OptiLingo – Stop Typing, Start Talking (Plus a 7 Day Freebie)

Q: How many languages on OptiLingo?

Currently, there are 20 languages on Optilingo which include French, Chinese, German, Korean and even Circassian.

Q: Can I download OptiLingo?

You can yes. OptiLingo can be used in your browser or through your iPhone or Android. Download for Apple here Download for Android here Visit their website here

Q: What are the costs?

Normally yes, but you can sign up through our review FREE FOR LIFE as it stands! Find out how by visiting the blog. Otherwise normal costs range between 5.99USD and 7.99USD per month .

By Max Hobbs
App Reviews
August 21, 2022

Our Honest and In-Depth OptiLingo App Review – is it the Chinese learning app for you?

OptiLingo Review: 7/10
A platform with a lot more potential than it is using. Nevertheless, a really great start for OptiLingo and we only hope to keep seeing more from them! A platform to practice your listening and speaking skills – these are very important but often overlooked on language apps! Choose from 20 languages and start your first of 100 lessons today!

Stop typing, start talking is one of the catchphrases OptiLingo use to promote their app – and it tells you all you need to know about what they are about.

I discovered OptiLingo through an email exchange in early 2020 and I personally started to use it soon after.

OptiLingo is all about focusing on your listening and speaking skills for language learning. Two skills that are often left out for language learning apps!

But does it actually work well?

Let’s take a look and see if OptiLingo is worth your time.

OptiLingo Review // Key Info & Overview
OptiLingo Review // Pros & Cons
OptiLingo Review // Price (Subscription) & Comparisons
OptiLingo Review // Introduction; What’s It About?
OptiLingo Review // The Lessons; How it Works?
OptiLingo Review // Personalise Your Lessons
OptiLingo Review // Languages Offered (20)
OptiLingo Review // Conclusion
OptiLingo Review // What’s The Freebie?
OptiLingo Review // Where to Download
OptiLingo Review // FAQs

PLAY

Want to see Optilingo in action? Check out our video review

OptiLingo Review // Key Info & Overview

Name	OptiLingo
Description	“Language is what connects the world. OptiLingo makes that connection possible. Go places. Meet people. Speak to them in their language.” (OptiLingo)
Website	https://optilingo.com/
No. of Languages Offered	20
Price	$4.99 – $99.99

OptiLingo Key Stats

OptiLingo Review // Pros & Cons

OptiLingo PROS	OptiLingo CONS
1. High-quality audio and lessons.	1. Lack of contextual pointers and sentence structure explanations that are necessary for some situations / with some languages.
2. Easy-to-use app and interface with no ‘locked’ lessons you need to complete to open.	2. Limited content; seems to be a lot of the same content translated into different languages. If you were doing multiple languages, this could get very monotonous.
3. Linear progress helps you to really see and feel results as you go through the 100 lessons.	3. Pretty rigid structure of 100 lessons per language leaves little room for innovation or addition to lessons.

OptiLingo Pros & Cons

OptiLingo Review // Price (Subscription)

Below are the current costs for the OptiLingo App.

OptiLingo Subscription	Price (USD$)
Monthly	$11.99
Single Language	$4.99
3 Months	$23.99
All Languages	$9.99
Annual	$71.99
6 Months	$41.99
All Language Annually	$99.99
Single Language Annually	$49.99

OptiLingo Subscription Fees

OptiLingo Review // Introduction; What’s It About?

Listening, speaking!

OptiLingo’s Homepage

We’ve said on multiple occasions before, when learning a language (even more relevant for Chinese) that the following aspects are all equally relevant, yet very different:

Reading
Listening
Speaking
Writing

Some apps like to specialise in just one area (take Du Chinese for reading, Skritter for writing etc) whereas others like to cover it all (HelloChinese and Duolingo come to mind here).

Of course each to their own, but I very much like an app that focuses on one or two things well rather than tries to cover all bases vaguely.

OptiLingo is all about honing your listening and speaking skills.

At the time of writing, there are 20 languages available for you to choose from. They’re all listed in the section below. These range from popular languages like French, to one I’d never even heard of before; Circassian.

IN CASE YOU’RE INTERESTED – “The Circassians, also known by their endonym Adyghe, are a Northwest Caucasian ethnic group native to Circassia, many of whom were exiled in the course of the Russian conquest of the Caucasus in the 19th century, especially after the Russo-Circassian War in 1864”
Taken from Wikipedia

OptiLingo – 10 of the 20 languages available

Above you can see 10 of the 20 languages available.

Each language has 100 lessons available and you can dip between the languages as you wish.

Upon clicking on a language, you are taken to the full list of 100 lessons.

These are marked off as you complete them.

OptiLingo Lesson Screen

OptiLingo Review // The Lessons

The 100 lessons are of varying lengths and each language has a different total number of hours in total. For example:

The Italian & Chinese Courses total 29 hours
The Korean Course totals 30 hours
The Japanese Course totals 31 hours

With that being said though, I’ve had a look at Chinese, Japanese and Italian so far and the content of the lessons are all the same.

So if you completed every course, back to back, I believe you’d know the same phrases in each language, rather than be led down different paths.

OptiLingo Lessons

Lessons themselves are very simple:

You are given a number of phrases
The phrase is read to you by a native speaker
You repeat

And so forth.

The concept is very simple.

You listen to how the native speaks and you replicate it.

The idea is you get your mouth moving at an early stage – something we fully endorse likewise!

OptiLingo encourage you to speak aloud too. By just listening and repeating in your head, you’re missing the point. This is about building confidence with a new language.

You go through each set of phrases twice in total so there’s lots of talking to be done.

After completing a lesson, you are then taken back to review some of the words you’ve already learnt, just to make sure you remembered them.

I found that after completing lessons 4 and 5, you are taken back to review the whole of lessons 1, 2, 3 and 4 which is a bit time-consuming. So you’ll likely be skipping this.

I can’t imagine after completing lesson 80 you’ll want to go back and listen to lessons 1-79 (about 24 hours worth)! Perhaps this isn’t the case though, one to see as we use the app more.

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OptiLingo Review // Personalise Your Lessons

OptiLingo is one of the most simple apps we’ve reviewed yet. However, there are some ways you can customise your experience.

Phrase Settings

You’ll see four different parts;

The English
The Literal Translation
Native Character
Pronunciation

You can choose which you wish to show. (You’ll notice in the image above I include all of them).

If you wish to perhaps challenge yourself you can turn off the English, otherwise, it’s probably best to keep all of these ticked.

OptiLingo – Personalise your lessons

Lesson Speed

Another small way you can personalise your classes is by changing the speed of the voice.

You have three choices.

The default 1x, 1.25x and 0.75x. It’s worth playing with these when you first use the app to get a feel for the speed you are most comfortable with.

If you are a complete beginner to a language it might be best to go slower to get used to the pronunciation, especially if you go from something like English to Chinese/Japanese/Korean where sounds are not even remotely the same.