Show HN: Phrasing.app – learn and maintain multiple languages

Happy Friday HN -

For the past two years, I’ve been working on http://phrasing.app, a language learning application that makes it simple to learn and maintain multiple languages.

I built Phrasing for four main reasons:

1. *I wanted an app to learn multiple languages in parallel.* I don’t want to have to choose between improving a language I speak or learning a new language. I just want to open an app and ‘do languages’, and let technology decide what’s most effective for my goals

2. *I wanted an app that was as pleasant to use as it was effective.* was I was tired of choosing between form or function. It takes hundreds to thousands of hours to learn a language. I want an app that is nice to look at and enjoyable to use, while maximizing for efficacy, not engagement.

3. *I wanted an app that integrated spaced repetition & user experience.* Every spaced repetition application I’ve used has been a pure expression of the forgetting curve. This is maximally accurate… but also maximally stressful. The UX designer in me sobbed every time I used Anki. I want to enjoy my reviews, and would gladly sacrifice 1% of algorithmic accuracy if it means completing 2x the reviews.

4. *I wanted an app to learn all languages.* This whole project actually was kick-started when I tried to learn Arabic, and struggled for months to find quality learning materials. And Arabic is a major language! There’s still a bit of work to go before I can support all languages, but it already supports ~90 languages really well.

I’ve been using Phrasing every day since May of this year, and I’ve been very happy with my progress. I’ve been able to study multiple languages, at various speeds, all without mixing them up and never really leaving the application.

I’ve been getting really good reviews from recent users, and I’m hoping that this project is helpful to other language learners & polyglots in the crowd.

Especially if you’re learning an underserved language, I really hope you’ll consider Phrasing! I would absolutely love to get at least one person learning every language we support.

Technically, this project is also a one person project, built with Elixir on the server and ClojureScript on the client. It’s gone through probably 5 major versions, and the most recent version hand rolls nearly everything. As a solo dev I’m always more than happy to talk about the technology :D

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PS: if this project is interesting to anyone who is looking to set off on their own, I’m actively looking for a co-founder :D (Europe only)

PSS: A big thanks to Jarrod Ye and all the maintainers of FSRS for making this project possible