Learning a language online: my experience with Preply, a language-learning platform that allows you to connect with language experts from around the world.
Learning a language online: my experience with Preply
Company Overview
Preply connects language students with private tutors for 1-1 lessons that take place online in a virtual classroom.
Their website promises that it will help you:
- Find affordable language tutors online
- Prepare to speak confidently and naturally in your new language
- Focus on the skills you need
- Prepare to achieve your goals with private tutors
Who is Preply for?
It’s a great choice to learn a new language on-the-go and by your own lifestyle. It’s easy to book a lesson, and with tutors all around the world, there’s always one to match your schedule.
Preply can be a good fit for you if:
- You’re eager to improve your language skills (especially grammar and pronunciation);
- You believe you’d benefit more from 1-1 learning, rather than group classes or app-based programs like Duolingo;
- You’re busy and unable to commit to fixed time slots;
- You’re interested in learning a language for educational reasons, to prepare for an exam or as a hobby.
How much does Preply cost?
Unlike other providers, Preply offers a monthly subscription fee (28 days), according to your needs:
- Relaxed (one hour a week)
- Casual (two hours a week)
- Regular (three hours a week)
- Driven (four hours a week)
- Unstoppable (five hours a week)
You search for and select lessons according to availability and price. At an hourly rate, you’re looking at between €/$5-10 and €/$30-40. You can filter teachers by your own budget, so you’re more than likely to find something that’s right for you.
The tutor themselves can set their own price, but you’ll find that rates usually depend on the tutor’s individual experience, qualifications and ratings.
While in the past you couldn’t change tutor, lately Preply changed its policy. So the subscription you buy is a commitment to the target language, not to the tutor. You can transfer your hours to another tutor any time.
Pausing and unpausing is available in your subscription settings.
You can also pause your plan for unlimited time once per subscription billing cycle that restarts every 28 days and you can unpause whenever you want.
You can also downgrade or upgrade your monthly plan anytime and you can always transfer your balance and subscription to another tutor.
Payment is charged automatically to your saved payment method every 28 days but you can cancel your plan anytime in your settings if you don’t want to be charged again. After cancellation, you can still take your scheduled lessons.
As a facilitator, Preply acts as the middle ground between you and the tutor to ensure that everything is going smoothly. The student pays the tutor, and the tutor delivers the lesson. Lessons then take place on Preply’s Space platform. If the tutor doesn’t deliver or if they deliver the lesson to a less than satisfactory level, students are entitled to a full refund.
Preply Discounts
Preply offers a couple different discounts: bulk discounts and student discounts. When you buy more hours with Preply at one time, you can get a bigger discount. If you really like your language tutor and you want to study with them a lot, it’s definitely better to buy more hours upfront.
Preply also offers a student discount that never expires.
What languages Preply offers
Preply Covers 27 Languages with Tutors from 185 Countries.
Their website states that they have over 27 languages available, but you can find more by typing them into the search bar, such as Vietnamese, which is not on their list.
You’ll find tutors for Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, Chinese, and Japanese, and more.
How I reviewed Preply
To review the site and to get a feel for what the platform is like, I took a trial lesson to learn Dutch.
Also, I wanted to see if Preply was more for beginners or advanced learners. I was surprised by how much relaxed my tutor was about conversing in Dutch. My tutor had no expectations for me to speak only in my target language and was focused on what she could do to help me succeed.
Immediately from the start, I’ve grasped a better understanding of grammar rules, as well as pronunciation and vocalic sounds. When speaking 1-1, it’s a lot easier to receive instant feedback and correct your errors as opposed to learning on a pre-set platform. This was definitely more useful than learning vocabulary and grammar in isolation.
So here is my personal experience and what I found out!
How Preply Works
First you need to find a tutor
Preply has over 50,000 tutors. You can browse tutors using various filters, or search using the search bar. With so many language tutors registered on the platform it means that you’ll have lots of options when you’re looking for a new teacher.
Just for Spanish, at the time of writing, they have 4,305 Spanish teachers available.
It’s quite simple to find a tutor to match your needs.
