Lingoda is an online teaching service that does things quite differently from others like it. Instead of working with one tutor, you’re thrown into many different classrooms with various teachers, working with them through a well-crafted curriculum.
I found Lingoda to be the closest approximation to an online small-group college course than any other program I’ve tried. It has its issues, like the limited language selection and the inability to choose a specific teacher to work with, even when booking one-on-one lessons.
But overall, Lingoda is a truly student-driven, online immersive course that gets you speaking in your target language.
Overview
Name: Lingoda
Description: An online teaching service that emphasizes immersive communication and a structured curriculum.
Languages offered: German, English, Business English, French, Spanish and Italian.
Offer price: Starting at $10.50 per group class and $22.50 for private classes; scales with number of classes bought
Lingoda places students in virtual classrooms with various experienced teachers, working with them through a well-crafted curriculum. Classes are either small (no more than five people) or one-on-one and work similar to a small-group college class. It has its limits, like the limited language selection and inability to choose a specific teacher to work with, even when booking one-on-one lessons. But overall, Lingoda is a truly student-driven, online immersive course that gets you speaking in your target language.
User friendliness - 8/10
8/10
Delivers on Promises - 10/10
10/10
Authenticity - 10/10
10/10
Value for Price - 9/10
9/10
Pros
Immersive lessons use mostly your target language
Many chances to practice speaking and pronunciation
Very flexible shedule
Exposure to native speaking teachers from around the world
Well-designed curriculum with supplementary material
Cons
Limited to mostly beginner and upper intermediate learners
Before it became Lingoda, the program was known by another name: Easy Languages. The online tutoring service came into existence in 2012, founded in Berlin, Germany by brothers Fabian and Felix Wunderlich. In 2013, the company rebranded as Lingoda and started presenting group classes in addition to one-on-one sessions.
The company started small, offering only German and English classes, but soon grew to include French and Spanish, as well. In 2020, online language learning exploded in popularity, bringing a new customer base to Lingoda and helping them to grow and improve their methods and curriculum.
Today, Lingoda offers German, English, French, Spanish, Italian and Business English.
How Does Lingoda Work?
Lingoda lessons operate much like a traditional language school but with virtual learning in mind. All lessons are held online, either in small groups of up to five people, or one-on-one.
Each lesson is guided by a central curriculum and is led by an experienced teacher. Classes also have additional study materials for reviewing before and after the lesson.
Unlike many other online teacher-driven services, you pick the lesson topic but not the teacher and classes are available 24/7.
When I first signed up, Lingoda took me through a series of questions about why I want to learn the language (I chose Spanish), my level and more details about my language learning journey.
At first glance, it may look as though Lingoda is like any other online language tutoring website. Look closer though, and you’ll see that it works less like a tutoring service and more like a virtual classroom.
Classes are held either one-on-one or in a small group of up to five people. Each class begins with a brief greeting and a casual chat as students arrive, setting up a friendly, relaxed atmosphere. Students are given plenty of opportunities to speak and participate, making this an ideal option for anyone who’s stuck in that stage of learning where it’s difficult to start actually talking and using the language.
Classes are structured—you know exactly what content you’ll be learning before you log on. But they’re also loose enough that teachers can easily modify their pace and methods to accommodate their current group. In every instance I observed, teachers are experienced, comfortable with their role and very welcoming to all skill levels.
The one-on-one classes are even more student-driven, since it’s just you and the teacher, allowing you to go at whatever pace is comfortable. You can also request custom lessons about a specific topic that you want to learn. While you can’t choose your teacher, you can ask for a lesson on World War II in Spanish or how to deliver a presentation about a specific English book for your literature class, for example.
Pros of Lingoda
Immersion-based Learning
When you join your virtual classroom, you’re greeted and taught entirely in your target language. This might seem intimidating if you’re a beginner, but it’s an incredibly effective way to overcome the beginner’s speaking jitters and start conversing in the language immediately.
Teachers are adept at making sure they’re being understood since the small-group environment makes it easy to check in with everyone. They enunciate clearly and speak at a comfortable speed for everyone to follow along and no one gets left behind.
Another way Lingoda gets immersion right is that all the supplementary material uses no translations. This ensures you don’t lean too hard on your native language and really focus on the one being taught.
Strong Focus on Communication
I’ve found that many other language learning programs are great at teaching the building blocks—vocabulary, grammar, etc.—but not so good at teaching how to actually use it. Lingoda tackles this head-on by encouraging you to start using the target language from the very first lesson.
You’re given many chances to speak and encouraged to ask questions, participate in debates and generally engage with the class. In fact, each 60-minute class factors in open conversation time to practice what you just learned.
This strong focus on communication will appeal to learners who are eager to put their skills to use and get conversational, fast.
The lessons are also built around specific topics that you’d actually encounter and use in real life, like “I can order coffee,” “I can talk about cause and effect” and “I can go shopping for groceries.” And since you can choose which topic you study, you’re always learning information that’s useful to you and your learning goals.
Native Teachers from Around the World
Lingoda’s teachers are all native speakers with teaching certificates and experience. They’re located all over the world, which means that you’re exposed to a variety of regional accents and teaching methods.
Instead of booking lessons with one specific tutor, you can only sign up for lessons based on the topic or your schedule. But since you can see who each class is taught by, you can also choose a teacher you’ve enjoyed working with. The program encourages you to work with as many different teachers as you can though to increase your exposure to different ways of speaking and accents.
Flexible Schedule
I have a hectic schedule, and I’ve had trouble on other platforms finding classes that can accommodate it. But when I logged on and checked class availability, I was pleased to find that there’s a class happening nearly every hour—even at 3 AM.
