Preply Review – a Detailed and Honest Review of the Preply Language Tutor Platform

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Quick review: Preply makes it easy to find, schedule and connect with native speakers who want to chat with you in your target language. Every tutor I’ve learned with on the platform has been exceptional. Highly recommended.

In the Preply review that follows, I’ll explain what I liked about this online language tutoring service. I’ve included screenshots, personal experience, and videos. I want to help you figure out whether Preply is a good fit for you as a language learner, and how you can make the most of it.

If you want to learn a language with a top-notch tutor, you can join Preply here.

Let’s get started!

What is Preply?

Preply is an online service that connects private language students with language tutors. Their website promises that it will help you:

• Find affordable language tutors online
• Prepare to speak confidently in your new language
• Make the world your comfort zone
• Speak naturally
• Focus on the skills you need
• Prepare to achieve your goals with private tutors

Once you connect with a tutor, you’ll arrange a time that’s suitable for both of you to meet 1-1 for a language lesson. This could be a structured lesson or an informal conversation in your target language. It’s up to you and what you want to achieve.

Lessons are between 30 and 60 minutes in length. Prices range from $4 to $40 for a lesson, so there are tutors available to support any budget.

To try Preply for yourself and learn a language with a top-notch tutor, you can join Preply here.

How Preply Works

Here are the four steps to follow when you use Preply:

• Find a tutor. Preply has over 49,000 tutors. You can browse tutors using various filters, or search using the search bar.
• Take lessons anytime. It’s easy to schedule a lesson, and with tutors all around the world, there’s always one to match your schedule.
• Enter a virtual classroom on Preply’s platform – it’s similar to a call on Zoom, and it works in your web browser.
• Enjoy structured learning. Preply will keep track of your learning progress. You can choose structured learning plans or just get conversation practice.

How I Used Preply for this Review

I first used Preply several years ago to learn French. So, before I was assigned to write this review, I was familiar with the platform, and I knew it worked well for me.

For this review, I used Preply to study Spanish, Vietnamese and American Sign Language. I also completed a placement test for Spanish.

What I Like about Preply

You can probably tell I like Preply a lot! I’ll start by going through the things I like about the platform, before covering a couple of the drawbacks I’ve found. Let’s get started!

Preply Guarantees Satisfaction

Preply guarantees that you will find a perfect match with a tutor who meets your needs. And they put their money where their mouth is. If you don’t like your first lesson with a tutor, you can schedule a second trial lesson for free.

I don’t know if there is a limit to the free trial lessons because I quickly found a tutor that I connected with.

I recommend that you try out a range of tutors, and when you find a tutor you like, stick with them. If you want to truly learn the language, you will need to create an action plan with one or two regular tutors.

For my target language, I usually have three tutors in rotation:

• one is for conversation practice
• one is for structured lessons
• one is a substitute for when my other tutors go on vacation.

Being able to trial different tutors on Preply means I’m easily able to find a tutor that fits my needs.

Preply Covers 27 Languages with Tutors from 185 Countries

There are 23 languages listed on the Preply drop-down menu.

Their website states that they have over 27 languages available. I found some by typing them into the search bar. For example, Vietnamese is not listed but there are tutors available.

I appreciate this variety. With almost 50,000 language tutors registered on the platform also means that you’ll have lots of options when you’re looking for a new teacher.

Here are the most popular languages on Preply, with the number of tutors listed at the time of writing:

• English – 19915 teachers
• Spanish – 9982 teachers
• German – 1007 teachers
• French – 2315 teachers
• Italian – 3135 teachers
• Russian – 1679 teachers
• Arabic – 1114 teachers
• Japanese – 906 teachers
• Chinese – 2499 teachers

With Preply, You Can Learn Anytime

Because you have access to teachers all over the world, you can pretty much have a lesson anytime of the day or night. It’s language hour somewhere!

It’s quite simple to find a tutor to match your needs. All you need to do is type the language you would like to learn into the “I want to learn…” search bar.

There are a number of different filters you can select.

Price Per Hour: This ranges from $4-$40.
Country: You can choose where your tutors lives. This helps when you need to learn specific dialects of a target language.
Time of Day and/or Day of Week: Let’s say you are a morning person. Well, you can select a filter that will show you tutors that are also up at the crack of dawn.
Expert Areas: This is a large drop-down menu with options like business language, lessons for children and lessons for dyslexic students.
Also Speaks: If you want to learn German while also practicing your Mandarin, you can select a tutor that speaks both of those languages.

I was amazed at how easy it was to find a tutor that matched my availability and was suitable for my level.

Test Your Level

Preply offers free placement tests. Students are always asking me how they can evaluate their level. Well, here you go!

Email Reminders

I was easily able to sync my Google calendar with the Preply appointments. I also received a friendly email reminder of my upcoming appointment.

What I Most Love about Preply – the Tutors!

The tutors are top-notch. Before trying Preply, I had over 450 one-on-one language lessons. During those lessons I tried nearly 60 tutors. Yeah, I know! That’s a lot of lessons. All this to say, I know what I like.

The quality of tutors on other websites are hit or miss. Every tutor I tried on Preply was remarkably effective. On Preply, I tried tutors in French, Vietnamese, Spanish and American Sign Language. Each one was exceptional.

Preply screens every tutor that joins the site, and it seems they’ve put together a great system. They’ve got some serious pixie dust that attracts the best tutors to their site.

To try Preply for yourself and learn a language with a top-notch tutor, you can join Preply here.

Preply: What Could be Better

There are a couple of things where my experience could have been slightly improved with Preply. These are far from being deal breakers, but I want to share them in case they are for you.

First, the placement tests. While I know some language students find these valuable, I’m not a huge fan of placements tests as I don’t feel they judge your ability to have a solid conversation. I took the test but I didn’t find it to be helpful. My tutor never mentioned it during our lesson. So, I’m not sure if she listened to my audio responses.

Second is lesson packages. After your trial lesson with a tutor, Preply offers you the chance to buy a package of six lessons.

Yes, you can try out more than one tutor. Yes, the second lesson with a new tutor is free. But once you’ve found a good match, they ask you to commit to six lessons. I like to take my time committing to a tutor. I usually buy one lesson as a time for the first three lessons so I can see whether we’re a good fit.

Oftentimes, I don’t know whether the tutor is a match until lesson two or three. Once I’m convinced that a tutor has something I need, I’m more than willing to buy six lessons. But I prefer to take time with that decision.

Anyway, the good news is Preply’s excellent customer service helped out with this. I emailed them to request the ability to purchase single lessons until I decide the tutor is right for me. They agreed.

So, this is not a deal breaker, and it does depend on how you like to find a new tutor.

The Best Resource for Learning a Language Is a Native Speaker

As a language coach for the Fluent in 3 Months (Fi3M) Challenge, one of my favorite things to do is try out new learning tools. So I loved trying Preply! Especially so because like Fluent in 3 Months founder Benny Lewis, I learn new languages by speaking them.

Having real conversations with native speakers of your target language is one of the surest ways to gain fluency. Thanks to this method, I now speak conversational French and Spanish.

Most mornings, I get up, meditate, brush my teeth and have a language lesson before my work day begins. Learning a new language is much easier when you can do it from the couch. That’s what makes Preply such a powerful tool. You can connect with tutors and make new friends all around the world, from the comfort of your home.

Preply Review Conclusion: Excellent

If you’re new to language learning, speaking with a native speaker is essential. Preply makes it easy to find, schedule and connect with another human being. It’s an excellent tool and I highly recommend it for finding a language tutor.

To try Preply for yourself and learn a language with a top-notch tutor, you can join Preply here.