Key Takeaways
- The apps are not competing for the same job: pick by the skill you are short of, not by downloads.
- Duolingo, Babbel and Busuu build a habit and a base; Anki keeps words; Pimsleur and italki train speaking; LingQ, Readlang and Paralelo are for reading real text.
- A peer-reviewed study found beginners who finished Duolingo's Spanish or French course reached Intermediate Low in reading; it did not test speaking.
- Reading research points to volume and near-total comprehension, which is why assisted reading helps learners read real books sooner.
How we compared them, and our bias
Written by Paralelo's founder: Paralelo is one of the apps on this list. Facts about the others were checked on their own sites and are linked.
We compared nine apps by what each one actually trains — vocabulary, grammar, listening, speaking or reading — how it teaches, and how it charges. This is Paralelo's own blog, so we have a stake in one of the nine. We have described it as plainly as the others, including what it does not do.
Most roundups rank apps by downloads or feature count. That tells you little, because the apps are not competing for the same job. Duolingo builds a daily habit, Anki stops words from fading, italki gets you talking, and a reading app gives you hours of real text. The useful question is not which app is best, but which skill you are short of right now.
Facts about the other apps come from their own websites, checked on 30 September 2026. Prices change by country, platform and promotion, so we describe how each app charges rather than quote figures that would be wrong for half our readers. The two prices we do give are published by the provider itself.
Which app for which learner: the short answer
Starting from zero, pick one structured course — Duolingo, Babbel or Busuu — and use it daily. Add Anki if words keep slipping away, Pimsleur or italki when you need to speak, and a reading tool such as LingQ, Readlang or Paralelo once you can follow simple sentences and want real text.
- A daily habit from zero: Duolingo.
- A conventional course with grammar explained: Babbel.
- A course plus corrections from native speakers: Busuu.
- Remembering the words you have met: Anki.
- Learning from videos, podcasts and articles you choose: LingQ.
- Reading whatever you find on the web: Readlang.
- Speaking practice with your eyes free: Pimsleur.
- A real person to talk to: italki.
- Reading classic books with a translation aligned beside them: Paralelo.
Duolingo: best for building a habit
Duolingo is best for building a daily habit from zero. Its short, gamified lessons — streaks, points, leagues — make it easy to show up every day, and the courses themselves are free. It is weaker once you need long, real texts or open conversation, which its sentence-level exercises are not designed to give you.
Lessons mix translation, listening, matching and speaking exercises in an order the app decides. The model is freemium: anyone can take the courses free, with an ad at the end of each lesson, and the paid tiers, Super Duolingo and Duolingo Max, remove ads and add practice modes and AI features (Duolingo). There is peer-reviewed evidence that it works for beginners at what it measures; see the research section below. We compare it with reading in more detail in Paralelo vs Duolingo.
Babbel: best for a conventional course
Babbel is best for learners who want a conventional course on their phone: grammar explained, dialogues built around everyday situations, and a clear sequence from one lesson to the next. It suits people who find gamification childish and want to know why a sentence is built the way it is. It teaches fewer languages than Duolingo.
Babbel teaches 13 languages, from Spanish, French and German to Polish, Swedish and Turkish, and says its courses are written by more than 200 language experts (Babbel). It is a subscription: the first lesson of every course is free and the rest sits behind a paid plan. As with any course, its texts are written to teach, not to be read for pleasure, so it pairs well with something that gives you real material.
Busuu: best for feedback from native speakers
Busuu is best if you want a structured course plus feedback from real people. Its distinctive feature is its community: you submit written or spoken exercises, and other members who are native speakers of your target language correct them. For a self-taught learner, that is an inexpensive way to get a human eye on what you produce.
It covers 14 languages, among them Spanish, French, German, Japanese, Chinese and Arabic, with short lessons and pronunciation practice (Busuu). The model is freemium: basic lessons and the community are free, and Premium plans unlock the rest. Volunteer corrections vary in quality, so treat them as a second opinion rather than a verdict.
Anki: best for remembering vocabulary
Anki is best for remembering words you have already met. It is a flashcard program built on spaced repetition: each card comes back shortly before you are likely to forget it. It teaches nothing by itself — you make or download the cards — but for keeping vocabulary over months it is hard to beat, and mostly free.
The desktop version is free on every major system, AnkiDroid on Android is free, and the official iOS app, AnkiMobile, is paid, with its sales funding development (Anki). The interface is plain and the settings are many, so expect an afternoon of setup. It works best when fed from something else: the words you looked up while reading, or the vocabulary of your course.
