Learn Thai

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Mondly Thai App

The Best Alternative to Duolingo

The Mondly App lets you learn the Thai language in a playful way with a series of interactive exercises.

This Thai learning program contains:

• Thai vocabulary trainer with 5000 words
• 50 topics and categories to choose from
• 2100 Thai lessons, including grammar
• Conversation trainer for common situations (speech recognition)
• There is even a virtual reality version of this learning app

Mondly has around 45 million users worldwide. This language course has the advantage of having 41 source languages and 41 target languages.

Summary: Mondly is very similar to the Babbel and Duolingo apps and even better in terms of quality. The cost-benefit ratio for the lifetime access to all 41 languages is unbeatable.

Link: Mondly Thai App and Online Course

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Thai Basic Course

From 17 Minute Languages

Systems: Online Access (PC, Mac, Linux, Android, iOS)

Suitable for: Beginners and Advanced Learners, Students, Professionals

Content: 1300 words (basic course), 5200 words (complete course), grammar, verb conjugations, exercises

Prices: USD 29,95 (Basic Course), USD 97 (Complete Course)

Overall Value:

The Thai Basic Course contains a vocabulary trainer for the basic Thai vocabulary (1300 words) with native-speaker audio, as well as grammar explanations and various exercises.

The vocabulary trainer works with a long-term memory method, in which the new vocabulary is checked at increasing intervals.

You can choose between text input, multiple choice or simply confirming whether you knew a word or not.

The exercises include text comprehension questions, filling in word gaps or just vocabulary lists where one side is covered.

The basic course corresponds to the official language levels A1 and A2 (explanation of CEFR language levels).

The Complete Course contains:

• Basic course for beginners (basic vocabulary with 1300 words)
• Intermediate course (1800 more words)
• Advanced course for experts (2100 words)
• Additional specialized vocabulary
• Covers the official CEFR language levels A1 to C2

There are 17 different languages you can use to learn Thai with this app.

Summary: Much cheaper and even better than the famous Rosetta Stone. There is a free demo version available and a 30-day money-back guarantee.

Link: Thai Basic Course and Complete Course

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uTalk Thai App

Alternative to Duolingo or Babbel

The uTalk app teaches about 2000 Thai words and focuses primarily on playful exercises. There are several exercises to choose from:

• Read and listen to Thai words (with translation and photos)
• Match the Thai word you heard to a photo
• Speak a Thai word and compare the recording with the original
• A memory game with pictures
• Speak the Thai translation of an English word

The vocabulary is divided into 60 freely selectable topics. The special thing about the uTalk app is that you get access to all 160 languages.

The interface of the app is well made and is similar to other apps like Babbel, Duolingo or Mondly.

Summary: Getting access to 160 languages is impressive and the scope (2000 words with native speaker audio and exercises) is also solid.

Link: uTalk Thai Language Course App

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Glossika Thai App

Thai for Advanced Learners

Systems: iPhone App, Online Version

Suitable for: Intermediate and advanced learners

Content: Thai advanced exercises

Prices: USD 17 (1 month and 1 language), USD 31 (1 month and all 64 languages)

Overall Value:

The Glossika app is for people who already have some basic proficiency in Thai or already know a similar language.

The app has an entry test to determine your Thai proficiency level. You can start from A1 to B2 (beginners and intermediate).

Glossika works with whole sentences instead of single Thai words. You can choose which topics you want to learn.

This app has intentionally no "gamification". The only exercises are reading, listening, typing the sentences and speaking into the microphone.

There are also no grammar explanations. You are supposed to understand Thai grammar from the context, like in Rosetta Stone.

You can try the complete app with all 64 languages for 7 days for free (without providing payment information).

Summary: Effective exercises for advanced learners, but somewhat higher price and not much variety.

Link: Glossika Thai Language Course App

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Ling Thai App

Playful Thai Learning

Systems: Android App, iPhone App, Online Version (PC and Mac)

Content: Thai lessons with native speaker audio

Prices: USD 8.99 (1 month), USD 79 (12 months),
USD 149 (unlimited)

Overall Value:

The Ling language learning app offers lessons for 60 languages and is quite similar to Duolingo or Babbel, which do not offer Thai courses.

