Review of the Free Online Language Website and Mobile App 'Busuu'

Busuu is a free language learning website that connects you with millions of speakers and gives you access to interactive resources to help you learn a new language.

The website and language learning mobile app are both very user-friendly and simple to use. There's even a kids version available.

Languages You Can Learn at Busuu

Arabic, Chinese, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Turkish

How Busuu Works

After choosing the language you'd like to learn, you can create a new Busuu account with your email address or log in with Facebook or Google account.

There are tons of lessons you can use to learn a new language, which you can access from the Lessons area on the left side of the screen (the globe).

The free lessons range from beginner and elementary up to intermediate. You're able to skip around from the tasks in one lesson into the other lessons without having to complete them, which means you can skip ahead if you know you're ready for more difficult tasks.

Some of the lessons are locked and only available if you pay for a subscription, but there are still lots of lessons available for free users. There are also some business and travel courses you can take for free.

The lessons at Busuu include images, audio, and text all mixed together to help you remember the concepts. You can always listen to phrases over and over again as many times as you need to, as well as move back through a lesson.

You're always quizzed immediately after you've learned a few things, which is great. Busuu doesn't wait until you've learned dozens of concepts before it tests you, which is one thing we like about this service versus traditional language learning textbooks.

If you're stuck on a word or would like to ensure you remember it, you can always add it to your vocabulary list. This is really just like a bookmark for that particular word or phrase, which you can access from your Review page. Additional features, like downloading a PDF of your vocabulary list, are available only for premium members.

Busuu's Social page is a language exchange service. You can chat with speakers of the language you're learning, as well as correct text written in the language that you understand. 

Thoughts on Busuu

We recommend Busuu for language learning if you're new to the language in question, but also if you know it well and are trying to improve. All the free lessons will be very helpful, and the fact that you can chat with speakers is just another great reason to use it.

As with any website or service that offers a paid version, you'll run into several requests to upgrade Busuu to the premium membership. You, of course, aren't required to since there isn't a trial put in place nor is there a daily limit to how much you can learn. Instead, extra lessons and some features here and there aren't supported with a free account.

If you do decide to upgrade, you'll get advanced grammar units, full language courses, Offline Mode, and more. See the full list of differences between free and premium to see what you'd get if you upgraded.