Speaking practice for people looking for a tutor

Keep your tutor if you have one

Someone who knows you, hears your accent and notices the mistake you make every week is hard to beat, whether you want a Spanish tutor before a trip or a Japanese tutor for work.

Two things get in the way for a lot of people. Tutors are paid by the hour, so every minute you spend hunting for a word is a minute you paid for. And plenty of people freeze as soon as someone is listening, even someone kind and patient, and then a lesson you paid for feels like an exam.

Get the stumbling done before the lesson

mossyrune has a set of 3D games that run in your browser. You walk around and talk with AI characters in the language you're learning, by voice or by typing, and what you say decides what happens. In the dungeon game a bored guard, a nervous merchant and a dramatic ghost stand between you and the way out. In the bomb game you have until the timer runs out to get a disarm code out of a professor and reach the factory.

Your first attempts belong here, with the long pauses, the wrong verb endings and the sentence that only comes out right on the third try. The characters judge what you meant rather than your exact wording, so a rough sentence that gets the point across still counts. By the time you sit down with your tutor you've already said most of it once, and the hour can go to pronunciation, to why a correction is a correction, and to the topics you care about.

If you're nervous about speaking

Being afraid to speak a new language in front of someone is common, and it often has little to do with how much you know. In the game nobody is watching. The characters don't sigh or glance at the clock, and on beginner they never show frustration. They keep their language simple, lead the conversation and offer a hint when you go quiet. When you get something wrong, they repeat what you meant, correctly, and carry on.

You also decide how much help you get and how fast things go.

• Replay any line as many times as you need.
• Answer in your own language when you're stuck. On beginner and intermediate, the character understands and replies in the language you're learning.
• Switch on the interpreter panel, response suggestions or hints, and switch them off once you don't need them.

What it costs next to an hour with a tutor

Tutors are usually paid by the hour, and even a fair rate adds up if you want to speak every day. mossyrune uses credits instead, at about one credit per minute of play. A new account gets enough free credits for one full game, so you can find out whether it helps before you pay anything. After that you can take a monthly plan or buy a credit pack that never expires. A lesson every day is out of reach for a lot of people, so the game is meant for the days without one.

How to use it alongside your lessons

A simple routine if you have one lesson a week looks like this.

• Play a game the day before your lesson and write down the things you wanted to say and couldn't.
• Take that list to your tutor. Asking "how do I say this?" is a better use of paid time than warming up.
• Every playthrough lands in your notes, along with any lines you saved, so you can show your tutor the exact sentences.
• If you're still looking for a tutor, play first, and you'll arrive at the first lesson having already spoken the language out loud.

Languages and where it runs

It runs in any modern browser, phone included, with nothing to install, and you need a free account to play. Besides Spanish and Japanese you can play in French, Portuguese, Italian, German, English, Korean, Chinese, Arabic, Hindi, Indonesian and Bengali, with more in beta. The site also has free grammar walkthroughs if you want to read up before a lesson.