Prices checked 3 September 2026

Best apps to learn Thai: free and paid options compared

The shortlist is short, one famous name is not on it at all, and the pricing gap between the options is larger than anyone expects. Here are the numbers.

The short version

Duolingo does not teach Thai

Worth stating first, because it is the most common wrong assumption. Duolingo has no Thai course for English speakers and never has. It covers roughly 42 languages including Vietnamese, Indonesian, Hindi, Navajo, Klingon and High Valyrian, and not Thai. The volunteer programme that produced its smaller courses closed in 2021, and its large 2025 expansion added new interface languages for the big courses rather than new target languages.

So if that is what brought you here, the honest answer is that the app you were looking for does not exist and you are choosing between the three below.

Sabai Thai

Cost: free to start, with optional Pro. 38 free starter lessons across 6 chapters, covering Act 1 of each, plus two checkpoints. After that, unlock one new lesson free each day. Replay and practise unlocked lessons whenever you like. The curriculum contains 34 chapters and 5,408 exercises in 19 formats. Read the access details.

The app includes: speech recognition that compares your pronunciation to the target word by word and tells you which syllable missed. Spaced repetition under everything. A tone ear-trainer with pitch curves, because tones are the actual hard part of Thai and they deserve their own tool. A finger tracer for all 68 letters. Five games, including a detective mystery you solve by reading Thai clues. Live two-player practice rooms with another learner. Eight practical tools including a taxi address card you show the driver. The full list.

Optional: Sabai Pro at €119.99 a year adds an AI tutor and a review drill built from your own mistakes. Unlimited lesson progression, AI coach practice within your allowance, Smart Review and included cosmetics.

Not for you if you are on an iPhone. There is no iOS build. It is available on Google Play.

Ling

Cost: $16.99 a month, $64.99 for six months, or $89.99 a year after a 7-day trial. The free tier is limited lessons with ads.

A polished gamified course with a real Thai track, dialogues and recorded audio, covering 40-odd languages on one subscription. It runs on iOS, which we do not.

The trade is straightforward: you are paying $89.99 a year for lesson access. That is the product. If Thai is the only language you want, you are also subsidising 39 courses you will never open. The longer comparison.

ThaiPod101

Cost: Basic, Premium and Premium PLUS, listed at $4, $10 and $23 a month on a 24-month commitment during the promotion running when this was checked. Shorter terms cost considerably more per month, which is worth reading twice before you sign up for two years.

An enormous archive of recorded lessons with Thai and English hosts. If you learn by listening and want sheer hours of material, nothing else comes close, and Premium PLUS is the only option on this page that puts you in front of a human teacher.

It is a library rather than a course, so structure and daily momentum are on you. The free tier gives you the first three lessons of every pathway.

Duolingo

Cost: irrelevant, because there is no Thai course. As of 3 September 2026 Duolingo does not teach Thai to English speakers. Thai appears only in the other direction, as an interface language for Thai speakers learning English.

It is on this page purely because it is where most people look first and it is the single most common way someone ends up here. Why Thai does not fit its format, and what to use instead.

Sabai Thai, ours

34 chapters across 19 exercise formats, with speech recognition that compares what you said to the target word by word rather than handing you a percentage. Spaced repetition schedules every word before you lose it, and Smart Review builds a drill from the ones you keep relapsing on.

Around that: dedicated drills for the two genuinely hard parts of Thai, a tone ear-trainer and a finger-tracer for all 68 letters. Five games including a detective mystery you solve by reading Thai clues. Live two-player practice rooms with another learner over a room code. Eight practical tools, of which the taxi address card gets used more than the rest combined. 2,195 audio files, bundled, so it works on a plane. The full list, including what is not built.

Cost: free to start, with optional Pro. 38 free starter lessons across 6 chapters, covering Act 1 of each, plus two checkpoints. After that, unlock one new lesson free each day. Replay and practise unlocked lessons whenever you like. Hearts apply to games, not lesson attempts.

Best for: a self-directed learner on Android who wants the depth without a subscription. Weak for: iPhone users, because there is no iOS build. Also no human teachers, no CEFR alignment, and the course tops out at upper intermediate.

Which one

The thing worth noticing about the pricing

Two of the three paid options charge you for access to lessons. That is a reasonable business and it is also why people stall: the month you are busy is the month you cancel, and the cancelled month is usually the one you do not come back from.

Our aim is to keep a useful free route while making the app sustainable. 38 free starter lessons across 6 chapters, covering Act 1 of each, plus two checkpoints. After that, unlock one new lesson free each day. Replay and practise unlocked lessons whenever you like. The access page explains the model, and Pro’s page lists its benefits.

What none of them do

No app makes anyone fluent, ours included. They build vocabulary, reading and listening comfortably; they build speaking badly, because speaking needs a person who will not wait for you. Everything above is a supplement to talking to Thai people, not a substitute. Any app that tells you otherwise is selling.

Sources, all read 3 September 2026: Ling pricing · ThaiPod101 pricing · Duolingo course list (Wikipedia)