All you need to do is type the language you would like to learn into the “I want to learn…” search bar.
A questionnaire by question and answer will help filter and break down your specific needs to find the right match for you.
First, you will be asked what motivates you to look for a tutor:
Second, to self evaluate your level:
Third, the questionnaire will ask you if you’re looking for a tutor from a specific country, in case you’re looking for a specific dialect or pronunciation:
Then, what kind of lessons you need:
Next, when you would like to take your lessons
Finally, your budget
In the end, you’re showed several tutor’s profiles you can choose from.
You can browse each tutor’s profile, watch their introduction videos, as well as filter them by price, rating, speciality, availability etc. Each tutor has a short bio where you can learn more about them, their speciality, qualifications and experience.
There are a number of different filters you can select:
Price Per Hour: This ranges from $/€ 5-$/€40.
Country: You can choose where your tutors lives. This helps when you need to learn specific dialects of a target language.
Time of Day and/or Day of Week: It allows you to search for tutors by availability so you can structure Preply around your personal lifestyle.
Expert Areas: This is a large drop-down menu with options like business language, lessons for children and lessons for dyslexic students.
Also Speaks: This filter can be very useful if you’re looking for someone that also speaks your native language, especially if you’re a beginner.
In addition to all this, you can also read reviews from other students. Reading about others’ experiences and their opinions on the tutors can be very helpful for your decision making.
Book a Preply’s trial lesson
You can’t buy any lessons with a Preply tutor until you’ve taken a trial lesson with them to discuss your language goals. After that, you can buy hours and are in complete control of what and when you learn.
Booking a trial lesson on Preply is very easy. You need to sign up for an account, find a tutor you like, click the “Book Trial Lesson” button and choose the day and time.
You’re sent to the payment page where you can pay in a secure way by credit card or PayPal:
They assure you that if are not satisfied with the lesson, you can get a refund or another free trial lesson
Next, you’ll be prompted to fill out a short preliminary questionnaire. It will ask you about your motivations for studying the target language, and what your goals are.
Finally, your lesson is confirmed:
You’re then redirected to “My lesson” page where you can keep track of your schedule and progress and also receive and share material with your tutor.
At the same time you’ll receive a confirmation email explaining everything you need to know about your first lesson and what happens after it.
Usually, trial lessons are 1 hour long, unlike iTalki that are 30 minutes long, and you can use this time to discuss your level and focus areas. Although you can trial different teachers, the idea is that you’ll find one whose teaching style best suits you.
After your trial lesson has finished, you’ll be prompted to confirm the lesson has been completed and you will be asked to choose your subscription. The good thing about Preply is that if you’re not happy with the trial lesson experience, you’ll have the chance to choose another tutor.
You can contact their customer service, provided through a chat service and an email system.
Set an Email Reminder
You can easily sync your Google calendar with the Preply appointments and receive an email reminder of your upcoming appointments. Preply though, will send you a reminder half an hour before your lesson starts.
Test your level before taking a class
Prior to your lesson, your tutor will contact you to confirm your language level and assess your current skill level to prepare a specially-made lesson plan just for you. Because you learn virtually and 1-1, this also means you get realtime feedback, as opposed to learning in isolation on app-based programs such as Duolingo or Babbel.
Get ready for your Preply’s lessons
After you’ve purchased your lessons you can view them and any other upcoming lessons you have on My Lessons tab at any time.
Once you connect with a tutor, you’ll arrange a time that’s suitable for both of you to meet 1-1 for a language lesson. This could be a structured lesson or an informal conversation in your target language. It’s up to you and what you want to achieve.
Should you ever need to cancel a lesson for whatever reason, you can do so up to 4 hours before the lesson is due to begin – free of cost.
Preply’s classroom
Once you booked your tutor, you enter a virtual classroom on Preply’s platform, called Preply Space, that works in your web browser. The Preply classroom is similar to Zoom/Skype but is a built-in feature of Preply’s desktop and app versions. So, you don’t need to download any software.
You can access Preply Space on your mobile phone and tablet, too.
