Busuu: Language Learning App

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1. ★★★★★subscription and paid restrictions

   It’s not worth it. I paid for the subscription but the lessons are way too basic and it’s really hard to learn anything. I don’t recommend this app to learn any language.

2. ★★★★★negative experience without a specific reason· unspecific

   In your face advertising. Obvs I can upgrade to no ads but it feels like it’s over the top intentional to get you to buy. And I haven’t used it long enough to know if I will commit that long. So I’ll start looking for a different app.

3. ★★★★★subscription and paid restrictions

   No Transparency, No Support, No Respect for Customers. A disappointing customer experience. I paid for a subscription using a valid payment method from a supported country. During the internet disruptions in Iran, I contacted support to explain my situation and request assistance. Instead of helping, the company deleted my account and later ignored my follow-up messages. This is not about company policy. It is about poor communication, lack of transparency, and a complete failure to engage with a paying customer. I expected better.

4. ★★★★★subscription and paid restrictions

   AUTO ENROLLS FOR 1 YEAR. Beware, even if you delete this app, they will automatically enroll you in a 1 year plan and charge you for THE ENTIRE YEAR without notice.

5. ★★★★★subscription and paid restrictions

   It's ok.... Although my Italian husband is making some progress with the app, I don't understand why there needs to be speakers that pronounce American English with strong accents. He already has difficulty with understanding pronunciation and it absolutely doesn't help to hear words such as 'this' pronounced as 'dees'. I selected American in the set up and less than half of the speakers have American accents. For the price, this should be remedied. Update: we are now on chapter 23. The accents are sometimes so strong that I, as a native American, have trouble understanding. Chapter 23 is horrible with the constant use of words such fancy, as in I fancy this or that. There have been a number of grammatical errors and the use of "at the weekend" is definitely not used in America. I lowered my rating from 3 to 2 stars. Update n. 2: Down to one star. It just keeps getting worse. We took a break for 3 weeks and when we reopened the app all his progress up until around chapter 35 had been erased. Not only that but we have to start from chapter 1 or PAY FOR PREMIUM!!!! to jump ahead to where we were. TOTAL SCAM...

6. ★★★★★negative experience without a specific reason· unspecific

   Aw man!. I am trying to learn Afrikaans and was kind of upset that you guys did not have it. But that was not all. You only had a few languages and not a lot of people are going to be like randomly “I want to learn Portuguese!” unless they have family and that is all that they speak (my family speaks Afrikaans but they also speak English though). But that is all and that is what I think you should upgrade 😊! I hope you can!

7. ★★★★★negative experience without a specific reason· unspecific

   hard. not for beginners

8. ★★★★★negative experience without a specific reason· unspecific

   I hate Busuu. I hate Busuu it’s so stupid

9. ★★★★★subscription and paid restrictions

   Trying it out…. Using the free version is FULL of ads and constantly begging for a subscription. I’ll stick with HelloTalk which has a community who connect with each other as well as no ads and 5 minutes of free game lessons every day. I play the games and talk to native speakers who help me learn the language. On top of that, I use Copilot AI which explains things thoroughly.

10. ★★★★★negative experience without a specific reason· unspecific

    I pronounced it correctly. Stop stealing me I pronounced things wrong when I said it exactly like the example.

11. ★★★★★negative experience without a specific reason· unspecific

    Terrible app don’t add card for them. You guys are trying to take money from my account I unsubscribe im unsure what is the reason I did the 7 day free trail then realize I don’t need this app anymore why are u hacking my bank information ???

12. ★★★★★negative experience without a specific reason· unspecific

    Worst possible language app. I really did want to like this. I slammed through the first eight lessons without any delay because they were too easy. By the time I hit the ninth lesson, it was asking me questions about words and phrases it had never taught me. Same problem as all of these apps. Someone didn't follow through on the programming.

13. ★★★★★negative experience without a specific reason· unspecific

    جيد. التطبيق جيد لكن كنت اتمنى ان يكونوا صادقين،عندما دعوت صديق للبرنامج لم يعطوني اي خصم او كوبون. واتمنى ايضًا ان يعملوا على زيادة التحفيز في البرنامج مثل دولينغو بحيث يساعدك على الاستمرارية

14. ★★★★★negative experience without a specific reason· unspecific

    Not worth it!!. They are not an honest app. They want to impose their timing for learning and won't prepare you the proper way. Not worth the money!! Try another app.

15. ★★★★★negative experience without a specific reason· unspecific

    为什么要用英语解释英语. 为什么要用英语解释英语？不用学习者母语解释

16. ★★★★★subscription and paid restrictions

    Busuu is Broken. Used for a few days at the free tier. Even after experiencing a ton of attempts to aggressively upgrade me to a subscription I was willing to do so. The problem started when I tried to cash in on there limited time offer. My Apple cash, of all things, was declined, despite have enough money. I was steered to Busuu customer service, which will get back to me in 5+ days. In the meantime, the discount will be gone. Nonetheless I still receive the helpful emails to update my payment method, as if I haven’t done that multiple times already. At the end of all this frustration, I decided I’m out. Getting tons of errors and difficulty processing payments feels like a strong signal. Best of luck to others. This platform probably has potential for some.

