Worst language app, course...

[Jean-Luc]

What is the worst language app, course, method... you have tried ? And why ?

[rdearman]

I think the "Put a grammar book under your pillow and hope it leaks into your brain" was the worse method. The worse app/website was speaky which was basically a porn/scammer site. I've never taken a course, so don't have a worse one, unless it is the fact I never took one? Does the absence of a thing make it the worst or the best??

[Kraut]

Learning with your skin while you sleep:

https://www.first-class-and-more.de/blog/kosys-methode/

https://www.kosys.de/sprachen-lernen-im-schlaf/

[Deinonysus]

Through my library, I have access to a very exciting free language learning resource called Pronunciator which covers a massive amount of languages, including many rare languages that I haven't seen any other resources for. The only drawback is that it's terrible.

It's essentially just a series of phrase book flash cards, which would be tolerable if it didn't rely on the worst speech recognition software I've ever encountered. I even did a course on British English and couldn't get a single answer right! I swear that my British accent is actually pretty good! I ended up needing to say some things in my native American accent to be understood... which defeated the purpose!

[luke]

Technology that becomes obsolete quickly. There's a publisher who put the audio for their workbooks out there in a non-standard format when it could have just has easily put mp3s out there. That Adobe Crash was proprietary and going away because of its long history of security problems was EASY to foresee. But somehow, the publisher didn't give enough of a hoot about their current and future users to not leave them stranded on a promise and poor delivery.

[BeaP]

Luckily I've only tried widely known resources, so nothing from the totally obviously ridiculous range. Hope no-one will be offended by my list. My view on these resources is of course highly subjective. I know (and honestly don't doubt) that they work very well for others.

1. Rosetta Stone, Duolingo: Gamification only made me spend a lot of time with them, I didn't feel progression.
2. Pimsleur: Also very time-consuming, and teaches little. Not seeing the written form while listening is a great hindrance for me. I didn't see any benefits, it only made learning more difficult.
3. Assimil: Terrible sense of humour. I missed a system, clarity, tables, charts.
4. The average communicative course book: There's no concept or thought. It's just a bloated collection of dialogues and magazine pictures with CDs, DVDs and CD-ROMs, even in 2021. They do contain the material needed at each level, but you need 5000 hours to pick it out. Some examples: Espresso (Italian), Berliner Platz, Netzwerk, Ziel (German), Édito, Écho (French)
5. Condescending, know-it-all course books with the most boring content one can imagine: Nuevo Prisma (Spanish), Begegnungen-Erkundungen (German)

Sorry, I couldn't choose an ultimate worst one.

[Faust]

Luckily I've only tried widely known resources, so nothing from the totally obviously ridiculous range. Hope no-one will be offended by my list. My view on these resources is of course highly subjective. I know (and honestly don't doubt) that they work very well for others.

1. Rosetta Stone, Duolingo: Gamification only made me spend a lot of time with them, I didn't feel progression.
2. Pimsleur: Also very time-consuming, and teaches little. Not seeing the written form while listening is a great hindrance for me. I didn't see any benefits, it only made learning more difficult.
3. Assimil: Terrible sense of humour. I missed a system, clarity, tables, charts.
4. The average communicative course book: There's no concept or thought. It's just a bloated collection of dialogues and magazine pictures with CDs, DVDs and CD-ROMs, even in 2021. They do contain the material needed at each level, but you need 5000 hours to pick it out. Some examples: Espresso (Italian), Berliner Platz, Netzwerk, Ziel (German), Édito, Écho (French)
5. Condescending, know-it-all course books with the most boring content one can imagine: Nuevo Prisma (Spanish), Begegnungen-Erkundungen (German)

Sorry, I couldn't choose an ultimate worst one.

What are the best ones you have used? Or have you just been disappointed all around by every resource you have tried?

[Kraut]

Luckily I've only tried widely known resources, so nothing from the totally obviously ridiculous range. Hope no-one will be offended by my list. My view on these resources is of course highly subjective. I know (and honestly don't doubt) that they work very well for others.

