Ouino Review

Thursday, January 23rd

2025 Language Learning Program Reviews

Ouino

• 3 months for $38.97, 6 months for $59.94, 12 months for $83.88; 50% discount on additional languages
• Uses full sentences from the beginning
• Detailed grammar instruction in the "Building Blocks" section
• Extensive verb conjugation practice
• Vocabulary building by topic
• Pronunciation practice comparing to native speakers
• Audio-only mode for flexible learning
• Progress tracker including external activities
• Various practice methods like stories and flashcards
• Responsive customer support

There are a lot of language learning platforms vying for your time, attention, and money. Narrowing them down to your best fit requires not just knowing your learning style, but also being aware of the crucial components required in any program to effectively teach a language. Once you know these, you can begin to weed out the platforms that don't suit your style or are lacking important things like grammar lessons, usability, or practical content. Ouino lands almost at the top of our list because their courses don't cut any corners. Ouino is available in the iOS app store, the Google Play store for Android, and as desktop software.

Lessons incorporate full sentences

Some language learning programs only give you one new word at a time, with full sentences only appearing towards the end of a lesson. Personally, we find that that isn't challenging enough and can get boring quickly. Ouino, on the other hand, uses full sentences from the very beginning, with the new word you're meant to be focusing on highlighted in a different color than the rest of the sentence. This increases your exposure to new vocabulary so that when a word becomes the focus of the lesson later on, it'll already be familiar or known to you. Grammar will also become more intuitive to you this way. And, if you really want to get into the nitty-gritty details, you can click on the icon with the "A” to see a detailed breakdown of new sentences and the function of each word in them.

Thorough instruction on grammar

In Ouino, you can find grammar lessons in the "Building Blocks” section, where you'll get clear instructions on how cases, tenses, declensions, negations, and more work. You don't have to take any lessons in a specific order. So, if you come across an interesting sentence structure during a lesson and want to know more about it - like why it's "estés” instead of "estas” in "Espero que estés bien” - you can click the "A” icon to learn that "estés” is in the subjunctive, then head to the grammar lessons in Building Blocks for the subjunctive case.

Conjugation practice

Beyond the Building Blocks section for learning grammar, Ouino offers several other useful sections. In the "Verbs & Conjugation” section, you learn how to conjugate hundreds of verbs in different tenses. Have you ever been taught a new verb in another language program but only in one form, leaving you unsure how to use it in other contexts? In Ouino's "Express Verbs" section, you'll be shown a table that shows the different verb endings based on tense and person. The exercises in these lessons let you practice conjugation until you're an expert.

Learn vocabulary by topic, practice pronunciation, and listen to conversations

The "Vocabulary” section helps you build your word bank. In the "Conversations” section, you learn expressions and test your understanding of native speaker conversations. The pronunciation section lets you compare your speech with native speakers, which is more accurate than using speech recognition software. You can jump around and take any lessons you like, or follow the Recommended Learning Path if you want more guidance on what to do next.

Grading system with self-assessment

Ouino uses a system where you assess your understanding of lessons with stars. After completing a lesson, you should rate it with one star and only level up if you do well on the quiz. (Each lesson has a quiz that will let you increase your mastery percentage. Each unit has a separate quiz with random questions from all the lessons in the unit. This one doesn't always increase your mastery score - we're not sure why.) In a tutorial video, Ouino explains that you should rate a lesson four stars only if you get a near-perfect score on your first try of the quiz. It seems like they're trying to have you DIY the principle of spaced repetition this way, but other programs set it up for you automatically. We recommend watching the video tutorials on Ouino's website to get the most out of their program the way they designed it. There's also a very long, very detailed written guide that shows how much thought they've put into their approach to teaching languages.

Review exercises of varying difficulty

The quizzes include listening exercises, conjugation matching, and writing exercises - you choose the way you want to review. The writing exercises give you the most credit, but they can be a bit slow, which is frustrating if you already know some of the language and just want to quickly mark basic lessons as completed and move on. You need to type your answer, listen to the voice read the sentence, and then wait a second or two before moving on to the next question.

Audio Only mode

This feature is great for practicing your target language while driving or doing chores around the house. It's highly customizable with different presets ranging from beginner to advanced. You can choose how fast and how many times you hear the audio in either language. You can also decide the order: you might hear the English phrase first, followed by a pause to think of the correct translation, or the other way around. This mode makes it easy to fit language learning into a busy schedule.

Progress tracker lets you count external sources

Ouino has a progress tracker to help you stay motivated. You can manually log your external learning activities, like watching movies or listening to music in your target language, and get credit for it. The tracker shows how many days you've been learning, your streak, how many days you've been active, and the percentage of lessons and activities you've completed. This way, you can see your progress and stay on track with your language learning goals.

Extra practice

Ouino provides various ways to practice, including reading stories at three difficulty levels and using flashcards for questions you missed in quizzes. You can also practice writing by typing what you hear, although you can't write your own sentences from scratch. The platform offers listening and pronunciation practice and a quiz that combines random questions from all the different units you've studied.

Clunky in a few areas

There are a couple of minor drawbacks with Ouino. Lessons can be slow due to pauses between examples. Also, you need to turn the lesson filter off and on again every time you go back to the home page for it to work properly.

3 months for $38.97

Ouino offers language learning subscriptions with different plans: 3 months for $12.99 per month ($38.97 total), 6 months for $9.99 per month ($59.94 total), and 12 months for $6.99 per month ($83.88 total). You get a 50% discount on additional languages after your first purchase. If you're unsure about buying, you can try a demo. (Don't worry about the slow load times in the demo - those issues don't carry over to the paid software.)

Excellent program

Ouino is incredibly responsive to support requests and new feature suggestions. They're a small family company. When we emailed them on the weekend, asking for help adding another language course onto our account, we received a response from one of its creators within an hour. This is consistent with other customer experiences on Trustpilot, where they have a near-perfect 4.9 from over 400 reviews. Because of how thorough it is, we give Ouino an excellent rating. However, keep in mind they only offer French, Spanish, German, Italian, and Portuguese lessons.