Baselang is an online Spanish tutoring service, where you can get high-quality one-on-one tutoring classes. Is it worth your time and money? Let's find out in this Baselang Review.
In this review, we'll take a look at the types of services the platform offers, and how its “Real World” subscription differs from its “Grammarless” programme. We'll also dissect the pricing of both programs, and see if it's worth the cost. At the end of this review, you should have a good idea of whether Baselang will work for your language-learning needs.
Update January, 2024:
Prices are increasing to $179/mo on January 7th. You can lock in the lower rate of $149/mo forever by subscribing before this date.
Baselang has also upgraded their proprietary platform and curriculum:
- Better teacher search engine, including nationality filters so that you can easily discover teachers according to your needs.
- A dramatically improved curriculum with more detailed lessons, interactive games, and good-looking slides
- Saved chat history: Now any chat between you and your teacher is saved directly on the platform (this stays even if you cancel the subscription and return at a later date!)
Click here to join Baselang before the price increases ($1 first week, $10 off first month, $149/mo after this.)
Our Verdict of Baselang
If you've only got a minute to spare, here's an overview of Baselang's pros and cons.
PROS
- ‘Real World‘ is flexible, and truly unlimited Spanish lessons at a very affordable monthly cost
- ‘Grammarless‘ (conversational Spanish in 1 month, with 4 hours of lessons per day!) is quite hardcore but for the right learner an absolute no-brainer at the current cost.
- Passionate and friendly teachers
- Super easy and convenient
- Great value for the ambitious student
- Teachers are vetted and feedback is public
- $1 no-risk-trial and no on-going commitment
CONS
- Some lesson time is wasted on catching up and admin
- The Real World syllabus seemed a little slow for an experienced learner – (but you can design the classes as you want.)
- No European Spanish teachers
- Although the value with Baselang is obvious, it's not financially feasible if you are very busy.
What is Baselang?
Baselang was founded by Adrian Castañeda and Connor Grooms. Connor challenged himself to learn Spanish in just 30 days, with the help of Adrian.
His experience, which became the foundation for Baselang, was made into a short film that has now been watched by over one million people on YouTube.
After realising the value of individual lessons, they started working on the logistics of providing unlimited Spanish tutoring around the clock for a fixed monthly price.
I'll be diving into more detail in this Baselang review.
Did they manage to launch a great service?
To find out, I took four 30 minute Spanish lessons with 3 different teachers to see what Baselang was all about.
This Baselang review is the result of that little experiment.
As always I'm trying to get you more value as an Actual Fluency reader. So, if you do want to try Baselang after reading this review you can try it for a week for just $1 and even get $10 off your first full month.
Click this link to get started.
What can you do on Baselang?
On Baselang, you have the choice of unlimited, flexible lessons with their monthly “Real World” subscription – or you can buy the “Grammarless” programme, which guarantees to get you to conversational Spanish in a month. Alternatively, if you're hoping to pass the official Instituto Cervantes Certificate Exam in Spanish, Baselang can help you with DELE preparation.
Baselang “Real World” Case Study
To really test out the service I went undercover and had 4 lessons. To read my full notes, as well as see recordings from my lessons check out the baselang case study here.
How Baselang's “Real World” Programme Works
The ‘Real World‘ programme is extremely simple.
You pay a fixed monthly subscription, and, in exchange, you can book as many private, 1-on-1 Spanish lessons you want.
The tutors are from Latin America (primarily Venezuela, but Baselang has recently expanded to include almost every Spanish-speaking country of South America)
Once you're registered you can book classes straight from the website.
Baselang offers you the opportunity to book around-the-clock Spanish lessons with a random teacher up to two days in advance, or a more limited schedule with your favourite teachers.
You can book as many lessons as you want.
It's truly unlimited. There are no restrictions on the lengths of your classes either. Although my teachers did suggest I limited my lessons to 3 hours at one time, to make them more effective and not burn out.
