Done With Duolingo? Where to Go to Get Serious About Learning a Language

The 60-minute classes are very well structured, and you get PDFs of the material well before the class so you can prepare. If you have anxiety about one-on-one sessions, small group classes of three to five students are a superb option. Lingoda uses the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR), a standard that helps students know exactly what level of speaker they are to get them into the right classes. If you don’t know your level, you can take a placement test.

Prices vary by language and how many sessions you buy at a time, but it ends up costing $11 to $23 per class for small group classes and $23 to $48 per individual session. Compared to in-person learning, those rates are extremely attractive.

Preply

Online tutoring in practically any language.

Preply is a platform for online tutoring; it’s a marketplace for tutors to sell their services, and the tutoring sessions you buy are hosted right there on the same website. Its main focus is language learning, though you can find tutors for math, computer science, and other academic subjects. The most amazing thing about Preply is you can find people who teach nearly any language. I took a few sessions to reignite my waning Romanian.

The tutor I found was professional, organized, prepared, and appropriately hard on me every time I tried to switch to English. You can request a free short video meeting with a tutor before committing to them, and the site helps you switch tutors easily if your first pick isn’t a good match.

Tutors set their own prices and are located all over the world. You can find people teaching for as little as $10 per 50-minute session. When you search for a teacher, you can filter by price, other languages spoken, whether they have a verified teaching certificate, and whether they’re a Super Tutor, meaning reliable and rated highly by other learners.

Fluenz

Intensive Spanish online or on vacation.

Fluenz is a language-learning software company that also sells two kinds of intensive language courses: one online and one in-person at a destination. I’ve used the Fluenz app (it’s excellent) to study French and pick up a few phrases of Mandarin, though I haven’t taken any of the immersion courses, which are only available for Spanish.

The online course is taught over Zoom in one-on-one sessions. Ideally, you take one 90-minute lesson per day. The course comes in two flavors: Comprehensive Track ($3,277), which is 30 hours total, and Fast Track ($1,815), which is 15 hours. It’s pricey, but the cost includes a subscription to the Fluenz language-learning software (which is quite good), and the course is completely individualized. If you need to achieve competency in Spanish quickly or improve to another level quickly, the daily 90-minute one-on-one lessons are an excellent way to do it.

The destination immersion program is a weeklong trip to a Spanish-speaking city such as Bogota, Lima, Madrid, Medellin, or Quito, where you do intensive small-group classes, stay in luxurious accommodations, and have the surrounding context of Spanish spoken everywhere. Another option is “bootcamp” in Mexico City, the major differences being that you get one-on-one lessons instead of group instruction, and you can go almost any week of the year instead of waiting for a class. The cost is in the ballpark of $6,300 to $7,000, depending on the city and whether you choose a single or double occupancy room. Flights aren’t included.

Other Good Options

A few more good options include Berlitz, Rype, and in-person language schools in a country you want to visit that often have immersive programs.

Berlitz is a language school that has been around for decades and also has classes online. Two reasons I don’t recommend it more highly are the company’s lack of transparent pricing and the fact that I have not personally tested it. Berlitz teaches dozens of languages, including but not limited to Arabic, Dutch, French, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Mandarin, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish. In-person schools are available around the world, and Berlitz has online small group courses as well.