FluentWorlds: Learn Spanish & English in 3D

What is FluentWorlds app?

Fluent Worlds makes it easy to practise your Spanish conversation skills in a structured, supportive, and safe setting. As users, you are effectively immersed in a variety of different places and situations to replicate real-world contexts. This scenario-based learning allows you to practice your newly acquired words and phrases authentically and in context. Fluent Worlds transcends the traditional flashcard and instruction-memory approach and places you in the heart of the conversation. To essentially learn by doing, which is hypothesised to help with speed of learning, retention, and recall.

As you explore the broad selection of topics, you will gradually journey down a literal path of progression, which introduces new terminology and phrases while referring back to what has been previously studied. Each theme is clearly and concisely broken down, and further sub-divided into guided, supportive conversational activities to help you constantly progress in your skills. This immersive experience is highly effective and will have you speaking and engaging at the earliest opportunity.

All-in-all, Fluent Worlds offers a compelling interactive experience with good quality and relevant audio, complemented by effectively engaging activities centred on having a real-world relevance.

What we love about FluentWorlds

Firstly, FluentWorlds is a well-designed and presented app, which is easily navigated in getting you started with Spanish speaking and interaction as early as possible. The ease and convenience of the app allows you to scroll to access content that is most relevant to your needs and/or wants. The only requirement will be a constant Internet connection.

Users can visit a huge range of different location while they practise their Spanish in real-world situations, ranging from Central Park to Las Vegas, and Chichén Itzá or to more mundane locations, like the bank or cinema, etc. As well as the spoken language focus, each user of the app can explore their beautiful surroundings and click on many of the objects and see the translation of that object.

FluentWorlds employs a virtual immersion method for language learning, blending an immersive environment with its teaching capabilities. Users play the app and all of their progress is recorded on the a cloud-based servers. These stats are then available on each user’s digital dashboard to be accessed through the dedicated website that is subsequently available on the teachers' or students' computer or mobile phone. In-app, I particularly liked the progress bar along the bottom of lessons as a means to see how much more is to be completed in a given lesson or task.

Ultimately, I consider FluentWorlds as one of the stand-out apps for immersive language learning. As a language teacher and enthusiast, I strongly attest to the pivotal role that regular immersion can play in achieving fluency. In order to learn any new language, it is most effective to be immersed in those places and situations you will most commonly use. Scenario-based learning allows students to practice a new language in context, but most advantageously in a safe, supportive, and risk free setting.

The three-dimensional, immersive environment and structured situations help submerge you in realistic settings. As I have previously mentioned, the content and language used is good, especially in the way that the contexts are wide-reaching and cover a huge number of real-world scenarios very effectively. You can cover topics ranging from first meetings, to shopping, to banking, job interviews, and many, many more. With practice, any user will feel equipped to handle similar interactions for themself and with real people. The additional challenge to find topic-specific vocabulary embedded in the virtual environments is an enjoyable extra – where you will explore the 3D surroundings and try to locate words from a set vocabulary list. Unfortunately, some frustration can be with the accuracy of clicking on certain items. For example, you will find one of the ‘hidden’ items, but it may take several attempted clicks of taps before you land of the exact point where the app has been coded to recognise that you have found it.

With the wide selection of Spanish-language learning lessons, from a teacher point of view, it appears as if educators have, here, a source tool to teach their students according to a specific context. As a supplementary learning tool, staff and students can introduce lessons that give students a true experiential learning environment to trial their skills in a safe and supportive environment with a strong element to encourage independence and self-direction.

FluentWorlds teaches commonly spoken Spanish phrases through a series of fun games and activities. To further, promote spoken fluency and development, the app features speech recognition software and speech analysis to help you perfect your spoken Spanish accent and pronunciation. It shows you syllable by syllable where you were successful and where you need refinement. To support this vast wealth of vocabulary, there is a complementary dictionary that includes definitions, conjugations, and exemplar sentences.

Although this review is limited to just the FluentWorlds app, I do feel I need to make reference to the other learning platforms on offer from this developer. The PerfectAccent feature seems to be a very interesting addition, which claims to allow

a user to obtain a personalized voiceprint, and to practice Spanish for specific purposes, while also inputting their own custom sentences and receiving real-time feedback. The FluentWorlds Online Academy will further bring customisable elements to this interactive learning platform where users should be able to learn collaboratively across this 3D setting with other students in real time.

Is Fluent Worlds easy to use?

Yes, FluentWorlds is neatly designed and is it easy to navigate between the various content sections. Everything is very clearly labelled, allowing any user to navigate intuitively. The app interface is clear on start-up; however, the scroll to content feature can be a little awkward and shows some lag. Beyond this, the navigation is very straightforward. Users can explore the guided lessons by topic or navigate directly to spoken ‘perfection’ activities. In my opinion, the interface is extremely user-friendly.

