[This post is sponsored by Preply, however the tutoring experience and opinions are my own.]
For years, my French has been a party trick with a very short runway. I could order a coffee. I could say please and thank you. And I could deliver one flawless sentence, the one I’d practiced a hundred times: “Je comprends un peu, me je pal pa tres bien. Parlez-vous anglais?”
When we visited Paris and Nantes, that was plenty to get by. People were gracious, and there was always someone who’d switch to English the second I stumbled (which was often). I’d tell people I understood a little French, which was true in the narrowest possible sense. I understood the phrases I’d memorized, but if you asked me anything outside of those phrases, I’d just freeze like a deer in headlights.
Learning basic polite words and phrases in another language is enough for a trip to a big city, but I’ve learned that if you travel to more rural areas, you’ll need a bit more. Especially since you can’t always count on your phone to translate for you due to wifi and phone connectivity.
Since I’ve been starting to plan a family trip to Quebec to research our family’s ancestry, I decided I needed to truly learn to speak French. I think we’d be fine in Quebec City, but there’s a lot of our trip that will be country roads and small rural towns, tracing names through parish records and village cemeteries. Out there the cell signal gets spotty, and I’d rather not have my French be spotty at the same time.
I’ve tried language apps and audio lessons, but felt like I needed something more in depth, which is how I ended up on Preply. This Preply review covers how the platform works and how to find a tutor who fits the way you learn.
What the self-study Apps Gave Me, and What They Didn’t
I spent more than a year on one of the big gamified language apps. I kept my streak alive. I earned the little badges. I moved through the levels. And at the end of that year, I couldn’t have held a two-minute conversation with a French speaker to save my life. It was too much like playing a game. The app taught me to recognize French, but it never taught me to say it under pressure, with someone waiting for my answer.
I also tried the Pimsleur method as an audio book, which is a way of learning a language by listening and repeating. It was a real step up from an app, and I still use it. I listen on my walks and in the car. But it’s audio, which means my reading comprehension barely moved, especially for a language like French where it seems only the vowels are pronounced. And what I learned was bound by the phrases in the lessons. I could say the thing I’d been taught to say, and I could understand the reply I’d been taught to expect. But anything off-script and the conversation totally fell apart.
What Preply Is and How It Works
Preply is an online platform that matches you with a live human tutor for one-on-one live video lessons. You select what language you want to learn, what your goals are (culture, travel, exams, etc), when you want to achieve the goal by, what level you’re at, your preferred teaching style, what days of the week you’re available for lessons, and Preply matches you with available tutors.
Each tutor has a full profile including their native language, their teaching certifications, how many lessons they’ve taught on the platform, student reviews, their rate, their specialties, and a short intro video. It’s a lot of information, and it’s great because you’re not being assigned a teacher, you’re getting to choose one that you click with.
The way it works is you book a trial lesson with a tutor, scheduling either a 25 or 50 minute session. Trial lessons are paid, and each tutor offers one trial per student, but if the fit isn’t right, Preply lets you take a trial lesson withwill move you to another tutor for free or refund you. After the trial, if you want to keep going, you can subscribe to a set number of lessons with that tutor.
I also loved finding that there’s a “Learn” section on the platform with vocabulary practice and exercises you can do between lessons. This was great for doing an assessment on how much French I knew and how much more I needed to learn.
5 Tips For Choosing A Language Tutor On Preply
As for choosing a tutor on Preply, here are some tips I learned that will help you find the perfect match.
1 – Pick someone in or near your time zone
This is the tip I wish someone had handed me on day one. I started out looking at tutors in France (since I wanted to learn French, right?). But then I looked at the available slots and they were 1:00 a.m. and 2:00 a.m. That’s when I switched the filters to finding French tutors in the United States and Canada so we’d be in a similar time zone. Because a lesson you have to set an alarm for at midnight is a lesson you’ll most definitely cancel. So my tip is to filter for tutors whose working hours overlap with the part of your day when you’re awake and sharp, and your odds of sticking with this go way up.
2 – Watch the intro videos
The written profile tells you their basic bio which includes credentials, interests, and hobbies. But watching their profile video will give you an idea of their teaching style. Some of the videos I watched were entirely in French, so I knew their tutoring style was not suited for a beginner like me. Watching multiple videos helped me narrow down and connect with tutors that I wanted to set up trial lessons with before committing.
3 – Read the bio language closely
Tutors signal their strengths right in their profiles. You’ll see lines like “perfect for speaking practice” or “pronunciation and listening.” There are tutors who specialize in test prep, in immigration interviews, in business, and even in travel. So your goal is to be understood in a village bakery rather than to pass an exam, filter for it.
