italki - Language Learning

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1. ★★★★★saving, exporting or sharing the result fails

   Whiteboard cannot work. During the class, italki class system has some systematic issue that whiteboard and ppt cannot share , please help with this issue

2. ★★★★★subscription and paid restrictions

   👎👎👎. The italki app, which is used to find English tutors, has several serious issues. First of all, it is not possible to get a refund once you’ve made a payment, which is a major drawback. Secondly, it is very difficult to find a teacher who actually provides real value for the money paid. Lessons are quite expensive, but the quality and usefulness of the instruction often do not match the price.

3. ★★★★★negative experience without a specific reason· unspecific

   Poor lately. Been using for over a year. Ever since the poor and unnecessary redesign it’s so difficult to be able to do basic tasks within the app and the video is constantly lagging in picture and sound despite a very high speed connection. A year ago, great platform. Now, not so much.

4. ★★★★★subscription and paid restrictions

   Paid 30$ for a test in the app I can’t even use, and they won’t refund me. Italki recommended I take their proficiency test and buy the $30 package. My profile lists Latvian as my sole learning goal. After purchase, I discovered in the small print that the test doesn't support Latvian, it only covers Spanish and a handful of other languages. In other words: the app recommended a product to me that it already knew wasn't compatible with my account. I never used the test. I contacted support within an hour to request a refund and was refused, citing policy. So I've paid $30 for a product I literally cannot use, that was recommended to me by an app that already knew it didn't apply to my language. I'm not asking for an exception to a policy I knowingly violated, I'm asking why a policy is being applied to a purchase the app itself prompted in error. I genuinely love italki. I pay for premium monthly, love my instructor, and the app is a real part of my learning routine. That's why this is so disappointing, Id really like to keep being a happy premium customer. Please make this right. I’m happy to update my review to 5 stars if we can fix this so other people don’t mistakingly waste $30.

5. ★★★★★subscription and paid restrictions

   Too expensive. I’ve genuinely enjoyed using iTalki and have had some great instructors, but the platform has become increasingly unaffordable. The continual rate increases and platform fees are making it difficult to continue lessons consistently, especially for long-term language learners. What started as an accessible way to learn Italian now feels financially out of reach. I understand instructors deserve fair pay, but the overall cost structure has changed significantly over time. I hope iTalki reconsiders its pricing model because many dedicated students may eventually be forced to leave the platform.

6. ★★★★★negative experience without a specific reason· unspecific

   Can’t get past set screen. Doesn’t let me select English as my native language

7. ★★★★★negative experience without a specific reason· unspecific

   Garbage App,Don’t use it!. The teachers always change the time,if they can’t attend, shouldn’t say they can at that time,another thing,if that isn’t my problem,THIS GARBAGE APP should return money and tax(even the money just a few)to my wallet.you should not let it stay in the app’account.what if teachers always change their time?and I lost my money(tax)every times and get no more class.some teachers are so unreliable,they are impatient to students,always change their time,very unprofessionally.it that way you recruit teachers?allow a lot of idiots in to teach language? Anyway, I will not use this app anymore,it is too disappoint to me.enough!

8. ★★★★★subscription and paid restrictions

   False advertising. I purchased something because I was under the impression based on how it was advertised that I would receive five lessons a week on this package. It cost me $56. I asked the teacher before the lesson if it was indeed for five lessons because I was not sure. I was unfortunately misled. I contacted support and relayed this information. They did not help me get a refund. I will never use this app again and I strongly suggest no one else does.

9. ★★★★★negative experience without a specific reason· unspecific

   Recent update failure. If you are new to italki, forget this service and take classes elsewhere. The recent platform update is horrible. I can’t find my teachers, my lessons, or my purchased packages. But front and center is their AI bot, some upgrade they want to sell me but no one needs, and a stupid fish that’s supposed to motivate me. The classroom is so bad they even RECOMMEND that you and your teacher use Google Meet or Zoom.

10. ★★★★★negative experience without a specific reason· unspecific

    Terrible experience. Don’t do it.

11. ★★★★★negative experience without a specific reason· unspecific

    Same Fake marketing. Just another app where it makes you make an account, thennnn tells you to pay or you can’t use it

12. ★★★★★negative experience without a specific reason· unspecific

    Sketchy billing. Several problems scheduling and having teachers cancel at the last minute, but the kicker was getting billed for a session i never had.