Ling uses "gamified learning", which means learning the Thai language in a playful way. There are mini-games, levels, experience points, as well as tests and exercises at the end of each lesson.

The vocabulary covers about 1000 Thai words and phrases, all with native speaker audio and pictures. Grammar is not included.

This app offers a test to determine your proficiency level in Thai.

Summary: Good ideas that make learning Thai more fun.

Link: Ling Thai Language Course App

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Memrise Thai App

App with User-Generated Lessons

Systems: Android App, iPhone App, Online-Version (PC and Mac)

Content: Thai lessons and vocabulary trainer with native speaker audio, grammar

Prices: USD 8,99 (1 month), USD 60 (12 months), USD 110 (unlimited)

Overall Value:

With the Memrise App you can learn over 90 languages.

This includes even very small languages - however, in such cases the language courses are often limited to just a few lessons.

One special feature of the Memrise learning app is the large number of lessons created by users (native speakers).

The quality of these lessons varies greatly though. For example, only the basic forms of verbs are usually taught, without the conjugations. Some languages also do not have an audio recording of the words at all.

Another good idea of the Memrise app are the user-generated tips and mnemonics for each word to help you memorize them.

Summary: User-generated lessons are a good idea. In practice, the quality of the lessons leaves a lot be desired.

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Bluebird Thai App

Thai Lessons and Exercises

Systems: Android App, iPhone App, Online-Version (PC and Mac)

Content: Thai lessons and exercises with voice output and speech recognition

Prices: USD 9.99 (1 month), USD 100 (12 months), USD 200 (unlimited), USD 400 (163 languages)

Overall Value:

The Bluebird App offers 146 source languages and 163 target languages and dialects, including Thai.

The Thai language course in this app includes the following:

• Daily video lessons at three difficulty levels.
• Basic Thai vocabulary on several dozen topics
• Common Thai verbs with conjugations
• Analysis of your pronunciation (with speech recognition)
• Tests: listening comprehension, filling in word gaps, quizzes

For Thai, there are about 500 video lessons, each 5 to 60 minutes long. For languages with other scripts, the words can also be displayed trans­lite­rated in the Western script.

The Bluebird App does not have grammar lessons. Instead, you are suppo­sed to understand the grammar "implicitly" from the examples, same as in Rosetta Stone.

Summary: The video lessons and the interface require some getting used to, but the exercises are quite varied. Especially for smaller languages, this app is an acceptable alternative.

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Drops Thai App

Alternative to Babbel and Duolingo

Systems: Android App, iPhone App, Online-Version (PC and Mac)

Content: Thai lessons and exercises with native-speaker audio

Prices: USD 13.30 (1 month), USD 72 (12 months), USD 164 (unlimited)

Overall Value:

The Language Drops App is most notable for having 47 target languages and 40 source languages, similar to Mondly.

You can learn about 3000 Thai words and phrases with this app. However, there are hardly any exercises, except for introducing a new word and matching the word to a picture.

You can choose from which topics you want to learn new words and at what skill level you want to learn (whether you know the language somewhat).

If you want to try the app for free for two weeks you have to provide your payment information and then cancel it.

The "deal" you get when you sign up for the free trial is more than 3 times as expensive as when you click "Get Premium" on the website (USD 38 per month instead of USD 13.30 per month).

Summary: No variety, no grammar and only 3000 words. Does not justify the higher price, even though you get access to all languages.

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Lingo Thai App

Playful Thai Learning

Systems: Android and iPhone Apps, Online Version (PC and Mac)

Content: Thai lessons and exercises

Prices: USD 19.99 (1 month), USD 40 (3 months), USD 60 (6 months)

Overall Value:

The Lingo Play App offers language courses for 70 languages. It offers "gamified learning", which means learning vocabulary in a playful way.

Each Thai lesson offers the following exercises:

• Presentation of new words with translation and image
• Decide whether a Thai word matches the image
• Select one of four pictures that matches a word
• Type in the Thai word for a picture
• Correctly type in a spoken Thai word

In the full version this app offers up to 5000 Thai words. The interface of the app is similar to Babbel, Duolingo or Mondly.

There is also a multiplayer mode and competitions where you can test your Thai skills against other people.

Summary: Overpriced Thai course that does offer some good exercises, but is not better than other similar apps.

