Olly Richards’ Uncovered Courses: A Complete Review
The Uncovered series by Olly Richards of Storylearning is a comprehensive language course designed to help learners achieve language skills through an innovative storytelling method. It’s currently available for more than a dozen languages including Spanish, French, and even Latin.
Now let’s get down to why you’re really here.
Do I recommend the Uncovered courses? Yes.
Here’s a summary of the pros and cons (I’ll explain them more in-depth below if you keep reading.
The Pros of Product:
- Engaging learning material
- Taught by a native speaker
- Self-paced
- Cultural insights and context
The Cons of Product:
- Can either be too challenging or too easy depending on the level of the learner
- You need to be self-motivated
- Some errors in the course
Get Uncovered Now
Uncovered courses are available for the following languages:
- Spanish
- French
- German
- Italian
- Japanese
- Mandarin Chinese
- Russian
- Korean
- Turkish
- Latin
- Brazilian Portuguese
- Arabic
- Swedish
- Danish
- Norwegian
Please note, if you choose to purchase one of the courses using one of the links above, I’ll make a small commission at no additional cost to you. If you decide to purchase Uncovered, please consider using my links — the commission helps support me in continuing to create content here on Eurolinguiste!
What You Need to Know About Product
It’s easy to get bored with your learning resources. They tend to be repetitive and pretty generic. Olly Richards’ Uncovered courses offer something different.
If you’re looking for a more engaging way to learn a language, Uncovered might be for you.
While each of the courses follow a formula, you’ll still find learning content specific to the language you’re learning and the culture tied to it. In the course, you get a blend of immersive storytelling and a structured language course.
You’re given instructions on how to follow the course, but with the range of material provided in the course, you have a lot of freedom to work with it and adapt it to your needs and preferences.
Each course includes a mix of:
- Reading and listening material
- Cognates lessons
- Vocabulary lessons
- Grammar lessons
- Pronunciation lessons
- Cultural insights
- Speaking activities
- Comprehension checks
My Experience Using Product
I’ve now explored the Uncovered courses for both German and Norwegian and my experience has me eager to dive in with the other languages in my wheelhouse offered by the program.
The lessons are thorough without becoming overwhelming. Most of the videos are around 20 minutes in length, so you can fit your learning in even with the busiest schedule.
Having a native speaker and experienced teacher guide you through the course is extremely helpful. With German, I found that the lessons were right at my level. With Norwegian, which was a mostly new-to-me language, they were a little more challenging but not inaccessible.
I personally imported all of the texts and audio into LingQ (privately of course), so that I can study them on the go and really power up my learning with the two tools combined.
Pros In-Depth
Engaging learning material
The immersive experience of following a story in your target language makes the learning process enjoyable and less daunting. You get to know the characters, learn through interesting stories, and get to explore the material you’re learning through a variety of contexts whether that’s pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary, or culture.
Taught by a native speaker
Olly collaborated with native speakers with backgrounds in teaching their languages and it really shows in the course content.
Self-paced
Unlike many other language courses, you can complete Uncovered at your own pace and revisit the material as often as you need.
Cultural insights and context
Each of the courses are tailored to the language that they’re teaching. The courses share a structure across languages without being cookie cutter. The stories and learning content are created to be unique to each language, so as you study with Uncovered, you gain not just language skills but cultural insight as well.
Cons In-Depth
Can either be too challenging or too easy depending on the level of the learner
When I first started the Uncovered course in Norwegian, I was a little overwhelmed. I really didn’t know enough of the language feel ready for the course. I had to trust in the process and push through those feelings. Importing the content into LingQ helped.
While browsing the first level for French, however, I felt the opposite. The content was below my level in that language.
Thankfully, Olly came prepared and many of the languages, like Spanish and French, have up to three levels to choose from.
You need to be self-motivated
If you aren’t a self-starter, this course may not be for you. While there is a community aspect to the course, you really need to be accountable to yourself to get through it. There aren’t deadlines, you don’t have a coach or tutor, and so it’s really up to you to see the course through.
Some errors in the course
Because the structure of the course is similar across languages, there are some mistakes in the course. It was a little jarring to sometimes read things about “Italian” while working through a “Norwegian” course — obviously some overlooked mistakes from copying and pasting the more generic aspects of the course.
These weren’t huge glaring mistakes, or mistakes with the language content. But, they still felt a little awkward to come across while going through the course.
Conclusion
The Uncovered courses are an effective option if you’re looking for a structured program for your language that is a language course. It offers a unique and enjoyable way to learn your new language, making it suitable for both beginners and those looking to refresh their skills. And with levels 2 and 3, even intermediate to advanced learners.
With its engaging content, thorough lessons, and supportive community, the Uncovered series is a valuable investment for anyone serious about mastering one of the languages offered.
FAQ
What is Olly Richards’ Uncovered?
Uncovered is a comprehensive online course designed for learners at levels A0, A1, or A2 in the CEFR system. There are up to two additional levels for several languages for those at higher CEFR levels for French, Spanish, German, Italian, Japanese, Mandarin Chinese, Russian, and Korean.
The Level 1 course is based around a 20-chapter story in simple language, and includes everything learners need to go from the complete beginner level (A0) to the intermediate level (B1).
Uncovered includes dozens of video lessons and exercises to help learners improve every aspect of a language, including:
- vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation
- listening, speaking, reading, and writing
What level is Uncovered for?
Uncovered is for complete beginners (A0) and false beginners (A1 or A2) who have already learned some language but haven’t yet reached conversational fluency. The course covers levels A0 to A2 in the CEFR (Common European Framework of Reference for Languages).
What languages and levels are taught in the Uncovered courses?
- Spanish:
- French:
- German:
- Italian:
- Japanese:
- Mandarin Chinese:
- Russian:
- Korean:
- Turkish:
- Latin:
- Brazilian Portuguese:
- Arabic:
- Swedish:
- Danish:
- Norwegian:
