Free alternatives to ELSA Speak for English conversation practice, compared
ELSA is a pronunciation coach. If what you want is to talk, these are the apps that let you do it free: what each gives you, what you need to start, and what it corrects.
Verified 13 September 2026 against each app’s own pricing page; TalkPal and Duolingo on 21 September 2026.
| 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 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| Gliglish | AI conversation partner | 10 minutes a day, no sign-up | Paid plans remove the cap | Feedback on the conversation; pronunciation feedback is paid |
| 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 |
| HelloTalk | Language exchange with real people | Most of the app | VIP, around $7 a month | Whatever your human partner chooses to correct |
Why people leave ELSA looking for conversation
ELSA does one thing very well: it listens to you say a word and tells you which sound did not come out. For that there is no better alternative. But its main mode is drills, and the AI conversations on the free plan are short samples. If your problem is not the “th” but going blank when someone asks you a question, you need an app whose main mode is talking.
That is the search that brings almost everyone to this page: “free alternative to ELSA for conversation”. The short answer is that there are several, and they fall into two families.
Free with a daily cap, or a trial that ends
The first family has a permanent free tier with a cap: ChatGPT (voice minutes per day), Gliglish (ten minutes a day), HelloTalk (nearly everything) and Fluvia (first conversations with no expiry, and everything that is not speaking unlimited). You can use them every day without ever paying; what you buy is the removal of the cap.
The second is “try, then pay”: Speak, Praktika and Loora. The trial lasts a few days and after that nothing is free. Praktika and Loora also ask for a card before you start and charge the full plan when the trial ends unless you cancel.
If your question is “what can I talk with every day without spending anything”, the answer is only in the first family.
What each one corrects
It is the column that matters most and gets read least. ELSA corrects sounds, not grammar: it will tell you your “th” sounds like “d”, not that you misused the present perfect. ChatGPT corrects if you ask, and in whatever way you ask; unless you organise its memory, tomorrow it does not remember what you got wrong today. Gliglish gives feedback on the conversation and keeps pronunciation feedback for the paid plan. Speak, Praktika and Loora correct inside their lessons, each in its own way, usually once your turn is over.
Fluvia is built around one idea: the correction arrives the moment you make the mistake, while you are speaking, and the mistakes you repeat are kept and brought back until they stop appearing. If you have spent years with the same three errors, that is what sets it apart. For sound-by-sound pronunciation, ELSA remains the specialist, and there is nothing wrong with using both.
Which alternative for which problem
Pronunciation and accent: stay with ELSA. None of the others matches it there.
Talking every day for free: Gliglish or ChatGPT’s voice mode. Ten minutes a day with no sign-up, or the free plan’s voice minutes with a teacher prompt.
A course with an order to it: Speak. Lessons that go somewhere, in exchange for a subscription.
Real people: HelloTalk. It is not AI, and for losing the fear of talking to natives that is an advantage.
Being corrected while you talk, with your mistakes brought back: Fluvia. No account or card to start, and the listening tests and the spoken-English reductions are free on this same site.
How we compared
Frequently asked questions
- Is there a completely free alternative to ELSA Speak for conversation?
- With a daily cap, yes: Gliglish gives ten minutes a day with no sign-up, and ChatGPT includes voice minutes on its free plan. Fluvia gives its first conversations free with no expiry, no account and no card, and the rest of the app unlimited.
- Is ELSA Speak good for conversation practice?
- It is good for pronouncing better inside a conversation. Its main mode is sound drills, and the AI conversations on the free plan are short samples. For talking at length and having your grammar corrected, the alternatives in the table are built for that.
- Which alternative is closest to ELSA?
- For pronunciation, none: it is what ELSA does best. For conversation with correction, the closest are Fluvia, which corrects while you speak, and ChatGPT in voice mode if you give it teacher instructions every session.
- Can ChatGPT replace ELSA?
- For conversation, yes, and free. For pronunciation, no: ChatGPT does not analyse your sounds one by one. And unless you switch on and organise its memory, it does not remember your mistakes from one session to the next.