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About this video
I built a French learning app, Lingo Pal, then compared it with the apps everyone uses on one test: what do you get for $0?
Memrise 0/5, Duolingo 1/5, Busuu 1/5, Babbel 2/5, Lingo Pal 5/5. I picked the test and built the winner, so every claim
has its source here: https://pranavinnovates.com/french
Get Lingo Pal (free):
iPhone: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/lingo-pal-learn-french/id6830404880
Android / laptop (in the browser): https://lingopal-seven.vercel.app
Checked 8 Nov 2026, French course, US iPhone. Ratings are US App Store counts. Competitor screenshots and icons are from
their App Store pages, shown for comparison. Not affiliated with Duolingo, Babbel, Busuu or Memrise.
Built with Next.js, Capacitor and Claude. Fonts: Geist and Geist Mono (Vercel, SIL OFL), Instrument Serif (SIL OFL).
Animated with Remotion.
Music: Deliberate Thought by Kevin MacLeod, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Deliberate_Thought_(ISRC_USUAN1100261).mp3)
What the video says
I built a French app. Then I tested it against the apps everyone actually uses. Five apps, one test. What do you get for zero dollars? Memrise. Free gets you a taste: limited lessons, limited AI chats, and ads. Duolingo, the most used by far. The whole course is free, with ads and an energy limit. But AI video calls need a paid plan. Babbel. No ads, and its AI chat is free while it's in beta. But zero dollars only unlocks the first lesson. Busuu. Free gets you the first few lessons, then it asks you to pay. AI chats? Only a few tries. And mine, Lingo Pal. All of it is free, A1 to C2. Tap any word to hear it. Talk to the AI, and it fixes your French as you go. Then sit timed practice exams, in the DELF and DALF format. Under the hood, it's one Next.js codebase, shipped to the web and the iPhone with Capacitor, and Claude handles the corrections. The catch? I picked the test, and I built the winner. It just launched, so it has hardly any ratings yet. Comment FRENCH, and I'll send you the link. Which one are you using right now?