Mondly Review

Sunday, December 5th

2021 Chinese Lesson Reviews

Mondly

• App-based Chinese lessons
• Uses games, contests and leaderboards to keep you motivated
• Can practice conversations with Chatbot and Augmented Reality
• Has voice recognition for practicing your Chinese accent

Pimsleur is a household name among language learners. Originally made famous for its basic 30-minute audio lessons, Pimsleur has expanded its offerings to include software DVDs that include flashcards, games, and other more visual methods of instruction to accompany their audio lessons.

Vocabulary revolves around themes

You can create a free account with Mondly and try out the "Hello" introductory lesson for Chinese (or any of the other 40+ languages in their library). You'll set your learning level as beginner, intermediate or advanced, but keep in mind that even at the advanced level, the content is still pretty basic. You can use Mondly as an absolute newbie or as a more experienced student who needs to get some review in. There are usually six lessons in each vocabulary theme, like Family, Pets, and City Tour. Depending on the subject, you'll get anywhere from 60-200+ new words and 30-80 phrases per topic.

Gentle, entertaining way to start learning new words and phrases

How does Mondly work? Let's say you're just starting out with the "Hello" lesson for Mandarin Chinese. Your first exercises will be matching the words "father" , "mother" , "brother" and "sister" with pictures, and then with the Pinyin (the approximation of how it would be pronounced with the English spelling). You can also use the toggle button at the top of the page if you'd like to see how it's written in Chinese characters - though we suggest primarily using the Pinyin setting at first. We love how smoothly Mondly moves from simple words to phrases to sentences: we never felt like there was a "gotcha" where it was trying to trick us into choosing the wrong answer, and we were pretty excited to be able to imitate some basic sentences at the end of the "Hello" material.

Not a lot of grammar

If you like digging into the mechanics of how Chinese works, you'll be a little disappointed by Mondly. The focus here is definitely conversation, through memorization of important words and phrases. You can "look under the hood" , so to speak, by clicking on the little blue box next to the "Redo" button when you finish a lesson; for example, on the "Hello" lesson you'll find the conjugations of "to be" in the present tense. But, that's a far cry from actually teaching you how that grammar works - and how you might use it to make up your own sentences in the future.

Subscription needed for most content, features

You'll need a paid membership to get the most out of Mondly, since your free account only includes the first lesson in each language. A subscription also gives you access to the Chatbot and Augmented Reality features unique to this service. You can try one Chatbot conversation for free: it lets you "talk" back and forth with a bot like you would an actual person, and it's a solid way to work on your skills. But don't worry: you'll get suggestions for how to respond and you can play the audio for how to pronounce it before you give it a go. There's no trial for the AR feature, but it essentially allows you to superimpose a digital person on your environment and interact with him or her - in Chinese! Cool or creepy, we're not sure, and yet you won't find anything like it with other Chinese lessons!

Costs

• $9.99/month for 1 language
• $47.99/year for 1 language
• $89.99 one-time payment for lifetime access to all 41 languages

Prices vary but they're affordable

Want to know how much you'll pay to use all of Mondly's features? Us too! We're only halfway kidding: we've visited Mondly a lot, and every time it seems like the cost is a little different. More often than not, you'll see "regular" pricing at $9.99 for month-to-month access to Chinese, or $47.99 for a full year. Mondly also has a promotional offer we've seen more than once, giving you a year of access to all of their languages (which could be 33 or 41, depending on which part of the site you look at!) for that same cost of $47.99. Finally, once in a while we've been offered a super-deal of lifetime access to all Mondly languages for the bargain price of $89.99.

No satisfaction guarantee

Mondly is one of the few providers of Chinese lessons that has no refund policy. For that reason, we recommend that you start with a month-to-month plan. You can always upgrade if you really love the platform - or if you get offered one of those mega-discounts later on.

Fun, inexpensive way to learn some basics in Chinese

It's true that Mondly isn't the most robust way to learn Chinese. There are other services out there that go much more in-depth to teach grammar, tones, and cultural context. And, we wish that this platform came with some kind of refund policy, especially since it's hard to see how far their content advances later on and whether it's appropriate for more advanced students. However, if you're just looking for a fun way to start speaking basic Chinese and you're on a budget, Mondly's a decent option.