Sebmita 4+

A Very Promising Start

I’m very happy this app exists! I do know that there is a huge gap in the language learning community for African languages to fall through (i.e. other apps prioritizing languages that already have a bunch of resources). And so far, I feel this app will help bridge that gap. It’s easy to use. Pleasing to the eyes. So far I haven’t run across any bugs. I’m not African myself so I’m not the best to judge the accuracy with the pronunciation, but like with anything there is room for improvement and I’m excited to see what this app can grow into. I’ve already shared about the app on my socials in hopes that more people will join and help be apart of any improvements that can be made. And just in hopes that more people take a serious look at African languages and how rich they are. I’m excited to keep using and improving my knowledge of the languages and culture of Africa! :)

Developer Response ,

Hello,

Thank you for downloading our app and for the kind review! Feel free to reach out to us at contact@mandla.app with any suggestions for improvement!

Good idea, still need or improvement

I think this is a very good idea. However, for the yoruba language, what the translator is saying out loud is not the same when it is spelled out for some words and phrases. I am not sure if this has to do with the translator translating the yoruba with a more conversational version of yoruba than the grammatically correct one, but you end up linking the spoken translation to the written translation and those do not match up. I would also like to redo some lessons, and I don’t have an option to do that. Other than that great job!

Developer Response ,

Hello,

Thank you for your feedback. It is quite hindering to the learning experience when there is an error as grave as audio mismatch. Most of these issues have been fixed in the most recent update, so we urge you to try the app again!

Mandla Team

Mandarin pronunciation is horrible!

First, I’ll say that I haven’t checked more than Mandarin and Swahili, and only a little bit of either. Swahili pronunciation seems ok, but not perfect. Mandarin pronunciation on the other hand, is absolutely horrible. The sort of horrible that made me wonder if they were actually trying to say alternate words for the words that I knew were correct. Additionally, the very first sentence was wrong, because no native Mandarin speaker ever says the equivalent of “Hello. How are you?”, since the words for “hello” and “how are you” are the same in Mandarin, with one small addition at the end. If you learned their horrible pronunciation and combined that with their wrong wording, there is no way that you would ever be understood. Additionally, no Chinese language appears to be supported or even mentioned on the developer’s very brief website. For these reasons, I’m not going to take the chance of learning the wrong thing, by using this app, for any language.