Fluenz Review & Rating | PCMag. What makes the best language- learning software? What makes one program better than another? I rarely write reviews but I had to for Fluenz Spanish. They have hit language instruction for adults dead on. I have been struggling with Spanish on and off since. The Fluenz Spanish system teaches Spanish to students of all skill levels. See how this program compares to the best learn Spanish software in our reviews. World famous Rosetta Stone lobs heavy claims to help you learn Spanish fast. See if it really stacks up in our review of the best learn Spanish software. Ramses, Did you go through the whole program. There are 3 levels to Rosetta Stone Spanish. Trust me, if you complete the course you are very conversational. Learning is highly personal, but when it comes to software, it helps to have accurate, clearly presented material structured so that you'll what to study each day. On several measures, Fluenz ranks among the best language- learning software. Previously only available on disc, Fluenz has now moved all its content online. Videos of instructors teach you lessons on Fluenz, and then you work through exercises. You always come back to videos of teachers, which makes Fluenz feels more like a private class than a series of flashcards and games. Due to the limited number of language taught by Fluenz and a few missing features, it doesn't quite trump Rosetta Stone, our Editors' Choice among paid options. Duolingo is our Editors' Choice among free programs. But for those who have tried those apps and didn't like them, I recommend Fluenz. It's refreshingly different, accurate, and well designed. Available Languages Fluenz has programs that teach Mandarin Chinese (with Pinyin writing only), French, Italian, German, Portuguese, Latin American Spanish, and European Spanish. That's not a lot of options, but it does cover some of the most popular languages. Rosetta Stone offers programs in 2. English, so you're more likely to find what you need there. Duolingo has ten fully developed language programs and ten more in open beta, meaning anyone can use them, but they may contain errors or not as much content as you might hope to find. Babbel, another good online program that's really inexpensive, has programs in 1. If you need to learn a hard- to- find language, I recommend turning to Transparent Language Online, Pimsleur Comprehensive, or Mango Languages. Not counting programs for learning English, and not counting transliterated versions separately, Transparent Language offers language learning in 6. It does a good job teaching languages that have a different writing system than English, though it's very challenging and self- directed. Mango Languages has more than 6. Learn to read, write, and speak in French with Rosetta Stone. Build upon a foundation of key French vocabulary, words, and phrases. Rosetta Stone moves forward when. Rosetta Stone offers programs in 28 languages, not counting English, so you're more likely to find what you need there. Duolingo has ten fully developed. Despite some poor reviews by some, I believe this program could be worth it if you are dedicated. First of all, guaranteed you will learn spanish if you use this. I've been using this product for a few weeks and find it very helpful. I did a lot of research of Fluenz versus Rosetta Stone and decided to go with Fluenz because of. That's quite a deal, but you might even be able to get that same package for free if your local library supports it. I was able to use Mango from my home by logging into my New York Public Library account. Whether you'll ever study more than one language at a time, much less 6. Mango isn't really that great a program. But if you can't find the language you need anywhere else, something is better than nothing. The languages that Mango and Transparent offer overlap a little, but not entirely. For example, in Mango, you can find Bengali, Cherokee, Icelandic, Igbo, Javanese, Latin, Punjabi, Scottish Gaelic, Tamil, Telugu, and Yiddish, but not Bashkir, Belorussian, Bulgarian, Chechen, Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Luxembourgish, Yorub, or Zulu. That's not a comprehensive list of their differences, but only a slice. The other package I mentioned with a lot of language programs, Pimsleur Comprehensive, has 4. If you prefer an interactive experience, look elsewhere. If you're hoping to learn while, say, commuting everyday while driving, then it's perfect. Price Fluenz's prices vary based on how many levels you purchase. The most- comprehensive package you can buy is levels 1 through 5, with a list price of $6. It routinely sells at a discount, though, and, as of this writing, goes for $3. The package includes five DVDs, one for each level, plus five audio CDs and two years of online content. The online portion includes content on the Web and mobile apps. There is no option to buy only the online access without the DVDs at this time. As I mentioned, the price varies based on how many levels you buy, so for example, level 1 alone (with two years of online content included) lists at $2. A bundle of levels 1 and 2 lists at $3. Again, discounts are so typical, they are the norm, so you'll almost definitely pay less than these prices. Rosetta Stone does the same thing. I've never seen Rosetta Stone not on sale. Rosetta Stone's list price and bargain price are less than Fluenz's. Plus, Rosetta Stone has more flexible options, such as buying an online subscription, digital download, or disc set of the program. A 1. 2- month membership has a list price of $2. A 3. 