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hey guys welcome to my channel if you want
to know if you should use speakly to become
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fluent in a foreign language and you don't
want to waste any more time using apps that
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are boring and just don't work keep watching
low skates
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my name is dustin i'm an i.t project manager
from germany and on this channel we create
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content that helps us to be more productive
to learn new things especially languages and
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to live a happier and more fulfilling life
today we're gonna see how speegly can be a
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valuable part of your language learning but
also what are its limitations and if it really
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teaches your speaking how did i become aware
of this app actually i found it through another
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youtube channel with the name days of french
and swedish which is a great youtube channel
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i can highly recommend to anybody who is interested
in language learning since i really value
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the honest and critical mind of le monde so
the guy that runs days of french and swedish
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i thought yeah well let's give it a try i
already had a full stack of apps and other
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things i was using at that time but yeah this
app just sounded too good to not try it at
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least i'm always keen to find out how i can
improve my learning further and also to test
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and to try new apps also especially for this
channel to be able to help you out and to
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do some recommendations like this i have used
it now for almost three months and now i feel
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ready to give a first feedback and to do a
quick app review in this video i will first
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explain what role speakly plays in my language
learning stack based on scientific research
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then we will have a look at the app and how
it works while doing that we will also review
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the pros and cons in the end we'll have a
look at the costs and also do a conclusion
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to see if you should use this app or not the
app's focus is on learning these statistically
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most relevant words first in real sentences
and context this is what other apps often
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screw up completely you don't need to know
all the words of all animals out there for
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example you need the words that are important
to do a real conversation you also learn in
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the order of statistically most use to less
frequently used this way you make quicker
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progress and you should be able to have conversations
earlier this app there's also a space repetition
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algorithm that should ensure that you are
able to keep the stuff in your head so in
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your long term memory and that it really sticks
space repetition means that you repeat it
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at a point in time when you are just about
to forget the thing this way you will enforce
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it and be able to retain it longer within
speakly grammar is not a focus or anything
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but nevertheless they offer a grammar section
where you can read up the most important grammar
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rules and stuff it can be useful sometimes
especially when you're more advanced and you
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want to find out some things that you are
doing wrong all the time or something and
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you can use the hypotheses of noticing for
that i already did a video about that when
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i reviewed another app called busu and i will
link it here videos i preach are important
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it is to consume massive amounts of compelling
input and to immerse yourself into the language
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in order to become fluent or especially also
in order to become able to listen and to understand
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the language and also to read of course speakly
is offering for that matter actually listening
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exercises which are really good and also music
recommendations a nice feature actually and
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it will help you to build up your listening
comprehension nevertheless speakly doesn't
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have the main focus on reading and listening
comprehension like link for example does you
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can either use the browser or the app version
since i'm using the app version mostly i will
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review the app first and afterwards we will
also have a short look at the browser version
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of course after you have downloaded the app
it looks like this so you have the start screen
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and there are also the the main features of
of this app which i already presented to you
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so let's see let's click on get started so
you can see the different available languages
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within this app those are english french spanish
german italian estonian finnish and russian
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you might wonder why there's also estonian
especially and probably finnish the reason
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is the app or the developer behind those this
app are actually estonian and finland is next
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to estonia so i guess it makes sense so first
of all let's let's pick french for now now
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we need to pick our mother tongue they are
a lot available but let's pick english for
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now how much how much will you learn daily
so it's like a daily commitment to keep up
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your streak i would always go with the lowest
and then try to do more if possible so let's
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pick five words and now you can also set reminders
to stay on track then yeah you will get some
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notifications so for example after waking
up well let's say 7am and then you could could
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do a second reminder for example like i don't
know before going to sleep okay and now you
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would have um two reminders there okay and
now you need to create an account and this
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is how it looks like after you have created
your account so this is the language we currently
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learn french of course because we have chosen
that and now you can also change your level
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so for example if you're not a complete beginner
or if you are rather intermediate or advanced
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you can just choose that and then we'll start
with with uh yeah advanced content also but
