Fraza

Inspiration

I learned Russian the hard way. Years of flashcards and grammar tables, and still standing there unable to say anything when someone actually spoke to me. What I studied was never what I needed the next day. Nothing was usable right away, and by the time it was, I'd forgotten why I wanted it.

What it does

Fraza is a speaking first course to learn languages. It gives you the optimal difficulty level to practice your speaking while gradually increasing your vocabulary. No mascot, no unnecessary stuff, just learning a language.

How we built it

Well, there was a LOT of iteration on this. The important part is not the code, the app is quite simply. It is the UX and lesson content, that could only evolve by me actually learning a new language.

SO, I learned georgian with this app, which enabled fixed soooo many wrong assumptions that I had. I am offering a german course first, but as a native, I can not put myself in the place of a language learner. Thats why I lern georgian.

Challenges we ran into

AI really struggled to give proper lesson content and structure, so there was a lot of manual iteration. Also, I wanted to have really good audio, which is important for this approach. But, the more expressive the models are, the more audio bugs will be present. So, there was no way than listening to every single audio file. A

Also, sometimes the speech recognition just doesnt work for some words, so I had to check EVERY SINGLE LESSON manually.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Real conversations in Georgian, out loud, with people, way earlier than any method I've used before.

What we learned

Only when you put yourself in the place of a language learner, you realize that one repition too less, one sentence too unclear, can kill your motivation. The only way to get it ON POINT is to actually use it.

What's next for Fraza

More native languages, so the courses aren't only for English speakers. More languages to learn. And then simply seeing how far this approach carries, because Im not sure where the limit is.