17. ★★★★★subscription and paid restrictions

    Not a good app unless you are completely brand new. I was learning Russian, unlike other apps, I already know Cyrillic and basic phrases. This app doesn’t even ask what your current level is. And to skip through lessons to where you actually are requires a subscription.

18. ★★★★★negative experience without a specific reason· unspecific

    Do not trust this company about reminding you they will not after your trial period , not recommend. Not trustworthy

19. ★★★★★subscription and paid restrictions

    No Alphabet?. I can’t even learn the alphabet if I don’t pay for premium. How am I supposed to speak or read if I don’t know how the alphabet’s grammar works.

20. ★★★★★subscription and paid restrictions

    No refund. They did not refund me

21. ★★★★★subscription and paid restrictions

    Ad blackmail. It’s impossible to close out of the ads after any period of time on iOS other than restarting the app. I’m not paying for premium when it’s basically blackmail at that point.

22. ★★★★★negative experience without a specific reason· unspecific

    Misleading / Confusing UI. I downloaded this app and got the free trial specifically because it said you could do “AI conversations” to practice speaking. I haven’t been able to find an option for that anywhere and have now wasted 4/7 days of the free trial not being able to do what I wanted to. If I google how to use that function it says to use the “speak” tab at the bottom of the screen. There is no “speak” tab. Either the app devs lied about this function being available, or they need to set their UI up in a way that makes it more easily accessible / easier to locate. I’m very disappointed and will keep hunting for a good app that actually has AI conversational practice.

23. ★★★★★subscription and paid restrictions

    Pay to win app. A lot of the thing are lock behind a paywall and the fact that I have to watch an ad to unlock a lesson is just absurd.

24. ★★★★★negative experience without a specific reason· unspecific

    Arabic goes from pre-school to high school. I am in chapter 4 of the Arabic course ànd not particularly happy with it. It started by introducing me to letters one by one and zipped right through to asking me to interpret entire dialogues and phrases before I even have the alphabet learned. Right now Duolingo is doing a better job of helping me learn the alphabet than this app. Now I have to utilize other resources to learn the material, since this app is no longer helping me at the moment. Once I learn it somewhere else, I can continue with this app.

25. ★★★★★subscription and paid restrictions

    Bad UX and delayed button presses. Honestly I'm sure the app is okay from a learning perspective but wow the quality of the app not worth the money they ask for the subscription. I found myself becoming increasingly frustrated at the poor user experience. Every single time you answer a question you have to select 'continue' on the VERY bottom of the screen. Doing this once is okay but over and over and over again became a pure annoyance. The button presses also take a long time to register. In general the app feels pretty un-polished and vibe coded. If it was free, that's one thing, but for the price i really don't recommend it.

26. ★★★★★data, history or progress disappears

    Not private at all. Stay safe.. This app is good for learning, however when you (HAVE) to use the voice option for a lesson it gets uploaded to the server and RANDOM people can listen to it and correct you. I was not informed of this and as soon as I found out I deleted my account because there wasn’t any options to make it so that doesn’t happen. If you value privacy and don’t want your voice on their platform do NOT download! They also upload when you chat with the system to help learn sentences and RANDOM people also correct that! If you’re uncomfortable with your voice being recorded and uploaded don’t download.

27. ★★★★★negative experience without a specific reason· unspecific

    Really good app. I logged and stay on several minutes in different sessions during the day. I really like this app over the others.

28. ★★★★★negative experience without a specific reason· unspecific

    Not bad for the price. Pros- Good for starters. Has a mix of flash cards, different basic ways of learning, authentic native speakers. Cons- Flashcards don’t have all the words learned. Is a random quiz that repeats a lot of the easy words over and over - and over! (quite lame!) There is no back feature when going through a lesson. Flashcards don’t have sentences. You have to go back to a lesson. There is no cumulative review either.

29. ★★★★★subscription and paid restrictions

    Can’t Close Ads. I used this app a couple years ago and it was great. Much better than Duolingo. Came back now to be disappointed. Cannot close ads and slammed with so many booster screens that I might as well just use Duolingo. Sad because this app has far less repetition than Duolingo and much better video and image aids. Need to be able to evaluate the app before I would purchase a subscription, but at this point, I can’t get past a lesson without encountering an ad I can’t close to progress… even after I’ve watched it.

30. ★★★★★negative experience without a specific reason· unspecific

    Feels kinda weird. Idk just personally it feels a little weird and awkward to have real people doing it but maybe that’s just me :)