About the Project: Zazizu – A Chinese Learning App for Families

🌱 Inspiration

This project was inspired by my daughter, who recently started learning Chinese in her kindergarten class. As a parent who doesn't speak Chinese or English, I felt helpless trying to support her at home. Most language apps were either too complex, not kid-friendly, or didn't offer multi-language support for non-native English speakers like us.

I wanted to create something simple, engaging, and educational — a tool that not only helps children learn Chinese but also empowers parents to follow along, guide, and grow with them. That’s how Zazizu was born.

🧠 What I Learned

Throughout this project, I deepened my understanding of:

React Native & Expo for building cross-platform mobile and web apps
Supabase for real-time databases, authentication, and role-based access
Row Level Security (RLS) and how to protect user data
Text-to-speech integration using ElevenLabs for natural-sounding audio
How to build a fun, child-friendly interface with animations and custom design systems
How important multilingual UX is when designing inclusive learning tools

🛠️ How I Built It

Frontend:

Built with React Native + Expo
Uses Expo Router for tab-based navigation
Designed with a custom styling system using StyleSheet

Backend:

Supabase (PostgreSQL) for database and authentication
RLS policies for secure user-specific access
User roles (admin and regular user) managed via Supabase

Audio & AI:

Integrated ElevenLabs for high-quality Chinese pronunciation
Built AI-powered word suggestion and translation features

Platform Support:

Web
iOS (via Expo Go)
Android (via Expo Go)

🚧 Challenges Faced

Multilingual UX: Designing the interface to support both Vietnamese and English while keeping it intuitive for children and non-tech-savvy parents.
Voice feedback: Balancing accuracy and speed when providing AI-based pronunciation feedback in a way that's friendly to kids.
Admin Tools: Creating a simple but powerful admin dashboard to manage vocabulary without compromising on security or usability.
Supabase Connection*: One of the biggest challenges in building Zazizu was getting the **Supabase authentication and role-based authorization to work smoothly — especially with the Admin screen in the app.

Managing different user roles (regular user vs admin) required careful setup of:

Supabase's row-level security (RLS) policies
Custom logic in the frontend to check user roles and conditionally render admin features
Secure, real-time access control that felt seamless in the app experience

It took a good amount of debugging and reading through Supabase docs to get it right. But once it worked, it became a solid and secure foundation for scaling user access and permissions.

This challenge taught me a lot about designing with security and scalability in mind — even for small, family-focused apps.

🎉 Thanks

A big thank-you to Bolt.New, who supported the world’s biggest hackathon with generous free credits — enough to turn my idea into a real, working app within hours. Zazizu would not have been possible without this support.