MosaLingua: a review

MosaLingua  (with the obligatory capital letter in the middle) is a vocabulary app, available for iOS and Android. There are packages for a number of languages and English variations include general English, business English, vocabulary for TOEFL and vocabulary for TOEIC. The company follows the freemium model, with free ‘Lite’ versions and fuller content selling for €4.99. I tried the ‘Lite’ general English app, opting for French as my first language. Since the app is translation-based, you need to have one of the language pairings that are on offer (the other languages are currently Italian, Spanish, Portuguese and German).

The app I looked at is basically a phrase book with spaced repetition. Even though this particular app was general English, it appeared to be geared towards the casual business traveller. It uses the same algorithm as Anki, and users are taken through a sequence of (1) listening to an audio recording of the target item (word or phrase) along with the possibility of comparing a recording of yourself with the recording provided, (2) standard bilingual flashcard practice, (3) a practice stage where you are given the word or phrase in your own language and you have to unscramble words or letters to form the equivalent in English, and (4) a self-evaluation stage where users select from one of four options (“review”, “hard”, “good”, “perfect”) where the choice made will influence the re-presentation of the item within the spaced repetition.

In addition to these words and phrases, there are a number of dialogues where you (1) listen to the dialogue (‘without worrying about understanding everything’), (2) are re-exposed to the dialogue with English subtitles, (3) see it again with subtitles in your own language, (4) practise it with standard flashcards.

The developers seem to be proud of their Mosa Learning Method®: they’ve registered this as a trademark. At its heart is spaced repetition. This is supplemented by what they refer to as ‘Active Recall’, the notion that things are better memorised if the learner has to make some sort of cognitive effort, however minimal, in recalling the target items. The principle is, at least to me, unquestionable, but the realisation (unjumbling words or letters) becomes rather repetitive and, ultimately, tedious. Then, there is what they call ‘metacognition’. Again, this is informed by research, even if the realisation (self-evaluation of learning difficulty into four levels) is extremely limited. Then there is the Pareto principle  – the 80-20 rule. I couldn’t understand the explanation of what this has to do with the trademarked method. Here’s the MosaLingua explanation  – figure it out for yourself:

Did you know that the 100 most common words in English account for half of the written corpus?

Evidently, you shouldn’t quit after learning only 100 words. Instead, you should concentrate on the most frequently used words and you’ll make spectacular progress. What’s more, globish (global English) has shown that it’s possible to express yourself using only 1500 well-chosen words (which would take less than 3 months with only 10 minutes per day with MosaLingua). Once you’ve acquired this base, MosaLingua proposes specialized vocabulary suited to your needs (the application has over 3000 words).

Finally, there’s some stuff about motivation and learner psychology. This boils down to That’s why we offer free learning help via email, presenting the Web’s best resources, as well as tips through bonus material or the learning community on the MosaLingua blog. We’ll give you all the tools you need to develop your own personalized learning method that is adapted to your needs. Some of these tips are not at all bad, but there’s precious little in the way of gamification or other forms of easy motivation.

In short, it’s all reasonably respectable, despite the predilection for sciency language in the marketing blurb. But what really differentiates this product from Anki, as the founder, Samuel Michelot, points out is the content. Mosalingua has lists of vocabulary and phrases that were created by professors. The word ‘professors’ set my alarm bells ringing, and I wasn’t overly reassured when all I could find out about these ‘professors’ was the information about the MosaLingua team .

Despite what some people  claim, content is, actually, rather important when it comes to language learning. I’ll leave you with some examples of MosaLingua content (one dialogue and a selection of words / phrases organised by level) and you can make up your own mind.

Dialogue

Hi there, have a seat. What seems to be the problem?

I haven’t been feeling well since this morning. I have a very bad headache and I feel sick.

Do you feel tired? Have you had cold sweats?

Yes, I’m very tired and have had cold sweats. I have been feeling like that since this morning.

Have you been out in the sun?

Yes, this morning I was at the beach with my friends for a couple hours.

OK, it’s nothing serious. It’s just a bad case of sunstroke. You must drink lots of water and rest. I’ll prescribe you something for the headache and some after sun lotion.

Great, thank you, doctor. Bye.

You’re welcome. Bye.

Level 1: could you help me, I would like a …, I need to …, I don’t know, it’s okay, I (don’t) agree, do you speak English, to drink, to sleep, bank, I’m going to call the police

Level 2: I’m French, cheers, can you please repeat that, excuse me how can I get to …, map, turn left, corner, far (from), distance, thief, can you tell me where I can find …

Level 3: what does … mean, I’m learning English, excuse my English, famous, there, here, until, block, from, to turn, street corner, bar, nightclub, I have to be at the airport tomorrow morning

Level 4: OK, I’m thirty (years old), I love this country, how do you say …, what is it, it’s a bit like …, it’s a sort of …, it’s as small / big as …, is it far, where are we, where are we going, welcome, thanks but I can’t, how long have you been here, is this your first trip to England, take care, district / neighbourhood, in front (of)

Level 5: of course, can I ask you a question, you speak very well, I can’t find the way, David this is Julia, we meet at last, I would love to, where do you want to go, maybe another day, I’ll miss you, leave me alone, don’t touch me, what’s you email

Level 6: I’m here on a business trip, I came with some friends, where are the nightclubs, I feel like going to a bar, I can pick you up at your house, let’s go to see a movie, we had a lot of fun, come again, thanks for the invitation