Get Lingo Pal (free)
- iPhone: Lingo Pal on the App Store, or search "Lingo Pal"
- Android, laptop or tablet: lingopal-seven.vercel.app runs the whole app in your browser. It isn't on the Play Store yet.
- Try it as a guest with no account, or sign up with your email (a 6-digit code, no password) to sync your progress and get free AI every day.
What's inside
- Lessons from A1 to C2, as a trip through France: A1 starts in Paris, then Provence, the Calanques and the Alps.
- Tap any French word in a lesson or a reading for its meaning, its pronunciation and an example.
- Talk with AI: free conversation or practice partners. Your mistakes are corrected beside the chat, with the reason ("aller is irregular: after je it's vais, not va"). There's a hands-free mode too.
- Practice exams in the DELF and DALF format for every level, a section at a time or as a timed exam.
- A word bank of 8,273 words, ranked by how often French people use them.
- Full tables for the 600 most used verbs, plus a conjugation trainer.
- Weak spots: every slip you make anywhere in the app lands here until you get it right on three different days.
- A training gym: ear training, masculine or feminine, numbers at full speed and dictation.
- Pronunciation drills for the sounds English doesn't have, reading, writing correction, translation, level tests and revision sheets. The lessons work offline on the phone, and there are no ads.
The test: what $0 gets you
Five things, each one either free or not. The score is how many are fully free.
Lingo Pal: 5 of 5
- Whole course: ✓ A1 to C2
- No ads: ✓
- AI conversation: ✓ with a free account, within a daily allowance
- Goes past B2: ✓ up to C2
- DELF/DALF practice: ✓ timed papers for every level
Babbel: 2 of 5
- Whole course: ✕ only the first lesson is free
- No ads: ✓
- AI conversation: ✓ Babbel Speak is free for registered users while it's in beta
- Goes past B2: ✕ French goes up to B2
- DELF/DALF practice: ✕
Busuu: 1 of 5
- Whole course: ✕ only the first few lessons are free, then it asks you to pay (tested in the app)
- No ads: ✕ free lessons come with ads
- AI conversation: a few free tries, then Premium Plus
- Goes past B2: ✓ C1, by Busuu's own account (its certificates stop at B2)
- DELF/DALF practice: ✕
Duolingo: 1 of 5
- Whole course: ✓ free, with ads and Energy that refills in about a day
- No ads: ✕ (removing them is part of Super)
- AI conversation: ✕ Video Call needs a paid plan (Max, moving into Super by the end of 2026 per Duolingo's Q3 2026 letter)
- Goes past B2: ✕ French goes through B2
- DELF/DALF practice: ✕
Memrise: 0 of 5
- Whole course: limited (Free vs Pro)
- No ads: ✕
- AI conversation: limited
- Goes past B2: not stated
- DELF/DALF practice: ✕
What the others do better. Duolingo is by far the most used (5.6 million App Store ratings) and its streaks and leagues keep people coming back. Babbel has no ads at all, even for free users. Busuu teaches all the way to C1, by its own account. Lingo Pal launched on 8 Nov 2026, so it has hardly any ratings yet.
Ratings are each app's US App Store count on 8 Nov 2026, from Apple's public lookup. Prices: Babbel, Busuu, Memrise on the App Store.
How it's built
- One Next.js codebase runs the website and, through Capacitor, the iPhone and Android apps. Every screen is built into the phone apps, so lessons and reviews work offline.
- Claude writes the conversation replies, corrects your writing and your chat messages, and generates reading passages. The free AI comes out of a fixed monthly budget, so each person gets a daily allowance.
- Word frequency, spelling and gender checks use Lexique 3.83 (CC BY-SA 4.0). The verb tables come from the Lefff lexicon.
- Sign-in is a 6-digit email code (Better Auth). There are no passwords.
- The practice papers are original, in the DELF and DALF format. They aren't official exam material. The official sample papers are linked from inside the app.