What does Baselang look like?
Baselang's interface is extremely user-friendly, and while it may be over-simplified for some, it works well.
When you log onto Baselang, you'll be take to your dashboard. This will give you a quick overview of your progress so far, along with what topics you can expect from your next lessons.
On the left hand side, you'll find your navigation panel. This is where you'll be able to navigate to key pages such as booking a lesson, choosing electives and editing your own profile.
All of Baselang's lessons take place on Zoom. On Zoom, your teacher will share their screen with you and show you a slideshow to help guide the lesson.
How does Baselang work?
Signing Up for Baselang
Getting started with Baselang is easy. What's great is that you can try Baselang out for a whole week for just $1. This means that, for less than a coffee, you can take unlimited classes, try out different curriculums and teachers before you commit to anything.
Once you're all signed up, you'll receive an email telling you about the next steps. This includes:
- Downloading Zoom
- Filling in your profile
- Setting your timezone
- Accessing Baselang's Memrise group
Scheduling Your Lessons
Baselang is incredibly flexible when it comes to scheduling your Spanish lessons.
You can choose to schedule your lessons based on a specific time or a specific teacher.
Booking your class by time
To begin with, you might want to try out several different teachers to see which suits your style of learning. To do this, book your lessons on time. Doing so will bring up all of the slots that are available over the next five days. Each lesson is 30-minutes long, but you can combine lessons if you want a longer lesson.
Once you've chosen a time slot, you'll then be shown a list of teachers that are available at that time. For each teacher, you'll see a profile with a quick introduction video and a list of their hobbies and interests.
Booking your class by teacher
If you've already found a favourite teacher, you can book your lessons according to their schedule. By nature, this can be much more limiting, as popular teachers get booked up quickly, and won't always be available when you're free.
As you spend more time on the platform you can rate teachers, and choose your favourite one. All ratings remain private, and are simply there to help you decide which tutor worked best for your needs.
You can also choose a favourite teacher. This is a great feature that allows you to book classes with your favourite tutor two days ahead of anyone else.
However you decide to book your lessons, you shouldn't have a problem finding a professional teacher that is available at your convenience. In fact, Baselang even boasts that you can book a lesson five minutes before you want the lesson, and they'll be a teacher available for you.
It's worth noting that classes are only available from 6am to 12am Easter US time.
Your First Lesson
Since your Zoom-email is in the system, the teacher will automatically call you when the class is about to start.
The first lesson is a welcome lesson where your tutor will explain how Baselang works. You'll be asked a number of questions that will help all of the Baseland teachers serve you better.
The information is then added to your personal profile, so future teachers can retrieve it later. I thought it was nice they asked me about my interests and if I had any topics I did not want to talk about at all.
Ongoing Lessons
As a Baselang student you can either follow the curriculum or syllabus they have laid out, or you can simply ask the teachers what you'd like to work on. The teachers are happy to help and structure your lessons exactly as you want them.
They also coordinate it with Memrise, a flashcard platform, so you can practice the vocabulary outside the classes.
During my lessons, I decided to let the teachers follow the syllabus and run through some of the materials that Baselang offers.
My lessons were mostly focussed on learning survival, or essential Spanish to the point where I could then make my own sentences.
An example of the vocabulary covered in my first Baselang lesson.
It's important to note that you're in charge. You don't have to follow the Baselang Syllabus if you'd rather work on something else. I only did this because I wanted to get a feel for the quality of the materials they provide.
The Baselang Spanish Teachers
There are well over one hundred native teaches on Baselang, and this number seems to be increasing every day. boasting a large number of professional teachers to choose from, it's easy enough to find a tutor that shares similar interests to you or one that teaches in a style that will work for you.
There's a handy filter option, that allows you to find teaches according to their level of English, interests, strengths and teaching style.
With a focus on Latin American Spanish, you won't find any European teachers on here, but most tutors are based in South America instead.
During my case study, researching this Baselang review I tried 3 different teachers.
