Which is the best AI conversation practice app for language learners?

In the last year so many new apps have popped up that provide foreign language conversation practice using generative AI. The new era of generative AI is capable of many great things but one area that it is already starting to revolutionise is the world of language learning, specifically in terms of providing semi-realistic speaking practice and feedback on mistakes.

Just some of the apps I’ve come across in the past year are: Univerbal, Loora, Membot, Tutor Lily, Verbius, LangBuddy, Makes You Fluent, Praktika, Talkpal, Jumpspeak and Speak. There are also many others. They all offer conversations on a text messaging interface, with optional voice input and audio to practise speaking and listening.

I wanted to find out how useful these apps are for a language learner and which are the best. I picked 4 at random to test. I will compare the advantages and differences between each one and try to come to a conclusion about which one of the four I think you should use.

(Note: In all the apps I used only the features and content that was available for free, without starting a trial period or paying anything).

I tried all apps for both Spanish practice (where I have an upper-intermediate level) and English (where I’m a native speaker). The point of trying English was as a ‘control’ to judge the accuracy of the corrections and how realistic the overall conversational experience was.

There were some important problems that applied to all the apps I tried, so make sure you check the ‘General’ section at the bottom to learn more about the limitations and frustrations across all these apps.

Univerbal

Univerbal was my overall favourite of the apps.

Strengths:

Univerbal enabled me to talk about challenging topics more than the other apps, which is good for an advanced learner. And not just challenging topics, but topics relevant to me.

You can create a conversation about any topic you like with any type of personality you like and it also gives an appropriate AI-generated image of the person you’re talking to.

The Spanish chat taught me some new words in places where I didn’t use the most appropriate word. I especially liked one vocabulary suggestion. It knew what I was trying to say and I learnt a new phrase from it.

The conversation was very Spain-specific in terms of content, so in that sense it felt realistic.

You seem to be able to ‘favourite’ new words you learn, which is useful for longer-term retention of the words (but I couldn’t actually find them later).

Weaknesses:

I started with Spanish (where I have a level of about B2) but after my ‘placement test’ the app told me I’m A1/A2. I was deeply offended! Fortunately, after being told I am B1 level in English (I’m a native speaker) I realised that the placement test clearly does not work.

Once I had specified that I wanted to practise advanced-level English, it used ‘advanced’ vocabulary for the conversations. This seems like a good idea in theory but it resulted in overly formal and unrealistic language. For example, I ended up with a stall holder in a craft market who spoke like someone out of an 1800s romance novel.

I think Univerbal had the worst ‘text to speech’ voice out of all the apps. It seemed especially robotic and the unnatural intonation made it hard work to listen to after a long period of time.

Pricing (at time of writing)

£11.99 for 1 month / £31.99 for 3 months / £104.99 for 1 year

7 days free use immediately after download, without starting a trial

Remember to look at the ‘General’ section at the bottom for important weaknesses that apply to ALL these apps.

Tutor Lily

I thought Tutor Lily was the weakest of all 4 apps.

Strengths:

Simple, not over-complicated, which may be enough for some people.

The cheapest option.

Weaknesses:

Doesn’t have real life scenarios — just general topics.

There’s no way to keep track of what you’re learning so it’s easy to just see a mistake and ignore it and move on with the conversation and not learn from it.

I later found a toggle to ‘show all mistakes’ which had been turned off to start with. I think if they’re showing any mistakes, they need to show all, otherwise that’s misleading for a new user.

A less slick-looking interface design.

Pricing (at time of writing)

$83.99 for 1 year / $56.99 for 6 months / $11.99 for 1 month

You can use some of it for free but it wasn’t clear what the limitations were.

Praktika

Strengths:

Praktika has high quality AI voices which feel good and easy to listen to.

It has some content/activities around mastering particular grammatical structures and vocabulary, so there’s some structure to the learning, not just chat. These features are in the 7 day trial so I didn’t get a chance to use them for this research.

Weaknesses:

The biggest red flag, and one of my pet hates, was errors in the English used in the app interface! (Screenshots here) I cannot trust an app to teach me a language if they can’t use correct English themselves.

It has moving AI avatars which I think are pointless. You have to wait about 90 seconds for them to ‘generate’ on your first conversation with that person and after that they barely move. You may as well just have a photo. You don’t really pay attention to the avatar anyway because you’re focusing on the text.

I did an English placement test with lots of mistakes and then another with almost no mistakes and both tests put me at B1, so I don’t trust the placement test.

I don’t think you can switch languages on the free version.

