Busuu: Language Learning 4+

This app really makes learning fun

I joined last month and have already finished one level of French, which was a review since I had taken French in high school. I love that the platform is collaborative and native speakers in the language you want to learn correct your errors and you can help & correct those trying to learn your native language. Very cool. And there is a nice mix between written and spoken lesson options. I’ve tried several language apps and this one is my favorite! There are definitely some glitches that need to be resolved. The scoring is odd and you get double points than expected with reviews of flash cards. And it is not intuitive that you need to remove vocab words from your vocabulary list to not have them continually repeated in your quizzes and to generate different flash card quizzes. And the test I took for French A1 was odd. There was more fast spoken French than there was through all the lessons. Thankfully, there is an option to slow it down. It seems like there should be more fast spoken French in the lessons, if that’s how you will be tested. Also, there was vocabulary in the test that wasn’t taught, or if it was, it was just in passing. It seems like those words should be included. Also, I wasn’t able to take the test on the app - and that wasn’t really clearly indicted in the app. But overall, it is one of the better language learning platforms I’ve used and I like that features keep being added.

Developer Response ,

Hello!

Thank you so much for your comments! We will have them into account for future App developments.

We wish you the bets of luck for your studies!

Have a lovely day!

Brand New User

Hello, I just found this app about a month ago, but I didn’t really interact with it till about 1 week ago when I allowed the notifications to appear. Once I started getting daily reminders and started following the lesson plan, my language ability (Chinese) quadrupled. I had been watching Chinese drama’s with English subtitles for about 5 months to get use to the different sounds/tones. I could recognize a few words just from repetition, but if the subtitles were not correct it was useless. After downloading several apps that offered Korean (also learning) and Chinese I found this was the best one for me.
The lesson plans are straightforward and with the way it’s set up it really makes it easy to learn. In addition to the lessons, you can make flash cards to practice your vocabulary/learned sentences, practice your writing in pinyin or hanzi. You are also able to retake lessons or quizzes to help you refresh, as much as you want. I’m only in chapter 4 of 14 for Mandarin beginners, but I have already learned a lot. I can recognize and understand many sentences in my Chinese drama’s, I can point out and understand some of the hanzi if I am using Chinese/Mandarin subtitles for English speaking shows, etc.
I decided to upgrade to premium after using the free version for a week (wanted to support the app makers) and hope to continue progressing rapidly. If looking for a language app I would highly recommend this one!

Great App

I have recommended this app to some of my English students because it's a great way to improve your English. I'm studying French and I love the translated dialogues they have on the ends of many of the units. They use native, non-robotic speakers and speak at a natural pace so you can hear the linking of words. I also enjoy the visuals and how they contextualize all of their wonderful flashcards with sentence examples of the words. I have a few suggestions for improvement. First, they often will throw 3 to 5 complicated rules at you and then have you practice them all at once as if you should have digested all of that info at once. I think they should introduce one rule then have you practice that one and build on that. Also, often there is no audio or translation in many of the activities and I believe that's a big loss to the student. That's one place where duolingo wins out because they are good about that. Also, I'd love more review, so past rules and lessons are woven into the new ones. Also, not a fan of the high pitched ding sound that you can't turn off. Overall very impressed and excited to keep using it. Update: Buusu is my favorite language learning app by far and far surpasses duolingo because more practical language is taught and grammar isn’t ignored. I’m studying Spanish on it now and wish I had a non-Castilian option because I’m looking to communicate with Mexicans and Latin-Americans who don’t use vosotros or that th sound for the s.