SpeakNow — Listen in time and speak out

You read English materials without a dictionary, watch videos and grasp the general idea. But when people speak at a real speed, your ears can't keep up; by the time you understand the first sentence, you've already missed the next one. And when you try to speak, people have to ask again, but you don't know where you went wrong to correct it.

These two issues are two different blockages: one in the ears, the other in the mouth. General practice won't resolve this; you need to address them separately. SpeakNow offers exactly two exercises for those two blockages, in the same video.

DICTATION — REMOVE THE BLOCKAGE IN THE EARS

Listen to a sentence and type what you hear. The app analyzes each word: which words you missed and which ones you misheard as something else.

This is when you see the truth about your hearing. Listening casually might make you think you understand everything, but typing it out reveals spots you only guessed at, rather than truly heard: where sounds were swallowed, where two words stuck together, and where short, unstressed words slipped away. Once you identify where you're missing bits, you can catch it the next time you listen.

It ignores punctuation and does not differentiate between uppercase and lowercase, because this is a test of listening, not a spelling test. The score only counts on the boxes you need to type, so the number you see reflects your true listening ability.

SHADOWING — REMOVE THE BLOCKAGE IN THE MOUTH

Listen to a sentence, press the mic, and repeat it exactly. The AI grades immediately: what you just pronounced and which words you haven't pronounced correctly. The Pro version always shows which sound in the word was off, along with its phonetics.

This answers the question you couldn’t answer yourself: when I speak, what do people hear? Speaking alone feels fine with every sentence, but when people ask for clarification, you realize something is wrong, yet you don’t know where. Grading each word points directly to that issue.

Mimicking a native speaker also helps with timing and stress, rather than reading each word separately. That’s what makes your speech sound like English.

TWO EXERCISES GO TOGETHER

Do Dictation first to train your ears to catch the sentence, then switch to Shadowing to correctly repeat that sentence. What the ears clearly hear becomes what the mouth speaks, each enhancing the other.

In the same video, you can switch back and forth between the two exercises with the press of a button. The library remembers how many sentences you've completed in each exercise, and the next day, you can resume right where you left off.

Each video is labeled A2, B1, or B2 along with the speaking speed measured in words per minute, allowing filtering by level. Whether or not you can mimic depends largely on how fast people speak, so choosing the right speed is more important than choosing a topic.

TRY IT OUT

Both exercises can be used for free every day, no card needed. Dictation is available for the full session, with no video or session limits. Shadowing is available for the full session on all videos, with grading based on 60 attempts per day.

Runs straight in the browser, no installation required.