How about Speakly then?

[tangleweeds]

So I've been back combing Ondesoft/StackSocial for year-end deals on language app/site lifetime memberships. I'm the one whose neurological issues make it easiest for me to focus on glowing screens, and I much prefer that single ouch paymeent than tracking who I'm bleeding money to and when.

I'm intrigued that Speakly offers both Russian, which I've struggled with on paper, and Finnish & Estonian--there's a gaping Finno-Ugric hole in my linguistic explorations, plus a Baltic/North Sea knitting cruise is on my bucket list.

The Speaky lifetime membership is going for $70. Searching the forum indicates that a number of y'all seem to use it. If you do, what do you like about it? What features does or doesn't it have that you might want? Is it worth Santa's $70?

[Cavesa]

First of all, Speakly and Speaky are two different products. Speakly is something I really like, despite some downsides, Speaky left me extremely unimpressed, from what I remember (wasn't it another of the thousand superficial exchange apps?). So, just be careful to pay for the right product. I see Speakly pricing life time to 99.99 dollars, and it disappears right away, so perhaps you got a link with a better offer. Speaky doesn't show the price right away, and it really looks just like a dumb "social network for learners".

Speakly is in some ways awesome. It does have some things to improve, and it fails at a few things which it is not meant to do in the first place.

What I find absolutely great:

-the quality of the material. The 4000 words are not much, many of the competitors offer the same amount or more. However, they are very well chosen, clearly by experienced people. It is not a dumb frequency list taken from who knows what sources (like Lingvist, which I really find bad), and it is also different from the classical CEFR level oriented textbooks (which I like in general, but definitely admit some of their weaknesses). The example sentences are very useful in general, very real life like. The quality of audio is also great.

-Cloze deletions are awesome, and the other exercises in the main section (like dictation, or free translation) are good too.

-The SRS is good, and I really find very motivating their "rewards". This is gamification done right. You get through an amount of words, and it unlocks you a dialogue you are ready for, or a new song on the list of spotify recommendations!

-excellent notes, that accompany the individual cards. Including grammar notes (usually targetting well my concern, but not always. Not to confuse with the bad grammar section, that I'll mention later). You usually get a small note on the verb or adjective, and/or also a negative and question variant of the same sentence. I find that great!

-The "minidialogues" are awesome, very practical, well made.

-very good support, responsive to mistake or bug reports, and really trying to make customers happy.

-excellent choice of some languages most resource makers leave unattended. Both on the side of Target and Base language.

-the site is really developping. One of the news I noticed after a longer break was quick review of a whole word set outside of the SRS mechanism, which I find really useful in some situations.

What could be done better, and perhaps will be:

-the app really leaves a lot to be desired. For example, it was forcing me to do out loud activities and not letting me skip them and move to a silent exercise. So, that makes the app unuseable for me in absolutely any setting I actually want to use an app in (a break at work, public transport, waiting in a line somewhere among people). I was told they'd work on that. Right now, I find the website great but the app horrible.

-the awesome minidialogues are a bit too separate from the SRS, I couldn't just memorise the sentences. I put them to Anki instead, which is not what the Speakly team probably wants, but that's the only way to do this right now.

-better prices for a bundle of more languages.

-I could do with more options of the srs, like manually making a word show more or less (this is what Clozemaster does, it lets you override the SRS, when you want).

What sucks:

Mainly the grammar section. The overview is superficial, incomplete even as a basic introduction. That's not a big problem for an experienced learner, who knows not to expect everything in one place. But the way this tool is introduced could be highly confusing for newbies, who will fail to learn from it and perhaps blame themselves or grammar teaching in general, instead of blaming this sloppy part of Speakly.

Speakly teaches you the most vital grammar needed for you to feel confident speaking in the foreign language. For that, there is a special grammar area inside the program that contains all you need to know about the grammar of your target language.

This is totally false. Their grammar section is the only thing, that is really trashy about the whole product. Using the grammar area will lead most learners only to confusion and/or disappointment. It would be better to focus on what is Speakly mainly good at.
....

Overall, I find Speakly excellent, even though rather expensive. Worth it, if you want to work through it intensely, but a trap for people like me, who tend to suddenly not have time or forget a bit

[ilmari]

Speakly is quite good, especially if you are interested in Estonian (it is made by an Estonian company), Finnish and Russian. I haven’t checked the other languages.

