Not much Kazakh is made for learners, so the Kazakh you read and hear at first comes from a few places. Look for comprehensible input, which is Kazakh you can mostly follow, with a few new words you can work out from the rest of the sentence.
Courses and tutors are in our full Kazakh app comparison.
Bubblegum
For serious learners, Bubblegum is the best app to learn Kazakh. You learn from Kazakh you can mostly understand, which is called comprehensible input.
Say you want to talk with a coworker about the weekend. Poppy, your AI tutor, writes a Kazakh lesson on it at your level, and the words you save return in new lessons.
For a Kazakh article you found yourself, paste it into the chat and ask Poppy to explain it.
- Pick a topic and a level, and Poppy writes the Kazakh 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.
- You can read lessons in Latin letters while you learn the Cyrillic ones.
- 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 Kazakh books into lessons. However, you can paste a page in the chat, and Poppy will explain it.
- Bubblegum teaches the standard written Kazakh of Kazakhstan, so it has no lessons in regional dialects.
- 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
50LANGUAGES
Play a lesson while you read the Kazakh, and then play it again with the text covered.
- 100 lessons with Kazakh text and MP3 audio, free on the website.
- The text sits next to your language, so you can read and listen at once.
MobileWeb
Ling
Ling's reading stage comes after its first lessons, so it fits once you know the basics.
- Its Kazakh path moves from pronunciation and greetings to cultural stories, travel guides and news articles.
- Flashcards
MobileWeb
Other Apps We Looked At (1)
- Colloquial KazakhA textbook of dialogues, and the publisher says its recordings of the dialogues and texts are free to download as MP3 files, so you hear each one as you read it.
Tilqural has Kazakh texts, which are excerpts from well-known books with a Russian translation, and short film and cartoon clips, each grouped by level, beside its lessons from A1 to C1. And Soyle has audio phrasebooks and lessons from A1 up. Read a short text out loud, and look up only the words you can't guess.
Azattyq and Egemen Qazaqstan both publish news in Kazakh. Pick a story you have already followed in English, and read just the headline and the first lines.
| What You Can Follow | Try This | You're Ready to Move On When |
|---|---|---|
| Short dialogues | Colloquial Kazakh with its audio, or 50LANGUAGES lessons with MP3 | You can say a dialogue's lines back without the text |
| Slow lessons you chose | A Bubblegum lesson about your week | A lesson makes sense before you open the translation |
| Short texts | The texts at your level on Tilqural | You can say who did what after one read |
| Real news | A headline and first lines on Azattyq or Egemen Qazaqstan | You can say what the story is about |
Menus in your language don't always mean Kazakh 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 |
| 50LANGUAGES | 52 | Full list |
| Ling | 68 | Full list |
| Colloquial Kazakh | — | — |
| Tilqural | 3 | Website |
| Soyle | 3 | Website |
Which Kazakh app should a beginner choose?
If you are serious about learning Kazakh, start with Bubblegum. Poppy, your AI tutor, writes lessons at your level about things you like. If you'd rather listen first, play the dialogues of Colloquial Kazakh from its free audio. If you'd rather read first, try the short texts on Tilqural.
Do I need the letters before I start reading?
For the texts and news here, yes. Kazakh is written in 42 Cyrillic letters, and nine of them are for sounds Russian doesn't have. Bubblegum's Kazakh Alphabet course teaches the letters, and you can read your lessons in Latin letters while you learn them.
Is there news in easy Kazakh?
We didn't find a news site written in easy Kazakh. Start with the lessons and short texts, and try a news 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: Kazakh
- Bubblegum: supported language pairs
- 50LANGUAGES: Kazakh for beginners (100 lessons with MP3)
- Ling: Learn Kazakh
- Ling: FAQs (free units)
- Ling on the App Store (languages you can use it in)
- Routledge: Colloquial Kazakh (dialogues with free MP3 audio)
- Routledge: Colloquials audio downloads
- Tilqural: a free self-paced Kazakh course (levels A1 to C1, lessons, texts, videos)
- Soyle: online Kazakh course (lessons from A1, audio phrasebooks)
- Azattyq: Kazakh news
- Egemen Qazaqstan: Kazakh news
- Wikipedia: Kazakh alphabets (42 Cyrillic letters, and the move to Latin letters with a 2031 target)