What can Fluent Worlds app improve on?

The well-structured outline of the app will ensure that any user will be supported through the process and the guided steps make this highly intuitive. The topics covered are – as I have repeatedly mentioned – hugely comprehensive and effective in preparing the user, in some way, to interact in the real-world. However, although, content is differentiated into specific topics along a literal pathway of progression, this scroll-style navigation through the topics can lag a little and becomes somewhat onerous, especially if you like to filter back and forth between different topics.

A navigate direct-to option or a topic list would be much better; however, this is just my personal preference.

Overall, I find the language used to be a little formal and overly polite, but in reality this will be of minimal concern. However, from a content perspective, there are also some minor language errors. One of which is in the “Family” unit where the display does not match the audio used, i.e. the audio prompt plays the masculine phrase “él es mi amigo”, while text will be specific to female “ella es mi amiga”. Also, in the ‘banking’ section the check on the wall is translated as “controlar” – which is a possible option for the verb “to control” – rather than the expected noun, which should be “cheque”.

Despite the 3D immersive setting being the stand-out unique selling point, coupled with the well-developed and structured conversational prompts, I repeatedly found that the app’s graphics are a little dated rather than them being photo-realistic CGI. However, the premise of the app is not so much about realistic visual representation, rather aimed at putting yourself face-to-face with a simulation to replicate real-world interactions. More frustratingly, I also found that the controls were little off. Namely, changing direction and moving around this 3D world is not always consistent and can, at times, frustrate as you try to navigate exactly where you want. Similarly, the gaming controls are, by their nature, limited. You can move around when you want to, but unfortunately the interaction with your environment does not go beyond this – there is no ability to jump or pick up items, for example. Furthermore, any interaction with characters is conducted in a prescribed fashion, with minimal scope for spontaneity. As a user, you do not get to speak with each of the characters. Instead, you have a structured conversation which gives you conversational prompts and pronunciation support, mostly in the form of repeating.

For anyone’s initial steps in Spanish and Spanish in a particular context, this support is invaluable and very effectively progresses you in your language learning, recognition, and productive capabilities (ie. speaking). In this vein, I, particularly, liked the “perfect pronunciation” modules which visually analysed my pronunciation accuracy – green, yellow, or red if my speech was good, average, or poor, respectively. The AI would then ask me to repeat elements of these conversations with which I have had issues. This feedback mechanism focuses on supportive prompts and guidance and relies less on the traditional notions of simply scoring your progress. That being, said there are a range of gold stars available according to how well you complete each of the activities –typically ranging up to three – which will work a treat for those of us who are naturally competitive.

How much does Fluent Worlds cost?

Fluent Worlds is currently available on a monthly or annual subscription the iOS App and Google Play Stores. There is a seven-day free trial on offer, with a monthly subscription fee of $9.99, or $99.99 annually.

Is Fluent Worlds safe to use?

Yes, Fluent Worlds is safe to use, with it being ad-free and all content being related to the app itself. The app is straightforward to use and is well designed. Scrolling and navigation are extremely intuitive, and the interface will ensure that you can find intended content with ease. You can opt in or out of personal data storage within the app settings.

Overall rating of the app

FluentWorlds is a neatly designed and engaging app that effectively support and guides you through a wide variety of real-world contexts. If you want to learn in a quasi-real and interactive way, you very much get that here. If offers the opportunity to learn, trial, and practice your conversational in a safe, but reasonably authentic setting. Such an approach will not be suitable nor desired by everyone, however. Ultimately, this will depend on your preferred learning style or styles. If you thrive of interactive elements and enjoy visual cues which will guide you through their usage, then I firmly believe that you should consider this platform.

It is intuitive, far-reaching in its topics and will effectively support you in building a concise and direct conversation for each topic. However, if you value practicality and what a simple prescribe list of terms, phrases, conversations that you can study, then this app will be less likely to meet those needs. For example, auditory learners, who may prefer that the key terms are explained initially and who are allowed space to study them, might feel somewhat out of their depth at the beginning and frustrated at the lack of detailed feedback on spoken accuracy – something that other apps and programs do a little better. If you privilege content over interactivity – i.e., this interactive, 3D environment – the novelty of Fluent Worlds could wear off after a while.

That being said, however, this immersive approach is hugely innovative, and I have not come across any other platforms that do this as well as FluentWorlds. With the surge in AI over the past few months, this form of learning represents the future of self-directed and independent language acquisition. The simulation of real-world contexts, regardless of the narrow window for genuine spontaneity, represents a very effective and efficient way to develop practical and readily useable speaking skill in Spanish. It is well worth a download to see just how useful it could be for you.

You can download FluentWorlds: Learn Spanish & English in 3D on your iOS or Android devices from the app stores. Download the FluentWorlds: Learn Spanish & English in 3D app from the Apple App Store or the Google Play Store.