Mondly Latin Review: Is This Course Worth Your Time?
Many language-learning programs promise amazing results, and Mondly is no exception. But can this app really teach you Latin?
Unfortunately, the answer is a definite no. As a Latin professor, I have read a lot of textbooks and tested a lot of apps. This one should be avoided.
This Mondly Latin review will be brutal, but I don’t want any would-be Latin students to be deceived by the flashy marketing. Inaccuracies fill the course: grammar mistakes, vocabulary errors, and careless pronunciation are everywhere.
Keep reading for the details, and don’t worry: I’ll also tell you which apps are worth your time!
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An Overview of Mondly Latin
The Mondly language-learning app was first released in 2014 by Romanian developers Alexandru and Tudor Iliescu. In 2022, the educational corporation Pearson acquired the platform, now dubbed “Mondly by Pearson.”
Today Mondly holds eighth place in the list of most-downloaded language apps. Courses are available in 41 languages, and, as of 2020, this includes Latin.
I was excited to test Mondly’s Latin course, especially the interactive chatbots and speech-recognition tools. After all, their website boasts that this is the easiest way to learn Latin on line and even that the app will make you speak like a Roman emperor!
Unfortunately, my excitement quickly vanished as I began completing the lessons and found error after error. Mondly Latin actively teaches incorrect information. So while the app itself looks cool and incorporates new technologies, it will do Latin students more harm than good.
The Latin course features 38 units, each dedicated to a specific topic (introductions, animals, airport, etc.). Each unit then contains around 8 lessons.
In order to write this review, I completed 50 of the 301 lessons (16% of the course). I jumped around, working through some units in full and sampling lessons from others.
I had been planning to finish the entire course, but these 50 lessons were enough to convince me that Mondly Latin should be avoided at all costs.
Why You Should Skip Mondly’s Latin Course
In a moment I will dive into some nitty-gritty examples of why you should steer clear of Mondly’s Latin course. But first I want to make a general point.
I believe that Mondly set themselves up for failure by forcing their Latin course into the same exact format as all their other courses. Units have names such as “At the Airport” and “Hotel: Reservation”, both of which topics are quite anachronistic for Latin.
It’s important to remember why students learn Latin. Most of the time, their end goal is to read Roman literature in the original language or perhaps to understand Latin phrases in English.
Very few – if any – people today will need to book a hotel reservation in Latin or speak to a flight attendant in Latin. So while yes, there ARE people who speak Latin today (I know some of them!), it simply isn’t practical to focus an entire Latin course on modern terminology.
That said, you could do it . . . but Mondly fails spectacularly to teach ANY kind of Latin correctly.
Vocabulary Mistakes
While Mondly does get many words right, there are a surprising number of vocabulary mistakes. They fall into two general categories.
First we have Classical Latin words used incorrectly. A glaring example is the adjective generōsus, which Mondly translates as “brave.” But – as this dictionary entry attests – generōsus actually means “of noble birth” or “noble-minded.” “Brave” in Latin would be fortis.
Equally startling is the fact that Mondly defines pudēns as “kind.” Nope, pudēns means “shamefaced” or “modest.” That’s a big difference.
The other primary vocabulary issue is the use of illogical terms for modern items. I understand it to a certain extent: the ancient Romans didn’t have airplanes or coffee or tennis, so these words lack a Classical Latin equivalent.
But Mondly’s solutions make no sense. They say cupha decoctum for “coffee”, which literally means “a thing boiled in a vat” (if we assume this is cuphā in the ablative case). But then they proceed to decline cupha (why??).
Why didn’t they simply use cafēa or coffēum? Both of these terms are accepted by modern Latin speakers, and they make more sense grammatically and etymologically.
Even worse is Mondly’s term for “tennis”: vicissim lusus pilaris. Lūsus pilāris means “ball game,” which could make sense, but vicissim is a Latin adverb that means “on the other hand” or “in turn”.
When I completed the lesson on sports, I was so confused at first, since I had no idea what vicissim lusus pilaris was supposed to mean. “Ball game on the other hand”?
In case you are curious, the Neo-Latin Lexicon gives tenilūdus and tenisia as possible translations for “tennis”. Either of these options works well.
These few examples demonstrate clearly that Mondly is unreliable in terms of vocabulary. Did they do any research at all??? It doesn’t seem like it.
Grammatical Errors
The grammatical errors in Mondly Latin aren’t as obvious, but they are just as pervasive and serious. The most annoying one for me was the constant use of ūnus, a, um (the number 1) as an indefinite article.
Latin has neither definite articles (the) or indefinite articles (a, an). So if you want to say “I see a dog” in Latin, you would simply say canem videō. Depending on the context, canem could be translated as “dog”, “a dog”, or “the dog.”
Mondly, however, always puts something like ego ūnum canem videō. This means “I see one dog,” but they list the translation as “I see a dog.”
Another frustrating aspect of the course is the fact that they overuse personal pronouns. In my example sentence above, canem videō means “I see a dog.” I don’t need to use the word ego (I) because the ending on the verb videō tells me that “I” is the subject.
In fact, Latin has clear verb personal endings, which means that most of the time, pronouns like I, you, he, she, and they are unnecessary.
But Mondly insists on sticking pronouns everywhere, which isn’t authentic Latin.
These are two consistent errors, but there are also many one-off issues (misuse of cases, misplaced adverbs, incomprehensible use of gerundives, etc.). You simply can’t trust that Mondly’s grammar is accurate.
Note: Mondly also doesn’t teach grammar rules directly, which is a whole other issue.
Incorrect and Inconsistent Pronunciation
Latin is an ancient language, but scholars have managed to reconstruct ancient Roman pronunciation with a high degree of accuracy. Despite Mondly’s emphasis on immersive language study, their Latin course couldn’t even get pronunciation right.
Now I should give credit where credit is due: one of the Mondly Latin speakers does an excellent job of speaking Latin with a classical accent. There are only some minor errors in Latin accentuation.
But I said one of the Latin speakers, and that is because there are several. A second speaker uses what we might call an Ecclesiastical Latin accent, although honestly it may not even be that – it just sounds like modern Italian.
This means that one moment you are hearing Classical pronunciation, and the next Ecclesiastical. There is no rhyme or reason to the transitions, which makes things very confusing for students.
Again, I am left thinking: did no one bother to edit this course? Why isn’t there consistent pronunciation?
Final Thoughts: Alternatives to Mondly
In short, the Mondly Latin course fails on every count: vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation are all unreliable. Don’t use this course; you don’t want to memorize something incorrect!
I have seen positive reviews of Mondly Latin online, mostly in lists of apps for learning Latin, and I am honestly bewildered. My conclusion is that the writers hadn’t actually used the app for themselves.
Well, I did use it, and that’s why I wholeheartedly encourage you to stay away. Mondly’s other language courses may be of high quality – I haven’t tested them. But whoever developed their Latin course messed up big time.
If you are looking for an app to teach you Latin, then my two top recommendations would be Cattus (free) and Mango Languages (often free with a library subscription).
👉 Read more about the best apps to improve your Latin!
I hope that you have enjoyed this scathing review and that you will now head off to find better Latin resources. You might find the following posts helpful:
My Favorite Latin Resources (Free + Paid)
Best Latin Dictionaries for Students
