Busuu vs Clozemaster
When comparing Busuu 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 Busuu is ranked 9th. 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
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Teaches realistic conversation behavior
Since Busuu puts learners in direct contact with natives, the learning is done in a realistic way - not an idealistic textbook way.
Pro Fast response time
For popular languages, translations can be received very quickly from real people.
Pro Teaches by theme
Instead of teaching words by most used, they are taught by case. This way, users can prepare for specific situations.
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 Ineffective "review" section
When a section is over, there is a multiple review session. Many of the questions are totally irrelevant and are not useful for learners.
Con Chat system doesn't support letters with accents
Busuu only accepts regular characters in the text fields, so non-native languages may be limited.
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.
