Forvo Alternatives for Hearing How Words Are Said

Forvo is a crowd-sourced pronunciation dictionary. Volunteers record words in their own language, and you press play to hear a native speaker say them. It still works. The homepage shows new pronunciations and a language of the day, and the US App Store listing claims more than 7 million pronunciations in more than 450 languages.

People leave Forvo for three reasons. Some words have one recording, or none, in the accent they need. Some learners want to hear a word in a full sentence, not alone. And developers who build on the Forvo API compare its price with other audio sources. The picks below cover each case, from free dictionaries to paid apps that score your own voice.

Prices below are as of November 6, 2026. Our method is on How we review tools.

Quick comparison

YouGlish

Type a word into YouGlish and it jumps to the exact second a YouTube speaker says it, with captions running underneath. You hear the word at normal speed, with the stress and linking a single recording cannot show. It covers 25 spoken languages, from Arabic to Vietnamese, plus sign languages.

Forvo gives you one person saying one word. YouGlish gives you dozens of people, so you can skip to the next clip until you find a British, Indian or Australian speaker. For names of products, places and people that Forvo volunteers have not recorded yet, a YouTube clip often exists already.

Best for: Learners who want to hear a word the way people actually say it in conversation.

Pricing:

• Website: free
• Widget and JS API: free for non-commercial education use; commercial use needs a quote
• REST API Hobby: 25 euros a month, up to 500 requests a day
• REST API Small Business: 300 euros a month, up to 10,000 requests a day
• Corporate: contact sales

Watch out for:

• The YouGlish plans page has no free REST API tier, and attribution to YouGlish is required below the Corporate tier.
• Coverage is 25 spoken languages against Forvo's 450+. Learners of Pangasinan or Tatar will find nothing here.

Official site: YouGlish.

Lingua Libre

Run by Wikimedia France, Lingua Libre works much like Forvo did in its early years. Volunteers sit at a recording studio in the browser and read word lists aloud. Each file goes to Wikimedia Commons under CC BY-SA 4.0, as the Wikipedia article on the project explains, and many end up on Wiktionary entries.

The About page counts more than 1,250,000 recordings and 2,000 members. The homepage names languages such as Atikamekw, Odia and Swahili alongside French and Catalan, plus more than 100 others. The open licence is the real difference. A teacher or app maker can reuse the audio with credit, without signing an API contract.

Best for: Teachers, Wikipedia editors and developers who need pronunciation audio they are allowed to reuse.

Pricing:

• Free to listen, record and download
• Recordings licensed CC BY-SA 4.0, so reuse needs attribution and share-alike

Watch out for:

• Lookup is clumsy next to Forvo. You usually find a recording through its Wiktionary entry or a Commons search, not a single search box on the homepage.
• The project has gone offline before. Wikipedia notes the site went down in spring 2021 after a fire in Strasbourg, although no recordings were lost.

Official site: Lingua Libre.

Cambridge Dictionary

For English, a recorded dictionary beats a crowd. Every Cambridge entry carries a British and an American transcription with audio buttons, so you can see why the two differ. The entry for schedule shows UK /ˈʃed.juːl/ next to a US form starting /ˈsked/, which settles a question Forvo answers only if you compare uploads by country.

The recordings come from trained speakers, so the sound is clean and the volume is even. Merriam-Webster offers a similar free service for American English if you prefer a US source.

Best for: English learners who want one reliable British and one reliable American model for each word.

Pricing:

• Free on the web, no account needed to hear audio

Watch out for:

• Only two accents. If you need Scottish, Irish or South African English, Forvo or YouGlish will serve you better.
• Rare names, brands and new slang are often missing, because entries are written by editors rather than added by users.

Official site: Cambridge Dictionary.

Howjsay

Howjsay does one thing. You type an English word and it plays a recording at once, with no clips to scroll or accents to choose. The homepage says there are currently 181,987 entries in the dictionary, and it links to iPhone and Android apps.

Speed is the reason to keep it bookmarked. A Forvo page shows votes, user names and related words. Howjsay shows a word and a sound, which suits a quick check before a meeting or a presentation.

Best for: A one-second check of how an English word sounds, with nothing else on the page.