However, if you ask fot it you can also use Skype as its video calling service.
Lessons are between 30 and 60 minutes long. The classroom includes an interactive whiteboard, chat and attachment folder, as well as a homework and lesson plan tab.
Furthermore, tutors can send attachments and lesson plans, which appear in their own area. These help to structure your learning and encourage engagement.
Unlike other providers I tried, Preply Space offer two very interesting features:
- A customised chatbox, with specific notes that will be useful during and after your lesson: materials, new vocabulary, error corrections and attachements. This way you can go back on these notes after your lesson to review what you studied and check your mistakes.
- A Speaking Tracker that counts how long you have spoken during your lesson. As a language student, I find this feature very useful!
Free Preply blog and Q&A community
Preply also has its own blog focusing on pronunciation, culture, and revision advice.
You can post a question about any topic or language. It could be a grammar point you don’t understand, or perhaps you can’t work out the difference between two words. Whatever your question may be, once you post it a qualified tutor will post an answer for you.
Preply Pros and Cons
Although Preply has a lot of great deals and discounts, there’s no free trial. Compared to other platforms that give you so many days free-of-charge, you have to pay for each lesson on Preply. That being said, the website itself is free to join. This means you can access the Preply blog and Q&A section free of charge.
At the same time, fees are reasonable and you can search according to your own budget. So, unlike other platforms that have fixed fees, Preply allows you to find a tutor within your price range.
Another aspect of Preply you need to remember is that each tutor creates their own lesson plans. It’s really important to look at each tutor’s profile so you know exactly what they offer. This will ensure you have productive lessons and study what you actually want to study.
Furthermore, Preply is not very flexible when it comes to purchasing your lessons, since you have to get a monthly subscription. With other tutoring sites like iTalki, you can book 1, 100, or however many lessons you want.
Unlike Lingoda, and as with iTalki and most other platforms, only individual classes are available and no group classes, except for English. But the choice is up to you: group classes online prove excellent value for money, although they don’t always give you a personalized approach to your learning experience.
As far as English group classes are concerned, you have many options at great prices.
You can choose your level, topic, time, price range and format, such as one-time classes, if you need single lessons that focus on a specific topic or on building a skill or multi-week courses, if you’re looking for a bundle of classes with a progressive set of learning outcomes.
The website, however, promises to have soon online group classes also for other languages, such as French, Spanish, German, Chinese, Japanese, Portuguese, Turkish, Polish, Arabic, Italian and Russian.
If you prefer group courses, maybe Lingoda can be a better fit for you.
Overall, the platform is simple and straightforward, there are thousands of tutors to choose from, and it’s easy to filter them to find the best ones.
The Preply website is clean and allows for a smooth user experience. The user journey from landing on the website to the lesson itself is smooth and you aren’t bombarded with lots of options, adverts and distractions.
It offers plenty of choice to find the best tutor for your needs and schedule.
Another pro is that the classroom allows for file sharing, interactive whiteboards and usage of a customised instant messaging chat box.
Furthermore, not a consideration for everyone, but if you support Ukraine’s fight against the Russian invasion, you might be interested to know that Preply is a Ukrainian company founded in 2012 by a trio of Kyiv-based entrepreneurs. Since 2012, the range of subjects taught on the platform has grown – as has the client base. Nowadays there are over 100 subjects on offer, including in the arts, sciences, and humanities.
Conclusion: Is Preply Worth It?
In short, it depends on your learning style.
If you’ve used other app-based programs like Babbel or DuoLingo and found them not to be as helpful, Preply is an outstanding resource for getting personalized learning.
Also, if you have a busy timetable and can’t commit to fixed days, Preply allows you to search tutors by availability and speed up the booking process.
This company is one of the most well-known online marketplaces for language tutoring, and Preply ratings will vouch for that. Unlike many competitors, you can find tutors for a lot of other subjects too. Their convenient scheduling system further helps them to stand out from the pack.
All things considered, Preply is a really solid place to help improve your language skills, while offering great value for money.
If you’re interested in learning a language online, check out these reviews
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