Mondly Review

Sunday, March 26th

2023 Hebrew Lesson Reviews

Mondly

• Gamified platform to keep learning Hebrew fun
• Lots of content available for free, no credit card or email address required
• Practice real conversations with Chatbot and Augmented Reality
• Speech recognition capabilities for more authentic accents
• Kids' version available

Mondly is based in Romania and is on a mission to help people connect through fun, easy language learning. Featured by Forbes, CNN and Bloomberg, this platform has received multiple awards for being a best-loved app. As one of the 40+ languages offered on Mondly, the Hebrew lessons here are fun - and almost addictive!

Learn Hebrew - from many other source languages

Something unique to Mondly: English isn't the only language you can start from when learning a new one. For example, if your first language is Italian and you want to study Turkish, you don't have to use English at all. Lots of platforms assume you're beginning Hebrew as a native speaker of English, so this is a refreshing change.

Lots of free content, no account required

You can get plenty of instruction in Hebrew without even creating an account. Just choose your starting language and then Hebrew as the language you want to learn, then your approximate fluency level. You'll see right away that Mondly is heavily gamified: there are challenges, leaderboards, badges and rewards to collect, all to help you stay motivated and constantly gaining more exposure to the language.

Not much direct grammar instruction

Grammar is a little light on Mondly, but it's getting better. In one of the beginning exercises, we got a pop-up letting us know we could get a conjugation list for the verb "to be" in the present tense. There aren't any lengthy explanations: Mondly wants you to learn whole sentences and phrases, with grammatical details almost as an afterthought. That's not everyone's cup of tea, maybe especially for anyone who has already learned a second language (or third, fourth, etc.) and craves the structure and mapping they've come to expect from lessons.

Read lessons in Hebrew alphabet or with English transliteration

We loved being able to toggle back and forth between Hebrew characters and the more familiar Latin alphabet, particularly during our very first lessons on the platform. There are daily, weekly and monthly bonus lessons in addition to the lesson topics, and those were a big jump at first! It got a lot easier when we could view the English pronunciation approximation instead of trying to read Hebrew characters we didn't even know yet.

Free accounts offer limited features and content

So, with all of that for free, is there a reason to pay for the Premium subscription? Absolutely. Their no-cost platform only gives you access to the first six lessons, one vocabulary section, one Chatbot conversation (more on that later), and the daily/weekly/monthly bonus lessons. It's enough to give you a no-time-limit preview of the app, but not much else.

Premium = Chatbot and Augmented Reality features

You want the Premium package because of two features that set Mondly apart from other Hebrew lessons: the chatbot/conversations and the augmented reality component. Chatbot and conversations lets you rehearse the back-and-forth you might have with a friend, store employee, or a stranger on the street. This helps you cement the phrases you'd actually need in real life, not just a series of memorized vocabulary words. Then, if you have an AR-capable device and download the separate Mondly AR app, you can get prompts from a "digital human" superimposed over your own environment - and the speech recognition will determine how close to native your response sounds! It's a little tough to explain, so we encourage you to take a peek on the Mondly site and see for yourself.

Costs

• $7.99/month for one month of access to one language
• $38.39/year for one language
• $99.99 for lifetime access to all 41 languages

Affordable - but variable - pricing

Pinning down pricing at Mondly is tricky. On our first visit to the site, there was a promotion offering lifetime access to all 41 languages on the platform for $89.99 (regular price: $99.99). But, when we went back the next day, that was no longer an option. Instead, the featured offer was $47.99 for a year of access to everything on Mondly. It seems that their everyday pricing is $7.99/month or $38.39/year if you just want Hebrew lessons - but it's very likely that there'll be something on "limited time offer" when you go to sign up.

No refund policy

Downsides? Other than not having much in the way of overt grammar instruction, the only thing we could point to is Mondly's lack of a refund policy or satisfaction guarantee. But, honestly, you can see enough of what they offer to have a pretty good idea of whether or not you'll enjoy learning Hebrew here - without even entering your name or email address. That's even better than a refund policy, in our opinion!

Separate app for kids

By the way, there's also a version of Mondly for kids (preschool through early elementary). It's 100% app-based and available for both iOS and Android. Just be aware that it's a separate subscription, and it's similar to the original Mondly in that it offers a bunch of free content but you'll have to pay for the more advanced features.

Most entertaining Hebrew lessons

Mondly infuses a ton of fun into its Hebrew lessons. We found ourselves wanting to go back and squeeze in just one more on a regular basis, and it would be really hard to get bored with this ever-expanding service. Because Mondly is one of the most entertaining and affordable options for Hebrew lessons, we think most people will have a positive learning experience with this service.