I was very happy with the quality of the teachers. They are primarily from Venezuela, and they bring a lot of energy and happiness to the lessons. I had a lot of fun, and the time flew by.
There was also hardly any problems in our English communications and those minor misunderstandings that did happen were probably more due to Skype, and my inferior setup than anything else.
They were patient and entertaining too and did not hesitate to share cultural notes, mnemonics and other ideas to help me learn faster.
After each Spanish lesson, your Baselang teacher will add notes to your case file, so that the next teacher knows some things about you before the lesson begins.
Baselang Curriculum
As I mentioned above, Baselang allows you to cater your lessons precisely to what you need.
It's core curriculum adds structure to your lessons, while it's elective modules help you to focus your learning on topics that interest you the most.
Core Lessons
The core lessons on Baselang are designed to give you a good foundational knowledge of Spanish. There are ten levels to explore that range from Level 0 to Level 9, and each level has between ten and 30 individual lessons. That's a LOT of content to get through!
The further you make it through the levels, the more advanced the Spanish becomes.
For example, Level 1 covers basic greetings, days, months and simple adjectives. Once you make it to Level 9, you'll cover much more complicated grammar concepts such as the active and passive voice and the future progressive.
As you make your way through your lessons you can mark them as complete. However, what really impressed me about Baselang, is that to officially complete a level, you have to take an hour-long verbal test. This is a type of accountability that you don't see all too often on tutoring platforms.
Elective Lessons
Once you're confident that you've got a good base level of Spanish, you can start to bring in some of the elective lessons.
Like the core lesssons, the elective lessons provide a core structure around which your lesson is based. Although this time, it'll be on a topic that you find genuinely interesting.
Topics range from travel and sports to things like medicine and social issues. While most of these electives are included free of charge, you'll find the odd on-or-two that requires an additional purchase.
How much does Baselang “Real World” Cost?
Baselang costs $149 per month ($179/mo from January 7, 2024). This gives you access to unlimited private Spanish lessons and their online materials.
Baselang Coupon Code
You can get $10 off your first month with Baselang's “Real World” by using any links on this page:
This is an Actual Fluency exclusive deal.
This is the only discount available for Baselang.
In addition to this, there is a 35 day refund period. That's where, if you don't love the service, can get your money back, PLUS $20 as an apology for ‘wasting your time'.
This means the only thing you risk by giving Baselang a try is making $20 for your effort. Not bad, right?
What is the difference between Baselang “Real World” and “Grammarless“?
Baselang offeres two distinct programs. “Real World” is their monthly subscription service, where you can take as many Spanish lessons you want for a fixed fee.
Perfect for the ambitious learner who wants to put in a handful of hours per week (or more.)
“Grammarless” is a fixed programme, that GUARANTEES to make you conversational in Spanish in just one month for a one-time-payment. It does require four hours of your time each day to complete it over a month, but it can also be done in two months with two hours of learning per day.
Baselang's Grammarless course is perfect for the very ambitious learner who has a lot of spare time to devote to rapidly learning Spanish.
The guarantee works like this. If you are not conversational after a month, you get two months free to the unlimited tutoring service: “Real World”.
What does Baselang “Grammarless” Cost?
The Grammarless programme, which promises to make every beginner conversational in Spanish in just 30 days costs $1200. You can also do this in-person in Medellin, Colombia.
To reach conversational in month, the learner has to commit to 4 hours per day. If that is a little too much, a two-month option with 2 hours per day is also offered.
This means the hourly cost of Grammarless is about $7.50. This is fantastic value when you take into account the programme, syllabus, and resources are included as well.
What other features does Baselang have?
Baselang DELE Preparation
Baselang also offers help to people who need to pass the official Instituto Cervantes Certificate Exam in Spanish. This is one of the most recognised and accepted certificates of Spanish proficiency, so a great addition to your CV if you're hoping to use your Spanish skills to boost your career.
