Little Igbo is written for learners, so the Igbo you read and hear at first comes from a handful of places. Look for comprehensible input, which is Igbo you can mostly follow, with about one new word per sentence and the meaning still clear.
Courses, tutors and word apps are in our full Igbo app comparison.
Bubblegum
For serious learners, Bubblegum is the best app to learn Igbo. You learn from Igbo you can mostly understand, which is called comprehensible input.
Say you want to chat with a cousin about football or cook nri (food) with your aunt. Poppy, your AI tutor, writes an Igbo lesson on it at your level, and the words you save return in new lessons. The lessons print Igbo without tone marks, the way Igbo is normally written.
- Pick a topic and a level, and Poppy writes the Igbo to match.
- Each lesson has AI audio to play while you read.
- Tap a word to see what it means, or ask Poppy to explain a whole line.
- Regenerative Review™ brings saved words back in new lessons.
- Clear, expressive AI voices read every lesson aloud, with a different voice for each speaker.
- You can't turn your own Igbo books into lessons. However, you can paste a page in the chat, and Poppy will explain it.
- Custom lessons cost us money to make, so you need Bubblegum Pro for unlimited custom lessons. Lessons Poppy wrote for other learners are free for everyone to read.
- Regenerative Review™
Mobile
Mango Languages
Mango's Igbo lessons are built around conversations. Read a line, play it, and then play it again without looking.
- Short conversations where you can hear every word again at conversational speed.
- Hover over a word for its phonetics, or click it to hear it said on its own.
- Flashcards
MobileWeb
Other Apps We Looked At (3)
- NKENNEAudio lessons of 15 to 20 minutes that you can download and listen to without a connection, plus a weekly podcast.
- KOYOA dictionary of Igbo words that plays the pronunciation, and short quizzes with audio.
- IgboLearn: Learn & Speak IgboA dictionary with pronunciation audio and usage examples, and a word and phrase of the day.
IgboGuide has conversations you can play, each with a full English transcript. They cover greetings, the weather, food and the market. Read the English first, play the Igbo, and then play it again without the transcript. The site's web pages print some Igbo letters with umlauts, where books use the dotted letters ị, ọ and ụ.
Igbo Daily Drops is a podcast with episodes of about 10 minutes, and each one has three everyday phrases to say out loud. Igbostudy has a YouTube channel with lessons, songs and stories for beginners.
BBC Igbo is a news site in Igbo with articles and short videos. Pick a story you have already followed in English, and read just the headline and the first lines. Its news section is called Akụkọ (news, story). BBC Igbo is news written for Igbo speakers, so try it once a Bubblegum lesson or an IgboGuide conversation feels easy.
Igbo Wikipedia has tens of thousands of pages. Start with a topic you know well, such as a country or a footballer.
| What You Can Follow | Try This | You're Ready to Move On When |
|---|---|---|
| Single words and short lines | A short Bubblegum lesson, or a Mango conversation | You can say a line back after hearing it once |
| A conversation with English beside it | IgboGuide's conversations | You understand a conversation before you open the English |
| Spoken episodes of about 10 minutes | The Igbo Daily Drops podcast | You catch the main idea of an episode |
| Songs and stories | The Igbostudy YouTube channel | You can retell a story in a few words |
| Real news | A headline and first lines on BBC Igbo | You can say what the story is about |
Menus in your language don't always mean Igbo explained in your language, so try one lesson before you pay.
| App | Languages You Can Use It In | Full List |
|---|---|---|
| Bubblegum | 74 | Supported language pairs |
| Mango Languages | 2 | Full list |
| NKENNE | 1 | Full list |
| KOYO | 1 | Full list |
| IgboLearn: Learn & Speak Igbo | 1 | Full list |
Which Igbo app should a beginner choose?
If you are serious about learning Igbo, start with Bubblegum. Poppy, your AI tutor, writes lessons at your level about things you like. If you'd rather listen first, start with the conversations on IgboGuide, which come with English transcripts.
Which Igbo will I hear?
Igbo has many dialects. The written standard, Standard Igbo, was adopted around 1972, and Bubblegum teaches it. The Igbo you hear from a relative or on a recording may sound different from the page.
Is there news in easy Igbo?
We didn't find a news site written in easy Igbo. Start with the conversations and podcasts, and try a BBC Igbo headline when those feel comfortable.
Is Bubblegum free?
Yes. Lessons Poppy wrote for other learners are free for everyone to read. Custom lessons cost us money to make, so you need Bubblegum Pro for unlimited custom lessons.
Sources
- Bubblegum: Igbo
- Mango Languages: Igbo (conversations, hear every word again at conversational speed)
- Mango Languages: pricing (first lesson free, library access)
- Mango Languages on the App Store (languages you can use it in)
- NKENNE: audio lessons of 15 to 20 minutes, weekly podcast
- NKENNE on the App Store
- IgboGuide: Igbo conversations with audio and English transcripts
- IgboGuide: table of contents (11 chapters)
- Igbo Daily Drops podcast (episodes of about 10 minutes, complete beginners welcome)
- Igbostudy: free YouTube channel with lessons, songs and stories
- IgboLearn on the App Store (dictionary with pronunciation audio)
- KOYO: Learn Nigerian languages (dictionary with audio)
- BBC News Igbo
- Wikipedia: BBC Igbo (launched 19 February 2018, website with audio and video)
- Igbo Wikipedia: statistics (49,280 content pages)
- Wikipedia: Igbo language (Standard Igbo adopted around 1972; tone is not normally written)
- FSI Igbo Basic Course on Live Lingua (free PDF and MP3 audio)
- Bubblegum