LingQ: best for learning from content you choose
LingQ is best for intermediate learners who want to learn from material they pick themselves. You import videos, podcasts, articles or books, and LingQ turns them into lessons in which you click unknown words, see a translation and track what you know. Its breadth of sources and languages is its strength; a busy interface is the cost.
It supports more than 50 languages and imports from YouTube, Netflix, podcasts, songs and articles, including through a browser extension (LingQ). You can start free, and a Premium subscription removes the limits. Because you can import anything, you also have to choose well: a text far above your level becomes a wall of highlighted words.
Readlang: best for reading the web
Readlang is best for reading whatever you already find online. It is a web reader and Chrome extension: click a word or phrase on any page in the language you are learning and a translation appears, saved as a flashcard for later. It is light, inexpensive and does one thing well, on material you have chosen.
The free plan gives unlimited single-word translations plus ten phrase translations and ten AI context explanations a day; Premium, listed at $6 a month on Readlang's own site, lifts those limits and adds audio (Readlang). Its limit is the one every click-to-translate tool shares: you see the meaning of the piece you clicked, not how the whole sentence maps onto your language.
Pimsleur: best for learning by ear
Pimsleur is best for learners who can listen but not look: commuters, runners, people cooking. Each lesson is about 30 minutes of audio in which you hear, repeat and answer, with material brought back on a spaced schedule. It trains pronunciation and quick spoken answers well, and reading and writing hardly at all.
It offers courses in more than 50 languages for English speakers, sold as a subscription to one language or to all of them (Pimsleur). The pace is deliberate and the number of new words per hour is small, so on its own it is slow. Beside a reading habit it fills the gap reading leaves: your ear and your mouth.
italki: best for speaking with a real teacher
italki is best for speaking. It is a marketplace where you book one-to-one video lessons with a teacher you choose, from 30 to 90 minutes, and pay per lesson with no subscription. Nothing else on this list gives you a person who answers back, corrects you on the spot and adapts to what you actually need.
Teachers set their own prices. The site separates professional teachers, who have teaching qualifications, from community tutors, who offer conversation practice, and lists more than 150 languages (italki). It is the most expensive option per hour here, and it works best when you arrive with something to talk about, such as the book you are reading.
Paralelo: best for reading real books
Paralelo is for reading real books in the language you are learning. You read a public-domain classic in its original language with a translation beside it, and the two columns are aligned phrase by phrase: hover or tap a phrase and its counterpart lights up. Reading is free; there are no lessons, drills or audio.
The library is books only: classics from Project Gutenberg. Originals are in English, French, Spanish and German, and translations exist into English, French, Spanish, German and Portuguese depending on the title. The translations are made by a language model, and every page says so. Before one is published it passes automatic checks — every paragraph present, plausible lengths, the right language, names and numbers consistent, enough words aligned, a sample that reads as natural prose — and then a person reads a sample beside the original.
A passage from every book can be read without an account. A free account opens every book in full and saves your place across devices, and switching the translation language keeps it. Select a sentence and you get a short explanation of what it says and means, a grammar point and any cultural note: five a day on a free account. Plus, at €6.99 a month or €59 a year, lifts that daily cap, and that is all it does.
What it does not do matters as much. There are no flashcards, streaks or exercises, no audio, no articles or news, and you cannot import your own text. The library is small, and it is made in France by one founder. How parallel texts work, on paper and on screen, is covered in our guide to bilingual books.
How to choose a language learning app
Choose by the skill you are short of, not by an app's reputation. Name your goal, be honest about your level, count the minutes you really have, and pick one main tool plus at most one supplement. Two apps used every day beat five opened once a week, and a free tier is usually enough to find out.
- Name the goal. Talking on a trip in three months is a speaking goal (Pimsleur, italki). Reading novels or passing a reading exam is a reading goal (LingQ, Readlang, Paralelo). "Getting started" is a habit goal (Duolingo, Babbel, Busuu).
- Place yourself. At zero, real text is mostly noise, and a course gets you your first few hundred words faster. Once you can follow simple sentences with help, real text starts to pay, and a translation beside it keeps it from becoming a chore.
- Count your minutes. Ten minutes on a bus suits Duolingo or Anki. Thirty minutes suits a Pimsleur lesson or a chapter of a book. An hour a week can buy a lesson on italki.
- Pair structure with volume. Courses give structure; reading and listening give volume. One of each covers most of what a self-taught learner needs.
- Try the free version first. Every app here has a free tier or a free first lesson, except italki, which charges per lesson. Use it for two weeks before paying for anything.
