MosaLingua Review: The Best Flashcard Language App?

Using flashcards as part of learning language is a proven way to absorb tonnes of new vocabulary into your long term memory. Having spent countless hours creating my own German flashcards, when I discovered MosaLingua Premium and it’s pre-made flashcards, I was keen to see how it could save my readers time.

After trying it out extensively I was really impressed, which is why I decided to do a deep-dive MosaLingua review. After reading it you will know:

• MosaLingua Premium’s features & an in depth look inside the app
• What spaced-repetition is and how it can supercharge your vocabulary
• How much MosaLingua Premium costs & my honest opinion of it

Things I love

• Thousands of pre-made flashcards (spoken by native speakers)
• Really useful everyday words & phrases
• Learn anywhere with your smartphone
• Uses spaced repetition to aid long-term memory

Not so great

• Not the prettiest app if you’re used to other ‘gamified’ language learning apps
• No grammar study

MosaLingua

★★★★★

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What is MosaLingua?

MosaLingua Premium is language learning resource which primarily teaches vocabulary and phrases through a spaced-repetition flashcard app. Over 12 million users currently learn languages using MosaLingua.

MosaLingua currently produces language courses and apps for the following languages:

• English
• Spanish
• French
• German
• Italian
• Brazilian Portuguese
• Russian
• Mandarin Chinese

MosaLingua Premium Review

MosaLingua Premium is a language learning app and website which uses a spaced-repetition flashcard system (SRS) to help you acquire languages. As well as the above languages, it is also available for Business English, Business Spanish and Medical English.

There are other flashcard apps out there such as Anki, that allow you to create your own flashcards. But the advantage with MosaLingua is that you can commit up to 6000 words and expression to your long-term memory thanks to their premade flashcards.

What is Spaced Repetition?

The spaced-repetition system uses flashcards to introduce you to a new word or phrase. You are then shown the flashcard again at appropriately spaced intervals (varying from a few hours to a few months) depending on how well you recalled it.

The idea of the the spaced-repetition system is that you are reminded of a word or phrase, just before you forget it. This method increases the chances of it making it into your long-term memory.

Each flashcard has a native speaker say the word or phrase so you can hear it as well as read it. Often, you’ll also get a full sentence so you can see the word in context.

You rate how easy or difficult you found it to recall the card by scoring it: again, difficult, good or perfect. This tells the SRS when you need to be shown the card again.

MosaLingua Review: How to Get Started

Sign up for the free 15 day trial, then download either the iOS or Android app for your target language.

The app will ask you a few questions to determine your current level and learning goals. It will use this information to select flashcards for you, and so far I found this to work really well for me.

If there is a particular topic that you’re interested in and want to learn vocabulary for, you can browse the ‘categories’ to find a topic you want to learn about.

There are too many topics to list here but for example under the ‘conversation’ category you can choose from introductions, conversation starters, trouble understanding, fluidity, connectors, mistakes, changing the subject and ending a conversation. Within each of the these sub-categories there are up to 30 words and phrases to learn.

Categories include:

You can simply navigate through the categories to see the flashcards, and select ones you want to learn. If you already know a word you can mark it so MosaLingua never shows you it.

Introducing New Flashcards

Once you have selected your new flashcards to learn you go through a few steps to introduce them.

• Listen & Repeat: Record yourself speaking the flashcard
• Memorise: Try to recall the phrase shown, in your target language
• Write: Type the phrase out in your target language
• Self Evaluation: Recall the flashcard and choose how well you knew the answer: again, difficult, good or perfect.

Reviewing Older Flashcards

Once the flashcard had been introduced to you, you will be prompted by MosaLingua to review it at intervals depending on how well you remember the word or phrase. It’s important to be honest about how well you recalled it.

You’ll see a flashcard less and less as the intervals get longer as you repeatedly recall the word or phrase correctly.

Using this spaced repetition system will help the words and phrases stick in your long-term memory.

How Much Does MosaLingua Premium Cost?

You can try MosaLingua Premium for free for 15 days (cancel anytime). If you want to carry on with the app, you can continue your subscription for:

• Monthly: $9.99 / month
• Annually: $71.88 / year (that’s $5.99 / month)

I have great news for aspiring polyglots. When you subscribe to MosaLingua Premium you get access to all languages:  Spanish, French, Italian, German, Portuguese, Russian, English, and Mandarin Chinese.

What Are The Other Benefits?

Not only do you get the awesome flashcard app on your smartphone, there are many other benefits you can access through MosaWeb. This can be accessed through both the app and the website.

MosaDiscovery

MosaDiscovery is a plugin for Chrome which works with Google Translate to quickly translate any word, phrase or sentence you find online, from your target language into English. Think about how and where you read stuff online in your target language, maybe you read the news or blogs. While I personally prefer to avoid translating every word I don’t understand, rather I try to understand from the context, this is an undeniably useful tool.

This a super useful tool in itself, but it also has another awesome feature. If you encounter a word you don’t know, but would like to learn, you can very easily add it to your flashcard deck. You just highlight the word, and MosaDiscovery will instantly offer a translation and the option to add it to your flashcard deck on the app.

MosaDiscovery will offer an example phrase so you can learn the word in context. If you want change this example sentence you can do so really easily. Just click the Tatoeba button and you’ll get a list of example sentences you can copy to use in the flashcard.

Once the new word has been added, MosaLingua syncs with the app so you can learn the new flashcard at your leisure on your smartphone. I absolutely love this tool and use it all the time!

MosaStories

MosaStories is a collection of foreign language books, short stories and articles aimed at beginner to intermediate levels (A1-B2). All these reading materials have accompanying audio track, so you can choose to read the book, listen and read along, or just listen to the audiobook.

One of the things I love is that if you come across a word that you want to learn, you can use the MosaDiscovery Chrome plugin to select it and add it to your MosaLingua ‘to review’ flashcard stack. You can then learn it as you would any other flashcard.

MosaVideos

MosaVideos is, you’ve guessed it, a collection of videos in your target language. Each video has a transcript in the target language which scrolls below the video so you can follow along.

Again with the MosaDiscovery plugin, you can pause and select any word or phrase you want to learn and translate and add it to your flashcard deck.

Conclusion

I’ve used other flashcard apps before, where I had to create my own flashcards. This can take quite a bit of time to research translations and come up with example sentences.

Personally I love MosaLingua Premium because I can spend time learning more pre-made flashcards when I would otherwise have to create my own. The pre-made flashcards already have example sentences and audio spoken by native speakers. There are genuinely usable phrases that you’ll need in everyday life.

For just $71.88 per year this is fantastic value as you also get access to the bonuses mentioned above, videos, books and audiobooks to add extra immersion in all the MosaLingua languages:  Spanish, French, Italian, German, Portuguese, Russian, English, and Mandarin Chinese!

Want to try MosaLingua Premium? Sign up for a 15 day free trial, join 12 million MosaLingua users and supercharge your language learning!