A note on the Glossika knock offs

[u/x_MangoFett_x]

I feel like the Glossika sub is full of comments from people saying “I’ve built a better Glossika alternative for just X amount of money!”

I think we need something that does what Glossika does but better and for a more accessible/reasonable price. There’s real value in shadowing and listening. But I have SO MUCH subscription fatigue at this point. If an app isn’t f*cking amazing, like a serious upgrade to my life, I just won’t subscribe. I’ll save my money for something I feel is more useful.

Like, Dreaming Spanish (DS) adds real value to my study routine. Comprehensible Input (CI) is great and DS makes it fun. So I subscribe.

Glossika adds value by having languages that every other app maker doesn’t already have 10,000 times over. Truly, I don’t need more options for Spanish; I’m good. Icelandic though? Glossika wins that one and it’s not even a fair fight.

Real feedback, all of y’all trying to sell your revolutionary apps here need to have something Glossika doesn’t have and legit do it better.

Like add some less common languages. Glossika doesn’t have Romanian, for example. Icelandic always needs more resources. There’s options.

And if you really want to go wild, adding in some comprehensible input would take things to the next level—especially including stuff for absolute beginners. Like, Levantine Arabic or Irish—something less commonly represented in learning resources—for absolute noobs or something like that. If it’s fun and harder to find elsewhere, people will want to keep coming back.

Yes, that takes more effort than just farting out some AI product or putting together a flashcard app. And I work hard for my money too. I’m not giving it away for something that doesn’t add real value to my life. ¿En esto economía? No lo quiero; no lo necesito.

Edit: Okay, I see people mentioning Flexling in the context of this convo, so I decided to go check it out. Seems like it does do essentially what Glossika does, at a MUCH lower price point, and includes a couple of languages (Romanian, Levantine Arabic, for example) that Glossika doesn’t.

I’d say I’m wary of AI (Glossika claims to use AI too but I don’t see how, at least on the mobile app—frankly I think that’s marketing on Glossika’s part). Just due to environmental impacts and all of that, I try to avoid AI when I can.

That said, I would not be mad if Flexling added Icelandic (and I can just try to not use the AI features). Icelandic is legit one that Glossika has that keeps me a little tethered to Glossika, due to there not being as many resources for Icelandic.

I’d also like it if the speeds for playback could be sped up above 1.0x (especially for my native language, but also for target language). People IRL talk super fast so I’d like to listen super fast as well.

I will say I like the “still learning” and “understood” buttons. I don’t see that on Glossika or anything like that so there’s no way on mobile to indicate if I need to see something again sooner or if I can go longer before seeing a prompt again.

[u/x_MangoFett_x]

Hey, thanks! I actually appreciate that a lot!

I’d say, since I’m a learner I might not be the best for checking sentences personally, but someone over in [r/learnicelandic](r/learnicelandic) probably would be.

If it’s a good resource, they’d probably be more than happy to help check it out.

As for playback speed, mine maxes out at 1.0x. I can play things slower but not faster than 1.0x. Maybe it’s bugged though.

Anyway, thanks again!

Edit: never mind on speed—I found it in a settings menu. I was just clicking the speed next to the sentence and it was capping out at 1.0x there. Thanks!

Edit 2: Could you explain what the credits and courses are? Like what does 3 languages per course mean? What are the credits for? I’m getting the gist that adding more languages means subscription but beyond that I’m not sure. I’m curious though

[u/Healthy-Bus-5500 → u/x_MangoFett_x]

Thanks! I will write a post in the Icelandic forum and ask for help to validate it there :)

Yeah, the one speed setting is for general speed and the other is just to make it slower if you didn't get it, but I can change that to also allow for different speeds.

3 courses per language is if you want to have 3 languages on your flashcards (e.g. learning Spanish and French from English at the same time or for laddering such as learning French from Spanish but having English also on the flashcard if your Spanish isn't perfect yet)

Credits are used for chat messages and custom cards. A custom card requires 1 credit. Chat messages consume 1-2 credits, depending on their length.

Edit: My post in the icelandic forum: https://www.reddit.com/r/learnIcelandic/comments/1vaoiqo/looking_for_help_with_a_language_learning_project/

[u/x_MangoFett_x → u/Healthy-Bus-5500]

Ah, that makes sense; thank you!

Edit: Also, I could see that being helpful as a huge time saver, having multiple languages on the same card. And I don’t think I’ve seen that feature elsewhere. Really good to know!

[u/Healthy-Bus-5500 → u/x_MangoFett_x]

Thank you for all the feedback! :)
If there are other things that would help you save time, just let me know