golingo – Speak new languages

Instead of adding content, work on fixing bugs. Just a suggestion. The content is ok, but accessing it is too frustrating.

This is a pretty good app to practice pronunciation. The app will show you the sentence, then pronounce it for you, then you get to record the pronunciation, then it will give you a score. Sometimes, it would give me less than 100% (for example, 85%, 98%), but I couldn’t figure out which part of the word i didn’t pronounce correctly. Maybe the developer can turn on the button to show us which part of the word pronunciation was scored low by the app. I liked the conversation part where you could interact with others in the virtual town, but the app just told me what sentences to say. Of course, it would be great if I could pick my own spontaneous sentences, then the app could adjust and have a true conversation. So it’s a good app for pronunciation. It’s not so great for spontaneous conversation.

Overall the app is good, I enjoy the speaking focus. I think speaking is a great way to become more comfortable with the language and the fact that it uses your microphone to really gauge how you’re saying the words is super helpful. However, there are quite a few pain points I have that keep me from rating it higher even though I do enjoy the app. I have found that since my other language learning app mixes both North and South variants of Welsh, I’m not sure what course to pick, I wish I could get both. Additionally, the interface is very confusing; if you’re coming back to the app after a long hiatus there’s not really an easy way to start back at the beginning of the course. I really wish the app would let me tell it how to say my name. I keep getting marked down in my speaking when I’m pronouncing my own name correctly because the app decided it should be said in a way that is not how it is pronounced. Finally, I wish there were more lessons to get you familiar with the words before jumping straight to speaking, or at least keep the words on screen. The lesson will say something like “say ‘My name is…’” and I’ll be lost because the app doesn’t really teach you vocabulary, it shows you the words in two short sessions before and I end up having no idea what to say. The app has a lot of potential but for me it still needs polish in the above areas. If those were improved, I could see myself using it a lot more.