I agree with most of Cavesa’s positive points, especially regarding the quality of the material and the variety of exercises provided. I also like the gamification, especially the song’s part. These songs gives you direct access to some authentic pop culture language material. You could make a list on Spotify or Apple Music, and impress your friends

I am less enthusiastic about the mini-dialogues. As Cavesa’s says, they are too separate from the main part of the program, and I am personally skipping them. I don’t think they are worth the time. At least for now. I may go back to them later. Once they are unlocked, you can practice them to your heart’s content.

More or less the same could be said regarding the listening exercises, which are actually long monologues, although I find them a bit more connected to the main material. But for now, I am also skipping them.

Finally, a caveat regarding Finnish. Speakly is using standard written Finnish. At least as far as I can see (intermediate level), there is no spoken Finnish at all. This is a bit of a shame, seeing that in recent textbooks spoken Finnish is introduced at a very early stage. After all, this is how people really speak…

Altogether, Speakly is a good program. I wouldn’t say it is ‘the fastest way to learn a language’ as the friendly team claims, but it is a worthy addition to your language studies. The Speakly team is made of nice people, obviously passionate about the project, and I wouldn’t hesitate to support them with a lifetime subscription if you can afford it. They also keep improving the app and the website.

[tangleweeds]

Thank you both so much for taking the time to type all of that! It sounds like something I would enjoy using. And I do like to support software companies doing good things--kind of like "please pay the artists" in the app/software world. But I passionately hate dealing with subscriptions!

Sucky grammar sections in contemporary "grammar is scary" /"grammar is harmful" apps & courses are something I've come to expect, so I'm prepared to find another resources for that.

I can't tell if these deals end tonight or tomorrow, and I don't know about where you need to be in order to use them.

Ondesoft Deals:
https://deals.ondesoft.com/sales/speakly-lifetime-subscription-all-languages

StackSocial:
https://stacksocial.com/sales/speakly-lifetime-subscription-all-languages

[ilmari]

I can't tell if these deals end tonight or tomorrow, and I don't know about where you need to be in order to use them.

These deals seem to be a good price. There is a lifetime subscription option also inside the app (I can't see it on the website). You could check how much would be the standard price in your country.

As far as I understand, you can be anywhere to use these deals.

[Cavesa]

I am less enthusiastic about the mini-dialogues. As Cavesa’s says, they are too separate from the main part of the program, and I am personally skipping them. I don’t think they are worth the time. At least for now. I may go back to them later. Once they are unlocked, you can practice them to your heart’s content.

It depends on what do you want from Speakly and what is the rest of your resources like. I would probably skip or just skim through them too in some languages, in which Speakly only teaches me supplemental vocab. However, I am excited about them in German (and will be in any other beginner language), as they are more practical, less complicated, and also shorter than than the typical coursebook content.

Yes, you can use them at any moment you want, after you've unlocked them. Which is great. But the lack of more connection between this content and the main learning mechanism is clearly a huge oversight.

More or less the same could be said regarding the listening exercises, which are actually long monologues, although I find them a bit more connected to the main material. But for now, I am also skipping them.

Yes, I forgot to mention these. I think they are a nice exercise, but I am less thrilled than by the minidialogues. I don't think these exercises fill a major gap left by other resources. But they are still good practice and they are still not only a learning tool, but also a reward and an achievement, in the clever Speakly "gamification" system.

Altogether, Speakly is a good program. I wouldn’t say it is ‘the fastest way to learn a language’ as the friendly team claims, but is a worthy addition to your language studies. The Speakly team is made of nice people, obviously passionate about the project, and I wouldn’t hesitate to support them with a lifetime subscription if you can afford it. They also keep improving the app and the website.

Yes, the team unfortunately does exagerrate a bit in some ways, like any marketers. I'm afraid our world doesn't value enough honest product presentation. Which is why forums like ours have an extremely important role.

Btw thanks for the link and for pointing out it is a subscription for all the languages. I've bought it. And had to use the app (which I don't like) to make it work. I'm excited to use it for my languages and hope they'll add some more. They've been adding base languages, so perhaps a new target language could be possible too in future.