Do you have a manual that I can download?
Yes, you can download our Power User Guide in PDF format.
Do I need to register to start learning with Bluebird?
No. Starting with version 1.71. (February 11, 2021), you can log in as a guest without having to register.
Bluebird seems massive. Just how large is it?
Bluebird currently has 6,295,772 hours of pre-recorded audio lessons. The average audiobook (i.e. fiction or nonfiction book) is 10 hours long. So Bluebird has the equivalent of 629,577 full-length audiobooks in language lessons. The largest audiobook aggregator has 200,000+ audio titles. Bluebird thus has over three times more audio content, making Bluebird not just the world’s largest audio collection, but also the world’s largest audio publisher.
What is included in the Premium subscription?
Unlimited languages. Unlimited personalized courses. Access to all 5 language learning levels. PDF study guides. Higher-resolution audio (5x higher resolution than the free audio). Access to over 200,000 pronunciation video clips. Full access to all Daily Lessons for the past year in all languages. Automatic saving of your last 50 lessons for easy resumption. Priority technical support.
How does the Institutional subscription differ from the free or premium individual subscription?
The Institutional subscription provides all users in your institution with full access to Bluebird. It provides the same level of access as the individual premium subscription.
How does the Pronunciation Analysis work? And how do I get higher scores?
We cover this in detail in our Power User Guide in PDF format, so please download it and check the section on Pronunciation Analysis.
Does Bluebird have an offline mode?
Yes, Your past 10 lessons are automatically saved (History), and can be played when your are offline. (Premium users have their last 50 lessons saved in History.) You can also bookmark any lesson and have it automatically saved for offline listening. When you launch the app and you are offline, it will automatically take you to your library of saved lessons.
Do I need to provide access to device storage to use Bluebird?
Prior to version 1.7.1 (February 11, 2021), the Bluebird app needed access to device storage in order to download and use our audio lessons offline. However, from version 1.7.1 access to device storage is no longer required.
Why do lessons load slowly sometimes?
When you choose one of the 12.5 million audio lessons that comprise Bluebird (which is the largest collection of audio in the world), that lesson downloads to your device. A 30-minute lesson is about 5 megabytes in size. If your WiFi is good, that means about 5 to 10 seconds to download. If your connection is slow, it will take longer. The key thing to remember is that you may wait a few seconds, but you will get 30 minutes of quality instruction as a result. It’s the same principle with a service like Audible.com, where you can download complete audiobooks, and it takes some time.
How do a toggle between native script and romanized text?
Depending on the language you are learning, you will see a label in the audio lesson that looks like “xA”. Tapping that label will toggle between native script and romanized (phonetic) text.
How do I report a problem?
Tap the “life buoy” icon on any page to create an email where you can enter details about your problem.
What is the 'auth' error when I try to register? Why can't I use Bluebird in my country?
Google Firebase, which we use for this app, is blocked in all the countries that are on the current US embargo list.
Audio just stays at 0:00 and doesn't play.
The solution: You need to press the volume button on your phone and modify the settings there to make sure it’s not casting to a Bluetooth device.
Is Bluebird the largest selection of language-learning audiobooks in the world?
Yes. Bluebird offers 12,591,543 prerecorded audio lessons in total. That is 6,295,771 hours (718 years) of prerecorded lessons.Each language has an average of 80,634 prerecorded lessons (each lesson is narrated in 146 languages). This makes Bluebird not only the largest language-learning app in terms of content, but the largest audiobook publisher in the world (33% more hours than the largest aggregator of audiobooks).
How many minutes does each lesson last?
You have a world of choices here. The daily lessons are about 6 minutes each, perfect if you don’t have much time each day to study. The pre-recorded Bluebird audio lessons average 30 minutes, perfect for a daily lesson if you have a bit more time. The Conversation lessons average 45 minutes, great for a daily immersion. You can also create Personalized Courses with lessons ranging from 5 minutes to 60 minutes in length, based entirely on your preferences.
How do I modify the daily reminder?
In the side menu of the app, click on “My Account.” To disable daily reminders, slide the widget to the left. To change the time of day at which you receive the daily reminder, tap on the time (“12:00:00”) itself and you will be able to select the hour and minute that you will be reminded each day.
How many hours of audio lessons are available for each language?
Each language has an average of 80,634 prerecorded lessons (each lesson is narrated in 146 languages), which is about 40,000 hours of precorded content for each learning language.
Does Bluebird teach the alphabet?
Bluebird’s main focus is on teaching you how to speak a language and to understand the language when spoken. If your goal is to learn how to write in the language of your choice, Bluebird will help you to learn phonemes and sentence structure, but it is not our main focus.
Does Bluebird teach grammar?
Bluebird teaches grammar implicitly, through examples that illustrate patterns. It does not teach grammar explicitly (e.g. “a prepositional phrase is a modifying phrase consisting of a preposition and its object.”).
Can I use Bluebird across multiple devices?
Yes, you can use Bluebird on multiple devices. Bluebird remembers your progress, quiz scores and preferences across multiple devices automatically.
Can I bookmark specific parts of a lesson?
Better than that — Bluebird automatically saves your progress in every lesson you attempt, so you can easily resume at any point in the future.
Do you offer narration in languages other than English?
Yes. Bluebird lets you learn any of 164 languages through narration in any of 146 home languages. These 146 home languages cover over 97% of the world’s population!
Do the audio lessons have subtitles?
Yes. Each and every Bluebird lesson has bilingual subtitles so you can read along in real time.
Do the lessons have articles and gender for nouns?
Yes, select languages have noun gender identification (masculine, feminine, neuter, common, masculine animate, masculine inanimate, masculine personal), as well as article determination (definite, indefinite, partitive).
How do I slow down (or speed up) the playback speed of the audio lesson?
Tap the “1.00 X” label in any audio lesson and select any of 6 playback speeds (0.50, 0.75, 1.00, 1.25, 1.50, 2.00).
Do the audio lessons have photographs?
Yes. We use 10,000 photographs (one for each instructional phrase in our core curriculum) to provide further reinforcement.
What is Bluebird's methodology?
Bluebird uses the scientifically proven spaced repetition learning method to optimize both language acquisition and language retention. Just listen and repeat, it’s that easy!
Do you have quizzes so I can evaluate my progress?
Yes, premium quizzes are available for every lesson that you do, to both reinforce what you learn and evaluate your progress.
Is there a place where I can see my average quiz scores and my progress through both the quizzes and the lessons?
Yes, see “My Stats” in the side menu of the app.
What do the eggs mean?
An egg appears on any lesson that you have started. A gray egg means that you have started the lesson, but haven’t yet finished it. Bluebird remembers your progress in every lesson you take, so you can automatically resume exactly where you last left off (no matter how many lessons you’ve started — it remembers your place in all of them). A blue egg means that you have listened to the lesson in its entirety, congratulations!
What do the ribbons mean?
Ribbons show your quiz scores. A yellow ribbon means that you have completed some, but not all, of the quizzes in a level or unit. A blue ribbon means that you have completed all of the quizzes in a level or unit.
Do I have to complete an audio lesson before attempting the quiz for that lesson?
No, if you would like to test out of a lesson, you can attempt the quiz directly, without experiencing the lesson.
How do I know how difficult a lesson is before starting it?
Each lesson is rated (Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced) based on the difficulty of the instructional phrases taught in that lesson.
Can I cast Bluebird audio lessons to Google Home?
Yes, Bluebird supports Google Cast in both the Android app and the iOS app.