Pricing:

• Free on the web
• iPhone and Android apps linked from the homepage

Watch out for:

• English only. Anyone who used Forvo for French, Japanese or Polish needs another pick on this list.
• The site looks unchanged in recent years, so check that a newer word is there before you rely on it.

Official site: Howjsay.

Speechling

Hearing a native speaker is half the job. Speechling covers the other half: you record yourself saying a sentence, and a human coach sends back feedback with their own recording. Forvo has no way to tell you that your version is wrong.

The pricing page offers a Forever Free plan with no credit card, worded as "Up to 10 coaching sessions per month, except English, French, Chinese and German." Unlimited plans start at $19.99 a month.

Best for: Learners who already know how a word should sound and now need someone to check their own pronunciation.

Pricing:

• Forever Free: $0, up to 10 coaching sessions a month, not for English, French, Chinese or German
• Speechling Unlimited: from $19.99 a month

Watch out for:

• The four most popular languages are excluded from free coaching, so most learners of English or French will pay.
• Unlimited runs from $19.99 a month, so check the plan length and total at checkout.

Official site: Speechling.

ELSA Speak

ELSA Speak replaces the human coach with software. Its Speech Analyzer listens to you and marks each sound and the word stress, and you can practise against American, British, Australian and other accents. On the US App Store it has a 4.7 rating from 114K ratings and 8,000+ lessons.

It suits speakers preparing for IELTS, TOEFL or a job interview, which the app covers through an Interview Coach and exam modules. Feedback is instant, which a crowd dictionary cannot give.

Best for: Non-native English speakers who want instant, sound-by-sound scores on their accent.

Pricing:

• Free download with a 7-day Premium trial
• Monthly: $19.99
• 3 months: $39.99 to $58.00
• 1 year: listed from $71.00 to $129.99 under several plan names

Watch out for:

• English only, and exam preparation needs Premium.
• A March 2025 App Store review says voice detection fails even in quiet rooms and that the app keeps asking paying users to buy again. The developer replied asking for details by email.

Official site: ELSA Speak.

Glossika

Glossika is the pick for minority languages, where Forvo was often the only audio online. Its courses cover 65+ languages, including Uzbek and separate Beijing and Taiwan Chinese, and every sentence comes with native audio you repeat and shadow. A new app with Explore and Train modes launched on September 2, 2026, and the old one now runs as Glossika Legacy.

It does not work as a dictionary. You cannot type a word and hear it. You learn pronunciation through hundreds of sentences, which helps more with rhythm than one clip ever could. Our Glossika alternatives page covers cheaper sentence drills.

Best for: Learners of less common languages who want to copy native rhythm sentence by sentence.

Pricing:

• Basic: one language; Pro: all 65+ languages; monthly and annual billing
• Glossika Legacy on the US App Store: Basic Monthly $16.99 and $19.99, Pro Annual $299.99 and $399.00

Watch out for:

• Glossika Legacy is rated 3.6 from 107 ratings on the US App Store, and a desktop version of the new app is still listed as coming soon.

Official site: Glossika.

LingQ

Many Forvo users look words up while reading. LingQ puts the audio and the text together: you read a lesson while a native speaker reads it aloud, and tap any word to save it for review. On the US App Store it has a 4.7 rating from 10K ratings.

You can import your own texts and audio, so a podcast transcript or a news article becomes a listening lesson. See our LingQ alternatives if the price puts you off.

Best for: Intermediate learners who want to hear new words in context while they read.

Pricing:

• Free: 20 LingQs, 5 imported lessons, 1 audio playlist
• Premium: $14.99 a month, $80.99 for 6 months, $119.99 for 12 months (US App Store)
• Premium Plus: $29.99 a month or $269.99 a year

Watch out for:

• The free plan stops at 20 saved words and 5 imported lessons, so a sixth imported text needs Premium.
• It reads whole lessons, not single words. To hear one word in isolation you still need a dictionary.

Official site: LingQ.

How to choose

When to stay with Forvo

Keep Forvo for coverage. No other source on this list has recordings in 450+ languages, and the homepage still lists rare ones like Pangasinan, with 24 words recorded and 362 waiting. For developers, the Forvo API is also cheaper than YouGlish, at $2.00 a month for non-profits and $28.95 a month for 10,000 commercial requests a day.

Frequently asked questions