Combinations that make sense: a beginner on Duolingo or Babbel, with Anki for the words; an intermediate learner reading with LingQ, Readlang or Paralelo, plus a weekly italki lesson; a commuter on Pimsleur who reads at the weekend. For a plan built around one language, see our pages on learning Spanish, French and German.
What the research says about apps and reading
The research supports two things: a course like Duolingo produces measurable beginner-level reading, and reading a lot improves a language further. It also sets a condition: unassisted reading works when you know almost every word. That is why a translation or a glossing tool matters for learners who want real books before they reach that point.
Jiang, Rollinson, Plonsky, Gustafson and Pajak (2021), in Foreign Language Annals, tested 225 adults in the United States who had finished Duolingo's beginning Spanish or French course with little prior knowledge and no other learning tool. They reached Intermediate Low in reading and Novice High in listening on the ACTFL scale, comparable to university students at the end of their fourth semester. Speaking and writing were not tested.
Nakanishi (2015), in TESOL Quarterly, pooled 34 studies of extensive reading — reading a large amount of material you mostly understand — with 3,942 participants. Learners who read extensively outperformed comparison groups with a medium effect (d = 0.46), and improved from pre-test to post-test with a larger one (d = 0.71).
Hu and Nation (2000) found that readers of a fiction text needed to know about 98% of its words for adequate unassisted comprehension, and Nation (2006) estimated that 98% coverage of written English takes a vocabulary of 8,000 to 9,000 word families. Few learners have that. Unassisted reading of real books therefore comes late; assisted reading is how most learners start sooner.
None of these studies tested Paralelo, LingQ or Readlang. They are evidence about methods, not endorsements of any app, ours included.
Start with these three books
To try reading-based learning today, start with one of these three classics, one each in German, French and Spanish, with English beside the original. Each opens with a passage you can read without an account, and each is short enough to finish. The whole collection is in the library.
German: The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka, about 88 minutes. The story is strange, but the sentences are orderly and the vocabulary of a family flat stays close to everyday life.
The Metamorphosis
Franz Kafka · 88 min · German with the translation beside it
French: Ball of Fat (Boule de Suif) by Guy de Maupassant, about 164 minutes. A coach journey in wartime, told in clear, concrete prose with plenty of dialogue.
Ball of Fat
Guy de Maupassant · 164 min · French with the translation beside it
Spanish: Tales of Love, Madness and Death by Horacio Quiroga, about 224 minutes in all. They are short stories, so you can finish one in a sitting and stop there.
Tales of Love, Madness and Death
Horacio Quiroga · 224 min · Spanish with the translation beside it
| App | Best for | How it charges |
|---|---|---|
| Duolingo | A daily habit from zero | Free with ads; paid tiers remove ads and add features |
| Babbel | A conventional course with grammar | Subscription; first lesson of each course free |
| Busuu | A course plus native-speaker corrections | Freemium; Premium plans |
| Anki | Remembering vocabulary | Free on desktop and Android; paid iOS app |
| LingQ | Learning from content you import | Free to start; Premium subscription |
| Readlang | Reading web pages with click-to-translate | Free tier; Premium $6/month (own site) |
| Pimsleur | Speaking and listening by ear | Subscription |
| italki | Speaking with a teacher | Pay per lesson; teachers set prices |
| Paralelo | Reading classic books with an aligned translation | Reading free; Plus €6.99/month or €59/year lifts the explanation cap |
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the best free language learning app?
It depends on the skill. Duolingo's courses are free with ads, Anki is free on desktop and Android, Busuu and LingQ have free tiers, and Readlang's free plan includes unlimited single-word translations. On Paralelo, every book is free to read with an account; only explanations beyond five a day need Plus.
What is a good alternative to Duolingo?
For another course, Babbel and Busuu are the closest. To move beyond exercises, add a reading tool (LingQ, Readlang or Paralelo) or conversation lessons on italki, which give you what Duolingo does not. Many learners keep Duolingo for the habit and add one of these.
Can an app make you fluent?
Not on its own. No single app trains speaking, listening, reading and writing equally, and the Duolingo study cited above measured beginner reading and listening, not fluency. Fluency takes volume in all four skills, which usually means a course, a lot of reading or listening, and real conversation.
Is Paralelo suitable for complete beginners?
Not as a first tool. It has no lessons or exercises, and at zero a real book is mostly unknown words, even with a translation beside it. It becomes useful once you can follow simple sentences with help; a very short text, such as a three-minute poem, is a good first test.
Are Paralelo's translations done by people?
No. They are machine translations made by a language model, and every page says so. Each passes automatic checks before it is published, and a person then reads a sample beside the original.
