App Review: My experience with Speakly

My first attempts at learning another language were partly inspired by learning about various apps like Memrise, Duolingo and Anki. I was exposed Spaced Repetition Systems and how that could help me memorise vocabulary more easily. Ultimately they didn't help me to acquire any new language and I found the process dull and repetitive.

When I made a new commitment to acquiring Russian in August 2020 I thought that some of those apps would play a part in the learning process, even if just as a fun distraction from the main activities. However in the first couple of weeks I realised that except for Anki (recognition only) those apps were useless to me.

You could say using them is better than nothing but when I though about the opportunity cost of the time spent on them, time that is better spent on other activities, then it wasn't justifiable. And as I said I never really enjoyed those apps. The gamification elements are not in the least bit entertaining or motivating to me. (BTW I believe that games have a tremendous potential for teaching languages but they have to be good games first and foremost).

Still, I've kept an eye out for apps that might be useful with the rationale that it's easier for me to put more time into acquiring a language if there is a variety of activities to engage in versus just doing the same thing over and over. I appreciate this might not be be the most efficient thing to do, but I find it more motivating.

The YouTuber Days of French and Swedish introduced me to the app Speakly that seems to most closely align with the input first / comprehensible input / immersion approach. You can watch his review here: Is This the Perfect Language Learning App?

I've been using the app every day since the 11th of February and I can easily see myself sticking with it for the long term. At first glance it shares a lot of similarities with other apps, it teaches you words then tests you about those words in a variety of ways; multiple choice, typing and speaking.

What I particularly like is that it provides dialogues and short stories (narrated and with text) that match the vocabulary you've acquired. The dialogues are short and consist of two questions and two responses. You're given the option to come up with your own answer if you want to practice your output. 

The short stories are 3 to 6 minutes in length and you can play them at a slower speed if necessary. These stories use vocabulary at the appropriate level and are perfect for the way I'm studying Russian.

So far I've 'learned' 326 words (out of a total of 4000) but I started right from the beginning and so have come across words that I already knew. To be honest I think it would have been a challenge if my first exposure to Russian was through this app because it doesn't teach you the Cyrillic script or pronunciation. I think I came to it at the right time with plenty of listening and reading experience.

So far I've been doing the exercises with writing mode enabled but that does slow me down quite a bit. Sometimes I takes me 45 minutes to get enough questions correct and learn my 10 new words for the day (the number of new words can be adjusted to 5, 10, 15 or 30). So I'm thinking about no longer doing the writing exercises and just sticking with speaking and multiple choice options (which can't be turned off). Yes the app requires output but the I'm happy to do that because the rewards for progressing, in the form of new stories, are so useful. In fact I'm wondering if these stories should be my main source of immersion content from now on. 

At the moment the only languages available are Estonian, French, Russian, Spanish, Italian, German and Finnish. If I ever decide to learn one of those languages I will definitely use this app and I can see myself using it early on in the process because those languages use the Latin script and are easier for me pronounce.

Have you used Speakly? What do you think of it?