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A human language tutor can give you live speaking practice, immediate individualized feedback, and a conversation partner who can adapt when you get stuck. Those are plausible advantages, not a guarantee that tutoring works better for everyone than an app. Preply’s 2025 studies offer a useful case study, but their designs do not prove that tutoring caused reported improvements or establish a universal winner.
What a human tutor can add to language learning
Apps can help learners study vocabulary, grammar, listening, and other skills on their own schedule. A live tutor adds a person who can hear what you say, respond in the moment, and adjust the conversation to your needs. Whether that is worth the time and cost depends on what you are trying to improve and how you prefer to learn.
Live speaking and responsive conversation
A tutor can ask follow-up questions, clarify a misunderstanding, or shift the discussion when a learner struggles to express an idea. This makes a live lesson a practical place to practise using language in conversation, rather than only recognizing or selecting answers. The value is the opportunity to speak and receive a response; it does not guarantee fluency or improvement on its own.
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A tutor can respond to a learner’s particular errors, goals, and questions. For example, someone preparing to use English at work might practise explaining a project, then ask for help with a phrase that caused difficulty. This kind of adaptation is a reasonable educational benefit of one-on-one instruction, but its quality depends on the tutor, lesson, and learner.
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Accountability and adaptation
Regular appointments create a scheduled opportunity to practise, and a tutor can change the pace or focus when a learner needs more explanation or a different challenge. That structure may help people who find independent study difficult to sustain. It is not a substitute for the learner’s own practice between lessons.
How Preply combines live tutoring and AI support
Preply is an online marketplace for live, one-on-one language tutoring. The company describes its approach as human-led with AI-enabled support. An OpenAI case study describes AI-generated lesson summaries and personalized exercises as part of its platform support. These features can assist with practice, but their presence does not establish that AI or tutoring produces a particular learning outcome.
For learners, the practical distinction is that a live tutor provides a person to speak with and respond to you, while AI-enabled tools can support activities such as reviewing a lesson or practising independently. The approaches can be complementary; choosing one does not require rejecting the other.
What Preply and Leanlab found in the 2025 tutor study
In spring 2025, Preply and Leanlab Education studied Spanish-speaking adults in Spain who were learning English with Preply tutors over 12 weeks. Preply reported that up to 72% of all participants said their ability to use English effectively at work had improved. Among participants who completed at least 24 lessons, the reported share was 80%. These were participants’ self-reported views, not an independently measured estimate of how much their English improved. See Preply’s study summary and the Leanlab report.
What the results can and cannot establish
The study is encouraging as a report of participant experience, but it used an exploratory single-group design. Without a control group, the results cannot show that tutoring caused the reported changes or separate tutoring’s contribution from other influences, such as independent practice or participants’ expectations. The findings also concern a specific group, setting, language pair, and 12-week period; they do not show what every learner will experience.
Does Preply’s tutor study prove tutoring is better than an app?
No. Preply and Leanlab’s fall 2025 app study involved a separate sample at a different time and used a similar 12-week pre-post design. The study materials describe cross-study comparison as descriptive and exploratory. Because the studies were not a head-to-head randomized trial, differences between their reported outcomes cannot establish that tutoring outperforms apps. Details are available on Preply’s app study page.
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That distinction matters when interpreting claims about which approach is “better.” A fair comparison would need to account for differences in participants, study timing, learning activities, and measurement. The available Preply studies are useful for understanding reported experiences in separate groups, not for declaring a universal winner.
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What other evidence says about human and AI-supported learning
A 2024 robot-assisted language-learning study offers a narrow counterpoint: during its short English-speaking intervention, the system group improved on selected measures relative to the human-tutor group. The intervention’s limited duration and setup do not support a broad conclusion that AI outperforms tutors. The peer-reviewed study is one specific comparison, not a verdict on every tutor, app, or learner.
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In a separate 2024 survey, Preply respondents selected possible uses for AI in language learning. Forty-one percent selected creating grammar or vocabulary exercises, 36% selected language training assistance, and 35% selected reading or listening activities. These are reported use-case preferences, not evidence that those tools improve learning. The figures and context appear in Preply’s AI survey report.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.How to choose between a tutor, an app, or both
| Approach | Useful when you want | What the evidence here supports |
|---|---|---|
| Live tutor | Conversation with a person, responsive feedback, and an opportunity for individualized lessons. | Preply and Leanlab reported self-reported outcomes in a specific exploratory tutor study; it does not establish causation or superiority. |
| Self-study app | Independent practice on your own schedule. | Preply’s separate app study is not a randomized, direct comparison with the tutor study. |
| Both | Self-directed practice alongside scheduled conversation and feedback. | The cited studies do not test a combined approach against either option alone. |
A tutor may be especially relevant if you need practice speaking spontaneously, want feedback on your own wording, or benefit from having a scheduled lesson. An app may suit you if independent practice and flexibility are your priorities. Using both is a reasonable way to cover different needs, but the cited studies do not demonstrate that a combined approach is more effective.
If you consider Preply, treat the study findings as context rather than a promise about your results. Current pricing, tutor qualifications, subscription or refund terms, and availability can vary and are not established by the studies cited here; check the current platform details before committing.
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