Lingopie

What is Lingopie app?

Lingopie is an app and web-based platform for learning languages. It takes mainstream entertainment titles produced in different countries and uses their dialogue to engage and educate students. The engagement comes from the top class entertainment shows, and the education comes from intuitive and powerful ways in which students can interact with the subtitles to learn. 

The first way to describe Lingopie is as a really good idea!

Students learn a new language through some of the best sitcoms, dramas, and animations made in nine of the world's most popular languages to learn, including Spanish, German, Korean, and Japanese. They have available some selected Netflix content for all their languages.

You watch these shows with subtitles that have been enhanced to aid language learning. Further exercises in the app let you test and practice what you have learned.

You can check out the content for all languages if you are on the fence about which language to learn. A subscription to Lingopie comes with access to all of its included languages as part of the same subscription. It also has a dedicated kids' section.

What we love about Lingopie app.

The number of people who love well-made TV dramas is enormous. The amount of people who want to learn another language is also large. Where these populations cross over is where Lingopie excels.  

Lingopie takes some of the best foreign-language television and uses it to support language learning. Rather than being produced on a low budget for educational purposes, this material has a mainstream-media budget behind it.

Don't think this is the same as watching a foreign film with subtitles in your native tongue. Lingopie has added another layer of learning support.

You'd expect subtitles to accompany the shows, but those in Lingopie do much more than those you might see on another streaming service. There are two sets, one in English and the other in the target language. You can see either, both or even a mashup where the target language replaces some words in the English translation. You can also display an on-screen script for more context to the subtitles.

The subtitles are clickable so that you can get an instant translation of any words. You can slow down the playback if the actor delivers a phrase too quickly or among too much other on-screen action. You can even get the app to repeat the phrase in a different voice that emphasises clarity over drama.

Clicking on a word reveals more details about it, but it also conveniently adds it to a flashcard so that you don't have to interrupt your viewing to note it down for later study. An almost magical feature lets you type in a word in the target language and get taken to a snippet of one of the shows where it is used.

 The app also has tools to review and track your progress, such as the flashcards already mentioned and wordlists linked to the show you have just watched.

Learners can answer quizzes and even record their voices in the app to get their pronunciation rated by the speech recognition functionality.

Making all of this available as a language-learning tool results in Lingopie being an app as entertaining as it is educational. It isn't just about making studying less of a chore, though. Television made for its home audience uses language as native speakers speak it so learning with Lingopie is the next best thing to being in a country populated by them. Slang, idioms, and accents all feature.

The thing to appreciate most with Lingopie is how complete the package feels. There wasn't any time in the learning process where it felt like a tool or feature was missing.

What skills does it teach?

Language learners could build up from absolute zero using Lingopie, but as using the app puts you straight into real-world language usage as opposed to the simplified first steps of a language course, we think it is best for those who have some foundation.

Language learners who want to build their fluency, understanding of real-world use, and broaden their lexicon are the ideal users of Lingopie.

What age is it appropriate for?

Lingopie's main service is for a general audience, so its content is not intended to be child-friendly. A Lingopie Kids section contains child-friendly content, but there does not appear to be a way to restrict the apps to that content alone.

Is Lingopie app easy to use?

Anybody who has used a video streaming service will have no problems accessing the content within Lingopie. The only extra choice is selecting the target language and language level; otherwise, it is the same process of choosing genres, seasons and episodes. 

When you create your account with Lingopie, you'll set your goals and current level to help the app provide the most appropriate resources for you.

The layer of support to enhance learning does not complicate using Lingopie. Once you know what features are there and how to use them, you won't find it difficult to use the educational aspects of the app to the fullest.

How will students benefit?

Learning languages is difficult and requires a lot of practice. Focused students find that it eats into their free time. Less dedicated students don't progress. Combining entertainment with language practice helps both of these student types. 

It is not a giant leap to picture a student looking forward to their next practice session to discover what happened to the protagonist in their chosen TV drama from their in-license content or the Netflix shows available on the platform. There are not many learning apps which create anticipation in this way.

The convenient word-saving features make building up a personal wordlist simple, and the word-matching games provide an easy revision and practice activity.

How will parents benefit?

Lingopie is a great app for whole-family learning. The good-value family subscription and the dedicated section for kids mean that parents and kids can learn similarly and support each other.

The kids' shows are just as well-produced as the mainstream content and will encourage kids to keep learning to enjoy them fully.

How will teachers benefit?

Lingopie is an excellent resource for teachers to use to enhance their lessons. Teachers can use whole episodes or sections from them to introduce or expand on aspects of the target language.

If all students have access to Lingopie, it will be much easier to get them to complete homework if that task is to watch the next instalment in a show chosen by the teacher. Discussing how the target language is used in the episode would work well as a basis for the next lesson.

You can even reach out to Lingopie and inquire about their teacher's product, which allows you to assign content, monitor student progress, and add additional participants. This can greatly motivate your students to continue expanding their language proficiency.

How much does Lingopie app cost?

Once you sign up with Lingopie you have seven days of free access to all its content. After this, the service is subscription-based, allowing you to watch all the included content without limit covering all the languages. You can also cancel the subscription at any time.

After your subscription lapses or if you choose not to use the free trial, you can still watch a few minutes of content each day.

At the time of this review, there was a fifty per cent discount for taking out a yearly subscription for an individual. A friend and family package accommodates up to four users. You need to provide payment details for the trial to begin, so set a reminder to ensure that the decision of whether to continue remains in your hands.

You can subscribe through your device's app store or the Lingopie website.

Academic pricing is available by contacting Lingopie direct.

Is Lingopie app safe to use?

The Lingopie service includes mainstream and kid-friendly content, but as mentioned earlier in this review, there does not appear to be a way to restrict the app to child-friendly media. Until the service implements this feature, you will need to either supervise kids using the app or establish ground rules with your kids.

The iOS app asks for the user's permission to track their activity across other apps and websites, which does not seem necessary for an app without ads and does not offer the user a benefit. Declining the permission did not appear to have any detrimental effect.

What can Lingopie app improve on?

While Lingopie's website is informative regarding the main service and language learning in general, it has significant gaps in explaining the kids' content. All of the responses in the Frequently Asked Questions section are the same, telling you that cancelling the subscription is possible at any time rather than answering the question.

Parents should not have to activate a trial to get answers to some of these fundamental questions.

The answers are needed because the kids' section feels like a new addition to the app, and it is either difficult to find some important settings or they don't exist. During this review, we looked for a way to restrict the app only to kids' content but failed. This should be a standard feature and may exist, but the user guide made no mention of it.

Overall rating of the app.

Lingopie is one of the most well-rounded learning platforms we've seen in any subject for older kids and adults. It takes its content and offers the learner every tool they could need to make the most of it. Each learner might not need every feature, but they ensure all bases are covered. Younger kids will enjoy the content aimed at them, and the same learning methods are just as applicable, but the child-friendly settings and documentation need filling out. By the time you read this review, Lingopie may well have already sorted this.

Language learning requires dedication and effort and always will, but Lingopie makes the process much more entertaining and has earned it five stars.

If you're a beginner language student you're better off with a more interactive program that gives you lessons in order, such as Duolingo or Rosetta Stone, our Editors' Choice picks for free and paid language-learning apps, respectively.  

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