5 Of The Best Apps For Improving Your English Speaking Skills

Speaking is often thought to be the hardest skill to master when learning English. What’s more, there are hundreds of different English accents around the world making it extremely difficult to get the hang of.

So how can you improve? We’ve got just the thing – apps! A great digital tool to supplement your learning, these apps help you improve your English speaking skills.

Not sure which ones to choose? Here is our list of the top 5 apps to improve English speaking skills.

1. Sounds: The Pronunciation App – The best for phonetics

One of the most comprehensive pronunciation apps, Sounds offers the best support to learners wanting to work on specific tricky sounds. This English pronunciation tool has a built-in interactive phonemic chart which allows users to hear the corresponding sound of each symbol simply by tapping on it.

You’ll hear the sound and an example word, spoken by a British male or an American female voice – depending on what accent you want to develop. It also includes useful exercises that test your phonetic skills. Created by Macmillan Education, it is free to use and easy to download.

Price: Free

Accessibility: Android

Download it today.

2. ELSA – The best for pronunciation correction

ELSA (English Language Speech Assistant) acts as a personal AI-powered English speaking coach! The makers of this app understand the importance of getting pronunciation right. They have designed a way for you to be able to speak English in short, fun dialogues.

ELSA will provide you with phrases and ask you to record yourself speaking into the app. Then it will give instant feedback, with the intention of fixing any small errors in pronunciation. Designed by speech and communication experts, we recommend this app if you want to fine-tune those tricky sounds!

Price: Free; Pro Plan subscription starting at $74.99 per year

Accessibility: iOS and Android.

Download the app for free.

3. Babbel – The best all-rounder

Babbel is a useful tool for any English language learner wanting to work on their speaking skills. In fact, the name comes from the English word ‘babble’, which means to talk rapidly and continuously in an excited or incomprehensible way.

The unique thing about this app is that it features a blend of activities to help you improve your speaking, grammar and vocabulary, all at the same time. The speaking tasks use automatic voice recognition technology to assess your language skills and offer you tips to improve.

We recommend Babbel as it is fun and easy to use. To access it, you’ll need to sign up for a subscription. Find out more here.

Price: One month is $12.95, three months $26.85, six months $44.70 and a year amounts to $83.40.

Accessibility: iOS and android.

4. SpeakingPal – The best for building confidence

Don’t have anyone near you to practise speaking English with? Try SpeakingPal. It offers you the chance to practise speaking with an animated video character using scripts. The app uses advanced speech recognition that will give you immediate feedback on your pronunciation and grammar.

The app also helps you to pick up new vocabulary and phrases as it will show you the translation of the script you’re looking at. Not only this, but it keeps track of all your progress so you can see how far you’ve come after a few months of using it.

The great thing about it is that the app listens, understands, and responds to you accordingly. Yet, each dialogue can take a different path, so you’ll be surprised where the conversation goes!

Price: Free; Premium version $8.99 per month

Accessibility: iOS and Android.

Download SpeakingPal now.

5. Speak English Fluently – The best for lower levels

If you are looking for an app to improve your beginner to intermediate conversation or listening skills, and help you speak more fluently, then Speak English Fluently is suitable for you.

The app uses American English accents to present a range of words and conversations that are typical to daily life around the world. More importantly, it’ll show you lists of some of the most common words and phrases in the English language – which means you’ll be speaking like a pro in no time!

Price: Free

Accessibility: Android

Download Speak English Fluently today.

Looking for more apps?

If you haven’t already, check out these posts:

8 Of The Best Apps For Learning English

7 Of The Best Apps For Learning English Vocabulary

5 Great Apps To Give Your English A Boost

7 of the Best Apps for Learning English Grammar

Interested in taking an English course at Oxford House Barcelona? Check all the different English classes we can offer you.

Glossary for Language Learners

Find the following words in the article and then write down any new ones you didn’t know.

get the hang of (exp): learn the skills that are needed to do something.

built-in (n): forming an integral part of something.

fine-tune (v): make very small changes to something to make it work as well as possible.

blend (n): mix.

keep track of (exp): stay informed about something.

pro (n): short for ‘professional’.

Key

exp = expression

n = noun

v = verb

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