Best App to Learn English in 2026 (for Speaking, Listening, IELTS and TOEFL)

The short answer: the best app to learn English depends on what you are missing, and for most learners that is speaking. For a free daily habit, Duolingo. For structured lessons built for speakers of your language, Babbel, or Busuu for a course with feedback from native speakers. For pronunciation, ELSA Speak. For speaking out loud with an AI tutor, Speak. For conversation with a real person, Cambly. For a large free library of exercises, British Council LearnEnglish. For listening to English in songs, stories and YouTube, with every word explained in your own language, Soma. For flashcards you control, Anki. Most learners combine two: one to speak and one to listen.

Many people looking for an English app already know some English from school. What they want is the spoken language: in India, "spoken English" is searched more often than "learn English" (Google Trends, October 2026), and a question that keeps coming back on Reddit's language forums is some version of "I understand English, but I can't speak it." This guide sorts nine apps and four official exam sites by the job each one does.

How we compared them

We looked at each app's own pages and store listings in October 2026 and asked six questions:

1. What do you actually do in it? Lessons, drills, conversations, songs, videos, flashcards.
2. Does it get you speaking? And does it tell you what to fix in your pronunciation?
3. Do you hear real English? Natural speech at natural speed, ideally in more than one accent.
4. Which language explains the English? An explanation in English only helps once your English is good enough to follow it.
5. Does it bring words back before you forget them (spaced repetition)?
6. What does it cost? Free, a free tier, or a subscription after a trial.

We don't quote prices, because they change by country and month. Each app's own page has the current price.

English learning apps compared

Best free app to learn English

British Council LearnEnglish is the largest free library: more than 10,000 activities and exercises from A1 to C1, covering listening, reading, writing, speaking, grammar and vocabulary, plus business English. The British Council's apps are free too, among them LearnEnglish Grammar and LearnEnglish Sounds Right, a pronunciation app. Its online courses with live teachers are paid and separate.

Duolingo is free with ads and is good at one thing: making you open it every day. Its weakness is depth. Learners often finish a unit able to read sentences but not to follow a fast conversation, let alone join one.

Busuu keeps many of its features free; a subscription unlocks the rest.

Soma is free for one language, with every song, story and picture in it. If English is your one language, you get all of the English. It runs in any browser on your phone or computer; native iOS and Android apps are coming soon.

Best app for speaking English

Understanding English and speaking it are different skills. You can read an email at work and still freeze when someone asks you a question, because speaking means finding the words in real time and saying them clearly enough to be understood. That takes practice out loud, and most apps leave it to you.

• Speak is built around speaking. Each lesson teaches phrases you then say out loud, and an AI tutor gives real-time feedback on your pronunciation and grammar. Speak says it is "also used by non-English speakers around the world who want to build English speaking confidence".
• ELSA Speak is a pronunciation coach. Its speech analyzer gives instant, detailed feedback while you speak, it trains word stress, and you choose the accent you are aiming for: American, British, Australian and more.
• Cambly gives you a real person: private lessons with native English-speaking tutors, or small groups of a tutor and one or two students, at any hour of the day.
• Babbel uses speech recognition in its lessons and adds Babbel Speak, an AI partner (in beta) that gives you feedback.
• Soma trains speaking in two ways. With shadowing, you hear a sentence, say it back, and it scores your pronunciation word by word against American English (en-US); scoring is on the Pro and Max plans. And in a spoken dialogue you can take one part and answer aloud.

A routine that works for many learners: five minutes of shadowing a day, so the sounds become automatic, and one real conversation a week, with a tutor, a friend or an AI partner, so you practise finding words under pressure.

Best app for listening to real English

Real English is faster than textbook English. Words run together (going to becomes gonna), and the same sentence sounds different in London, Lagos, Sydney and Mumbai. Listening needs its own daily practice, with speech at full speed.

• Soma builds listening in three ways. Original English songs are sung word by word in karaoke, with the translation under every line; you can slow them down or switch the vocals off and sing. Spoken stories and dialogues come at four levels. And an English YouTube video you paste becomes a lesson, which is how you hear British, Australian or Indian English: Soma's own songs and stories are in American English. Tap any word for its meaning and its dictionary form: rolls shows roll. The songs are made with AI for learners, and every lyric is checked by people.
• British Council LearnEnglish Podcasts is a free app with interactive audio scripts, so you can repeat a hard-to-hear phrase, and a control that slows the audio down. Each episode comes with exercises.

Try one before you decide: Harbor In Fog opens with Fog rolls in, soft and slow. With Portuguese as your language, the line underneath reads A névoa avança, suave e devagar, and a tap on fog gives névoa, neblina. The full karaoke plays on the page without signing in; the explanations follow the language you choose when you start.

Best app if you'd rather learn through your own language

Most English apps teach English in English. That works once you have the basics. Before then, every grammar point explained in English costs you twice: once to understand the explanation, and again to learn the grammar.

