ELSA Speak - English Learning

28 of 100 · reviews
4.8of 5 · store
110,405ratings on the App Store
500reviews read

An editorial reading of the saved reviews

Was an interesting tool for pronunciation training with phoneme-level analysis. After a major update the interface was completely redesigned, pronunciation features were buried behind an AI avatar, and voice recognition became unreliable. The app is slow and frequently freezes.

Screenshots

What people use it for

Pronunciation-focused English learners who were using the old version. The new version is hard to recommend until stability improves.

What reviews praise

Detailed phoneme-level pronunciation breakdown.
A large topic library.
In the old version there was a clear progression through specific English sounds (TH, SH, AE).

What reviews complain about

Speech recognition does not catch correct pronunciation and marks it wrong.
The AI avatar layer obscures the pronunciation tools that made the app useful.
Frequent freezes and slow performance.

What users experience

1 excerpt from the breakdown. These are individual cases, not a verdict on all users.

This app started with promise, but quickly devolved into a frustrating experience that feels like a complete rip-off. The core functionality, voice detection, is shockingly unreliable. Even in a perfectly quiet, closed room, with absolutely no background noise, the app struggles to accurately detect my voice.