Fluenz French Reviewer's Comments

Fluenz earned our “TopTenREVIEWS Silver Award” through a superb combination of effective teaching and simple interactivity. The makers of Fluenz spent a lot of time creating a curriculum that worked well for teaching a second language using English grammar that people are already familiar with. The result is easy to understand and extremely simple.

The Fluenz curriculum focuses around a one-on-one tutoring session followed by many different exercises that get progressively harder and reinforce what was learned. Even though there is never a vocabulary list or a grammar rule in sight, all the important information still comes across during the lesson and exercises. This simple method coupled with an uncomplicated interface makes Fluenz one of the best choices for learning French. If you need a teaching system that is more intuitive than textbook retention, Fluenz is the program for you.

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Features:  

Fluenz French lacks a mobile version, but the company has one in development. The program uses a simple progress tracking system based on lessons that can be viewed in any order. This type of progress tracking isn’t as exact as those in other programs, but the material is easy to review and the exercises in each lesson also help you understand where your weaknesses lie.

Fundamentals:  

Fluenz has the fundamentals down to a science. Each lesson includes conversation practice, reading, writing, vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation guides. Then the lesson is followed by activities that focus on each individual aspect of learning a language. At the end of each lesson you can also practice pronunciation by participating in a conversation through a microphone. Fluenz teaches each of these areas effortlessly and effectively so that you don’t even know that you are practicing a particular skill.

Ease of Use:  

Fluenz has one of the simplest and most intuitive interfaces of any program we reviewed. It is easy to navigate through lessons or between segments of a lesson. And each activity is simple enough to be done without needing instructions. The creators of Fluenz have managed to prove that learning a language can be simple.

Teaching Tools:  

Fluenz doesn’t have as many teaching tools as some other programs, but it uses the ones it does have to full effect. All the lessons, including culture lessons, are given in a video presentation, and all the word recognition activities incorporate audio and images to help teach French.

Fluenz does not use a speech recognition system like other programs do. Instead you are able to record your voice and compare it to those of native speakers. We actually found this system to be slightly more effective than speech recognition because we were able to hear for ourselves how our voice was different and where we needed to improve. In some ways, this was more useful than a speech recognition system that simply gives a “correct” or “incorrect” verdict.

Word Tools:  

Fluenz is fairly light on word tools, mostly because the vocabulary is so well integrated into the lessons that you don’t really need one. If you can’t remember a word, there is a glossary of common French words and their translations.

Tech Support/Help:  

Fluenz has the best customer support of any company in this review. Fluenz offers user manuals and FAQs to help you answer your questions. There are also demos that walk you through the program and help you understand how it works. If you need more help, you can contact Fluenz through email or phone. But the most effective method for getting help is through their live chat option. The technicians on the live chat service were prompt, knowledgeable and eager to help.

Summary:  

While it doesn’t have all the bells and whistles that other programs have, Fluenz is actually more effective at teaching French because the lessons and activities are simple and intuitive.