Busuu: Language Learning

Tanks for this app very good

Love the pace

ABSOLUTELY LOVE THIS APP! I want this one book that’s in Japanese so I needed to learn it to know what the book says, and this app helps so much! Thank you for providing this amazing resource.

I’m really enjoying the interactive content in this app. Only reason to why it’s not 5 stars is due to the amount of ads

I came to Busuu after Duolingo started making infuriating changes and advertising to paid accounts. I tried several apps and Busuu seemed to check the boxes for me, especially with the community aspect that Duo removed so they could shift to AI and charge more money. Interacting with English learners and getting corrections from native Spanish speakers is what sold me. I subscribed for a year. The problem I’ve encountered is the lessons themselves. They were fine at first as I was getting acclimated to a new lesson style. But the more I do these lessons the more I dislike them with a passion. I’m here to learn conversation. Of course I want to know how the grammar works but I don’t want to focus on parts of speech, what those parts of speech are called, be drilled on the names of those parts of speech, spelling, countable vs uncountable, etc. There are too many hang ups in these lessons. You get dinged on the tiniest technicality instead of just moving forward with learning the words and using them! If you misspell something including not having an accent or ñ, if you don’t know the type of verb form, if you don’t catch their tricky wording (that technically can be argued you aren’t getting wrong but are simply not understanding the weird wording), if you aren’t familiar with Castilian focused Spanish, if you forget an article—Womp Womp. Do it again. And again. And again. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve rage quit in the middle of these lessons, not because I can’t get it right but because the ask is so pedantic that I just throw my hands up and say who cares?? I just want to learn how to speak Spanish!! And that is what is most frustrating. The excessive focus on minor details that has nothing to do with learning to speak Spanish. I really hate that Duo is the only app that hits the mark with getting down to business and learning how to develop fluency. There’s much to be annoyed with there as well but this is a review for Busuu not Duo so we’ll table that for now. Look. At the end of the day I’ll continue to come to Busuu to work with other students, but I won’t renew my sub and may taper off on the lessons themselves. I don’t care about streaks or confetti or all the gamifying of the learning process. At the very least you can jump to any lesson you like on any level, so if a particular lesson gets overly nitpicky or hyper focused on whether a word is this part of speech or that part of speech, I can close it out and go to another lesson. It would be nice if there was an algorithm for the community area to put similarly leveled students in front of you, so you don’t have to weed through twenty people practicing, “what’s your name?” Let’s filter out those super beginners if we aren’t super beginners so we can practice with learners at similar levels. I’ve managed to form a nice little group of dedicated learners to interact with already but not having to weed through “I’m fine thank you and you” level learners would be great. Tl;dr - community > lessons at Busuu. If you want to focus on developing speaking your target language this may not be the app for you. If you want your core to be focused on detailed grammar mechanics, spelling and parts of speech, welcome to Busuu! Update: after a year on this app, I can truly say I continue to dislike the lessons on this platform. Frustrations include the complete absence of drilling, being asked to spell out words that were literally just introduced earlier in the lesson before any kind of familiarity is formed, not to mention using an alphabet I still don’t have a handle on, lessons with no consistency in length—some too long when you’re just trying to fit in a quick study, no randomization in individual lessons that make the learning process tedious instead of stimulating, and skill ramping occurs so quick I feel left in the dust after a certain level. I could go on but you get the point. I maintain that I enjoy the community aspect and would probably stick around for that. But I get more frustrated and discouraged from these lessons than motivated and inspired. That is unfortunate. There’s no one perfect app imho but the lessons here are very aggravating to me. I love learning, but this feels like a trog. I never find myself saying, oh great! It’s time to do my Busuu! It’s more like an obligation to myself because I paid for this and want to wring something out of the experience.

Ahora con IA incorporado en las lecciones. Se las recomiendo 👌 ayuda muchísimo, en mi punto de vista es la MEJOR APP para aprender nuevos idiomas.

Best app to learn! It gives you the basic rules and unlike Duolingo, you can do it for as long as you like and don’t have hearts to lose. I prefer it

this is really good application for learning english

Off the bat it helps me actually understand words and phrases. Duolingo has me learning some of the most random stuff and busuu really helps me with day to day conversation.

I got an ad for Busuu in the middle of the day, watching a video about something I can’t remember. “Hah,” I thought, “Another app to learn on… great.” My initial thoughts were hesitancy: “they probably have a lot of adds and micro transactions.” But I was wrong! Busuu, not only having a friendly and positive community to interact with, also doesn’t shove adds down your face! Also, most adds are for upgrading Busuu! No more crummy mobile game or slots ad, just politely asking if you’d like to upgrade. All in all, a 5/5 so far.