ELSA Speak
AI pronunciation coach that scores your English down to the phoneme.
About
ELSA Speak is an AI English coach focused on pronunciation. It listens to you speak, breaks your speech down to the phoneme level, and tells you exactly which sounds need work, with a quantitative speaking score you can track over time. With 7,100+ bite-sized lessons and IELTS/TOEFL prep, it has picked up around 25 million users.
It is the best-regarded tool for fixing specific problem sounds, and there is a usable free plan. Limitations are real though: it teaches American English only, reviewers note it can be strict to the point of flagging speech native speakers would accept, and full personalization sits behind the ~$12-13/month Pro plan.
What it can do
- Phoneme-level pronunciation scoring
- American accent training
- 7,100+ bite-sized lessons
- IELTS and TOEFL speaking prep
- Progress tracking and speaking proficiency score
Setup
- Install ELSA Speak on iOS or Android.
- Sign up with email or Facebook and take the speaking assessment.
- Get your pronunciation profile and personalized lesson path.
- Practice daily; upgrade to Pro for the full 7,100+ lesson library.
Prerequisites
iOS or Android device; microphone.
Use cases
Works with
Trust score — 7/10
Scored 7/10 (metrics tier, metrics-v1). Evidence: ~25M users, phoneme-level scoring; American English only; can be overly strict; proprietary, ~$13/mo annual. License: Proprietary SaaS.
How the trust score is built
Full methodology →- Adoption · stars/downloads, log-scaled vs peers
- 8.0/10
- Maintenance · recency, releases, issue load
- 8.0/10
- Openness · license + docs
- 3.0/10
- Manual review · sanity read + red-flag check
- 7.0/10
- · ~25M users, phoneme-level scoring
- · American English only; can be overly strict
- · proprietary, ~$13/mo annual
Sources
Every fact above was checked against these sources. Where a claim comes from the provider and couldn't be independently verified, the text says so.