It created a ‘personalised’ study plan based on nothing and told me I need 7 weeks to reach my goal but it doesn’t know what my goal is.

I chose a character who it said has an Australian accent but the voice turned out to be British.

Pricing (at time of writing)

£100 for 1 year / £36 for three months

Has a 7 day free trial.

Speak

Speak was my second favourite.

Strengths:

A lot of different settings to control your experience of the conversation eg. text on off, vocabulary level, show translations, show corrections.

After the conversation it shows you quiz questions based on the mistakes you made in the conversation. I think this is really useful for consolidating the learning experience.

The free conversation had a lot of accurate Mexico-specific content, so in that sense it felt realistic.

The voice wasn’t too robotic. I felt comfortable listening to it.

Like Univerbal, you could also create your own conversational scenario but, unlike Univerbal, I had to start a trial for that so didn’t use it.

Weaknesses:

Sometimes the mic didn’t pick up what I was saying. I quite frequently had to re-try.

The way of presenting mistakes was less clear than other apps. I personally like to see my original text with the errors changed in it.

Not necessarily a weakness but the app tries to create AI-generated ‘lessons’. I didn’t explore these in much detail because my focus was on conversation practice but from what I saw they didn’t seem that useful.

Pricing (at time of writing)

£79.99 for a year for general conversation

£224.99 for a year for AI classes and other “intelligent” features

Has a 7 day free trial

General observations about any AI language speaking practice app

I’ll start with the weaknesses, because I think those are the most important to be aware of.

Weaknesses

•• All the apps I tested had moments where they missed mistakes or said things were incorrect when they weren’t

For example, in Univerbal, when bargaining at a market I said “so, you want £20…” and it told me the correct way to say it is “if you’re asking £20…”.

In Tutor Lily, I said “Creo que la comida asiática es muy buena para llevar muchas verduras” — it said I need to use ‘incluir’ instead of ‘llevar’ but Spanish teacher Cris (a human!) told me that in fact ‘llevar’ sounds more natural. But, ‘para llevar’ is incorrect and only ‘porque lleva’ would be correct, which it failed to correct.

To what extent can I really trust the corrections these apps give me?

•• The speech recognition had some problems capturing everything I said. I found myself speaking really slowly and deliberately so that it could pick everything up, which is unnatural and not a good behaviour to reinforce in language learners.

Also, the speech recognition chooses how it punctuates and sometimes the AI would correct that, which wasn’t the user’s fault. That was an annoyance.

In addition, if it gets the punctuation wrong and, for example, puts a full stop in the wrong place, it changes the meaning and you may get corrections that aren’t relevant.

•• The ‘people’ you’re chatting to usually lack personality and edge. They’re just so nice and enthusiastic. It reminds me of being on a boring date with someone who’s lovely but who I don’t have any chemistry with. However, some apps, eg. Univerbal, do let you request a certain type of personality in your bespoke conversations. But even in Univerbal the AI character mainly paraphrases and reinforces the last thing you said. It doesn’t bring new ideas to the conversation or challenge you. It feels like you’re the one doing the work to keep the conversation going (again, like a bad date).

•• These apps are not good for beginners. You need some knowledge to be able to put together full sentences and you’re best getting that from a different type of app. Maybe Duolingo or maybe more traditional teacher-led courses. This is not necessarily a weakness. There are plenty of language learning experiences out there for beginners and what has always been lacking is apps that are appropriate for more advanced levels.

Strengths

I’ve been working in language learning technology for many years and one of the areas where language learners always want more practice is speaking, particularly in real conversations. There are websites where you can schedule and pay for conversations with real humans and there are also websites where you can find partners for language exchanges. Both those solutions can work but the paid sessions can be too expensive for some people and it can be hard to find the right person for an exchange and then rely on them to be available when you want to talk.

So being able to speak to AI is a low cost way to get practice any time you want about any topics that you want. Back in 2019 I gave a talk at a language learning conference about using chat bots for English language practice. At that time, chat bots were pre-programmed to follow pre-defined conversation routes and they felt unrealistic and not that useful, but generative AI, the type made famous by ChatGPT, has meant that conversations now have the potential to go in any direction on any topic, which is so much more realistic and useful.

Who am I and why am I doing this research?

I have a BA in Linguistics & Phonetics and MSc in Digital Product Development. I have been working in language learning technology since 2008 and, before that, wrote my Masters thesis on it.

I run a product called Go Correct, for language learners who want to improve through daily practice, with human feedback. I like to stay aware of the latest trends and think about how I might incorporate them into my own product. You can connect with me on LinkedIn.