13. ★★★★★negative experience without a specific reason· unspecific

    Spam. Clearly they didn’t get the memo when I unsubscribed from their emails

14. ★★★★★subscription and paid restrictions

    Buggy software causes you to lose money. They don’t tell you the time zone of your lesson is different (which you would obviously assume it’s the time zoom that you’re in), causing me to miss my lesson. Can’t reach customer service either so can’t get a refund, so you end up just losing money with no lesson. I’ll probably try a competitor instead.

15. ★★★★★negative experience without a specific reason· unspecific

    Be careful before putting your money into italki. Imagine having a remaining of $100 USD in your italki account and realizing you are denied of withdrawing your own money afterwards. To make it worse, italki will automatically take your money once they mark your credits as expired.

16. ★★★★★trial charges and refunds

    Teacher canceled and app denied refund. This week I bought I pack with 10 classes after doing a trial of almost $300 dollars. The professor has a list of class with different prices. I went there and booked the first one as it appeared to be for beginners, but it was not. Even after the teacher accepted, the cancelled and said my class was another one, $50 dollars more expensive. Well, I said that I did not want it anymore and found another teacher in another app. Guess what! italki denies to refund my credit card even though the teacher was the one who canceled. They want to give me credit back, but I do not want because I do not want another “professional” from this app, I found another one and cheaper. I’ll gladly file a report this week with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in the USA. I did not cancel the class, why should I be the one penalized? After the teacher saw what I paid and what I paid and even though accepted , he should be held accountable and finish that pack first. If he wanted, after he should raise the price, but see what I paid, accept and after cancel it saying it is wrong, and I should book the most expensive one it is a scam.

17. ★★★★★excessive or broken notifications

    Notification spam. The notifications are now spam like “write about how you celebrate Xmas “ instead of being only about upcoming class. So what should we do, turn them all off?

18. ★★★★★negative experience without a specific reason· unspecific

    Notifications bad. For the second time I’ve booked a lesson, the teacher has “confirmed” yet had no idea the lesson happened. I think there’s an issue with the auto confirming and notifications system

19. ★★★★★inaccurate results and incorrect data

    Political content from publishers/developers. Teachers from Taiwan have a Chinese flag which is factually inaccurate but aligns with CCP propaganda. I’d stay away from this app because they’re allowing political propaganda from one country to influence how they present things to the entire world.

20. ★★★★★negative experience without a specific reason· unspecific

    Pésimos instructores. En mi clase de prueba con un instructor que fue de lo más patético, solamente te sientas a platicarle no te corrigen absoluto y al final de la clase te da retroalimentación vía correo, creo que mejor para platicar, contratas la inteligencia artificial, en vez de estar viendo un monigote que te da clases de mala gana

21. ★★★★★negative experience without a specific reason· unspecific

    Bad app. They stole my money after I booked a tutor for the lesson. They canceled the tutor and didn't return my money. I will never use it again, I swear.

22. ★★★★★negative experience without a specific reason· unspecific

    I adore my teacher. I HATE italki.. The platform has always been ridiculously non-intuitive, just incredibly difficult to use. After the last “upgrade” and re-design, it is almost unusable. (Although one good thing is that it is now possible for students to copy the teacher’s notes to another application for use outside of italki…an excellent advantage. Before, there was a text bubble for each comment the teacher made, and you’d have to copy every single one of those comments individually. There is no explanation of how to access this feature, though. I just found it on my own when I was trying to figure something else out. 🤬) The FAQ results give you “solutions” that do not correspond to any kind of reality. It took me 30 minutes to figure out how to buy a package of lessons. The interface kept trying to get me to buy a sample lesson, not the package. I pressed “continue,” just to see what would happen and found the way to purchase the package. The whole interface is just a HUGE, frustrating waste of time… If I weren’t absolutely devoted to my own teacher, I’d have bailed a long time ago. Terrible, terrible, terrible. Grrrr. Oh, and the thing I think I hate the most is what I call the Duolinguification of the site. I don’t want nudges to study or awards for being consistent with my meetings with my teacher. I fled Duolingo because all the gamification was a huge distraction from serious learning. Duolingo is a game. My sessions with my teacher are serious. I am learning a ton. I am gaining confidence. Hey, italki…Don’t try to compete with Duolingo. You are something different. Market THAT.

