Umi - Language Learning 9+

I downloaded this app as I had seen it advertised and we just booked a trip to Japan. I’ve always loved watching anime and would love to be able to understand while I’m watching as well. The way this system immerses you into the learning process is actually really surprising. I’ve done a lot of different language apps before and this is the first one where I feel as though I am picking it up extremely quickly. I absolutely would recommend this app to anyone looking for a different method to how many of the other apps work.

Along with that I was having an issue with the app and wrote into support. To my surprise the CEO emailed me directly within the day and made things right. Along with that they were incredibly responsive. Really just made me like this app even more!

I used this app to supplement my French lessons in other programs, and while I love the idea of it, the availability of free lessons is pretty slim. On top of that the app did not work about half the time, failing to load the lessons, the clips, and/or the audio, and sometimes the only way to fix this was to close the app completely which would lose your place in the lesson. Additionally many of the clips were captured in the wrong place, or didn’t accurately represent the dialogue being spoken, missing entire words or sentences, or incorrectly translating them. I think that learning from this app could actually do more harm to your knowledge than good if it isn’t cleaned up a bit more, because teaching certain words incorrectly, or failing to demonstrate proper context could build your understanding of the language incorrectly. I would have been more impressed if most of the functions weren’t broken or inaccurate. That being said if the problems can be fixed and the formula improved then I think this is a great concept. I loved certain features like allowing you to play back a recording of your voice to hear your own pronunciation before submitting your answer. The price for a year isn’t terrible but unfortunately right now I can’t afford yet ANOTHER subscription, and I am very (VERY) tired of everything requiring a subscription in general. I wish more apps would offer an up-front, one-time fee like the Procreate app and many mobile games do.

I like the ability to review. The clips from K-Dramas are ridiculously short (maybe 1 second at most), but that’s not really a big deal as the essential is being able to hear the words and then identify them in written form and understand the meaning. Multiple choice questions have three choices plus “I’m not sure”. It would be more effective for multiple choice if there were a couple more viable options each time. When testing spoken language (I’m learning Korean), I’m not sure how reliable the scoring is. I usually get 100%, though I’m sure my pronunciation is iffy. On the other hand there have been times when I cannot get it to understand a word no matter how many times I repeat it. Not sure why. My main issue is that there is a weird bug: sometimes I’ll complete a lesson or complete a review and I’ll land on a screen congratulating me for completing something, and there is no way for me to leave that screen to go back to the main menu and move on to the next review or lesson. It’s a complete static image, and the only way to get past it is to shut the app down and restart it. It’s annoying. I’ve also had it hang up when I’m doing a review and I ask it to check my dictation, it just freezes. No way to get past except to quit and restart.