4 – Favorite a few and see who reaches out
I saved a handful of tutors I liked, and several of them messaged me directly to introduce themselves and ask what I was learning for. It’s a low-stakes way to get a feel for someone before you spend any money, and the ones who wrote thoughtful notes were the ones I took seriously. I also messaged a few and learned they would be great for practicing conversational French once I had learned more, but they weren’t a good fit for learning basic French which is where I need to start.
5 – Try more than one before you commit
Because the trial is per tutor, you can try several, and I highly recommend it. I took a couple of trial lessons and messaged with a few other tutors before I found the one I wanted to work with.
Some tutors are highly structured, with a curriculum that builds a language from zero and homework between sessions. Others are built for conversation practice with a native speaker, where you bring what you’ve been learning and they push you to use it. Both are great, they just achieve different language learning goals.
The tutor I chose showed up to our first lesson with a plan so organized that I felt excited to study because I could see myself making actual progress, which is not something any language app ever managed.
Why a Subscription Plan Is Better for Learning
After your trial lessons, Preply offers a subscription plan that includes a fixed number of lessons with that tutor. The minimum plan is four lessons per cycle, but you can add more lessons per week depending on your goals. For me, since my trip is almost a year away, once a week is perfect and something I can stick to.
And I have to say, I didn’t think I’d like a subscription plan at first, especially because it seems everything has a subscription attached to it these days. But once I found a tutor that I connected with, paying in advance for a set number of lessons does something an app never did for me … accountability. Especially with sticking to practicing and preparing for the weekly lessons. Repetition is key when it comes to learning a new language, and the subscription supports that.
Preply Review: What to Know Before You Subscribe
A few things I wish a Preply review had told me before I picked a plan:
• Billing runs on 28-day cycles, not calendar months. Your renewal date moves earlier each month, so put it in your calendar rather than assuming it’s the 1st.
• Schedule your lessons before your renewal date. Lessons you haven’t booked expire when the cycle turns over. Lessons already on the calendar are safe, even if they happen after renewal.
• Cancel or reschedule at least 12 hours ahead if you have a change in your schedule and want the lesson back in your balance.
• You can pause. Once per cycle, for up to 20 days, which is useful around holidays or travel.
• Rates vary by tutor and by the type of tutoring you’re after. A certified teacher building you a structured curriculum costs more than a native speaker you’re chatting with. You’re billed for lessons rather than for access to the platform, so what you pay is your tutor’s rate multiplied by your plan size.
Speaking Practice, Full Tutoring, or Both
What I appreciate about Preply is that they have tutors for all levels of learning. So whether you just want someone to practice speaking with you in another language, or a more structured lesson plan, you can find both.
In addition to the tutor I’m currently working with, I also have a few French Canadian tutors saved for practicing conversationally once I know more and the trip gets closer. They’ll be able to help me with the pronunciation nuances of French in Canada vs traditional French.
A Preply subscription is tied to one specific tutor, not to the platform. So if you want a structured teacher and a separate conversation partner at the same time, that’s two separate subscriptions. So just take note of that.
There’s a Human on the Other End
Almost everything else in my life has quietly been handed over to a bot. The airline’s chat window. My email newsletter app’s help line. The little assistant that pops up on a hotel site to ask if I have any questions. I feel like I’m typing “agent” over and over again in chat boxes whenever I need help with something.
It feels so refreshing to have lessons scheduled with a human you can have real conversations with. There’s no streak to protect, no badge, no algorithm deciding what I see next. It’s the oldest form of learning there is, one person teaching another one. And in a year where so much of the internet has been taken over by AI, sitting down with a real teacher for 50 minutes feels like a small luxury.
Why Preply Is Great for Travel Confidence
Memorized phrases only work in one direction. You say your line, and then the other person says something back, and that’s where it can go wrong, because you’ve practiced speaking and never practiced being spoken to. Sitting across from a tutor for 50 minutes is rehearsal for exactly that moment. If you mishear something, you can ask them to repeat it. You try a sentence, get it wrong, and try again.
It also means you can customize your lessons to a specific trip. I told my tutor I’d be in rural Quebec, and that’s what we’re building toward. So our lessons focus on pronunciation and everyday things like restaurants, directions, and small talk. A general-purpose app can’t aim at a target that specific. I feel like I used to waste a lot of time learning words and phrases I might never use in real life.
My tutor can also tell me how the French I’m learning will sound in the region I’m going to, which vocabulary is local, and which textbook phrasing would mark me instantly as someone reading from a script. An app can teach you French, but a person can teach you the French you’ll hear where you’re going.
Preply Review: Final Thoughts
The short version of this Preply review is that the one-on-one tutoring format is amazing. I don’t need another app that makes learning feel like a game I’m winning. I need someone who will listen to me pronounce a sentence badly and then help me sound it out to say it better, on a schedule I’ve committed to.
My goal is to stop starting every French interaction with an apology for my bad pronunciation, and to instead be able to ask a real question and understand the real answer. And a standing weekly appointment with a human being that speaks French is getting me there.
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