1. Rosetta Stone, Duolingo: Gamification only made me spend a lot of time with them, I didn't feel progression.
2. Pimsleur: Also very time-consuming, and teaches little. Not seeing the written form while listening is a great hindrance for me. I didn't see any benefits, it only made learning more difficult.
3. Assimil: Terrible sense of humour. I missed a system, clarity, tables, charts.
4. The average communicative course book: There's no concept or thought. It's just a bloated collection of dialogues and magazine pictures with CDs, DVDs and CD-ROMs, even in 2021. They do contain the material needed at each level, but you need 5000 hours to pick it out. Some examples: Espresso (Italian), Berliner Platz, Netzwerk, Ziel (German), Édito, Écho (French)
5. Condescending, know-it-all course books with the most boring content one can imagine: Nuevo Prisma (Spanish), Begegnungen-Erkundungen (German)

Sorry, I couldn't choose an ultimate worst one.

What are the best ones you have used? Or have you just been disappointed all around by every resource you have tried?

We have a thread here:
https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 14&t=17026

[BeaP]

What are the best ones you have used? Or have you just been disappointed all around by every resource you have tried?

I've been disappointed with resources in general, because I think language teaching (learning) has been practised long enough to show considerable progression. I understand that there are a lot of things that still need to be researched, but I'm sure that with the things we already know we could make better resources than the majority in the market. I often have the feeling that the production of language learning materials is ruled by the need of an economic gain for as little work as possible, and the real needs of learners don't matter at all.
There are some exceptions to this, and when I find a method that puts the learner in the first place I'm always happy.

1. French

French in Action: Maybe the best method I've ever seen. It's thorough and flexible at same time. You can choose which parts you want to use, to cater to your individual needs, but the whole package is coherent and forms a system. It's full of wisdom about language learning, you understand why certain exercises are there, and you feel they are efficient.

A lot of things from CLE except communicative course books:
Vite et Bien: Just as the name suggests. The distillation of the experience of a very good teacher.
En dialogues, Progressive books
skill developers: Comprehension, Production (Orale/Écrite) series

2. Italian

Un giorno in Italia: It's based on a narrative, and is interesting enough to keep you going. Much less chaotic than an average communicative book. The presentation of the culture is excellent. The learner is taken for an intelligent, open-minded adult.
Several skill developers or culture books (Piazza Italia) from Alma. Not the communicative courses. Their series on Oral Comprehension is really good.

3. German

Aussichten: A great course book based on a narrative. Although in this case it's a huge disadvantage that the CEFR-aligned courses need three books and workbooks up to B1. It would be much better condensed into one book. This way it's just too big and bloated.
German also has very good grammars: Grammatik Aktiv or the ones from Hueber are much better than the ones usually offered in other languages. Also the skill developer series from Hueber called Deutsch üben (Wortschatz und Grammatik, Lesen und Screiben, Hören und Sprechen) are very good methodologically for an independent learner.

4. Spanish

Difusión books are very good if you study with a teacher, otherwise they aren't. I haven't found a good method in Spanish for independent learners yet, but I've realised through this language that books for exam preparation (DELE) can be very beneficial even if you don't want to pass an exam. I'm planning to use them in all my languages in the future: they are a great resource of graded texts with challenging exercises. They push you out of your comfort zone and show you your weaknesses.

My list is totally biassed, as I generally don't use bilingual methods. I've found that the language sample/model is generally much better and useful in monolingual resources. They contain better texts. I also don't use apps for two reasons: I spend enough time in front of the screen without them, and I don't think that things published in 50 languages can compete with publishing houses making resources in one language (their own native language). The key is cost-efficiency. It's just simply not worth it to polish a course to perfection, it's enough if it can be sold. And big publishers with a good connection to language schools know that their products will be sold.

I'm also looking forward to the development of a new trend: pre-recorded video lessons of practising teachers for a small price. I find it very promising, as I firmly believe that teaching is a profession that needs to be learned. So the availability of presentation materials from professional teachers is great in my opinion.

[tarvos]

I don't dwell on bad courses. I just don't use them