busuu.com | the language learning community

20% Christmas discount on our gift vouchers

Are you looking for a special Christmas present? Share your busuu.com learning experience and give family or friends the gift of language with a voucher for our Premium Membership. What’s more, you can get a 20% discount if you buy before 31 December 2011!

With a Premium Membership you will stick to your New Year’s resolution and learn a new language! Share your fun and efficient language learning experience with your dearest ones. No more old and dusty grammar books in our online community! Premium Members can have their pronunciation corrected by native speakers of the language they are learning.

This direct interaction gives our community members constant feedback on their learning progress and keeps the motivation up and going. It is the perfect way to make these New Year’s resolution reality.

Further advantages of the Premium Membership are:

You can buy the voucher now or later, just go to your friends section in your menu and click on ‘Gift Voucher’. With our special 20% Christmas discount, you can buy the voucher for only 47.94 EUR! Upon purchasing the voucher on busuu.com, you will receive a voucher code with further instructions via email. The person receiving the gift can then choose when to activate their Premium Membership! They just have to redeem the voucher in the Course menu.

Take advantage of our voucher discount today!

busuu.com reaches 10 million users

We’re growing quickly and it’s all thanks to you! In just three-and-a-half years, over 5 million users have registered on busuu.com. In little more than one year, our apps have been downloaded 5 million times. That makes 10 million in total!

Every day, over 15,000 new users join busuu.com to improve their language skills with other native speakers and our award-winning courses. No wonder we are the world’s most active online community for learning languages.

If you want to learn languages on the go, our apps for iPhone and Android (e.g. Samsung, LG and Motorola) are an ideal add-on to our online community. In June 2011, our app won the “Stiftung Warentest” for Best Mobile English Vocabulary Trainer. At peak times, we register 40,000 downloads a day. Downloads for the Android apps in particular have gone through the roof: in only 3 months almost 1,500,000 apps from this particular operating system have been downloaded.

The apps are available for all nine languages offered on the website and do not require an internet connection to access the content. They include 20 free learning units for each language – full content with over 3,000 words and key phrases can be purchased from inside the app, from beginner to intermediate level. You can even synchronise the app with your busuu.com profile and earn busuu-berrieswherever you are. Get your own app now!

We plan to grow even more in the future and soon we’ll add new languages to make busuu.com available for even more people around the globe.

busuu.com wins the Education category of The Europas!

The winners of The Europas were announced on the 17th of November 2011 and we are thrilled to announce that busuu.com won the category ‘Best Education, Recruitment, Media Startup’. This is fantastic news and we are honoured to be the best European Education Startup. This would not have been possible without you, a BIG thank you for all your support!

This was the third year that The Europas took place, in 2010 we received a ‘Highly Commended’ in the category ‘Best Learning Startup’. The advisory board, formed by 22 key European VCs and journalists, selected the finalists from 400 candidates which then went to the public vote and generated about 40,000 online votes. Almost 500 people attended the award ceremony in London to celebrate the best of Europe’s startups, VCs and entrepreneurs.

Thanks again for your votes and this important award! This is an amazing recognition which motivates us to continue working hard and to keep improving busuu.com!

busuu.com launches new design!

We at busuu.com want to make your language learning experience as comfortable as possible. With our new design, you will learn languages in an even more intuitive way!

Of course, our popular language garden and the busuu berrieswill stay the same. The most important changes have been made in the home area, the language area and the user profile. You will now be able to easily switch between different learning resources and to manage your exercises and corrections directly in your home area.

Your home area now not only shows your learning progress in all the languages you are learning, but also lets you go straight to an individual task, such as: vocabulary, dialogue and writing exercises, the busuu-talk and review test as well as premium materials such as pdfs, mp3s and voice recording. In addition to this, you can access further resources like our dictionary, games and live units. Just click on the corresponding icon or link.

At the bottom of your home area, we now offer you the possibility to manage your exercises and corrections. Here you can choose to view: ‘Others’ exercises’, ‘your exercises’ or ‘your corrections’. On the top right-hand corner of the table, you have the option to filter by language and choose whether you want to see uncorrected exercises of all our members or just of your friends.

Below this ‘Exercises’ box you will now be able to see all your different groups. Again, the filter on the top right-hand corner allows you to arrange your groups according to language.

The new design of the language area gives you an improved overview of your learning activities. The learning unit you are currently working on is highlighted (see picture below). To access the tasks and materials of the highlighted unit, simply click on the icons below, just as you would do in your home area. On the left-hand side of your language area you will also see a menu giving you access to the different courses and resources of your selected language.

As before, you access your user profile by clicking on your profile picture. On the left-hand side of your profile you will see your badges, friends and groups. In the middle part you will see your current learning units and the exercises box.

But enough of the theoretical explanations. The best way to experience our intuitive new design is to see it for yourself! We’re sure you’ll enjoy it as much as we do!

busuu.com is in The Europas finals!

We’re very excited to be in the finals of The Europas – the European Tech Startup Awards! This is the third year that The Europas celebrate the best of Europe’s startups, VCs and entrepreneurs and you are the one who chooses the final winner!

Voting is easy: Go to the category ‘Best Education, Recruitment, Media Startup‘ and vote for busuu.com. In 2010 we were ‘Highly Commended‘ in the category ‘Best Learning Startup’. This year we want to do even better. Help us win the award for ‘Best Education, Recruitment, Media Startup’ and vote for us now!

Online education has grown strongly in the past few years. In the case of language learning, it makes sense to go online: busuu.com connects people from over 200 countries worldwide who teach and learn languages in our online community.

In only 3 years we have grown to become a community with over 4 million users. Let’s keep up the good work and show the world that we really are one of the best European Tech Startups! Vote for us and tell your friends, too!

The winners will be announced on 17 November 2011 in London. We will of course let you know if we are selected.