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Simya Thai App

Not really recommended

Systems: Android App, iPhone App

Content: Vocabulary trainer for Thai learning

Prices: USD 9,99 (1000 words), USD 59 (1000 words in 50 languages)

Overall Value:

The Simya App for Android and iOS is purely a vocabulary trainer for 50 languages, including Thai.

The free version contains 300 words and has very frequent "ad breaks". The paid version (without ads) also contains only 1000 words and phrases.

All the words have native speaker audio and you can use the app offline too.

Thai grammar and verb conjugations are not included in this app.

Summary: Not really worth it, as there are much better alternatives like Mondly, Rosetta Stone or even Duolingo.

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Pimsleur Thai Course

Beginner course similar to Rosetta Stone

Systems: PC and Mac (incl. Mobile App)

Suitabe for: Beginners, advanced, students, travel vocabulary

Content: Thai lessons with native-speaker audio and speech recognition

Price: USD 120 (basic course)

Overall Value:

The Pimsleur App is very similar to Rosetta Stone in that it does not give grammar explanations, verb conjugation tables, etc.

Instead, the Pimsleur method is supposed to let you learn the Thai language intuitively, just like your native language - by combining pictures, reading and speaking (speech recognition).

This Thai learning course for PCs and Macs also includes a mobile app for Android and iOS systems.

Pimsleur offers only initial Thai lessons for beginners and has no intermediate or advanced lessons.

Summary: The most expensive Thai beginners course, even though it is unlikely that learning with it is much better than with the cheaper apps.

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Additional Ways To Learn Thai Online:

Colanguage: Find Skype teachers

Overall Value:

At Colanguage you can arrange face-to-face language lessons online via Skype with language teachers around the world (from $5-10 per hour).

In addition to using apps, it is definitely a good idea to also practice with native speakers in order to learn Thai properly.

Tandem: Find a language exchange partner

Overall Value:

Instead of hiring teachers, you can also find people who are interested in a free language exchange online via Skype.

It is completely free of charge, but you have to act as a language teacher for the other person half of the time.

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Overview of the Thai Learning Apps:

Learning App	Subscrip- tion?	Price	Systems	Value
17 Minutes (Basics)	No	$29	PC, Mac, Android, iOS
17 Minutes (Complete)	No	$97	PC, Mac, Android, iOS
Mondly	No	$99	PC, Mac, Android, iOS
Mondly	Yes (1 month)	$10	PC, Mac, Android, iOS
Mondly	Yes (12 months)	$48	PC, Mac, Android, iOS
uTalk	No	$199	PC, Mac, Android, iOS
uTalk	Yes (1 month)	$12	PC, Mac, Android, iOS
uTalk	Yes (12 months)	$60	PC, Mac, Android, iOS
Ling	No	$149	PC, Mac, Android, iOS
Ling	Yes (1 month)	$9	PC, Mac, Android, iOS
Ling	Yes (12 months)	$79	PC, Mac, Android, iOS
Glossika (only Thai)	Yes (1 month)	$17	PC, Mac, Android, iOS
Glossika (64 languages)	Yes (1 month)	$31	PC, Mac, Android, iOS
Memrise	No	$110	PC, Mac, Android, iOS
Memrise	Yes (1 month)	$9	PC, Mac, Android, iOS
Memrise	Yes (12 months)	$60	PC, Mac, Android, iOS
Bluebird	No	$200	PC, Mac, Android, iOS
Bluebird	Yes (1 month)	$10	PC, Mac, Android, iOS
Bluebird	Yes (12 months)	$100	PC, Mac, Android, iOS
Drops	No	$164	PC, Mac, Android, iOS
Drops	Yes (1 month)	$13	PC, Mac, Android, iOS
Drops	Yes (12 months)	$72	PC, Mac, Android, iOS
Lingo Play	Yes (1 month)	$20	PC, Mac, Android, iOS
Lingo Play	Yes (6 months)	$60	PC, Mac, Android, iOS
Simya (1 language)	No	$10	Android, iOS
Simya (50 languages)	No	$59	Android, iOS
Pimsleur (Basics)	No	$120	PC, Mac, Android, iOS

Best App to Learn Thai:
Mondly App

Best Thai Online Course:
17 Minute Languages