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Add to SafariWhen comparing HelloTalk vs Clozemaster, the Slant community recommends Clozemaster for most people. In the question“What are the best sites for learning foreign languages?” Clozemaster is ranked 3rd while HelloTalk is ranked 8th. The most important reason people chose Clozemaster is:
Clozemaster helps you learn vocabulary in a natural way by giving you regular sentences and asking you to fill in the missing word, either by typing or using multiple choice. For example, "Apenas hay ______ en esa ciudad". The additional context using natural speech helps get you comfortable with the language.
Specs
Question Ranking
Pros
Pro Very large, active community
The community is very large, meaning you'll never have a problem finding someone to chat with.
Pro Text, Voice, and Video
Chat with language partners via text, voice recordings, voice calls, video calls, and even doodles.
Pro Free
The app is free to use. There are some in-app purchases, but the app is very helpful without them.
Pro Grammar correction
It allows users and native speakers to correct each other's grammar mistakes.
Pro Allows you to share "memories" with the whole community
"Memories" act similar to a Twitter feed. You can post pictures, ask questions, or let the community know what kind of chat partner you are looking for (for example: maybe you want to discuss a specific topic with someone).
You can "love", and comment on memories.
Pro The interface is very intuitive/easy to use
Despite being feature-rich, the app is very easy to use. It provides a tutorial which you can revisit at any time if you can't remember what certain icons are.
It has a very clean, uncluttered design.
Pro Helps you to remember vocabulary by giving you context
Clozemaster helps you learn vocabulary in a natural way by giving you regular sentences and asking you to fill in the missing word, either by typing or using multiple choice.
For example, "Apenas hay __ en esa ciudad". The additional context using natural speech helps get you comfortable with the language.
Pro Gets you used to hearing your target language
After completed a sentence, it is read out loud by a native speaker of your target language (some sentences will allow you to hear it spoken by multiple speakers). They read it out clearly, but at a conversational pace.
It gets you comfortable with hearing the words spoken in a normal, conversational way.
Pro Makes you write the vocabulary
This active approach helps save the words for active use.
Pro Free to play
There's a paid version with extra features, but it's free to sign up and play. The free version is quite generous and will give you plenty of material to learn from.
If you want to upgrade, the cost is $8/month. You can see the additional features here.
Pro Large variety of languages to choose from
Currently offers over 50 languages from around the world.
Pro Lots of repetition helps you remember new words
Words are used in a variety of different sentences to help you remember them.
Pro Lots of options for users who don't speak English
A lot of language learning sites expect your starting language to be English.
Clozemaster teaches target languages in a variety of different starting languages. For example: if you want to learn Spanish, the language used for explanations could be English, French, German, Italian, Russian, and a few others.
Pro Effective support
The developer is very receptive to user feedback and ideas. Bugs are fixed quickly and new features are regularly added.
Cons
Con chinese company with lacking privacy rules
Con The number of messages can get overwhelming
Because it is such an active community, you may find yourself getting 20+ messages an hour when you are online. It can quickly get overwhelming. However, there is a setting that allows you to hide your profile from search.
Con Keyboard can't be used in landscape
The app doesn't let you rotate to landscape, instead you're stuck with portrait. Using the condensed keyboard when writing long messages can be a pain for some.
Con Free version has restricted search
On the free version, it won't let you change the language of the people you can search, though you can still access the profiles of other language speakers. For example, if they comment on a memory you made a comment on, you can access their profile through that. Even if you can still send them friend requests and chat with them, being able to just search for them would've been so much easier.
Con Not a good starting place for beginners
Clozemaster jumps right in with expecting you to fill in word blanks in the language you are learning.
If you have little or no understanding of the language you wish to learn, it doesn't give you enough information to get started.
Con Translations are sometimes inaccurate
This can be a problem when in a given sentence there are multiple words that could go in the text field, and the translation narrows it down to one possible answer, but then it turns out the translation gave the wrong word for that slot. This is particularly an issue with pronouns for some reason.
Con Some sentences are inaccurate
Sentences are from the user-curated database Tatoeba and not all of them are written and checked by native speakers. It is impossible to know the original source of a sentence. Additionally, because they do not control the database they pull the words, reporting individual sentences will not help that much.
Con They do not know the languages they teach
You cannot teach something you do not know. The sentences are taken from [Tateoba], and most of the time, the developers have no clue about what the written sentences say.
Con The alphabets are not taught
There is no problem if you're learning a language that uses the same alphabet as your native language, but if you speak English and you want to learn Russian, Arabic, Yiddish, etc., this app is not a good start for you.
Con This app will ask you fill in the translations of given names in the blanks
The app randomly selects a word from the sentence and ask you translate it, and this word is frequently a given name, like Tom or Stuart. or the names of cities.
