Six apps compared by price, learning style, and offline access, allowing you to pick the one that meets your travel needs.
Quick answer: The best language learning apps for travel are Duolingo (great for beginners), Babbel (focused on conversation), Memrise (uses native-speaker videos), Busuu (connects you with real speakers), Anki (spaced repetition flashcards), and Lingopie (learn through real TV shows). The right pick depends on how much time you have before your trip and how your brain holds onto new words.
Picking up a few phrases before a trip changes the whole experience. Locals notice the effort, even when your accent is terrible, and you stop panicking every time someone asks you something at a market stall.
The apps on this list cover different learning styles and price points, so there's something here whether you have three weeks or three months before you fly. Some are built around daily habits and gamified streaks; others focus on real conversation or vocabulary retention. The right combination depends on how you learn and how much time you can realistically commit.
Prices in this article were verified on 27/08/2026 and are subject to change. Always check current pricing directly with each provider before subscribing.
Pricing and key features checked against each provider's official pages.
| App | Free tier? | Paid tier name | Paid tier (UK) | Offline access | Languages |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Duolingo | Yes (with ads and hearts limit) | Super Duolingo | £4.99/month or £59.99/year | Yes (paid only) | 40+ |
| Babbel | First lesson per language free | Individual subscription | £179.88/year (£14.99/month equivalent) | Yes | 14 |
| Memrise | Yes (core lessons) | Memrise Pro | Annual plan £49.99/year (or £6.99/month rolling) | Yes (paid) | 23 |
| Busuu | Yes (core lessons limited) | Premium / Premium Plus | Varies by plan; check busuu.com | Yes (paid) | 14 |
| Anki | Yes (desktop, Android, web free) | AnkiMobile (iOS) | iOS: £19.99 one-off | Yes | Any (user-built decks) |
| Lingopie | 7-day free trial | Subscription | £59/year (annual) or £9.99/month (quarterly) | No | 15 |
Best for: Travellers who want a habit-friendly, free starting point for any language
Duolingo is the most downloaded language app in the world, and for travel purposes it does a reasonable job of getting you past the "hello, where is the toilet" stage. The gamified lesson structure keeps most people coming back daily, and the free version covers all 40-plus languages with no paywall on the core content.
The paid tier, Super Duolingo, costs approximately £4.99 per month or £59.99 per year in the UK. It removes ads, lifts the daily hearts limit, and adds offline access, so you can practise on the plane without burning through mobile data. The curriculum itself is identical to the free version; you're paying to remove friction, not to unlock extra content.
Main pros: Free for the full course across 40-plus languages. Short lessons fit naturally into travel downtime. Builds a daily habit better than almost any other app.
Main cons: Light on grammar and weak on spontaneous conversation. The free tier's hearts system penalises mistakes in a way many users find more frustrating than motivating.
Best for: Travellers who want structured, conversation-focused lessons from day one
Babbel takes a more classroom-style approach than Duolingo. Lessons are built around realistic dialogues, grammar explanations are woven into each session rather than treated as optional extras, and the focus on real-life scenarios tends to suit travellers who find pure gamification too shallow. Those who use it consistently report feeling more prepared to actually speak rather than just recognise words, which is the thing that matters when you're standing at a hotel desk or trying to order off a menu.
There is no meaningful free tier; you can try one lesson per language at no cost before hitting a paywall. The standard 12-month individual plan is billed at £179.88 upfront (equivalent to £14.99 per month), though Babbel regularly runs promotions that can cut that figure significantly. A one-off lifetime membership is available for approximately £264.99, which only makes financial sense if you plan to use it across multiple languages over several years. Babbel also offers Babbel Live, a separate product that pairs you with human tutors in small group video classes, useful for conversation practice but priced considerably higher than the standard subscription.
Main pros: Conversation-focused from the first lesson. Grammar is taught directly rather than left to inference. One subscription covers all 14 languages.
Main cons: No usable free tier. More expensive than Duolingo if you're only dipping in for one trip.
Best for: Travellers who want to hear how locals actually speak, not just textbook pronunciation
Memrise is a British-built app (based in London) that puts native-speaker video clips at the centre of the learning experience. Rather than a robot voice reading out vocabulary, you watch short clips of real people saying the words and phrases in natural speech. For travel purposes, this is genuinely useful: you learn how a word sounds when spoken at conversational speed, not in the careful, measured way a classroom recording would deliver it.
The free tier gives you access to core lessons across its 23 official languages. Upgrading to Memrise Pro adds grammar modules, AI conversation practice, offline access, and the full library of native-speaker video content. UK annual pricing for Pro is approximately £49.99 per year (around £4.17 per month on the annual plan, or £6.99 per month on a rolling monthly basis), though pricing can vary depending on where and when you subscribe, and discounts are regularly available. The app had 80 million registered users as of 2026, according to its Wikipedia entry.
Main pros: Native-speaker video clips make it easier to recognise words at natural conversational speed. Community word lists cover niche languages that Duolingo and Babbel don't touch.
Main cons: The free tier runs out of useful content quickly, with most of the interesting material gated behind Pro.
Best for: Travellers who want their writing and speaking corrected by native speakers
Busuu has a feature that none of the other apps on this list can match: you submit written exercises and short voice recordings, and native speakers from the community give you feedback directly in the app. If you find solo app learning isolating, this is a genuine differentiator. You are not just completing exercises into a void; actual human beings are reading what you write and flagging where you have gone wrong.
The free version covers core course content but limits access to the community feedback tools, which is where most of the value sits. Two paid tiers, Premium and Premium Plus, unlock the full feature set. Pricing varies by plan length and by platform, so it is worth checking busuu.com directly for current UK prices. Course content follows the CEFR framework, which is useful if you are planning to sit a formal language qualification alongside your travel prep.
