Tapas Talk

Spanish for real life: A vertical discovery feed powered by phoneme-level voice coaching, dynamic algorithmic crosswords, and a 7-day reverse-trial monetization funnel backed by RevenueCat.

Comment

Inspiration When my wife and I started dating, she wanted to learn the language my family speaks at dinner. The kind you need around the table or at a wedding.

Every app we tried started with weeks of reading and writing the script. Nobody in my family has used that script in years. After a month, she could say one sentence, and it was always something like "my horse is reading the newspaper." Funny, but not much use when the dinner conversation turns to you.

So we skipped the apps and got a whiteboard. I built bite-size lessons out of things we were already doing - like hanging out the washing, where I was trying to hit a 10 out of 10 on her towel-folding standards. It became a fun place for both of us to learn.

The trick that worked was borrowing sounds she already had. The aa in "jurab" (the word for sock) is the same aa in the word "start". Her mouth already knew how to make it; she just needed to be shown. That gave her confidence, and confidence is the whole battle.

What started as a weekend project became the whole basis and foundation for Tapas Talk.

When we booked a trip to Spain for August, we both wanted to learn Spanish. The trip became the excuse, and Shipaton became the deadline. I took those whiteboard lessons, put them into a feed you can flick through while standing in a tapas queue, and built it to get people speaking out loud from minute one. That is Tapas Talk.

What It Does One Feed: The entire course is a vertical feed you scroll like Instagram. Words first, then how Spanish works, then complete sentences, then real situations - interleaved with quick quizzes and cultural anecdotes.

Say It, Get Scored: Tap the mic and speak out loud. Tapas Talk listens and gives sound-by-sound feedback with scores out of 100. It doesn't just buzz you with a red cross; it pinpoints the exact sound you missed, whether it was the vowel or the rhythm, and guides you on how to adjust your tongue.

Spain or Mexico: Choose Madrid style (with the soft "th" sound) or Latin American style (with the clean "s" sound). The audio guides, phonetic cards, and scoring engine adapt dynamically to your choice.

Real Situations, Not Flashcard Lists: 23 chapters based on real outings: ordering tapas, navigating a cantina, asking for what you want, and surviving casual small talk.

Guess the Word & Daily Crosswords: A daily word puzzle and algorithmic crosswords generated on the fly from words you actually need to review. Puzzles unlock naturally as you progress through the feed.

iPhone & iPad Native: Runs smoothly on phones and delivers a dedicated two-pane layout tailored for iPad screens.

How I Built It Monorepo & Modular Architecture: Built with Flutter using a decoupled, modular core engine that cleanly separates UI components from speech processing, state management, and business logic.

Instant Mic Engine: Standard mobile audio sessions can take up to 2.6 seconds to switch from playback to recording. I locked the resting audio session so microphone capture begins in ~30 milliseconds with zero lag.

Speech Pipeline: Firebase Cloud Functions handle audio caching and route speech to Azure Speech Pronunciation Assessment, backed by OpenAI audio models as a resilient fallback.

Algorithmic Crosswords: A custom placement algorithm that strips accents, connects review vocabulary on the fly, and generates a fresh, playable board every day.

Monetization & RevenueCat (HAMM Track) I built the monetization model around user trust, powered by the RevenueCat SDK (purchases_flutter):

7-Day Reverse Trial: When you open the app, everything is wide open for 7 days. You can explore all 23 chapters, try every voice test, and play every puzzle with zero friction.

Lifetime Access: I avoided recurring subscription fatigue. A clean $17.99 Lifetime Access one-time purchase unlocks all current and future chapters forever, along with 1,000 voice credits.

Credits You Earn & Top-Ups: Because every mic tap triggers a real speech assessment call, practice runs on credits. Steady learners earn credits back through streaks and milestone badges. For heavy talkers, small consumable booster packs ($0.99 to $2.99) allow quick top-ups anytime via RevenueCat.

Seamless Paywall Experience: Using RevenueCat customer state streams, the app verifies entitlements silently in the background with zero splash paywalls on launch. Restoring purchases works instantly across devices.

Challenges I Overcame Dialect & Accent Tuning: Standard speech evaluators were often overly lenient with English accents. I fine-tuned the phoneme scoring threshold across raw sound, vowel accuracy, and cadence so learners are guided toward authentic local pronunciation.

Tablet & Store Polish: I engineered custom responsive layouts so the interface feels native on iPad rather than a stretched phone canvas, and bundled all offline legal links directly into the RevenueCat paywalls to satisfy App Store guidelines seamlessly.

Instructions for Judges Tapas Talk launches with an automatic 7-Day Reverse Trial - every chapter, voice lab, and game is immediately unlocked upon opening the app.

To test the RevenueCat paywalls and restore purchases flow, navigate to Settings > Tapas Talk Pro to inspect the $17.99 Lifetime Access and credit pack sheets.

Built With

Share this project:

Updates

Submission history