Learn Spanish With Lingoda: A Review

For years I’ve been trying to learn Spanish on my own, using free apps or websites to try and boost my knowledge and vocabulary. And while this has meant I can now pretty much understand written Spanish, I’m terrible at speaking and listening to the language, a skill most feel vital to communicating in a Spanish speaking country!

So after looking around for a while, I finally bit the bullet and signed up for lessons to learn Spanish with Lingoda.

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There’s no extra cost to you, and I only recommend what I trust!

Why Choose Lingoda?

With so many companies offering online and in person Spanish classes, it wasn’t a quick decision to choose Lingoda. Instead, I looked on online forums, Facebook language learning groups and perused the different companies websites.

The things that were going to sway my decision were:

• Availability of classes
• Class size
• Availability of online vs in-person classes
• Cost
• Whether learning resources were required or provided

After checking through different recommended language schools, Lingoda ticked the most boxes so I took the plunge and got a lovely 25% discount on my first month due to a discount code floating around at the time.

Which Languages Can You Learn with Lingoda?

Lingoda offers lessons in five languages: English, Spanish, Italian, French and German. There’s also the option to focus on and improve Business English.

Learning Options

Lingoda is known for it’s sprint courses, offering 50% cash back if you complete the course within the set rules. The Sprint is 15 classes a month, while the Super Sprint is 30 classes a month.

If you’re looking for something a little less intense, Lingoda also offers group classes and private classes. Private classes are one-to-one, while group classes are still small and have a maximum of 5 students per class. If you’re lucky, you might book a class that has just one or two other students in it and you end up with a nearly private class for the cost of a group class.

Even if there is a full class in the group, you will still have plenty of time to practice speaking, listening and contributing to the lesson.

How Do the Classes Work?

Lingoda breaks down each CEFR level into two sections, with each section having eight chapters. The first and last chapters are introduction and reviews, and the other six chapters each have eight lessons. This makes a total of 50 lessons per course section, and 100 lessons total per each CEFR level.

CEFR stands for Common European Framework of Reference, and is an international standard for measuring language level.
There are six levels: A1, A2, B1, B2, C1, C2.
A1 is beginner, being able to say a few phrases, whereas C2 is native level fluency.

Lingoda lessons are one hour long, and cover a range of language elements including vocabulary, grammar, communication, reading and speaking. When you book the class, the pre-lesson material shows which skill you’ll be focusing on, but in my experience I haven’t noticed a big difference in lesson delivery, we still cover reading, writing, listening and speaking in each lesson.

Lingoda lessons are booked on their website, which is very user friendly. You can select to show classes for a whole chapter, or for specific lessons within that chapter, and it then shows all available classes. You can see who will be teaching it – although I have found sometimes the teacher is changed before the lesson starts – along with how many people are already booked on.

For lesson delivery, everything is online and a Zoom link is provided just before the lesson.

What Kind of Learning Resources are Provided?

Before the Lesson

One of the big things for me when choosing a language school was to see which resources would be provided and which I’d need to source for myself. In a world with so many different books and online resources, it’s nice to have some direction sometimes of what to use and/or follow.

Lingoda provides their own class resources, in a variety of ways. The biggest and most valuable are the class slides. This document is available before a lesson to download and look through, and includes the outline of what will be covered in the class. It’s usually a longish document with activities and prompts of questions or things that’ll be covered in the class.

It’s so helpful to have access to this before a class as it allows students to prepare for a lesson if they want to. For me, this helps build my confidence because I can check over any vocabulary I’ll need to know and if there are any points I’m not sure of I can make a note to ask if it’s not covered in the lesson.

For most lessons, a vocabulary list will be provided before the lesson so you can check if there are any words that’ll come up that you aren’t sure of. There may also be a knowledge check quiz before the lesson so you can see if there are any weaknesses you’ll need to focus on in the lesson.

After the Lesson

After a lesson, the class slides are available with any notes or comments that have been made on them during the lesson – usually there will be lots of notes – and you can go over them again at a later time if you wish. At the end of the slides are some revision tasks to reinforce and revise the material covered.

