Lingopie: Learn a Language

Currently, I’m learning Spanish & French and utilize dozens of resources to integrate both languages into my daily life for learning. When I watch content in those languages, Lingopie is one of my favorite options, so much so I became a paid subscriber. I really enjoy the concept and offering of Lingopie however I feel as though every session on Lingopie that I’ve done, my experience is rarely smooth. Sometimes the subtitles don’t “fully” work. There will be a prompt to click it, but sometimes the add button disappears or it’s just unclickable. Sometimes the subtitles completely disappear, but the full script on the right screen stays, which is unfortunate because when that feature works I enjoy the option of quickly adding what I see on the screen. Sometimes integrating into Netflix/Disney takes two or three times of logging in, and I wish we could watch Disney and Netflix shows via the app, too. Overall, there’s always some issues with the app and desktop versions. I will say when using it on my tv via the Lingopie tv app there hasn’t been too much of an issue. I’m really excited to see these small (but kind of annoying issues) resolved because it’s a cool concept. But I’m not sure I’ll renew if they’re not fixed 😪

This is a really great app. My favorite part of this app is that I can see the subtitles in the language I’m watching and English, and then I can click on the word and it automatically gets added to flashcards that I can study later. I can see how this would be 5 stars for most languages. However, for Japanese it’s not. When learning to read Japanese, most people start off learning hiragana and katakana before moving on to learning the kanji. As a beginner, I can read hiragana and some katakana but no kanji. This is usually not an issue for me because most language learning tools will put the hiragana above the kanji in small font so you know how to pronounce the kanji. Not having this feature for Japanese defeats the entire purpose of this app. Including kanji should honestly only be reserved for the intermediate and advanced users. Unfortunately, I’ll have to cancel my subscription but maybe I can use this app once I get to that point. I also took off a star because when I signed up through the app it only have two options $12/month or $67/year so I didn’t get the free 7 day subscription option that I saw on the website. Seems a little shady.

UPDATE: the developers of this app reached out, apologized, and issued a refund. I don’t think customers should have to write a bad review to get a dignified response, but I did want to provide an update and give them credit for ultimately resolving things fairly. The shows they offer in German are fine but not particularly entertaining - the kind of off-brand stuff you would have rented at the library as a kid, or watched in German class in high school. Worth a 3- or 3.5-star rating. However, the customer service was 1-star. I cancelled after my first month but noticed two months later that they kept charging me. When I inquired, they said there appeared to another account under my name with a typo in my email address. Probably some kind of error on my end, I’ll take full ownership for that. But, given that it was clearly a mistake and the fact that I hadn’t used the service since cancelling, I would expect some kind of offer to refund all or a portion of the accidental charges. I asked kindly for that and was offered nothing. The customer service rep instead referred me to their T’s & C’s and claimed there was no way around it. Long story short: OK product, less than OK customer service from a company that clearly care more about holding onto $24 than they do about making a good impression on their customers.