23. ★★★★★subscription and paid restrictions

    Old interface was better. I have been using italki for over 10 years before they even had an app. I’ve never had any issues with any of the updates(except when they took away to ability to message and communicate with other learners) until now. When I open it, the stupid AI chat seems to take up most of the screen and when I minimize it, it is still quite big. It’s more difficult to navigate overall. Not intuitive at all. I also don’t want to have to uncheck the “plus” option every time I search for tutors. The non-mobile version is also more complicated to navigate. Personally, I don’t like the new sidebar chat especially. I learn several languages as do many other italki users, in my opinion, we need more simplicity than extra stuff all over the screen. Please fix this :( Update: after reading some other user experiences in the reviews, I really agree with bgima …the whole AI thing should just be separate. In the language learning community itself, especially with us older ones, it’s really unenjoyable to have AI popping up everywhere. Especially in an app that we come to for real human interaction by taking classes. I have stayed using italki mostly because of the non-subscription based, freedom of flexible scheduling. People who really enjoy language learning will do it anyways, they don’t necessarily need to tie into a subscription to be more motivated. Update 2: I feel like every time I open the app, I find another inconvenience in the new interface and it’s very frustrating. I can’t seem to find the tutor reviews. I have not been able to see if I can find the tutor reviews on the non-mobile version yet. I also don’t like that when I check a tutor profile, the chat window in almost half the screen and it appears there’s some AI auto message from that tutor. All unnecessary clutter. Please go back to the simple interface. This has really ruined my user experience.

24. ★★★★★aI-generated content produces nonsense and wrong phrases

    Great service, unusable app. I have used italki for years. It has many wonderful teachers, and I have progressed greatly in my language studies. But the new update to the app makes it basically unusable. The home page used to show up coming lessons and other useful information. Now it is filled with AI slop “teaching aids and challenges,” advertising for useless upgrades, and some fish thing that I couldn’t care less about if I tried. The layout is unusable and unintuitive. It’s really a shame as it was once a great app. They have made it much harder to see the info I want and to find teachers and book lessons. I hope they revert it. Until then I will just use the web version. You should too.

25. ★★★★★negative experience without a specific reason· unspecific

    Please allow opting out of “plus”. This app helps me connect with great teachers, however it must fix the following 1. Plus promotions are everywhere you turn and they very annoying. It not possible to opt out. Critical functions often pushed down or hidden due to limited screen real state. Even worse is plus features don’t really work. 2. Background image setting on video lessons doesn’t work.

26. ★★★★★negative experience without a specific reason· unspecific

    STOP THE AI SPAM. Go back to the old UI. It used to be a good app. Now it’s just AI spam down your throat and a horrible UI no one can use

27. ★★★★★negative experience without a specific reason· unspecific

    Great teachers - horrendous UI and “AI”. This app used to be fantastic, but with the latest update to “AI”ify the app, it is horrendous.

28. ★★★★★subscription and paid restrictions

    Absolutely terrible layout. The app is great for connecting with teachers and has some great teachers. Recently they decided to change the layout from a user friendly layout to a chaotic cluster f’ed of a mess. Now everything requires more clicks and areas are harder to find. Whoever is in charge of UI should be fired. I would move off the app because of this, but since my teachers are here, so am I. If you are picking one of the apps to learn, I suggest starting with another app that actually cares about their UI.

29. ★★★★★negative experience without a specific reason· unspecific

    Terrible Redesign. The recent changes to the app/website design are completely terrible. I am appalled that anyone would think this is a positive change. Were you blindfolded when the design team pitched its idea to the execs? It is HARDER to do every step of learning a language: finding a teacher, booking a lesson, practicing your skills. I have begun looking for lessons on other platforms. AI could surely help out iTalki, but this is not how. Please get rid of the Fish.

30. ★★★★★negative experience without a specific reason· unspecific

    Horrible interface update!. I was a regular user but took a break over the summer. When I decided to get back into and logged back in…to my surprise the layout had a dramatic change, which in my opinion disabled the usability. The developers made it harder to look for chats and schedule classes, I almost rebought a package by accident trying to schedule a class from a package I had just bought! They really really need to rework the interface. It’s very confusing and lacks imagination.