I learned Turkish with lairner itself -- after I built it. That's the best proof I can give you that this thing actually works.
The other four I learned the hard way: talking to people, making mistakes, reading things I actually cared about, and being surrounded by the language until my brain gave in. Every language app I tried got the same thing wrong: they teach you to pass exercises, not to speak. You finish a lesson, you get your dopamine hit, you maintain your streak, and six months later you still can't order food in the language you've been "learning."
So I built something different. lairner has 700+ courses across 70+ languages, including ones that Duolingo will never touch because there's no profit in it. Endangered languages. Minority languages. A Turkish speaker can learn Basque. A Chinese speaker can learn Welsh. Most platforms only let you learn from English. lairner lets you learn from whatever you already speak.
We work together with some institutes of endangered languages to be able to teach them on our platform.
It's a side project. I work a full-time dev job and build this in evenings and weekends. Tens of Thousands of users so far, no ad spend, no funding.
I'm not going to pretend this replaces living in a country or having a conversation partner. But I wanted something that at least tries to teach you the language instead of teaching you to play a language-themed game.
Happy to answer anything.
andsoitis•1h ago
barrell•53m ago
andsoitis•49m ago
barrell•34m ago
Plus it would be awesome to get more Maltese learners. I have no one to gush about this language with :D
andsoitis•20m ago
Have you been to Malta?
barrell•7m ago
Actually to be completely honest, I learned about Maltese, checked my app, and saw it supported Maltese. That night I was learning a language with an app I'd previously built without even knowing the language existed. That's what started my obsession with it.
Then turns out it's an island in an awesome location with an even cooler history. And it uses the letter Ħ
What made you start learning Maltese?
t17r•13m ago