Compared to Baselang's other courses, the difference is that the teachers are working towards building your DELE skills so you can gain that valuable certificate in the easiest way possible.
This used to be a separate higher subscription, but it's now included in the Real World Subscription.
What kind of Spanish is Baselang Teaching?
One thing I was a bit apprehensive about when I was writing this Baselang review was learning Latin American Spanish. I'm based in Europe and would be most likely encountering far more European Spanish than Latin American Spanish.
Baselang addresses this on their website:
We teach the Spanish that is spoken in Latin America (which is what is spoken in South America, Central America, and the vast majority of Spanish spoken in the United States).
Though Latin American Spanish is 90% the same as the Spanish from Spain, there are some differences. If you go to Spain with the Spanish you learn with us, you will be able to communicate completely fine. People will know that you’re “not from there” and you may not recognize some things they say. We suggest getting to a conversational level with BaseLang and then going to Spain to tweak your Spanish to being more Iberian if that’s where you will speak it.
I'm not entirely sure what to think of this, still.
Yes, it seems the dialects are extremely closely related, and the teachers were happy to point out differences between the countries. But, to me, it's just hard to justify learning Latin American Spanish first and then European Spanish after if that's where you'll be using it.
Not to mention the pronunciation, which after being learnt can be tough to unlearn.
I understand this problem is not shared by most. After all, the Latin American Spanish population outnumber the European Spanish population almost 10-1!
And let's be honest, it's not like Spain doesn't have regional differences anyway within itself. So, ultimately I find Baselang a plausible option for the Spain Spanish learners.
Who is Baselang best for?
So, that brings me to the question: who will benefit the most from using Baselang?
During my research for this Baselang review, I quickly realised that this tutoring platform can be adapted to almost any learners level. The core electives start from the absolute beginning, giving newbies to Spanish a chance to catch up with the fundamentals of the language.
Alternatively, if you're already familiar with Spanish, you can jump ahead a few lessons and test out your ability level, or incorporate some of the electives to get you talking about topics you enjoy from the get-go.
A round-up of my Baselang review
Baselang is an absolutely fantastic service for the right student. You have to be willing to commit a lot of time and effort, but if you do, you will be fluent in Spanish faster than you ever imagined at a really low price compared to traditional classes.
For anyone interested in learning Latin American Spanish, Baselang is one of the best resources to do it with, provided the student is willing to put in the time and effort required.
The value of getting individual teaching and feedback is huge, and there is potential for some super rapid learning.
For European Spanish my recommendation is neutral, while you can technically use Baselang, I think it's probably better to find individual tutors somewhere like italki.
What I like about Baselang
- ‘Real World‘ is flexible, and truly unlimited Spanish lessons at a very affordable monthly cost
- ‘Grammarless‘ (conversational Spanish in 1 month, with 4 hours of lessons per day!) is insane but for the right learner an absolute no-brainer at the current cost.
- Passionate and friendly teachers
- Super easy and convenient
- Great value for the ambitious student
- Teachers are vetted and feedback is public
- $1 no-risk-trial and no on-going commitment
What I don’t like about Baselang
- Some lesson time is wasted on catching up/admin, unless you pick the same teacher for every lesson
- The Real World syllabus seemed a little slow for an experienced learner – (but you can design the classes as you want.)
- No European Spanish teachers – however, as per the paragraph above this might not be a big deal.
- Although the value with Baselang is obvious, it's not suitable for the dabbler, or busy people who cannot take advantage of the unlimited concept.
Baselang “Real World” Case Study
To really test out the service I went undercover and had 4 lessons. To read my full notes, as well as see recordings from my lessons check out my Baselang case study here.
In conclusion of this Baselang review, I'm sure people out there will greatly enjoy the convenience, price, and quality provided by the service. In fact, I wholeheartedly recommend you give it a try.
Get a $1 no-risk-trial and $10 off your first month as an Actual Fluency reader by checking out this link.