Overall I am very happy with the materials provided by Lingoda. I have not had to purchase any course textbooks, or incurred any extra expense for the course beyond the lesson fee. As the course materials are provided by Lingoda and not the individual teachers, I am confident that no matter which teacher takes the lesson, I will cover the right material.

Cost

For most of us, the cost of the course is a big factor. Thankfully, Lingoda has different subscription options to accommodate different budgets. Offering both private and group classes along with the sprint and super sprint options, there really is a choice for everyone.

Lingoda offers bulk lesson subscriptions for a month, and the more you subscribe to a month the cheaper it is per lesson. Alternatively, you could purchase a one off bundle of classes to be completed within a set period, for example 50 lessons in 3 months.

Whether you subscribe monthly or purchase them in bulk, group classes will cost between €15-€7 a class. For one on one classes, the same monthly subscription or bulk purchase options are available, with classes working out between €15-€37,00 a class.
Prices correct as of May 2025, prices are for Spanish classes, other languages may vary.

The Lingoda Sprint and Lingoda Super Sprint are currently €310 and €500 respectively, and if you meet all the conditions of the sprint, 50% of the money is returned to you at the end of the course. It’s quite a big commitment, so be sure you can meet the rules before signing up.

Things That Could be Better with Lingoda

As with everything in life, nothing is perfect! While I am very happy with Lingoda, there are a couple of things that could be improved with the course. The first and most important for me is the student community. There are other people in my classes, but outside of the class there is no way to communicate with each other.

Whenever I study, I like to have someone to bounce ideas and questions off. Yes, I can just Google to find the answer to something, but I would love to be able to interact with other students outside of classes to meet people who are going through the same experience as me.

Lingoda have now introduced a ‘Teams’ option where you have fixed classmates and teachers. This is a great option, but the number of classes per week is quite high if you’re looking to learn casually or have other commitments.

Similarly, teachers teach their lesson and then log off. I completely understand this, but would really appreciate having a tutor or nominated teacher so that if I have questions outside of the class when I’ve been reviewing the material, I have someone to speak with.

The resources provided with Lingoda are perfect for covering the course material and allowing students to progress, however it would be really helpful to have some additional suggested resources for students who want to practice further outside of the classroom. This could be in the form of books, TV shows, podcasts, etc.

Although these factors would enhance my Lingoda experience, I don’t feel that the absence of them impacts my learning in any way.

How Does Lingoda Compare with Duolingo?

Having used the free version of Duolingo for many years to learn Spanish, I got to a point where I felt I wasn’t really progressing. Yes, Duolingo is good for building vocabulary and learning for free, but I felt it lacked the lessons behind grammar and requires you to just ‘work it out’ as you go along. I also lose motivation when my progress is halted by not having enough ‘lives’ after making too many mistakes.

The difference between Lingoda and Duolingo is that Lingoda actively teaches with a real person guiding you through the lessons, and with group sessions you sometimes find the answer to questions you didn’t know you wanted to ask. Lingoda has also built my confidence with speaking and listening to native Spanish speakers which I didn’t feel Duolingo could do.

My ideal situation is to use both Lingoda and Duolingo to supplement the other. Duolingo is an excellent free language learning resource, and can be done any time of day, even if you just have 5 minutes spare. But, as with all things, there are limitations, and that’s where Lingoda has filled the gap. Having to listen and speak in Spanish has developed my skills immensely in a short time period, built my confidence and given me a person to ask questions and fine tune my pronunciation.

Would I Recommend Learning with Lingoda?

Yes! I am really enjoying the flexibility of being able to book lessons around my schedule, and the small class sizes mean I get plenty of opportunities to contribute to the class. The teachers I’ve had so far have been really helpful, give good feedback and plenty of opportunities to ask questions or check if there’s something I’ve not totally understood.

The cost has been very reasonable in comparison to other language schools, and the fact that all classes are delivered online, via Zoom, is very convenient and saves time having to travel to classes. The biggest thing for me has been the noticeable increase in my ability to speak and understand spoken Spanish, and therefore a huge boost in my confidence.

If you’re still unsure, Lingoda do offer a week’s free trial. If you enjoy it, you can then start paid lessons, but if it’s not for you, then you can move on and try another method of learning Spanish. What is there to lose?