Clozemaster uses fill-in-the-blank exercises—known as “cloze” exercises—to teach vocabulary. It uses new technology like AI and machine learning to create exercises designed to help you effectively learn and remember words.
I used Clozemaster to study a language I know absolutely nothing about (Afrikaans), a language I know a bit (Japanese) and a language that I know quite well (Spanish). I ended up learning a lot more than I expected and I found myself flying through the exercises because they started becoming addicting.
At its core, Clozemaster is based on the cloze method. Instead of studying words with isolated flashcards, you encounter real-world sentences with a missing word (the “cloze”). By teaching new words in context, the program helps you understand not just its meaning but also how the word is actually used.
The method also indirectly teaches you to spot patterns and figure out grammar naturally.
Gamified Learning
The cloze method is naturally very game-like by default, and Clozemaster leans into this hard with its features.
As I progressed in my studies, I earned points for correct answers. These points serve to motivate you to keep a streak going—you can set a daily points goal—or to compete against others through the leaderboard. I love that I could even level up and gain bonus bragging rights about my level in each language I’m studying.
If you love stats, Clozemaster also includes many ways to visualize your progress, including a line graph depicting your study progress over the past week and a seven-day sentence average. I found this to be visual clutter and a bit confusing in the beginning, so I personally don’t love this, but it’s a great feature for those more data-driven than me.
A Variety of SRS-based Exercises
While Clozemaster is based around one main teaching method, it mixes things up enough to keep the experience interesting. There are several modes to choose from—a listening mode, a longer reading mode that features entire paragraphs and challenge sets, which test you on specific topics or difficulty levels.
Of course, you can also let the program do all the work and simply go with the “Fluency Fast Track,” which uses a frequency list to present you with words in order of difficulty and how common they are.
There’s something quite addictive about these exercises, aided by the fact that you get instant feedback. Correct and incorrect answers are revealed after each question, which kept me learning as I went, even when I got a question wrong.
The program uses a Spaced Repetition System (SRS) so I was asked questions based on my progress, ensuring that I stayed challenged and engaged. It also reminded me to review words that I was at risk of forgetting due to lack of practice with them.
Customized Learning Experience
During a lesson, you have several options for each sentence you’re learning.
You can listen to the sentence at normal or half speed, save it for later, mark it as 100% known or ignore it (so it won’t be shown again).
You can even edit the sentence to suit you better—which I assume only changes the sentence for you, not everyone else on the program—see a breakdown of the grammar and discuss it with other learners.
In the grammar section, clicking on any word brings up a complete dictionary entry with more information, including the etymology and even its meaning in other languages, if it appears in more than one.
Finally, you can also have the program “explain” each sentence. Though this seems to be AI-generated so I don’t know quite how accurate it is, especially in the lesser-studied languages.
There are also two difficulty levels for lessons. I stuck to the easy version for my two lesser-known languages, which allowed me to pick the answer from several choices. However, I switched to the more challenging version for Spanish, which required me to type in the answers.
The more difficult variation includes visual cues, typing in green when the answer was correct and switching to red when I veered off-course. If I got an answer wrong, the program prompted me to try again by giving me a hint, like how many letters off I was. This support made it possible to learn from my mistakes, making it easier for me to remember the right answers.
Pros of Clozemaster
Learn 10,000+ Words by Frequency
Because Clozemaster teaches you words by their usage frequency, you get to skip all of the less important topics that many language courses teach you first (like animals and foods). Instead, you jump straight into the words you’ll hear in pretty much any conversation.
Each “Fast Track” level contains 1,000 sentences representing 1,000 words. The highest in the Spanish course is Fast Track Level 10, which teaches you the most common 9,001-10,000 words.
Each language can differ though, with some having more or less. For example, the Arabic course has up to 50,000 sentences.
Many Supported Languages
Clozemaster offers an impressive selection of over 50 languages, including popular languages like Spanish, French, German, Japanese, Korean and many more. It also teaches a nice selection of less common languages like Amharic, Nahuatl, Latin, Esperanto, Welsh and Yiddish.