Frequently Asked Questions
Baselang costs $149 USD per month ($179 USD per month from January 7, 2024) for unlimited 1-on-1 classes in their “Real World” programme, while their intensive, 1-month, Grammarless programme is $1200.
Yes. If you sign up using this link, you will get a $10 discount off your first monthly subscription. Plus, your first week is only $1 USD!
Yes. LingoCulture was started in 2022, and is partly operated by Baselang. It features the exact same concept and price point just for learning French instead of Spanish.
If you're seriously committed to learning Spanish, Baselang is worth it. A well-structured and thorough course coupled with native speaking tutors makes this a very effective way to learn Spanish. To make it worth it, however, you'll need to schedule in at least a couple of lessons on a weekly basis.
Baselang teaches a neutral Latin-American Spanish, with teachers from all over South America.
Are there any Baselang alternatives?
While $149 ($179 from January 7, 2024) per month for unlimited Spanish lessons sounds cheap on the surface, how does it actually compare to alternative solutions like hiring your tutor directly on platforms like italki?
The first issue with this comparison is that you're not comparing apples to apples. In my opinion, Baselang has several advantages over finding your own individual tutors on marketplaces like Preply.
Advantages of Baselang over tutoring platforms
Cheaper isn't always better. I feel like Baselang has advantages that makes the price harder to compare to finding your own tutors.
- Teacher Quality and Transparency. Baselang already vetted the teachers, so you don't have to go through what could be multiple teachers to find someone good. Furthermore all reviews that students complete after each session is published instantly.
- Convenience. I must admit I always found Preply convenient when booking tutors, but Baselang just took it to a whole other level. During my case study, I successfully booked and completed a tutoring lesson on Baselang within 5 minutes of it starting. Booking is also faster and easier, and you can have lessons almost around the clock without being restricted by your single preply-teacher's schedule.
- Truly Unlimited: Although perhaps an obvious point it has to be said again. If you're really serious about learning Spanish you could have six hours a day for a month and save 90% of what the same amount of lessons would've cost on italki. I understand this is an extreme example, but it shows you the potential of the unlimited concept.
Baselang vs italki
As of January 2024, an average community tutor (meaning no qualifications) on italki for Latin American Spanish would cost you around $8 per hour.
A bit of simple math tells us that if you do less than roughly 20 hours of tutoring in a month, italki starts to get cheaper.
But, this doesn't factor in the convenience of being able to book teachers at a moment's notice, and that they are all working from the same proven “curriculum” in Baselang.
In conclusion, if you're not able to commit 10-15 hours of tutoring (or more) per month I would probably start to consider finding my own tutors. That being said, if you're not on a budget you might just enjoy the convenience and quality of using Baselang.
Baselang vs Lingoda
Lingoda and Baselang both connect language learners to native speakers from across the globe. the main difference are that while Baselang offers unlimited one-to-one lessons for a monthly subscription fee, Lingoda offers a monthly price that depends on how many lessons you'll take each week. Lessons on Lingoda also vary between one-on-one sessions to small group lessson with five other students.
Both Lingoda and Baselang are relatively pricey options, but very worthwhile investments if you're very serious about your commitment to learning a language.
What's great about Lingoda is that there is an opportunity to get all of your classes for free. By signing up for the platform's SuperSprint, you'll have to take one class every two days for three months. If you do this, the cost of your lessons will be completely reimbursed.
Baselang vs Verbling
Like Baselang, Verbling is an online tutoring platform that offers high quality lessons led by native speakers. It's a lot more fun and gamified than Baselang, with colourful graphics that were much appreciated. While there is no structured curriculum to make your way through, teachers are encouraged to use learning plans which help you to make noticeable progress.
Kris is the founder of Actual Fluency, and has spent the last 8 years becoming an expert in language learning software, methods, and techniques.
He lives in Denmark and speaks 5+ languages at varying levels. His other interests are Wine, Online Marketing, and Travelling.