Indonesian travel posters from the 1960's
Indonesia is ranked fourth among the most populous countries in the world, with 260 million people.
But even in Indonesia, Indonesian is used primarily as a second language rather than as a native language. The reason for this is that there are about 700(!) indigenous languages in Indonesia.
Among the most important native languages in Indonesia are:
The Indonesian language has significant influences from Dutch, Chinese, Arabic, Hindi and also English.
Western languages have these words from Indonesian: Bamboo, Gong, Sarong, Orangutan, Amok.
Now let's take a look at the learning software and apps that you can use to learn Indonesian:
Suitable for: Beginners, Intermediate and Advanced Learners, Students, Travel
Content: Indonesian vocabulary trainer (5000 words), playful exercises, grammar
Prices: Free (initial lessons), $12.99
(1 month and 1 language), $59.99
(12 months and all 41 languages)
Discount offer: $99 (Lifetime Access to all 41 Languages)
Overall Value: 
The Mondly App lets you learn the Indonesian language in a playful way with a series of interactive exercises.
This Indonesian learning program contains:
Summary: Mondly is very similar to the Babbel and Duolingo apps and even better in terms of quality. The cost-benefit ratio for the lifetime access to all 41 languages is unbeatable.
Link: Mondly Indonesian App and Online Course
Suitable for: Beginners and Advanced Learners, Students, Professionals
Content: 1300 words (basic course), 5200 words (complete course), complete grammar, verb conjugations, exercises
Prices: $59.95 (Basic Course), $127 (Complete Course)
Overall Value:
The Indonesian Basic Course contains a vocabulary trainer for the basic Indonesian vocabulary (1300 words) with native-speaker audio, as well as grammar explanations and various exercises.
The vocabulary trainer works with a long-term memory method, in which the new vocabulary is checked at increasing intervals.
You can choose between text input, multiple choice or simply confirming whether you knew a word or not.
The exercises include text comprehension questions, filling in word gaps or just vocabulary lists where one side is covered.
The basic course corresponds to the official language levels A1 and A2 (explanation of CEFR language levels).
The Complete Course contains:
Summary: Much cheaper and even better than the famous Rosetta Stone. There is a free demo version available and a 30-day money-back guarantee.
Link: Indonesian Basic Course and Complete Course
Suitable for: Beginners, Intermediate, Advanced, Students, Business Indonesian
Content: Vocabulary trainer with native speaker audio and speech recognition, grammar, exercises
Prices:
USD 9.60 (1 month), USD 57 (12 months), USD 159 (unlimited)
Overall Value:
The Babbel Indonesian Learning App is quite similar to Rosetta Stone.
Babbel also focuses on combining pictures, listening, reading, writing and speaking. For this, Babbel has native speaker audio of all the words and speech recognition just like Rosetta Stone.
The Babbel App also offers improvements over Rosetta Stone:
Summary: Babbel includes most of the advantages of Rosetta Stone and even eliminates its disadvantages. Highly recommended!
Link: Babbel Indonesian App and Online Course
Content: Indonesian vocabulary trainer (2000 words), lessons and exercises
Prices:
USD 12 (1 month all 160 languages)
USD 60 (12 months all 160 languages)
Discount offer: USD 199
(Lifetime Access to all 160 Languages)
Overall Value: 
The uTalk app teaches about 2000 Indonesian words and focuses primarily on playful exercises. There are several exercises to choose from:
The interface of the app is well made and is similar to other apps like Babbel, Duolingo or Mondly.
Summary: Getting access to 160 languages is impressive and the scope (2000 words with native speaker audio and exercises) is also solid.
Link: uTalk Indonesian Language Course App
Content: Indonesian exercises with native-speaker audio
Prices: Free (with ads), $12.99 (1 month), $60 (12 months)
Overall Value: 
The Duolingo App offers beginner language courses for 36 languages, including Indonesian. Duolingo covers mostly the basics as well as some intermediate level Indonesian vocabulary.
The major drawback of Duolingo (just like Rosetta Stone) is that there are no grammar explanations.
The vocabulary learning with Duolingo is "gamified", which means it is structured like a game with levels, experience points, achievements, etc.
The interface is relatively similar to the apps from Mondly and Babbel.
Summary: The vocabulary trainer and the exercises of the program are okay. However, it is not possible to learn Indonesian grammar with this app.
Content: Indonesian lessons and vocabulary trainer with native speaker audio, grammar
Prices: $22 (1 month), $70 (12 months), $255 (unlimited)
Overall Value:
With the Memrise App you can learn over 90 languages.
This includes even very small languages - however, in such cases the language courses are often limited to just a few lessons.
One special feature of the Memrise learning app is the large number of lessons created by users (native speakers).
The quality of these lessons varies greatly though. For example, only the basic forms of verbs are usually taught, without the conjugations. Some languages also do not have an audio recording of the words at all.
