How to pick an AI app that actually gets you speaking
By James Corrigan, English Teacher · Aug 24, 2026 · 10 min read
The five things that decide whether an app works
Whether an app changes how you speak comes down to five things. Streaks, avatars, level maps and course structure sit on top of them as decoration.
None of the five appears on a pricing page. All five can be checked inside the free part of an app, in about five minutes each.
Run them before your card comes out. An app that fails the first two will not be rescued by the other three.
• Does it make you speak, or mostly tap and choose
• Does it correct you while you talk, not afterwards
• Does it score clarity, not just right and wrong words
• Can you talk about anything, or only today’s lesson
• Does a ten-minute session actually work
One: does it listen to you speak?
Most apps sold as speaking practice barely record you. They play audio, ask you to pick words, and put a microphone on one exercise in five.
The test: open the free lesson and count the full sentences you say out loud in five minutes. Sentences, not words.
Under ten and you are holding a reading app with a microphone attached. Your mouth is the thing being trained, and it needs the repetitions.
• A sentence of your own, unprompted: counts
• A sentence read off the screen: counts a little
• Choosing the right word from four: does not count
• Tapping to confirm you understood the audio: does not count
Two: does it correct you while you talk?
Correction has to land while the sentence is still in your mouth. A report at the end of a session arrives too late to change the sentence that was wrong.
The test: make a mistake on purpose. Say something like “yesterday I go to the office” and watch the next ten seconds.
A coach flags it and lets you say it again inside the same conversation. A scoring app saves it for a summary you will scroll past.
That mistake, correction, retry loop is the whole mechanism. Everything else in the category is packaging around it.
Three: does it score what makes you hard to understand?
Being wrong and being hard to understand are two different problems. Most people who get asked to repeat themselves have workable grammar and unclear delivery.
The test: say one sentence rushed and mumbled, then the same sentence slowly and clearly. If the score does not move, the app is only reading your words.
A tool that names the specific thing to fix teaches more than one that says correct or try again.
• Which sounds you distort, not a single overall percentage
• Sentence stress and intonation, the melody a listener follows
• Pace: too fast to follow, or too slow to hold attention
• Filler words, and how often they carry your sentences
• Pauses in the wrong place, mid-clause rather than between ideas
Four: can you talk about anything?
The conversation you need is the one you are about to have this week. A fixed lesson tree cannot cover your job, your landlord or your Tuesday.
The test: go off-script. Change the subject, ask the app a question, bring up your actual work, and see whether it follows you or resets you to the lesson.
Structure helps a beginner who does not know what to practice yet. Past that point, a partner who can only run the syllabus stops being useful.
Five: does it work in ten minutes?
Daily beats long. Ten minutes of speaking every day builds more than an hour on Sunday, so the session has to fit inside an ordinary day.
The test: time how long it takes from opening the app to your first spoken sentence. Then quit halfway through and see what happens to your progress.
Anything with a warm-up ritual gets skipped on the days you are tired, and those are most days.
• Under a minute from opening the app to speaking
• You can stop mid-session without losing the session
• It works with earphones, on a walk or a commute
• No placement quiz standing between you and today’s practice
• Feedback you can read in the thirty seconds afterwards
When a speaking app is the wrong tool
A speaking app trains the act of talking. It does not replace everything standing around that skill, and the honest scope is narrower than the category likes to admit.
Go elsewhere when what you need is one of these.
• A certificate: only an exam board can issue one
• Grammar drilled in order: a course or a textbook does it better
• Reading and writing: different skills, different practice
• A human being to talk to rather than practice with
What Lucida does about the five
Lucida is built around the first test. Every session is a spoken conversation with an AI coach, Lucy, and there are no tapping exercises to hide behind.
Feedback arrives while you talk, in your native language, covering pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary, fluency, pace and filler words. Speaking scores are tracked against CEFR levels.
It is free to download on iOS and Android, so you can run all five tests yourself before any subscription. Six languages: English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, German and Arabic.
• Listens: the conversation is the product, not an exercise around it
• Corrects live: mistakes flagged mid-conversation, then you say it again
• Scores clarity: pronunciation, pace, fluency and filler words, not only grammar
• Talks about anything: open conversation, plus role-plays you write yourself
• Fits ten minutes: open it, start talking, stop when you need to
Frequently asked questions
What is the best AI app to practice speaking English?
There is no single best one, only the one that passes the five tests for your situation. Check whether it makes you speak, corrects you while you talk, scores clarity rather than word choice alone, follows you off-script, and fits ten minutes. Run those checks in the free tier.
Can an app really improve my spoken English?
Yes, when it multiplies your speaking minutes. In a class of thirty, an hour shared fairly gives each student about two minutes of talking; an app can give you ten minutes every day. The improvement follows the minutes, so an app that keeps you silent will change nothing.
How do I test a speaking app in five minutes?
Count the full sentences you say out loud, make a deliberate mistake and watch for a correction, say one sentence rushed and one clearly to see if the score moves, change the subject, and time how long until you first speak. Five checks, five minutes.
Are AI speaking apps free?
Most are free to download with the useful parts behind a subscription; some keep a permanent free tier, others give a short trial. Lucida is free to download on iOS and Android, with some features requiring a subscription, and the price is shown in the app before payment.
Do I still need a teacher or an exam?
Yes, for anything an app cannot issue or judge. Only an exam board can certify your level, and a human teacher explains grammar and cultural register better than a coach in your pocket. Use an app for the speaking hours neither of those will give you.
How is this different from a general-purpose chatbot?
A speaking coach listens to how you sound, not only to what you say. Feedback covers pronunciation, pace, fluency and filler words alongside grammar and vocabulary, arrives while you speak, and comes in your native language. Lucida has 33M+ downloads and a 4.8 App Store rating.
Run the five tests yourself
Lucida is an AI speaking coach app for iOS and Android. Start a spoken conversation with Lucy, make a mistake on purpose, and see how fast the correction comes back. Some features require a subscription.
