Is lingodeer good? (and should I pay for it?)

I didn’t like bunpro that much, so I’ve been looking into alternatives for online grammar learning (even when i get my textbooks, it’s still good to train with something i always have in hand).

I’ve heard lingodeer is good, but I dont see as much talk about it vs bunpro. Could anyone tell me if its good or not? and if its paying at some point, or if the free plan is good enough.

Also, I think they forgot to do conversions for brazilian reais (brl). one usd is 5 brl, so a 60 usd year plan should be 300 brl, but its only 60 brl. I dont know if its only an issue on the screen and you get billed properly, but I thought it was funny. I wish the brl was 1 usd lol

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LingoDeer is more engaging than BunPro since it is more gamified and the topics are related to one another but I believe it is only suitable until maybe N4.
After that, you need to switch. What I dislike about lingodeer however is their lack of SRS. They have this review function but idk, I don’t get it as I see the same cards daily.
I would see it as a supplement to other study tools like the Genki book, etc.

Tofugu reviewed it twice in their series of “New Japanese Learning Resources”:

It is not limited to grammar studies only but covers different aspects of language learning and skill sets: listening, reading, speaking, “sentence / text production” …

I remember checking out their Korean program and it was nice first impression. Can’t really say something about relying on it as a study tool, though.

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I bought Lingodeer and I don’t think it was worth it, though I wouldn’t say it was completely worthless. You will gain Japanese ability from using it commensurate with the time and effort you put in, which will probably not be very much. No one learns a language in a few minutes a day.

BunPro is pure…ish… grammar. LingoDeer is grammar and such mixed in. It can teach you vocabulary, etc.

Is it good? It’s free to try out so why not try it out? I tried it out for a couple days, liked it and went with the lifetime deal they have going (or had going?). For $100 it’s another tool for learning for me.

That said, I also do BunPro. I am going through Genki and also using BunPro for reenforcing my learning and it works out well.

The part of LingoDeer I really enjoy, and was glad it was part of the holiday lifetime package, is the Lingo+ or whatever it is called. It’s a bunch of “games” you play to learn the language. Put together sentences, answer questions, etc. It doesn’t do a good job of complimenting the LingoDeer lessons you are on for some reason, so some of the material is always unknown, but it’s easy enough to pick it up and after a few sessions, like SRS in WK, things start to stick.

I would NOT use LingoDeer as my only study tool. It teaches but I actually prefer Rocket Languages to this. Personally.

Is it worth the money? Only you can answer that for you. If you pay $100 for a tool and never use it, the answer is no, obviously. But give it a try and you have nothing to lose.

I used it for a bit, up until around when they introduced Japanese level 2, or whatever. I thought it was fine, but didn’t love it. The one exercise where they make you type out the answer, drove me nuts, and ultimately made me not really enjoy the app. Were it free, I’d probably stick with it, but I’m not about to pay for it.

I did Lingodeer for three months earlier this year and was very disappointed. In particular, the lack of a SRS or any good review system is absolutely fatal to its utility. It’s also buggy and poorly designed in general. I would not recommend it. If you do want to try it, I’d recommend only subscribing for a month at first to see if you like it.

Also, I think anyone who describes it as “free” has outdated information. When I tried it, the so called “free trial” only covered the very first lesson. Nowhere near enough to see what it’s really like. It’d be like if Wanikani’s free trial covered the first 10 radical lessons and nothing else. My understanding is that years ago, Lingodeer had a much more generous policy, so it’s possible that that’s where the information you see is coming from.

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