• Soma explains English in the language you choose: 22 languages, including Brazilian Portuguese, Spanish, Hindi, Bengali, Telugu, Tamil, Marathi, Arabic, Vietnamese, Indonesian, Chinese, Korean and Russian. The app's menus switch to that language too. Turkish is not among them, so a Turkish speaker would use English, or another language they read well, as Soma's explanation language.
• Babbel builds its courses for speakers of your language: in its own words, "an English speaker learning Spanish gets different lessons than a French speaker does". Check whether it has an English course for yours.
• Duolingo, Busuu, Speak and Cambly all have apps in Turkish, Portuguese and Spanish, among other languages. Which language explains the English depends on the course, so check what each offers from yours.

Best app for English vocabulary

Words stick when you meet them again just before you would have forgotten them. That's spaced repetition, and the tools that use it best:

• Anki, if you like control. Free on desktop, on the web and on Android (the iOS app is paid), with the modern FSRS scheduler built in.
• Busuu's Smart Review saves the grammar and vocabulary from your lessons in one place, so you can go back over them.
• Soma keeps every word or line you save in one spaced-repetition review, and each word comes from a song or story you heard, so you learn how it sounds, not only how it's spelled.

If you're wondering which words to learn first, frequency is a better guide than a textbook: see the most common English words, where the plain everyday words beat the formal ones every time. And if reviews keep piling up, read how to learn a language with spaced repetition.

Best app for IELTS, TOEFL and Cambridge English

Be careful here: a general app is not an exam course. Start with the exam's own practice material, then use apps for the skills behind it.

• IELTS has four sections: Listening, Reading, Writing and Speaking. You can take IELTS Academic at a test centre or online, and the official IELTS site has free practice papers for both IELTS Academic and General Training. IELTS is jointly owned by the British Council, IDP IELTS and Cambridge University Press & Assessment, and the British Council's LearnEnglish site has its own IELTS preparation section.
• TOEFL iBT has Reading, Listening, Writing and Speaking sections and is taken on a computer, at a test centre or at home. ETS, which runs it, offers a free eight-week study planner with sample questions, and TOEFL TestReady, its prep portal with practice tests.
• Cambridge English exams run from A2 Key to C2 Proficiency. For B2 First there are free sample tests, digital and on paper, and Write & Improve, a free tool that gives feedback on your writing. Its Speaking test is face to face, with one or two other candidates and two examiners.
• The Duolingo English Test is a separate exam from the Duolingo app, taken on a computer through its own desktop app.
• ELSA Speak has practice for IELTS, TOEFL and TOEIC in ELSA Premium, and Cambly lists exam preparation among its courses.
• Soma doesn't do mock tests. What it adds is the listening that every one of these exams tests in its own section, and shadowing for the speaking.

Is Duolingo enough to learn English?

For a start, yes; for a job interview or an IELTS Speaking test, almost never on its own. Duolingo is excellent at habit and early vocabulary. It gives you little long, natural listening and little speaking under pressure, and those are exactly what a real conversation demands. Keep the streak if it motivates you, and add one way to speak and one way to listen every day. More options in Duolingo alternatives.

Frequently asked questions

Which app is best to learn English for free? British Council LearnEnglish has more than 10,000 free activities from A1 to C1, plus free apps. Duolingo is free with ads, and Busuu keeps many of its features free. Soma is free for one language, including all its English songs and stories.

What is the best app to practise speaking English? For speaking out loud with an AI tutor, Speak. For pronunciation, ELSA Speak. For a real person, Cambly. Soma's shadowing scores your pronunciation word by word on the Pro and Max plans, and its dialogues let you answer aloud.

Which app teaches English in Portuguese, Spanish or Hindi? Soma explains every word and song line in Portuguese, Spanish, Hindi or 19 other languages, whichever you choose. Babbel builds its courses for speakers of your language. For Duolingo and Busuu, it depends on which courses exist from yours.

Does Soma teach American or British English? American English: its songs and stories are in American English, and shadowing scores you against it. For other accents, paste a British or Australian YouTube video into YouTube Learn and it becomes a lesson.

Can I learn English with songs? Yes, as part of a routine. Songs make words and pronunciation stick because the melody carries them, but you also need to read, speak and review. We have guides in Portuguese and in Spanish, and on learning a language through music in general.

Which app is best for IELTS? No app replaces the free official practice papers on the IELTS site, so start there. Then train the skills: ELSA Premium has IELTS practice, Cambly has tutors for exam preparation, and daily listening and speaking feed the Listening and Speaking sections.

How long does it take to learn English with an app? It depends on your hours and where you start, not on the app. Be wary of any app that promises fluency in a few weeks.

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Sources: vendor pages and store listings checked October 2026: learnenglish.britishcouncil.org, speak.com, cambly.com, apps.ankiweb.net, docs.ankiweb.net, ielts.org, ets.org, cambridgeenglish.org, and the App Store listings of Duolingo, Babbel, Busuu, ELSA Speak, Speak, Cambly, the Duolingo English Test and the British Council's LearnEnglish apps.

Comparing apps for another language? The same guide for German, Spanish, French and Japanese.

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Try Soma free. Hear English in songs, stories and real YouTube videos, with every word explained in your own language and kept with spaced repetition. Play Harbor In Fog first, no sign-in needed, then start at app.soma.ninja; plans are on the pricing page.

Drafted with AI, edited and fact-checked by a human.