Not much Marathi is made for learners, so the Marathi you read and hear at first comes from a few places. Look for comprehensible input, which is Marathi 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 Marathi app comparison.
Bubblegum
For serious learners, Bubblegum is the best app to learn Marathi. You learn from Marathi you can mostly understand, which is called comprehensible input.
Say you want to ask for vegetables at a market stall. Poppy, your AI tutor, writes a Marathi lesson on it at your level, and the words you save return in new lessons.
For a Marathi 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 Marathi 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 Roman letters while you learn the Marathi letters.
- 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 Marathi books into lessons. However, you can paste a page in the chat, and Poppy will explain it.
- Bubblegum teaches standard Marathi, as spoken in Pune and Mumbai, so it has no lessons in regional varieties.
- 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 Marathi, and then play it again with the text covered.
- 100 lessons with Marathi 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 Marathi path moves from pronunciation and greetings to cultural stories, travel guides and news articles.
- Flashcards
MobileWeb
Other Apps We Looked At (2)
- Learn Marathi With KaushikA free course in English with a video for each lesson and sample conversations, so you hear the Marathi as you follow along.
- Bhasha SangamA Ministry of Education app with basic everyday sentences in all 22 official languages of India, Marathi among them.
Marathi Everyday is a podcast of short scenes, from two to eight minutes long. They cover a taxi, a rickshaw, shopping, a bank, a train, a doctor and a temple, and each episode includes a Hindi summary. Play one scene twice, and say the questions out loud the second time.
StoryWeaver has free Marathi story books. Pick one with a picture on every page, read it out loud, and look up only the words you can't guess from the picture.
BBC News Marathi, Loksatta, Lokmat and Maharashtra Times all write news in Marathi. 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 |
|---|---|---|
| One page at a time | A picture book on StoryWeaver | You read a page aloud and can say who did what |
| Short phrasebook sentences | 50LANGUAGES lessons with MP3 | You can say a lesson's sentences back without the text |
| Slow lessons you chose | A Bubblegum lesson about your week | A lesson makes sense before you open the translation |
| Everyday scenes | Marathi Everyday episodes | You can say what happened in a scene after hearing it twice |
| Real news | A headline and first lines on BBC News Marathi or Loksatta | You can say what the story is about |
Menus in your language don't always mean Marathi 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 |
| Bhasha Sangam | 1 | Full list |
| Learn Marathi With Kaushik | — | — |
Which Marathi app should a beginner choose?
If you are serious about learning Marathi, start with Bubblegum. Poppy, your AI tutor, writes lessons at your level about things you like. If you'd rather listen first, try the short scenes on Marathi Everyday. If you'd rather read first, try the picture books on StoryWeaver.
Do I need the letters before I start reading?
For the books and news here, yes. Marathi is written in Devanagari, and it has a letter, ळ, that Hindi almost never uses. Bubblegum's Marathi Letters course teaches the letters, and you can read your lessons in Roman letters while you learn them.
Is there news in easy Marathi?
We didn't find a news site written in easy Marathi. Start with the picture books and the short scenes, 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: Marathi
- Wiktionary: the letter ळ, used in modern Marathi and almost completely absent from Hindi
- Marathi Everyday: podcast on Apple Podcasts (episodes of 2 to 8 minutes, each with a Hindi summary)
- Learn Marathi With Kaushik: home page (a video for each lesson, free)
- Learn Marathi With Kaushik: Learn Marathi From English
- 50LANGUAGES: Marathi for beginners (100 lessons with MP3)
- Ling: Learn Marathi (reading cultural stories, travel guides and news)
- Ling: FAQs (free units)
- Ling on the App Store (languages you can use it in)
- Bhasha Sangam on the App Store (22 official languages of India, from the Ministry of Education and MyGov)
- StoryWeaver: Marathi story books
- BBC News Marathi
- Loksatta: Marathi news
- Maharashtra Times: Marathi news
- Lokmat: Marathi news