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you could also do a placement test and then
in the end you get either into a beginner
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intermediate or advanced so that's good so
far now let's have a look into italian because
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i did already some learning there and um yeah
it makes it more easy to see how it actually
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looks like let's walk now through the app
so this is the the main page it's called the
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classroom or my classroom actually there you
can see in which chapter you are and your
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streak so let's start at the top so you have
a streak that you can build up so like you
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have already seen there's a low streak is
five new words a and here you can see how
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many words i have learned so far or the percentage
of any real life situation now we come back
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to the classroom as you can see here your
level so i'm currently at beginner three and
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there's the beginner stage there's the intermediate
and the advanced staged and within those stages
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there are three levels and within those levels
there are i think always like 300 words and
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now let's do some learning together that you
can really see how the app works so continue
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studying how would you like to learn vocabulary
this normally gets asked always if you yeah
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if you are learning the first time so i would
rather choose by typing because i think multiple
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choice isn't that useful i think typing really
shows you if you have or if you know it or
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if you don't and especially if you also want
to be able to write at a later point in time
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which i can highly recommend then i would
do that so by typing continue [Music]
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okay interesting so the a gets swallowed so
you just have ella prima porta si nistra so
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you have a liar zone there and as you can
see already so you have now a small sentence
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you have a word or which is actually two words
like asinistra on the left so this is the
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new word that you are learning here and you
also get or you can also listen to it
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and this is really useful i think so you can
improve your pronunciation i would always
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advise if you are using such an app that you
repeat it afterwards so like this
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this way it will stick better okay and you
will work on your pronunciation so next one
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what's up
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okay now the next type of exercise comes let's
see [Music] i will be there for two weeks
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and now we need to fill in the blanks so what
can it be
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[Music]
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[Music]
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[Music]
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[Music] and
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this is really great so the voice recognition
is on point so it really gets it also if you
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start speaking then do a small break because
you need to read up something and then continue
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somehow the app manages to get it yeah to
get it done and to get that pause uh out there
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so i'm really impressed by that
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okay now we are back in the classroom again
and further down there are there are different
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exercises you can do but we will come to that
so this is the main menu so you have the study
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area which is where we just were so where
you are actually doing your studying of new
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words and sentences and stuff then you have
my results which is the page where you can
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see your statistics which we also already
had then you got live situations which is
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a different kind of exercise that you can
do um and i would say yeah let's let's do
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it right away let's have a look at one of
those exercises
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which one should we take yeah let's take this
one
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okay so uh this is a live situation in numero
preferrito some people have a favorite number
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a favorite color a favorite animal all kinds
of favorite things to be exact some people
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don't what kind of person are you so let's
do it [Music] now it's loading
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[Music] all right now you have an answer to
that and you should translate it so i don't
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know i don't have a favorite number and you
okay non-dos [Music]
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[Music] soul okay and now you need to repeat
it so you need to hold it [Music]
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okay now you got it well done and next and
now it's a small dialogue [Music]
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[Music]
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okay maybe eight so what's yours um uh okay
uh [Music] um queenly [Music]
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[Music]
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[Music] okay and now it's done and this way
you learn really small conversations about
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different topics with a rising complexity
and now you can continue and you need to choose
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oops that was hard or no sweet that was easy
or no sweat that was easy sorry um so since
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i couldn't solve it myself especially the
second phrase i would say oops that was hard
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and this way it doesn't get marked as done
or is completed those were the life situations
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now there are also those listening exercises
and those i really like so for example this
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one as the name already says it's a listening
exercise so it's a small text and let's see
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okay god continue so here we have a small
text and you can listen to it so let's start
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this is the page it's just a play button you
can also change the speed so if you are advanced
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and you are already understanding it easily
you can increase the speed to make it a challenge
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you can also have a look at the text at the
site so you can play it and then look at the
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text or at the translation if it's really
too advanced for you you start with the translation
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you listen to it once twice or three times
maybe and then you switch to the through real
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text listen to it again and then you listen