Another good idea of the Memrise app are the user-generated tips and mnemonics for each word to help you memorize them.
Summary: User-generated lessons are a good idea. In practice, the quality of the lessons leaves a lot be desired.
Content: Indonesian lessons and exercises with native speaker audio
Prices: $14.99 (1 month), $42 (12 months),
$110 (unlimited)
Overall Value:
The Master Ling App offers language lessons for 52 languages and is quite similar to famous apps like Duolingo, Babbel or Mondly.
This Indonesian learning app is based on "gamified learning", which means learning a foreign language in a playful way. There are mini-games, experience points, levels, quizzes and exercises.
Grammar explanations are not included and the vocabulary is limited to only 1000 Indonesian words and phrases. Each word and phrase has recorded native speaker audio and pictures.
Unfortunately, the translations are also often inaccurate or wrong, for which the app even has an error reporting button.
This app also has an entry test to determine your Indonesian proficiency level.
Summary: Good ideas, but rather poor implementation and not enough vocabulary to justify this price.
Content: Indonesian lessons and exercises with native speaker audio
Prices: $13 (1 month), $72 (12 months), $164 (unlimited)
Overall Value: 
The Language Drops App is most notable for having 47 target languages and 40 source languages, similar to Mondly.
You can learn about 3000 Indonesian words and phrases with this app. However, there are hardly any exercises, except for introducing a new word and matching the word to a picture.
You can choose from which topics you want to learn new words and at what skill level you want to learn (whether you know the language somewhat).
If you want to try the app for free for two weeks you have to provide your payment information and then cancel it.
The "deal" you get when you sign up for the free trial is more than 3 times as expensive as when you click "Get Premium" on the website ($38 per month instead of $13 per month).
Summary: No variety, no grammar and only 3000 words. Does not justify the higher price, even though you get access to all languages.
Content: Vocabulary trainer for Indonesian learning
Prices: $9.99 (1000 words), $59 (1000 words in 50 languages)
Overall Value:
The Simya App for Android and iOS is purely a vocabulary trainer for 50 languages, including Indonesian.
The free version contains 300 words and has very frequent "ad breaks". The paid version (without ads) also contains only 1000 words and phrases.
All the words have native speaker audio and you can use the app offline too.
Indonesian grammar and verb conjugations are not included in this app.
Summary: Not really worth it, as there are much better alternatives like Mondly, Rosetta Stone or even Duolingo.
Suitabe for: Beginners, advanced, students, travel vocabulary
Content: Indonesian vocabulary, lessons with native-speaker audio and voice recognition
Price: $120 (basic course), $470 (complete course)
Overall Value:
The Pimsleur App is very similar to Rosetta Stone in that it does not give grammar explanations, verb conjugation tables, etc.
Instead, the Pimsleur method is supposed to let you learn the Indonesian language intuitively, just like your native language - by combining pictures, reading and speaking (speech recognition).
This Indonesian learning course for PCs and Macs also includes a mobile app for Android and iOS systems.
Pimsleur offers only a basic Indonesian course for beginners and has no intermediate or advanced lessons.
Summary: The most expensive Indonesian beginners course, even though it is unlikely that learning with it is much better than with the cheaper apps.
Colanguage: Find Skype teachers
Overall Value:
At Colanguage you can arrange face-to-face language lessons online via Skype with language teachers around the world (from $5-10 per hour).
In addition to using apps, it is definitely a good idea to also practice with native speakers in order to learn Indonesian properly.
Tandem: Find a language exchange partner
Overall Value:
Instead of hiring teachers, you can also find people who are interested in a free language exchange online via Skype.
It is completely free of charge, but you have to act as a language teacher for the other person half of the time.
| Learning App | Subscription? | Price | Systems |
|---|---|---|---|
| 17 Minutes (Basics) |
Apps |
||
| 17 Minutes (Complete) | Apps |
||
| Mondly | Apps |
||
| Mondly | month | Apps |
|
| Mondly | months | Apps |
|
| Babbel | Apps | ||
| Babbel | month | Apps | |
| Babbel | months | Apps | |
| uTalk |
Apps |
||
| uTalk |
month |
Apps |
|
| uTalk |
months |
Apps |
|
| Duolingo |
month |
Apps |
|
| Duolingo |
months |
Apps |
|
| Memrise | Apps |
||
| Memrise | month | Apps |
|
| Memrise | months | Apps |
|
| Ling |
Apps |
||
| Ling |
month |
Apps |
|
| Ling |
months |
Apps |
|
| Drops |
Apps |
||
| Drops |
month |
Apps |
|
| Drops |
months |
Apps |
|
| Simya (1 language) |
|||
| Simya (50 languages) |
|||
| Pimsleur (Basics) |
Apps |
||
| Pimsleur (Complete) |
Apps |
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