Best apps to learn English (2026): 12 compared
Free courses, AI speaking partners and live tutors all call themselves apps to learn English, and they are three different products. Here is what each of the twelve gives you free, what it costs after, and what it actually corrects.
Verified 24 September 2026 against each app’s own pricing page.
| App | What it is | What is free | What it costs after | What it corrects |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fluvia | Spoken conversation with 18 AI voices in seven accents, correcting you as you speak | Conversations free with no expiry, no account and no card; listening tests, dictation, writing correction, idioms, phrasal verbs and vocabulary unlimited | From US$5 a month, billed yearly | Grammar, vocabulary and phrasing the moment you slip; the mistakes you repeat come back |
| Duolingo | Gamified course app; AI conversation only on Max | The course, with energy limits; no AI conversation on the free plan | Super from $9.99 a month; Max, with Video Call and Roleplay, above Super | Exercise answers on the free plan; Roleplay feedback on accuracy and complexity is Max only |
| British Council LearnEnglish | Free resource library from a teaching institution, plus paid courses with live teachers | 10,000+ activities and exercises; a free account adds a level test and the community | Self-study, flexible live-class courses and private tutors, priced by country | Grammar and vocabulary explained properly; no AI conversation in the free part |
| Preply | Marketplace of human tutors, one-to-one by video | Nothing; you book a trial lesson at the tutor's rate | $3 to $50+ per 50-minute lesson, set by each tutor | Whatever the tutor you chose decides to correct |
| ChatGPT (voice mode) | General assistant with voice conversation | Voice included on the free plan, with a daily and monthly cap on minutes | Plus, around $20 a month | Whatever you ask for, if you ask each session; no memory of your mistakes |
| ELSA Speak | Pronunciation coach, with sample conversations | Limited daily lessons and sample AI conversations | Premium, around $13 a month billed yearly | Sounds and accent, sound by sound; grammar barely |
| Speak | Guided speaking course with AI | 7-day trial; no permanent free tier | Premium, around $18 a month or around $84 a year | Inside its lessons, sentence by sentence |
| Praktika | AI avatar tutors | 7-day trial that asks for a card first | Around $8 a month billed yearly | Pronunciation, grammar and vocabulary, at the end of each turn |
| Loora | AI English tutor by voice | Short trial, then a subscription | $19.99 a month or $119.99 a year | One coached conversation a day, corrected at the end |
| TalkPal | AI tutor for 130+ languages, English among them | 10 minutes a day with an account; a 14-day Premium trial | Premium monthly or yearly; the price varies by country | Chat feedback and a pronunciation tool; daily AI feedback is Premium |
| Gliglish | AI conversation partner | 10 minutes a day, no sign-up | Paid plans remove the cap | Feedback on the conversation; pronunciation feedback is paid |
| HelloTalk | Language exchange with real people | Most of the app | VIP, around $7 a month | Whatever your human partner chooses to correct |
Quick picks, by what you actually want
If you want to start for free and keep going: the British Council resource library for grammar and reading, Duolingo for a daily habit. Neither will teach you to hold a conversation, and neither pretends to.
If your problem is that you freeze when someone asks you something: an AI you can talk to today. Gliglish gives ten minutes a day with no account at all, ChatGPT voice mode gives you a capped allowance on the free plan, and Fluvia gives conversations that do not expire and corrects you mid-sentence rather than in a report at the end.
If your problem is the sound of specific words: ELSA, and nothing else comes close. It is a pronunciation instrument, not a conversation app, and the two are worth using together.
If you want a person: Preply from $3 a lesson if you want structure and accountability, HelloTalk free if you want an exchange partner and can live with being corrected only when they feel like it.
Three different products with the same name
A course app, a speaking app and a tutor marketplace are not competitors so much as different stages. A course teaches you the rules; a speaking app makes you use them under time pressure; a tutor tells you which of your habits to break first. Most people who say an app did not work for them were using the wrong one of the three for the problem they had.
The place it goes wrong most often is the middle. Courses are cheap and abundant and their exercises are satisfying, so people stay in the course stage for years, keep a long streak, and still cannot order coffee. If you can already read English comfortably and you go quiet the moment someone speaks to you, you are past the course stage and no amount of extra course will move you.
What "free" means in each one, because it is not the same word
Three different things are being called free in the table above. A permanent allowance with a daily cap: Gliglish's ten minutes, TalkPal's ten minutes, ChatGPT's voice minutes, HelloTalk's whole app. A trial that ends: Speak's seven days, Praktika's seven days behind a card, Loora's short trial. And a free tier that is permanent for some features and capped for the expensive one, which is where the British Council, Duolingo and we sit.
The question worth asking is which part is capped. Speaking costs money to run, so almost everyone caps that and gives away the rest. What differs is how honest the cap is about itself: a daily clock that resets, a trial that asks for a card before it starts, or an allowance that simply does not expire.
How the figures were checked
Every figure in the table was read on each app's own pricing page or store listing, on the date above. Prices and free tiers move; this table is re-checked and re-dated when they do.
Frequently asked questions
- What is the best app to learn English if I can only pick one?
- It depends which stage you are in, and the honest answer is that most people need two: one that teaches and one that makes you talk. If you can already read English and freeze when spoken to, pick the speaking one first — the course is not what is holding you back.
- Which of these can I use free, forever?
- The British Council resource library, Duolingo's course, HelloTalk, Gliglish's ten minutes a day and ChatGPT's capped voice minutes. Fluvia's conversations do not expire, and its listening, dictation, writing, idioms, phrasal verbs and vocabulary are unlimited.
- Can an AI replace a teacher?
- For volume, yes: an AI will let you speak for thirty minutes a day at a price no human can match, and it never gets bored of your mistakes. For deciding what to work on next, a good teacher is still better. The cheap combination is an AI most days and a tutor occasionally.
- Do any of these work without creating an account?
- Gliglish and Fluvia let you start talking with no account and no card. Everything else in the table wants at least an email first, and Praktika wants a card before the trial starts.