Is LingoPie worth it to learn Russian? (My review)

I love to watch Russian series: without them I would’ve never become fluent in Russian. So I got curious (and a bit skeptical) when I heard LingoPie promise “Discover a brand new way to get to language fluency with Lingopie.” So I signed up and spent a couple of days playing around with the app, and the result is this LingoPie review.

Here’s what you’ll learn in this review:

• How LingoPie works
• LingoPie cost
• 4 Things I like about Lingopie
• 3 Things I dislike about LingoPie
• LingoPie verdict (who should and who shouldn’t sign up)

You can watch the video below to find out:

Or continue reading:

How LingoPie works

Watching series is a great part of my strategy to learn Russian. 

So I was happy to see what LingoPie has to offer.

It’s an online app that allows you to watch series with 2 subtitles at the same time.

Usually if you watch a series, you only have 1 line of subtitles (either English or Russian – depending on your level).

But with LingoPie, you can see both Russian and English at the same time.

Why is this important?

Well, assume you’re a beginner learner. You want to watch Russian series, and you’ve found a couple online or on Netflix.

In order to understand the plot you NEED to turn on English subtitles.

If you were to watch with Russian subs, you would not understand anything.

Have you ever tried watching a Russian series with only Russian subs?

Well, then you understand you need at least intermediate Russian before you can watch Russian series with Russian subs.

Before that, you’re forced to use English subs.

Now, the issue people get here is that you tend to focus only on the English subs.

This makes it lose effectiveness, as you’re just reading what’s going on – and not paying much attention to the Russian sound.

Sidenote: watching with English subs is still useful as you give your brain and ears time to get used to Russian. But using Russian + English subs allows you to get MUCH more practice in the same time period.

LingoPie solves this problem by allowing you to watch Russian with BOTH subtitles at the same time.

You can now:

• Listen to what’s being said (improves listening skills)
• Read the Russian subs of what’s being said (improves vocabulary + grammar skills)
• Understand what’s being said through the English subtitles (improves vocabulary + grammar skills)

There are some downsides, but I’ll cover those later in this review.

Lingopie cost

Since series are a support activity to learn Russian, I’m glad to see that LingoPie is affordable.

Here are the pricing:

• 3-Month plan: $36
• Yearly plan: $144
• Lifetime access: $663

If you sign up for the yearly or lifetime plan, you also get access to all the 10 languages LingoPie offers (Russian, German, French, Italian, Korean, Japanese, Chinese, Portuguese, Spanish, and English).

I usually recommend people to just focus on 1 language at a time, but if a family member is also learning a foreign language, it’s nice to only have 1 account.

I’ve also spoken to the guys from LingoPie, and if you sign up through my site, you’ll get 50% off on the yearly plan (so it’s only $72 a year).

All plans also have a 7-day free trial, so if you’re doubting, you can just sign up and see if you like the double subs (more on that later)

4 Things I like about Lingopie

Below you can read the main things I like about Lingopie.

It turns watching Russian series into a puzzle

When you watch with double subs, it’s fun to compare the Russian text with the English text.

1. First you hear what they say. 
2. Then you pause the video (just press space).
3. Now you read the Russian phrase.
4. Then you compare it to the English phrase.
5. Hold your mouse over a Russian word to see the translation
6. Puzzle together how the Russian phrase becomes the English phrase

This works because they’re not using literal translations. That would be boring and often wouldn’t make sense.

Take this example:

So when you put these sentences together you get:

• я – I
• когда – when
• стреляла – shot
• из арбалета – from a crossbow
• я – I
• меньше – less
• чем – than
• в восмьмерку – an eight
• не – not
• попадала – got

So the literal translation is: I when shot from crossbow less than an eight not got.

But it turns into: When I fired a crossbow, I didn’t hit less than an eight.

