two languages at once. * Better translations Translations right in the app and explanations of what the specific word means in the specific sentence. Pretty neat! * No ads (obviously). There aren't that many to begin with, but with premium there's 0, so infinitely fewer.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is review sentiment: Earworms at 71% against DMLS's 0%. Earworms also leads on ads (none vs shown) and ratings volume (357 vs 5). DMLS's advantage is update cadence (weekly vs every 5 months) and rating (5.0 vs 4.8). On price, in-app purchases, monetization model and device support 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. Earworms sells 16 one-off in-app purchases and DMLS sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $5.99 per month. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
DMLS holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 4.8. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Earworms has 357 ratings behind it against 5, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews complicate that: 71% of Earworms's written reviews are positive against 0% of DMLS's, so the app with the better star average is not the one people write more warmly about.
Earworms ships an update every 5 months, DMLS weekly. The most recent releases landed on September 19, 2026 and September 8, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Earworms | DMLS |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.8 (357 ratings) | 5.0 (5 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 71.2% of reviews — better | 0.0% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 357 — better | 5 |
| Update frequency | Every 5 months | Weekly — better |
| Ads | No — better | Yes |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases | Free with in-app purchases |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better | iPhone, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 12.4 — better | 13.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 48 MB | 51 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 12+ |
| Developer | earworms Ltd | Circling Shortcut LLC |
Customer experience
Earworms
DMLS
Bugs and requests
Earworms
Reported bugs
11 issues- App crashes every few minutes on iPhone
- Network error on startup despite internet connection
- Infinite loop on initial setup screen
- App closes unexpectedly during playback
- Restore purchases feature not functioning
Show 6 moreShow fewer
- Activation code cannot be claimed in app
- Tracks download corrupted or fail to load
- Text display shows English instead of native script
- Phrase book download button subscribes to email instead
- App no longer works after OS updates
- Category selection feature removed in newer version
Requested features
11 requests- Additional volume levels for existing languages
- More lessons and expanded content library
- Autoplay feature for continuous listening
- Repeat single track functionality
- Ability to select specific lesson categories
Show 6 moreShow fewer
- Business-focused lesson modules
- Emergency/medical/police interaction lessons
- Grocery shopping and tradesperson lessons
- More Cantonese, Maltese, Hindi, and Finnish content
- Improved booklet formatting and accessibility
- Direct email contact option for support
DMLS
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
Earworms
- Try before you buyFree
- Essayez avant d’acheterFree
- Álbum de demostraciónFree
Show 13 moreShow fewer
- French Vol. 1$11.99
- Italian Vol. 1$11.99
- Spanish Lat. Am. Vol. 1$11.99
- Portuguese Vol.1$11.99
- French Vol. 2$11.99
- Dutch Vol. 1-2$19.99
- Japanese Vol. 1-2$19.99
- Spanish Lat. Am. Vol. 1-3$27.99
- Bundle deals, French Vol. 1-3$28.99
- Bundle deals, German Vol. 1-3$28.99
- Bundle deals, Italian Vol. 1-3$28.99
- Bundle, Spanish Eu. Vol. 1-3$28.99
- Portuguese Vol.1-3$28.99
DMLS
- Monthly premium3 Days trial$5.991 Month
- Yearly Premium7 Days trial$59.991 Year