Since teachers are from all over the world, Lingoda boasts that classes are held 24/7, making it easy to book lessons that work for your schedule.
Well-designed Curriculum
Lingoda follows a set curriculum that was designed by language and teaching experts. Each lesson you can book is focused on a specific topic, and you can see before you sign up what vocabulary and grammar points will be covered.
You can view the entire course and choose any topics you’re interested in. The format reminds me of a guided textbook, with each lesson taking you through one chapter at a time.
At the beginner level (CEFR levels A1 and A2), information is presented in English (or the language you set as the default), but once you reach the intermediate level (CEFR levels B1 and B2), everything is entirely in your target language.
Additional Learning Materials
Your learning doesn’t stop at the end of the virtual classroom. Browsing the website, I found a number of other useful features, many of which I could access and interact with even if I wasn’t planning to book that specific class. I love this feature because it means I can avoid signing up for a class that teaches content I’m already familiar with.
A vocabulary trainer lets you go over key vocabulary for each lesson, both before you start and as a review after a lesson.
A full PDF overview of each class is also available for anyone to look over. In fact, you’re encouraged to spend five to 10 minutes reading over what will be covered in class to prepare before the session starts.
Some lessons also have a vocabulary list, additional flashcards and reading material to help you along before and during the class.
Cons of Lingoda
Small Roster of Languages
Lingoda currently only offers classes in German, English, Business English, French, Spanish and Italian.
This is a fairly small number compared to competitors who often boast 20+ languages taught. This is understandable since each language requires the development of a curriculum and gathering of certified teachers, but it does mean that Lingoda might not offer the language you want to learn.
Only English and German Are Offered Beyond Level B2
English and German have lessons all the way up to the advanced level (C1 and C2) and even have some “open discussion” classes where students can talk about different topics like current events, movies and TV shows and other interesting topics.
However, the other languages on offer at the moment only go up to the high intermediate level, so you won’t be able to take your studies all the way through to advanced.
What Is the Lingoda Sprint?
Lingoda offers its infamous “Lingoda Sprint,” which is an intensive class program to boost your skills as fast as possible.
A sprint lasts for two months and you can commit to completing either 15 or 30 classes within the time limit. Not only do you get a crash course in your target language, but you also have a chance to get a discount. Successfully completing a sprint gets you 50% of the sprint’s price back (or even more in class credit).
How Much Does Lingoda Cost?
I like that Lingoda takes the guess-work out of choosing a teacher by setting a fixed price and guaranteeing teacher quality all around.
Price depends on whether you’re signing up for 1-on-1 classes or group ones, and how many classes you’re paying for in one go. The more classes you buy, the cheaper they are, with the lowest falling to $10.50 for a one-hour group lesson.
The class package options are five classes, 12 classes, 20 classes or 40 classes.
You can try the program out before you commit with a seven-day free trial that allows you to take three free group classes or one private class within the trial’s time limit.
italki is an online language tutoring platform similar to Lingoda, but its classes are run differently and it’s more known for one-on-one sessions.
With italki, you can choose your tutor. You start by selecting which language you’re learning then can browse from (usually) hundreds of different tutor options, shopping around until you find the right match.
Each tutor has a bio where they share about themselves, a video introduction on their profile, the languages they speak displayed, their class subject offerings and their schedule availability. You can book single classes as you go or pay for a package of classes.
You can find an italki tutor to teach you specific subjects or you can just book classes for conversation practice. It’s completely customizable and your tutor personalizes their lesson plan according to your goals, unlike Lingoda’s set curriculum.
There are also tons of languages offered on italki—from popular ones like Spanish and French to endangered languages like Maori—and the tutors set their own hourly rates, so you can set a budget.
With FluentU, you hear languages in real-world contexts—the way that native speakers actually use them. Just a quick look will give you an idea of the variety of FluentU videos on offer:
FluentU really takes the grunt work out of learning languages, leaving you with nothing but engaging, effective and efficient learning. It’s already hand-picked the best videos for you and organized them by level and topic. All you have to do is choose any video that strikes your fancy to get started!
Each word in the interactive captions comes with a definition, audio, image, example sentences and more.
Access a complete interactive transcript of every video under the Dialogue tab, and easily review words and phrases from the video under Vocab.
You can use FluentU’s unique adaptive quizzes to learn the vocabulary and phrases from the video through fun questions and exercises. Just swipe left or right to see more examples of the word you're studying.
The program even keeps track of what you’re learning and tells you exactly when it’s time for review, giving you a 100% personalized experience.
You can either choose to use Preply’s tutor match option—which asks you several questions and then brings you to a curated list of tutors that meet your wants and needs—or you can choose to browse all the tutors yourself and set filters as you see fit.
Like italki, tutors list their specializations, schedule availabilities, individual prices, a bio and a video introduction.
You first book a trial lesson. This requires you to pay for a single lesson and it is 100% refundable if you aren’t satisfied. After completing the trial lesson, you need to choose a subscription package to continue learning with your tutor. For example, you can choose from six hours per month, 12 hours per month or 20 hours per month.
Finally, you can either communicate with your tutor to create individual lesson plans personal to your goals, or you can choose to follow one of Preply’s pre-designed courses in your classes.
Final Thoughts: Should You Use Lingoda?
If you’re looking for a structured classroom-like environment where you can practice using your target language in a safe and supportive space, I highly recommend Lingoda.
I just wish there were more languages offered and that you could take advanced-level classes for all of them, not just English and German.
But overall, if you need a support system, accountability, a structured plan and guidance from a native speaker, I’d say give Lingoda a try.
