FluentU

Introduction and General Information

The FluentU app allows you to learn a language from authentic target language sources combined with spaced repetition. It has material for English, French, Spanish, Italian, German, Mandarin, Russian, Korean and Japanese. It provides authentic videos in the target language, flashcards (with a picture, translation, example sentence and audio), grammar lessons audio files, vocabulary lists (both connected to video and audio as well as independent lists), quizzes and a system of keeping track of the words you learn and spacing them out for review. It has a two week free trial period, after which you must subscribe either for $29.99 per month or $239.99 for a year. Here are some of the positives and negatives I found from my experience with it:

Positives

  • Lots of authentic language available through the videos; if you can’t be immersed, this is the closest you can get.
      • Every word you learn is connected to a sentence, a recording of the word and the sentence, grammar facts about the word and a picture or video you have seen. This facilitates learning by connecting vocabulary to context as well as adjusting to different learning styles.
      • At any point, you can click on any word and it will give you a flashcard for it (with every feature mentioned above). You can gain tons of vocab just from the example sentences, then you have the sentence to connect the word to.
      • Grammar lessons are available as well. They teach you information through examples; there are no explicitly stated rules in these lessons, everything is taught from examples and translations.
      • Spaced reviewing taken care of by the app! Under every list it shows how well you know it so you know which things to review; even if you do the course grammar lessons it will help you review and tell you what you know.
      • You can easily make your own flashcard lists by adding words you click on to your own lists.
      • There is an “already know” option that allows you to filter out words you do not need to spend time reviewing.
      • Exercises in quizzes provide different for different ways of learning, also spaced out according to how well you know the word/list:
        • Learn this word: Shows you the word, reads it in a sentence, provides a picture
        • Multiple choice
        • Fill in the blank (with letter spaces and without)
        • Put the words in order to form a sentence
        • Choose the right translation
        • If you miss something it gives the correction and brings the word back until you know it
  • It is highly motivating and interesting, allowing you to set daily goals and keeping track of your activity, encouraging you to be consisitent.

Negatives

      • There is no option for speaking or pronunciation practice.
      • It is heavily geared toward inductive learners as nearly everything (except vocabulary definitions) is taught implicitly. If you need comprehensive grammar lists you could make them on your own with the information given, but it is not give to you.
      • Some levels and languages do not have a lot of content (but FluentU is always updating and adding to the app).
      • I had trouble with videos not loading the imagery in the app (the sound would plays normally though).

English Specific

Some specific things to note for learning English with FluentU:

  • Positive:
    • There is content that caters to specific purposes for learning English, such as hotel work, business and various other functions
    • There are lots of videos, both ELL specific and authentic language videos.
  • Negative:
    • There is not a lot of course content (grammar lessons) for any level.
    • There is not translation or subtitles in other languages; all definitions and subtitles are in English (though this may be a positive for very advanced learners).

Overall Conclusions

The FluentU app provides an amazing resource for language learning. It succeeds in teaching you a language as close to the reality of immersion as possible, with the added benefit of providing translation and keeping track of everything you learn for review. It is particularly good for inductive learners. The English content is not very well developed, and does not give the same benefits of translation as the other languages give for speakers of English. The English version of FluentU would be best for high intermediate to advanced learners.

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