Main pros: Native-speaker feedback on your writing and speaking is something no other app on this list offers. CEFR-aligned content works for formal study as well as casual travel prep.
Main cons: The community feedback tools, which are the main reason to choose Busuu over alternatives, are locked behind the paid tier. Only 14 languages available.
Best for: Travellers who want to build a vocabulary they'll actually remember weeks later
Anki is the odd one out on this list. There is no slick onboarding, no friendly owl, and no streak notifications. What it has is a spaced repetition algorithm that shows you a flashcard at the exact moment you are about to forget it, which is one of the most research-backed methods for long-term memory retention. The desktop version, the Android app, and web syncing via AnkiWeb are all free. The iOS app, AnkiMobile, costs approximately £19.99 as a one-off purchase with no subscription attached.
For travel prep, the best approach is to download a pre-made deck from Anki's shared deck library (thousands are available for free) covering the vocabulary of your destination language, then run through it daily for a few months. You can also build your own deck from scratch around specific travel vocabulary: restaurant phrases, transport terms, numbers, directions. The setup takes longer than any other app here, and the learning curve is steeper, but the retention results are consistently better for serious learners.
Main pros: Free on desktop, Android, and web. The spaced repetition algorithm is genuinely best-in-class for long-term vocabulary retention. Works offline by default.
Main cons: No teaching, no grammar, no speaking practice. Requires real effort to set up and maintain. iOS users pay a one-off fee.
Best for: Travellers learning a language through TV shows and films rather than classroom drills
Lingopie is a streaming service for language learners: you watch real foreign-language TV shows and films with interactive subtitles in both languages, click any word to save it, and review it later in a built-in flashcard set. The method is called comprehensible input, and it works particularly well for building a natural feel for rhythm and phrasing rather than just memorising word lists. The content library leans towards Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian, which suits most common travel destinations, though Korean and German content is thinner. If you are headed somewhere less obvious, check what is actually in the library before subscribing.
There is a 7-day free trial with full access. After that, UK pricing is approximately £59 per year on an annual plan (equivalent to £4.92 per month), or £9.99 per month on a quarterly plan. All plans cover all 15 available languages, which makes it good value if you are learning more than one.
Main pros: Learning through real TV content is more engaging than flashcard drills for many people. Clickable subtitles turn passive watching into active vocabulary building. All languages included on every plan.
Main cons: No offline access, so it is no use on a plane or anywhere without a reliable connection. Content depth varies significantly by language.
Duolingo and Memrise are built around streaks, points, and rewards because these mechanisms work for habit formation. Travellers who rely on gamified apps alone often find their knowledge falls apart the moment a native speaker uses a word or construction that wasn't in the lesson. Apps that add human feedback (Busuu) or real spoken content (Memrise, Lingopie) tend to produce learners who cope better with actual conversation.
Three days of intensive app use before a flight is not enough to build useful language skills for most learners. Travellers who report real benefit from these apps typically started two to three months before their trip and practised daily, even for just ten to fifteen minutes. The spaced repetition that makes Anki so effective relies on repeated exposure over weeks, not cramming sessions.
Free tiers are genuinely usable for some apps, not for others. Duolingo's free tier covers all languages and is sustainable for determined learners who can tolerate ads and the hearts limit. Babbel's free tier and Lingopie's trial are so limited they function more as demos. If budget is a constraint, Duolingo plus Anki (both free on Android) cost nothing.
For most travellers, Duolingo is the easiest starting point because it's free, covers over 40 languages, and requires no setup. If you want faster conversational progress and don't mind paying, Babbel's dialogue-focused lessons tend to produce more usable travel language more quickly.
The main criticisms are that the gamified format can prioritise keeping a streak over actual learning, grammar explanations are limited, and the hearts system on the free tier penalises mistakes to the point where some users find it discouraging rather than helpful. That said, travellers with consistent daily habits and realistic expectations about what the app can teach get real value from it, particularly in the early stages.
Combining an app for daily vocabulary practice with some exposure to spoken content (podcasts, YouTube videos, or Lingopie) gets better results than relying on one method alone. Starting two to three months before your trip makes a meaningful difference. Prioritise the words and phrases you'll actually use: food, directions, numbers, greetings, and polite requests cover the majority of basic travel interactions.
For pure travel preparation, Babbel's conversational focus gives you more functional language faster. Duolingo is better if you want a free, long-term habit, or if you're learning a language Babbel doesn't cover.
Yes. Super Duolingo, Memrise Pro, and Busuu Premium all include offline access for their paid tiers. Anki works offline by default on all platforms. Lingopie requires an internet connection, so it's less practical for in-flight learning.
The desktop version, the Android app (AnkiDroid), and web syncing via AnkiWeb are all free. The official iOS app (AnkiMobile) costs approximately £19.99 as a one-off purchase.
For basic travel communication in a language that uses the Latin alphabet, two to three months of consistent daily practice (ten to twenty minutes a day) is usually enough to handle restaurants, transport, and simple conversations. Languages with a different writing system or more complex grammar take longer.
Yes, and many travellers do. A common approach is using Duolingo or Babbel for structure and grammar, and Anki for vocabulary retention on top. Lingopie works well as a supplement to a structured app rather than a standalone method.
Anki is the most flexible option because the shared deck library covers hundreds of languages, including minority and historical ones. Memrise also has user-generated community word lists beyond its 23 official languages. Duolingo has been steadily adding new languages but still has significant gaps for less common destinations.
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