Even more impressively, you can learn many languages from a native language other than English. Which languages you can study depends on the language you’re studying from.
For instance, choosing French as your native language gives you access to study 16 languages, but if you select Hebrew, you can only learn Russian. Despite these limitations, this is a great tool for learners who aren’t native English speakers.
You’re not limited to one language at a time, either—I found it very easy to switch between languages, and my progress was tracked separately for each individual language.
Memorable Sentences
I keep mentioning “sentences” as these are what Clozemaster is based around, recording your progress not by how many words you learn, but by how many sentences you complete. I’m not sure how these sentences are selected (they’re possibly AI-generated), and for the most part, they make sense.
Some, though, are odd enough to rival Duolingo’s silly and sometimes vaguely threatening practice sentences. The very first sentence I was presented with for the Spanish fluency fast-track translated to “He was a god to his people,” and later in the same set of exercises I got “I know that you know that I know”—which took me a moment to understand even in English.
These sentences might be weird, but honestly that’s what makes them memorable. Now when I try to remember the Spanish word for “people,” I can’t help but picture a god-like man posing in a toga (because “gods” apparently equals Greek mythology in my mind). In other words, sentence-based learning provides a helpful mnemonic device to remember the vocabulary words you’re learning.
Well-made App Version
Clozemaster has an iOS and Google Play app, and both boast impressive scores. There aren’t quite as many reviews as some of the other names in the language learning world, but it’s still worth mentioning that comments on both versions are overwhelmingly positive.
I took the Android version for a spin and I also wasn’t disappointed. You get a bit more of an introduction to the program (I learned that you “master” a sentence when you get it right four times in a row), then dive right into learning. I loved that when I finished a round, I got an overview of how I did and a chance to look at each sentence that I just went over.
When I finished browsing my review and clicked next, the program immediately started the next round of sentences. This reminded me of the way some social media platforms, like Instagram, keep you infinitely scrolling. Except here, I almost got sucked into a language-learning hole, which is much more productive than staring at short videos for hours.
If you need a little push to study, the app lets you set daily reminders. With a Pro account, you can also access your collections offline, so you really have no excuse not to log on and do some studying, no matter where you are.
Strong Community
Clozemaster has something that a lot of language learning programs lack: A community of language learners to encourage each other. The Clozemaster Forum is where comments made on sentences can be found and commented on. Anyone can browse the forums but to contribute, you need to have a Pro account. You can also view other learners’ profiles to get inspired by their progress and badges or find other discussions they’ve contributed to.
If you hop over to the official Clozemaster subreddit, you’ll find even more conversation happening, with many active users encouraging each other, sharing tips and talking openly about their experiences with the program. It’s an incredibly supportive space, and a reminder that you’re not learning in a bubble.
Cons of Clozemaster
Cluttered User Interface
When I first logged in, I was taken to the central learning hub. Clozemaster uses a no-frills style that brings to mind the 90s, complete with a retro font and layout. But to me, the hub looks very cluttered. I found it quite overwhelming in the beginning, and the very simplicity of the icons is what makes them difficult to decipher.
The main account page gives you an overview of your progress in your language, including a timeline and detailed breakdown of your score, streak, leaderboard ranking and tons more. It can take some effort to parse all this info the first few times, and I mostly ignored it when I first started.
Lessons are similarly presented: Sentences are large and centered on the page to minimize distractions, but accompanying icons can take some figuring out. I had to hover my mouse pointer over each icon to see what it does, and I’m honestly still not entirely sure what the difference is between marking a sentence as “mastered” and “known,” or whether it’s better to entirely “ignore” it.
Not for Beginners
You can’t be a complete beginner in your target language. Studying Spanish went well for me, but when I started with Afrikaans, I was basically guessing every answer. After a while, through repetition, I started to recognize certain vocabulary words.
