Busuu
Busuu Review. Personally, the best foreign language study app.
I have been using various foreign language learning apps, including Duolingo. I am currently using Duolingo and Memrise, and I am also testing other apps a little. Among them, there is an app called Drops I was a little disappointed with, but I really like this app now, so I am using it properly every day. It’s called Busuu. Play Store link, App Store link.
- The first time I used the app, I used the free version, and from the middle, I used the paid version with a discount. Therefore, the screenshots or contents of the text may differ slightly from those of others.
- Also, since I’m studying Spanish with the Busuu app, the screen may be a little different from the English that most people will study.
Table of Contents
- Busuu Review. Personally, the best foreign language study app.
- Busuu feels the app is fairly organized.
- Busuu is also characterized by strong community features.
- It’s a pity that Busuu doesn’t have a lifetime ticket, but it has its own value for money.
- Busuu has an enormous advantage because it is translated quite well.
- Busuu is my favorite language-learning app I’ve ever used.
- Busuu Summary
Busuu feels the app is fairly organized.
A1, A2 These aren’t simple medals, the app itself has a fairly high level of difficulty.
Busuu is more systematic than other apps. It uses the European language standard, so the app goes up in steps from A1 to A2 as it gets higher. And when you first use the app, you can set a specific goal of which step you want to study by setting which step you want to study within a few months. So I feel that my level has gone up as the steps go up.
On the other hand, the app itself becomes quite difficult as the stages go up. Of course, it may be my head that is not enough; Spanish is a bit difficult for me… Especially before moving on to the next stage, you have to take a test. The difficulty level is difficult to pass easily unless you review it yourself. Maybe it’s possible to learn the next step itself. However, if you pass the test, the certificate will be emailed to you, so you will need to study hard for the sake of achieving it..
Just for reference, I passed the A1 test after my third attempt, and even then, it was quite challenging. I study for about an hour a day, and now I’m in the middle of A2. Honestly, I’m just barely keeping up at this level… I think I’ll take the A2 exam next month, but I think I’ll have to study a lot to pass.
Busuu is also characterized by strong community features.
There are many features, such as being reviewed by others
Busuu has a community feature too, but it’s a little different from Duolingo. In Duolingo, friends are just other players who are playing the game together, but in Busuu, other people feel like kind of helpers. In Duolingo, friends are usually like just “Friend so-and-so has been studying for several days in a row. Send Congratulations!” (There’s even someone who has studied for over 1,500 days in a row! Wow…)
On the other hand, in this app, the major function is to get feedback on tasks within the app (such as speaking or writing on a specific topic), or to give feedback to others. Of course, since the main function is to study, there is no function to have conversations with other people or anything like that.
Feedback comes right away. I usually speak practice in this app, and the feedback I get is usually about not being nervous… Mm-hmm…
As a side note, the microphone recognizes the speech for tasks, but it does not recognize the speech when I repeat words. It used to recognize speech well, but it stopped recognizing speech recently. Duolingo has not recognized speech for a long time, and it is a common problem that many people have experienced in Reddit, but it may be a personal bug in Busuu. I don’t know the exact cause.
It’s a pity that Busuu doesn’t have a lifetime ticket, but it has its own value for money.
I don’t know if it’s limited to Android, but you can listen to one lecture per day in the free version.
Busuu offers a free version that allows you to take one lesson per day. This is a good value for the price. However, I am not sure why, but when I try to take a lesson on my iPad, it says that it is a premium feature. I’m not sure exactly. Each free lesson takes about 5 minutes to complete. Of course, one lesson per day is not enough time to learn a new language. No matter how good the lecture… Therefore, if you are serious about learning a new language, you will eventually need to purchase the premium version of the app. So did I…
Chegg team, already a famous studying app, made this app, so it is better made than other study apps. Perhaps that confidence, unlike other apps, the paid version does not have a lifetime license, and like Duolingo, there is only a monthly or annual payment. The price itself is much cheaper than Duolingo, even without a discount. It also has frequent discounts, so the cost-effectiveness is even higher. There is no end to studying, but there is no guarantee that you will continue to use this study app for several years.
I received coupons that I can use for about 50 dollars unless for two years through email, so I thought it was worth it when I thought about the overall quality of the app and bought it without hesitation. I’m still studying well now. I think it’s okay because I’m studying for about an hour a day except when I’m busy. Being free received coupons I can personally, I don’t insist on free if the quality is good.
Busuu has an enormous advantage because it is translated quite well.
Even if you study English, it will definitely help you with grammatical content.
Most of the other apps I study with are not translated into Korean (my native language). Studying language in English is fine, but grammar is easier to understand in my native language… In that regard, I really liked Busuu because it was translated well. Even though there are many apps that claim to have a genuine translator, it is evident that someone who can write Korean has translated this app…
It surprised me that there was no Korean course because the translation was good, but it has recently been added. I like it because it thinks of Koreans in many ways compared to other apps. However, there are cases where Japanese comes out in answers and other places rarely… It seems that they missed one or two sentences when translating based on Japanese. It’s such a rare case that I think of it as a kind of bug. Is it humanity?
Busuu is my favorite language-learning app I’ve ever used.
I hope it will be short enough to talk by next year when I pay for the paid version.
My goal is to go on a working holiday later and reach a B1 level in Spanish by then. Personally, I’ve been studying apps steadily unless I was busy this year, but it hurts my heart that my skills don’t seem to have improved as much as I thought compared to that. However, I think these processes are also for future development, so I want to continue studying. I’m occasionally reviewing and posting Duolingo study content on my blog, and I’d like to organize and post Busuu content little by little when I have time. I’ll work harder!
Busuu Summary
Good point
- One of the most organized language learning apps out there
- A step-by-step guide to the European languages taught with an app, but difficult.
- There are also community features.
Disappointing point
- No lifetime plan (but cost-effective)
- The microphone hasn’t worked well recently (it may be a problem with my smartphone only). There are other bugs.