After puzzling a phrase like this, the chances of you learning and remembering the words are much higher.:

• You’ve heard native speakers say the word
• You’ve heard the word in context
• You’ve seen the word in context in video format
• You’ve read the Russian word
• You’ve engaged with the Russian word by clicking, reading, translating it
• You’ve connected the Russian word to an English word
• You’ve done all this in a full sentence

The more parts of your brain you engage with when learning a word, the higher the chances of you learning it. And LingoPie allows you to easily engage with a lot of words in a fun manner.

You learn more vocabulary per hour spent watching series

I barely watch any English series anymore. I try to do most of my media consumption in Russian, so I don’t have to “sacrifice” extra time to learn Russian.

I’m in the position where I can spend on average around 5 hours a week watching Russian media.

But if I were a beginner and only had 1 to 2 hours a week, I would want to progress faster.

And LingoPie allows you to do that. Because you’re more engaged with each word and sentence, you learn more words/hour than if you were to just watch with English subtitles.

Flash cards are always good

When you see a word you don’t understand you can add it to your personal flash card list. Just click the word and press the + button.

Then you can later go over all your flash cards with spaced repetition.

It works similar to Anki (an app I usually use for flashcards).

If you classify a word as easy, you’ll see it less often.

If you classify a word as difficult (or you don’t know), you’ll see it more often.

This works well on the phone app, so you can then just take it with you. And whenever you have a couple of free minutes to spare, you can review some flash cards.

Lots of series

I asked LingoPie and they have around 100 hours of Russian content (excluding Netflix shows), and they’re planning on adding more.

Most of the series you can find online for free, but then you cannot watch them with double subs.

3 Things I dislike about Lingopie

There are also a couple of things I was a bit skeptical about.

It takes away from the immersive experience

I tried watching with regular speed, but found I got overwhelmed by trying to read both Russian and English subs. 

So I had to pause the video after each sentence. 

This is when I started puzzling the sentences together.

So it’s not a big deal, as it makes learning Russian more effective. 

But it does take away from the immersive experience.

You’re sacrificing some enjoyment to learn faster. 

Whether that’s something you want to do, depends on your preferences and circumstances.

If you have plenty of free time and take a leisure approach to learning Russian, LingoPie is maybe not worth it.

But if you have less free time to spend on learning Russian and want a more intense (and effective) approach, then LingoPie can be valuable.

I cannot tell what you prefer. That’s why I’m happy they’ve got a free trial, so you can sign up and see for yourself if it’s worth it.

AI grammar coach can be wrong

While artificial intelligence can be beneficial in some circumstances, it can also hinder.

LingoPie incorporated AI in their “grammar coach”.

The idea is good.

You can press the lightbulb for every sentence, and then AI explains the grammar of that sentence.

Again, the idea is good. And it can be helpful at times.

But sometimes it’s just plain wrong:

I can spot the mistakes, because I’m fluent in Russian.

But as a beginner (or intermediate) learner, you don’t know when it’s wrong or right…

So everytime you press the grammar coach button you’re unsure if you can trust what it’s saying. And a feature like this requires 100% trust for it to be used.

I imagine this can be fixed by having someone manually check all the AI explanations of each sentence and correcting it. But that would probably require LingoPie years to get done well.

No speaking feedback

Okay, a fun thing you can do is test how well you speak.

You listen to a sentence from the series, and then repeat it.

Based on how well you said it, you get a score.

That’s all great.

The problem?

You have no clue what you did wrong.

• Did you say the щ incorrectly?
• Did you put the stress in the wrong place?
• Did you mispronounce the е?

There was a sentence: на него вся надежда (on him is all hope)

I first said it correctly and got 100%.

Then I said: на него вся одежда (on him is all clothes)

Then I got 89%. 

So it is working. And it is fun to practice. But it’s also kind of pointless if you don’t get any specific feedback WHAT you did wrong.

Is Lingopie worth it?

Может быть (maybe) 🙂

It’s a great app for watching series, and you want to make them more effective for learning vocabulary.

But it does take away some of the immersion that some people value.

So if you’re willing to sacrifice some enjoyment to learn Russian faster, LingoPie helps you do that.

I can’t make this decision for you, so I recommend you try it out. There’s a 7-day free trial, so you can sign up and see for yourself whether it works for you.