Recommended—best to buy full version – uTalk - Learn 150+ Languages Review

UPDATE: My opinion is based on the Vietnamese language part of this app. Note that I have completed 55% of the lessons in this app. I have also completed similar language apps from Mondly, Learn&Play, and Rosetta Stone. This uTalk is a good deal because it is useful to both new learners and intermediate learners. The uTalk app is quite polished and it seems that the company is responsive. There are many words for new learners (I’m sure at least 1,500 words), plus many complex sentences that may contain up to 10-15 words (more sentences here than most other apps). There are English translations for the words and sentences, which are very helpful. The 65 lesson topics typically consist of 20-50 individual words or sentences. There are a variety of six types of quizzes with each topic—including very easy and very difficult quizzes. You need to be very familiar with the words to do well on the difficult quizzes. But you can skip the hardest quizzes and return to them later. Every app has strengths and weaknesses. All the language learning apps I have purchased so far are useful, but I like the format of uTalk better than the similar app Learn&Play. The pronunciation methodology is better. Also, uTalk includes pronunciations from both North and South Vietnam for all words and sentences. The app, Rosetta Stone, has a different teaching structure than uTalk. RS is very good, but it is better to have some knowledge of individual words before starting with Rosetta Stone, or it may be too difficult for new learners. But even after using RS, this is a good app to have. Mondly is another excellent app, and it does some things better than uTalk. It focuses on spelling and listening to individual words more than uTalk. It also attempts to introduce some basic conversations (although with limited results). However, Mondly probably doesn’t have as many words as uTalk, or includes as many long sentences as uTalk. Perhaps initially using either Mondly or uTalk first, and then using Rosetta Stone next—are the best complimentary tools to try. Be aware that all new users will find learning a new language very challenging (duh). Any new language will be too difficult many new learners. This situation may be the reason for both high and low ratings for this app. However I think uTalk is one of the best of the other apps, at least for first experiences with a new language. However, the more apps available to help your progress the better! Be aware these that all the apps can take you only so far. Ultimately you will need to have a real person to work with to learn spontaneous interaction. But you can learn, with enough time, to prepare yourself and build some good initial knowledge. The criticisms with uTalk are relatively minor. First, some topics contain many complex sentences while other topics contain basic words. There is no way to know what is in each topic until you open it. Lessons/topics are not organized in a progressive way. The topics containing many sentences will be overwhelming for new learners. So, review what is within each topic first—then skip the topics containing sentences until you have learned the topics with individual words and pronunciations first. The second criticism, is there are several lessons that contain words that you are very unlikely to use. Examples include words related to skiing (remember Vietnam is tropical), and commands (like “you are a prisoner”; “put your weapon down”; “stop or I will shoot”). These examples seem impractical or ridiculous for most normal circumstances. But are included if you want to know them. [I will guess that the many other languages available in uTalk all contain the same set of words—so depending on the climatic and political situations in other countries, these odd language examples for Vietnam may be more important to know elsewhere]. Note that also I accidentally brought the classic version of this app, which is different than the other two, but skip the classic version and go for the full app—upon completing the demo app (about five individual lessons are free on the demo app)..... Overall, I am impressed with how many different languages are in uTalk. Again , my experience is only with Vietnamese with this app. Learning a new language is hard. I’m glad to have uTalk. Having a dedicated teacher that can directly teach you is obviously the best way to learn a new language. But this app is a great way for new and intermediate learners to get a lot of exposure to a foreign language without a teacher.
Review by Annyea on uTalk - Learn 150+ Languages.