From someone who really enjoys learning new languages… Can’t recommend
So, this company has been around for a pretty long time. They used to be called something else, but their software is essentially the same, and that was back in about 2003… And sadly, their application design hasn’t really been updated that much since then, the only thing that has really changed is that smart phones are a thing now.
So first of all, full disclosure… I did not pay full price for premium access to the product, I bought it as part of a humble bundle.. But I will be reviewing it from the perspective of someone paying full price.
To start, the contact is pretty decent. It is about what you would expect to find from claims to take you from absolute beginner, to a decent intermediate level in a given language. My issues with this program have nothing to do with the level of content. Because if you go deep enough into the contact, you will find a lot there. That being said, just like its competitors, it depends on what language are learning. For me, that’s Japanese, and it happens to be one of the more fleshed out programs. But I know for some minority languages, they are willfully lacking in terms of content. If I am looking at a language, learning platform, this is something I would want to know upfront. And almost no where are they really forthcoming with the amount of contact that they provide for any given language.
Now, to the main reason, I got this to begin with. The fact that it’s supposedly walks you into a high intermediate level of Japanese, and Mobile access. As I said, before, I have zero issues with the content, but the app is barely useable. It looks like an application designed in 2003, if that. The application itself is sluggish at best. And at worst, it’s almost nonfunctional. The boundaries for some of the interface buttons, overshoot the usable screen area on my phone, and therefore do not register often when I push them. The other issue I have is that what passes for “speech recognition” is just a visual, waveform comparison, and it does a terrible job of analyzing whether or not you actually have a good pronunciation.
It is legitimately one of the worst mobile experiences for language learning app I’ve had in a very long time. I understand that they are trying to update and modernize things, but this is something they should’ve given due consideration two years ago.
Given the fact that they usually charge $250 a year, I can’t in good conscience recommend this to anyone hoping for an experience where grammar is at least pointed out to them, that has a usable mobile experience so you can learn on the go, and is looking for something that will engage them. At the price point they offer this for typically, it starts making Rosetta Stone wife time subscriptions look like kind of a bargain. Just my two cents, I hope it helped.