Udemy Review: Is It Any Good For Learning Languages?

Course Preview is also helpful for instructors, as it attracts more students to their courses and increases their revenue. Both learners and instructors benefit from Course Preview because it provides a risk-free way of assessing the quality of paid courses before purchasing them.

Udemy Credits

Udemy Credits are one of the outstanding features of Udemy. They are a balance counted automatically toward your next purchase on Udemy, even though they have no cash value. If your next Spanish language course costs $20 and you have a credit of $5, the course will cost you $15.

There are four ways of earning this in-app currency. One way of earning Udemy Credits is by completing a course and getting a certificate of completion. The other is to purchase discounted courses when Udemy offers promotions.

The third way is to refer friends to the learning platform of Udemy. Once they make their first purchase, you earn credits as a reward. Finally, you earn credits from participating in surveys when Udemy asks for student feedback on purchased courses.

The Excellence Of The Learning Material

The quality of the learning material on Udemy greatly varies on chosen course. It is because Udemy instructors are not required to be professional lecturers or have formal accreditation. It lowers the overall quality of lessons, especially in free courses.

Reviews by past students balance this drawback, so make sure to read them before taking online courses. The course page is where Udemy describes the information to potential students helping them decide if the course is a good fit. It contains the course description with the title, subtitle, summary, instructor bio, and course goals.

Another measure is Udemy’s quality review process. All Udemy’s classes must pass the course quality checklist, including at least 30 minutes of video content, separate lectures, HD video quality audio synched with video, and a unique course description.

Udemy also fights against low-quality courses with its policies and guidelines that instructors must follow. They ensure that course content is original, respects intellectual property rights, and adheres to ethical standards. Some policies also address the issues of misinformation and accuracy.

Despite these measures, there are quite a few low-quality language learning courses on Udemy. The best way is to read user reviews and the course landing page. We discuss other crucial parts for evaluating the learning material below.

Culturally Tailored Courses 

Cultural nuances are essential for effective communication and language learning. Udemy language courses are culturally tailored to provide learners with a more comprehensive language understanding.

The instructors are native speakers who deeply understand their culture. We checked the instructor’s country of origin and years of experience teaching that language from the instructor’s bio. Reviews from students also helped us know whether the teacher understood the language and culture.

Udemy instructors have various ways of including cultural nuances for language learning. These instructors include cultural content in their language lessons, such as videos, images, or readings that showcase cultural customs, traditions, and values. Instructors encourage their students to explore the culture of the language through activities like watching movies, reading books, or attending cultural events.

These instructors have cultural discussions with their students that they conduct through private Facebook groups. They facilitate discussions about cultural differences and similarities, encouraging learners to share their experiences and perspectives.

Language instructors also provide tips and advice on navigating cultural differences, such as how to greet people, what to wear, and what to expect in certain social situations.

Skill Practice

This online learning platform helps course instructors know how to engage learners with opportunities to practice and evaluate their learning. The method of skill practice for language courses on Udemy varies depending on the course and instructor, but there are several common ways that instructors enact skill practice.

Many language courses on Udemy include vocabulary and grammar exercises to help learners practice and reinforce their language understanding. Language courses on Udemy include listening and speaking activities, such as dialogue practice, pronunciation drills, or conversation exercises.

Additionally, some instructors give their students writing assignments, such as short essays or journal entries, to help them practice their writing skills. Instructors also use role-playing and simulations to create real-life scenarios for learners to practice. Finally, many Udemy courses include interactive quizzes to reinforce key concepts.

Compared to Udemy, Babbel uses short video lessons, interactive exercises, and speech recognition technology to help learners develop skills in the target language. At the same time, Coursera is more academically structured, focusing on grammar and vocabulary, and language courses are part of a degree program.

Advanced learning

Udemy courses also cater to advanced learners. Advanced courses offer more specialized and in-depth content, covering topics with more complex concepts. Advanced language courses are indicated as ‘Advanced’ on the course title. You can access them by starting your search with the word ‘Advanced.’ Or you can read our guides of popular advanced learning apps like Babbel, Rocket Languages, Pimsleur, Mondly, or Lingoda.

For some of the language courses, one of the requirements in the Requirements section on the Course landing page is that one needs to be an advanced learner of that language. However, you can still add an advanced course to the cart, even if you are a newbie.

Access to Tasks

Studying Udemy’s courses is very convenient because the tasks on courses are easily accessible. Every particular course has a question and solution page to post assignments and provide answers. Before the instructor publishes an assignment, they can preview and remove errors.

You can find your assignment on the curriculum page of the course. Once you complete the assignment, the instructor will notify you and give you feedback about your progress. 

Udemy Review: Accessibility

We found the platform’s interface well-organized and easy to navigate, with clear and concise labels for buttons. We can say the same for both their website and the Udemy app on iOS and Android.

Most of the visuals used in Udemy courses are of high quality as they encourage instructors to use only original images. Although, we did find some cheaper courses with stock images.

The first-time user experience can be a bit overwhelming as there is a lot of different content to choose from. However, if you know what to look for, go straight to the search bar and you are likely to find it.

The platform’s loading time is quick but if your internet connection isn’t fast, you can download courses for offline use. For those who like to watch classes on a larger screen, Udemy also supports Chromecast and Airplay. In our experience with the Udemy app, the video player works well.

What Areas Require Enhancement?

Varying course quality is the biggest drawback of Udemy. Although online learning platform puts effort into reviewing their courses, the amount of them makes it impossible to moderate the platform efficiently. You are left to read every course description and Udemy reviews, which takes time you could spend learning.

As a whole, Udemy isn’t an officially accredited online learning platform. Some of its courses have wide recognition, but this mostly applies to web development and IT. Udemy alternatives, such as Coursera, are more academically focused and can even give you college credit for participating.

Udemy isn’t a specialized language learning platform. As such, it does not have many features used in traditional language learning apps, such as Babbel or Rocket languages. Language apps include voice recognition software, audio lessons, interactive games, reading materials, and much more.

Udemy can give you some good video courses, but that’s about it. Most language learners will find dedicated language apps more effective. However, if you or your organization is already invested in Udemy classes, it is a good place to find some language learning material.

Udemy Prices

Udemy courses can cost as low as $9.99, with lifetime access to all material once you purchase a course. Additionally, Udemy offers three types of subscription plans.

Personal plan subscription

This plan allows you unlimited access to over 6000 well-structured Udemy courses. For the first seven days, you can take advantage of a free trial, after which you will be charged $26.99 monthly. If you decide to cancel your subscription, you can request a refund within the first 30 days of your purchase date.

Udemy Business Plan 

Udemy Business plan is designed to help organizations and teams of all sizes upskill their workforce, costing $360 per user yearly. This plan supports five to twenty users and provides access to over 8000 online courses with advanced analytics and reporting tools.

The Enterprise Plan

This plan hosts over 21 users and gives you access to over 19000 courses. It’s made with large businesses and schools in mind. The Enterprise plan has custom pricing, and you must contact sales to get an offer.