6- month online membership costs $4. For levels 1 through 5 of the digital download and box sets of Rosetta Stone, you can expect to pay $2. Other language- learning programs are cheaper, have a lower cost of entry, and have more- flexible arrangements. Babbel, for example, sells a three- month subscription for $2. That's the best monthly price, and it's a good option for people who tend not to stick with programs the way they hoped and dreamed they would. Living Language offers a Platinum subscription for $1. OS apps. Transparent Language charges $2. The audio program Pimsleur Complete costs $1. Those lessons are delivered as MP3 downloads, with no interactive components online. While Pimsleur is the least interactive of the language- learning programs I've tested, the pedagogy is of very high quality. Don't dismiss Pimsleur, especially if it has the language you need. Putting Fluenz to the Test To test Fluenz, I tried learning a bit of Mandarin Chinese and brushed up on my one semester of French. I used the discs of the program in depth in my testing a few years ago, so this time around I mostly used the online content and mobile apps. The online content mirrors what's on the DVDs, making me wonder why there isn't an option to buy online- only access. Dollars to doughnuts it is an option within a year.)To give you an idea of how much content is inside Fluenz, Mandarin levels 1 and 2 (or disc 1) has 4. French level 1 has 3. A lesson took me anywhere from 3. They're meaty! If you studied consistently, you might spend four to six weeks completing a single level. Fluenz works extremely well for beginning students, but experienced speakers may have trouble figuring out where to start. I jumped ahead to French level 1, lesson 3 on a whim and found I could understand most of it, but I had a hard time spelling (I'm terrible with accent marks), which prevented me from moving forward at a good clip. More on exercises in a moment. You won't find an adaptive assessment test to help you purchase the disc sets that are right for you in Fluenz, as you do with Transparent Language Online, which is worth considering if you're an upper- intermediate or advanced speaker looking to advance your skills. But you can jump around Fluenz at will. With Duolingo, you have to progress sequentially or test out of levels. Content remains locked until you unlock enough prior content. That's not the case in Fluenz. Fluenz pushes writing a little more than speaking, especially in the early units, but overall it blends listening, reading, speaking, and writing very well. Fluenz doesn't have an advanced speech- recognition system, but it does have recording and playback capabilities. I have mixed feelings about seeing waveforms of my voice and being graded on pronunciation, especially when I'm learning a new language, so the lack of a more high- tech speech tools isn't problematic for me (though it may be for you, depending on your preferred style of learning). Rosetta Stone has very good voice- recognition capabilities. You hear a word and repeat that word, and the program marks you right or wrong. There's a small graphic that indicates how close your pronunciation was to the native speaker's. Transparent has a great voice- recognition system, too, which draws out your waveforms to highlight the part of the word you didn't say correctly. When you fire up a Fluenz disc, you have the thoughtful option of installing the program locally or running it from the disc to preserve space on your machine. When it loads, Fluenz takes over the whole screen and disables you from easily getting back to the desktop. For studying, I loved that Fluenz creates such a distraction- free environment. It works on both Windows and Mac machines. The system requirements aren't bad; see the bottom of this page for details. Fluenz Videos. The program begins with a welcome video. A guide appears on screen to explain how Fluenz works in the most general sense. Sonia Gil, the company's founder, is a staple in these videos. In the Mandarin Chinese course, Gil assured me that she is nowhere near native- level fluency with Chinese, but she can navigate plenty of cities in China with a good deal of confidence and more than adequate pronunciation. Almost every other language- learning program I've encountered has you learn from native speakers, so this was a noticeable departure. At least I came away with the thought that if she can speak some Chinese, so can I. Gil appears in a lot of the videos, but she's replaced by native speakers in the upper levels. The videos are staged and scripted, but very clear. The guide speaks slowly. She pauses to give you time to absorb concepts. Sometimes the videos feel tedious, too staged, but mostly, they're great. I think there's real value in seeing the face of a person who is explaining a concept. For pronunciation, I like being able to see someone's lips and throat move. Having one or more familiar voice stick with you during your learning journey is something I really liked in Rocket Languages and in Pimsleur, too, though in those courses, you don't see videos of them (the exception being the American Sign Language course in Rocket Languages). You only hear them. Progress markers show exactly where you are and what you've finished. The structure is clear, and you're meant to move through content sequentially, though you don't have to. Workouts. Fluenz calls its exercises "workouts," but they are no different from what the exercises find in most other polished language- learning software. You might, for example, hear a word or phrase and have to type it or translate it. Or you might see a list of words, phrases, or sentences in two languages and have to match up the translations.
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