Early Access
Unlimited access to every language, at the founding price, for as long as you stay subscribed.
$14/month
7-day free trial, then $14/month. Cancel any time.
Stop tapping.
Start speaking.
You don’t learn to speak a language by tapping word tiles. You learn by speaking it. Pick a language and a live tutor says hello — out loud, right now.
Which language do you want to speak?
Free to try · No account · No card · Your first conversation takes 90 seconds
Live tutorCaffè in Trastevere 🇮🇹
Buongiorno! Cosa le porto?
Good morning! What can I get you?
Un cappuccino e… come si dice «croissant»?
Si dice «cornetto»! Allora — un cappuccino e un cornetto?
It's called a «cornetto»! So — a cappuccino and a cornetto?
✓ New chunk saved: «come si dice…?»
What happens when you tap
Ninety seconds from now, you will have spoken
0:00
Your tutor says hello
No sign-up form, no placement quiz. You tap a language and a voice greets you in it.
0:10
You answer — out loud
However you can. One word counts. The tutor slows down, rephrases, and helps you finish the sentence.
1:30
You leave with a route
Tell us how it felt and we set your starting point. First words — your first five lessons — are free.
The illusion of proficiency
A 700-day streak that can't order a coffee
Gamified apps are brilliant at one thing: keeping you tapping. It feels like progress. But a skill you never practise is a skill you don't have, and nobody ever asked you to speak. Every month of tiles is a month your mouth learned nothing.
The streak-app way
- Tap words from a word bank
- Points and gems for showing up
- One course, the same for everyone
- Sentences about apples and bananas
The Parla way
- Say full sentences out loud, from day one
- Progress measured by what you can actually produce
- A learner model that tracks every word you know — and how well
- Ordering dinner, asking directions, making friends
Find out in 90 seconds which side you’re on.
Which language do you want to speak?
What you get
Everything is engineered for one outcome: you, speaking
A live tutor that talks back
Full-duplex voice conversation in real time. Interrupt naturally, get corrected gently in the moment — like a patient tutor who never gets tired.
Chunks, not word lists
Fluent speakers build sentences from ready-made pieces — «come si dice…?», «me pone…?». Parla teaches these formulaic sequences as units, so speech comes out whole.
Reviews timed to your memory
FSRS spaced repetition models when you’ll forget each word and resurfaces it just before you do — tracking whether you can recognize it or actually say it.
Input pitched at your level
The tutor keeps what you hear ~95–98% within words you know, so you understand almost everything while always stretching just past your edge.
Practice anywhere — even a loud café
Noisy-environment mode switches to push-to-talk, so you control the mic. No pressure, no misfires, no waiting for silence to practice.
20+ languages, one tutor
Spanish, Italian, Japanese, Mandarin, French, German, Korean, Arabic and more — with new languages added over time.
The science
Grounded in 40 years of research on how adults acquire languages
We didn't design Parla around engagement metrics and then look for evidence. We started from the second-language acquisition literature and built the product it prescribes.
You learn to speak by speaking
Output hypothesis — Swain (1985)
Input alone plateaus: immersion students who only listen and read understand well but under-produce. Speaking forces your brain to actually process grammar, not just skim meaning.
Conversation is the engine
Interaction hypothesis — Long (1996)
Negotiating meaning in real back-and-forth — clarifying, repairing, being understood — drives acquisition, with the biggest gains for learners outside immersion.
Understand almost everything, stretch a little
Comprehensible input — Krashen (1985); Nation (2006)
Learning happens fastest when input sits just above your level. Parla gates tutor speech to your known vocabulary and meters in the new.
Recall beats rereading, spacing beats cramming
Cepeda et al. (2006); Roediger & Karpicke (2006)
Retrieval practice at expanding intervals is the most robust finding in memory research. It’s the backbone of Parla’s review scheduling.
Easy practice feels good and teaches less
Desirable difficulties — Soderstrom & Bjork (2015)
In-session performance and long-term learning come apart. Tapping matching pairs feels smooth precisely because it demands so little.
Skills are specific
Transfer-appropriate processing — DeKeyser (2007)
Practice improves what you practice. Speaking practice builds speaking. Tapping builds tapping.
Our promise: engagement never comes at the cost of learning. If a feature makes the app stickier but you worse at speaking, it doesn't ship.
Why this exists
“I kept meeting people with multi-year streaks who couldn’t order a coffee. I was one of them. So I read the research on how adults actually learn to speak, and built the app it describes.”
Parla is made by one developer, not a growth team. There are no streaks to protect and no notifications designed to make you feel guilty.
The deal
Start free. Stay because it works.
First words is yours to keep. It ends with you holding a short exchange out loud. The rest of the town — everything you came to this language for — is Parla Pro.
Free, no card
- Your first conversation with the live tutor
- First words — five guided lessons that get you talking
- 10 minutes of open conversation with the live tutor
- Chat, flashcard decks and vocabulary review
Parla Pro
- Every district: the café, the market, directions, people, the hotel
- Unlimited time with the live tutor
- Conversation lessons and the immersive world
- Every language, one plan
Pricing
Simple pricing. No ads, no gems, no guilt.
Chat, flashcards, pronunciation practice and vocabulary review are free. Pro unlocks guided lessons, the immersive world, and unlimited live speaking — and every new account gets 10 free minutes with the live tutor to try it first.
Founding Member
Lock in unlimited live speaking practice for a year. Limited availability.
$99/year
Works out to $8.25/month
$99 billed today, then every year. Cancel any time.
FAQ
Fair questions
How is Parla different from Duolingo?
Duolingo is very good at building a habit of using Duolingo. Parla is built for a different outcome: holding a conversation. That means speaking out loud from your first session, a tutor that talks back and corrects you, and progress measured by what you can produce — not by streaks, gems, or leagues. If you want five relaxing minutes of tapping, keep the owl. If you want to order dinner in Rome, come speak.
I’m a complete beginner. Can I really speak from day one?
Yes — because you start with chunks, not grammar tables. Ready-made pieces like «come si dice…?» (how do you say…?) let you hold a real exchange in your first session, and the tutor keeps everything it says ~95–98% within words you already know, so you’re never lost.
What if speaking makes me anxious?
That’s exactly who we built this for — anxiety is one of the strongest predictors of language-learning outcomes, and a private, endlessly patient tutor removes the audience. You can also switch to push-to-talk, so nothing is recorded until you press the button. Low stakes, real accountability.
What’s free, and what’s in Pro?
Free, with no card: your first conversation with the live tutor, the First words district (five guided lessons), 10 minutes of open conversation with the live tutor, plus chat, flashcard decks and vocabulary review. Parla Pro opens every other district, the conversation lessons and the immersive world, and makes live speaking unlimited. The monthly plan starts with a 7-day free trial; the annual founding plan is billed today.
Do I have to create an account to try it?
No. Tap a language and you are talking to the tutor a few seconds later. We only ask you to connect an account afterwards, so the progress you just made is not lost when you close the tab.
Say your first sentence today
Not after 300 lessons. Not once the tree is golden. Today — out loud, in a language you love.
Which language do you want to speak?
Free to try, no account · 7-day free trial on the monthly plan · Cancel anytime