I began my journey with learning German about 4 years ago, and I have to say from the outset that this program was not there at the beginning. I worked with several different do-it-yourself language tutoring programs; one of them I am still with (Babbel), one I really didn’t care for (Duolingo), and one I found helpful but no longer actively use (Lingvist). This program, I think (and this is just from my own personal experience), is better suited to those who already have a basic, fundamental understanding of their foreign language of choice. It is definitely helpful, before you engage with FluentU, to know some vocabulary and have some familiarity with how the grammar works. If you are at that stage in your language learning development, then this program can be an excellent tool in helping you further develop your vocabulary and overall comprehension.Don‘t look for them to coddle you - the words come at you fast, and it is your responsibility to learn them and follow along. I chose the intermediate level here (a little above what I can handle), and it‘s hard but I like being challenged. So, bottom line: If you are serious about learning a new language, and you already have some prior knowledge of the basics, I highly recommend FluentU to keep you moving forward!

I have been trying to teach myself Chinese for years and this app really helped me stick with it consistently. I find it easy to use. What I like most about it is it teaches common ways of saying things, the stuff you hear on the street or on TV shows (which is a big reason I’m learning Chinese). This is an invaluable adjunct learning tool. It tests you on writing, but I still supplement w Skritter to get the strokes correct, and I still read textbooks to get the reasoning behind grammar clear. But to drill into your mind the common ways people normally speak, this is where to go do you don’t get bogged down academically. Sometimes you just have to practice building sentences without thinking too much about what goes where so that it’s more reflexive and natural rather than intellectual.The only downside is when I’m not on WiFi, the movie clips take forever to load.

I realize all language learning apps/programs have their flaws. My problem with FluentU is I’m paying $20 to be an app tester. I’ve been using this program for several years, I’ve completed Beginner 1&2, Intermediate 1, and am nearly finished with Intermediate 2. I’m not exaggerating when I say that every time there is an update, there are issues. I’ve emailed customer service so many times, I’m absolutely certain they ignore my complaints at this point. Sometimes the issues are fixed just to return at the next update. For example, the sentence translations will repeat themselves within a lesson. The lessons don’t go to the review or completed queue after you’ve completed them so it’s difficult to tell which lessons you’re done with and which are new. There are also the complaints of other users regarding the portrait mode and interface issues. I live with a native speaker and there are translation issues in a number of lessons. The app only runs well on a current Apple device, it’s slow otherwise. Don’t expect any kind of refund when you have issues, they are however, quick to offer an apology and reassurance that “they’ll pass it along to the devs.” I do feel I’ve learned a good amount and appreciate that the videos are mostly current. This year, I had enough and bought a different language learning program and am finally saying au revoir to FluentU.

Instead of grudgingly doing my Chinese practice daily, I actually enjoy it because this app makes it not monotonous because you can switch it up with music videos, lessons, dramas, and storiesThings I like:1 that you can flip “pages” throughout the video so you can focus on one line at a time instead of being overwhelmed with all the text at once2 that you can click on a word and have all kinds of info about it and add it to your cardsThings I really wish would change (I’m on the free trial and am deciding wether or not to cancel or continue and subscribe)Btw I’m doing Chinese 1 during the videos, I really wish there was a slider sort of thing so I could choose to cover the pinyin or the English so I could practice recognizing characters or to cover just the English to focus on Chinese, maybe to test how much I understand. Sometimes it’s hard to even see the Chinese because I see the English and then I’m really just reading the English and not focusing on the Chinese words. A movable slider to cover the English would be very beneficial 2 during the quiz questions I wish I could be tested on characters not just pinyin3the videos will save to my playlist one day and be gone the next day...?4 a genre filter would be nice so I could listen/watch depending on what I was in the mood for that day :)