This was only possible, though, because I could actually read the sentences. I struggled quite a bit more with Japanese despite being at the intermediate level—I couldn’t read most of the kanji, so I sometimes had to guess even for words that I knew the answer for.
In other words, while beginners can start using Clozemaster, it’s most effective for learners with a basic understanding of the target language. Preferably at the intermediate level or higher. You also need to already know how to read your target language’s alphabet.
How Much Does Clozemaster Cost?
Clozemaster has a free membership and a Premium membership (“Clozemaster Pro”).
With a free account, you get access to all the languages offered, lots of stats and all the other basics you need to study regularly with the program. But you can’t do more than 10 sentences per round and there’s a limit of 30 sentences per day.
Premium removes all of these restrictions. It costs $12.99 per month, $69.99 per year or $159.99 for lifetime access.
What Is Clozemaster Pro?
Clozemaster Pro includes additional features like the ability to search sentences, add to your review queue, favorite sentences and more. It also gives you access to listening practice in over 30 languages, instant Google translations of any sentence, even more stats and offline access to the program.
You can also customize your learning sessions by choosing how many words you want to review per session and how frequently you want to review each word.
FluentU currently offers 10 languages and takes a complete immersion-based approach. It uses authentic videos—like music videos, commercials, movie scenes, etc.—to teach you the language based on your level.
There are playlists for beginner, intermediate and advanced learners. Each video has a vocabulary and grammar list, but if you come across words you don’t know that weren’t included, you can tap on them in the subtitles to see the meaning, pronunciation, and example sentences, plus add them to flashcard decks.
Each video comes with a quiz at the end, which features fill-in-the-blank exercises similar to Clozemaster. And the reviews also use spaced repetition.
Like Clozemaster, Memrise is focused on purely vocabulary and is an excellent resource for learning new words fast.
It offers leveled courses in 23 languages, including Arabic, Mandarin Chinese, Russian, Spanish, Korean, Swedish, Turkish, Mongolian and more.
Each language has different courses based on topics and levels. For example, the Indonesian course has a General Course, Opinions Course, Relationships Course, Social Life Course, Health Course and more.
Memrise doesn’t use Cloze activities, but it does use translation exercises and a spaced repetition system.
LingoDeer has a guided curriculum for 16 languages. It uses a combination of matching, translation and listening exercises to teach you new words.
There are various units in each level, which are topic-based. Unlike Clozemaster, it introduces grammar early on but in between vocabulary units so you don’t get overwhelmed.
The native pronunciations are high-quality, which is something many language programs get wrong. LingoDeer is also well known for Asian languages, including courses like Thai and Vietnamese.
Overall Thoughts About Clozemaster
Clozemaster does one thing and it does it well: It teaches new vocabulary words through a fun and addictive fill-in-the-blank system. I found myself constantly getting sucked into it, thinking I’d do “just one more round.” Three rounds later, I’d find myself still going strong.
It’s most useful when you use all the features available, like the grammar breakdown and dictionary. And the stats are addicting, making motivation easy to maintain.
But Clozemaster will only take you so far. It’s a fantastic program for learning vocabulary and getting the basics of sentence structure. But for a more well-rounded learning experience, you should combine it with other resources that include more grammar lessons and authentic media.
And One More Thing...
If you dig the idea of learning on your own time from the comfort of your smart device with real-life authentic language content, you'll love using FluentU.
With FluentU, you'll learn real languages—as they're spoken by native speakers. FluentU has a wide variety of videos as you can see here:
FluentU has interactive captions that let you tap on any word to see an image, definition, audio and useful examples. Now native language content is within reach with interactive transcripts.
Didn't catch something? Go back and listen again. Missed a word? Hover your mouse over the subtitles to instantly view definitions.
And FluentU always keeps track of vocabulary that you’re learning. It gives you extra practice with difficult words—and reminds you when it’s time to review what you’ve learned. You get a truly personalized experience.