to it without translation or text and this
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way you can build up your listening comprehension
and also your reading comprehension so let's
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see ciao
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[Music]
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and
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yeah in this way is the whole exercise he's
speaking very clearly he's speaking not too
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fast but he's speaking real dialogues real
yeah uh real text so it's not not just exercise
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stuff but it's a it's a real text and this
is powerful because this will help you to
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bridge to the native content at some point
but i think it doesn't make sense to use too
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many yeah way too easy materials so this way
you will get used to real content quickly
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okay also they are encouraging you to listen
to it several times the bad thing is that
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i mean once you have finished listening to
it it will be marked as done or is completed
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but there are no statistics about how many
minutes or hours you have actually done listening
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exercises and i think it would be really useful
if that will also be part because yeah this
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way it becomes evident how much time you have
spent and if you have made progress and stuff
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this is something i would really like to see
um going forward and then the music recommendations
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this is a nice nice thing so it gets you into
a mode where you can appreciate the culture
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a bit better of a different language so as
you can see here there are music recommendations
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and those get unlocked going forward i think
i forgot to mention that but the same applies
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to the live situations and listening exercises
so while you are learning new words and those
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situations and exercises and all those kind
of things are getting unlocked same applies
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to the music recommendations and now you probably
ask yourself how does that work it's linked
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to spotify so you need to have spotify on
the same device and then for example recently
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unlocked is this one so i could click on play
and then it would go to spotify or would open
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the spotify app and then would uh jump back
to the app and you could play it since i don't
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have spotify installed on this smartphone
it doesn't work and then we have talked already
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about grammar stuff so yes you have a grammar
section here you don't need to use it if you
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don't wanna but you can so you can choose
the different grammar topics and you can uh
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read through that so for example g and me
and there are explanations for everything
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it's quite useful it's a nice bonus but it's
not the main focus of this app then best learning
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practices will bring you or will lead you
to the blog of speakly and the blog is actually
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pretty good so the
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so the blog posts uh of a high quality and
will definitely get you into the right mood
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and into the right thinking for language learning
i can highly recommend to read through that
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now let's have a look at the browser version
last but not least and to be honest before
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i did this video i haven't looked at it myself
because i'm always using apps but i have to
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say wow this is a really really nice um yeah
browser version actually so i haven't seen
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something like that before you have everything
on in one view i only saw there was one difference
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um which is you can save sentences and then
you have them in your your favorites and i
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think this is pretty useful because you are
learning phrases and stuff and while you are
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doing that you will come along phrases that
you might want to use in your daily interactions
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or in your work on your vacation or when you
are speaking to someone and this way you will
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be able to easily find it now let's have a
look at the pricing together so there are
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different plans like for one month three months
six months or 12 months and of course the
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longer the period for which you subscribe
the lower the price i mean that's the usual
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uh thing but there's one difference one month
and three months only have one language included
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and the other ones have all the languages
available that there are further which isn't
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here is that there's also a lifetime membership
just google for it and see if that's still
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available or if that was a one-time thing
i don't know but i bought a lifetime membership
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and yeah now i don't have to pay anymore um
yeah so this might be useful so will this
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app get you fluent the answer is no there's
no app that will get you fluent in a foreign
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language but they can accompany you on your
language learning journey this app is the
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best iphone so far to prepare yourself actually
for speaking it provides many exercises and
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focuses solely on what's really important
speech recognition is the best i've seen so
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far in an app further the whole app is based
on common known principles of language learning
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if you want to be able to speak fluently you
need to speak there's no way around it even
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if it's terrifying at the beginning especially
don't make excuses and dabble around too much
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nevertheless you can stack the deck in your
favor and this app will help you doing that
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if you like this video and you also want to
see other language learning app reviews i
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got a playlist for that and also if you want
to spice up your language learning with gaming
00:20:47
i got another playlist for that as well please
let me know how you prepare yourself for your
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first conversation in a foreign language if
you found this video useful please leave me
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a like and a subscription to the channel and
make sure to click on the notification bell
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to not miss anything going forward thank you
very much for watching and see you next time
