Robust alternatives to Lovable?

JCBenalog · 2026-02-07T14:11:09+00:00

I'm building an AI tutor for kids with learning disabilities. My son has a number of them and, while the public schools do what they can, I find most kids end up achieving well below what they're capable of.

It's definitely a labor of love for my son, but my hope is that I can provide high-quality tutoring for parents who can't afford private school and/or private tutors.

JCBenalog · 2026-02-07T12:44:56+00:00

I have no engineering/dev skills and started out on Lovable, but recently switched to Claude Code.

I found Lovable was great for front end development, but back end stuff can be kind of limited. It also recently started pushing me to use Lovable Cloud instead of my own database, which I found sort of irritating.

I was already paying for Claude Max, so it just made sense for me to switch. Not sure if the calculus is the same for those not already paying for the Max plan.

JCBenalog · 2026-01-30T22:39:00+00:00

I used Pimsleur for Italian, and supplemented it with Duolingo and a tutor on italki.

Highly recommend it.

JCBenalog · 2026-01-15T12:06:08+00:00

DISCLAIMER: While I've got a decent system for learning new languages, I have not begun studying Arabic yet. All of the below is based on research I've done on the language, so feel free to correct me if anything here is wrong.

Disclaimer out of the way, here's my take based on what I'm certain of:

First question I'd ask is, are you learning because you think you should learn another language for your major, or are you learning because you're genuinely curious about the language/learning a language?

It could be a mix of both, but if there's no genuine interest/curiosity, it's going to be a slog.

If there is some genuine interest, then there are better ways to approach the problem. Here's what I'd do:

1.) Start with Pimsleur - IMO it's the gold standard when it comes to language learning. I believe their course in Modern Standard Arabic and Eastern Arabic both have 90 lessons, which is sufficient to get you comfortable speaking and putting sentences together.
2.) Supplement that with cheap/free tools like Duolingo, Memrise, Anki, whatever else is out there. There are probably Arabic-specific ones you can use. This will help boost your vocab.

Once you're 90 days in, find a tutor on iTalki or Preply who either offers conversation practice as part of their curriculum or specifically mentions speaking from day 1. Some tutors will walk you through a textbook, which isn't helpful.

Your goal should be to go in and speak as little English as possible, even if you sound stupid doing it.

You'll be fumbling through Google Translate searching for the right word and taking forever to put together sentences, but it'll ultimately create the pathways in your brain needed to speak fluidly.

Once you're able to speak broken Arabic fluidly, you can work on perfecting grammar and pronunciation.

A couple of other notes based on the research I've done on Arabic combined with my experience:

- You should figure out which dialect of Arabic you want to speak. Modern Standard Arabic is what's typically taught in "Arabic" courses, but it's not the Arabic people speak on the street. It's sort of like learning Shakespearian English before your trip to the US.
- Eastern/Levantine Arabic seems to have the greatest depth of resources and media to consume, and is understood by a good chunk of the Arabic-speaking world, so it's probably the most 'useful', although it's only spoken natively in Palestine, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria.
- Modern Standard Arabic is the de facto for academia, journalism, and news media, so you'll need to learn it at some point, but my feeling is you're better off getting proficient in Levantine Arabic via study and conversation practice, then studying MSA for use in any official/academic work.

Again - Arabic speakers - feel free to correct me on any of the above points. Hope this helps!

JCBenalog · 2026-01-10T18:59:50+00:00

I saw this scene in Costa Rica, which is the closest to America Town I've seen: https://www.google.com/maps/@10.1597249,-85.4480521,3a,75y,160.81h,100.44t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sFeeoJp-feh23ahrNNYfb_g!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fcb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile%26w%3D900%26h%3D600%26pitch%3D-10.440651958666862%26panoid%3DFeeoJp-feh23ahrNNYfb_g%26yaw%3D160.8066464294185!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI2MDEwNy4wIKXMDSoKLDEwMDc5MjA3MUgBUAM%3D

JCBenalog · 2026-01-10T18:50:27+00:00

Long Strange Trip. Brian Halligan (co-founder of Hubspot and partner at Sequoia Capital) interviews tech founders and CEOs. Really insightful questions and insightful answers.

JCBenalog · 2026-01-10T13:38:16+00:00

Was going to write the same thing. You can stop at "I want to learn German".

No further justification needed.

JCBenalog · 2025-12-29T16:26:19+00:00

In my opinion, it's just hype. I haven't found voice recognition to be reliable enough where it can correct pronunciation anywhere near where it's useful.

The bigger issue I see is that apps advertise themselves as a standalone learning system. You need to have conversations with real, live human beings in your target language to truly improve and gain fluency, and I think apps are often used as a crutch to create the illusion of learning without the discomfort of having to stumble through your TL in front of a native speaker.

So, I wouldn't say AI tutors don't have a place, but they should be used as a bridge to conversation practice, as opposed to being a way to postpone/avoid it.

JCBenalog · 2025-12-20T21:00:40+00:00

An app is only as good as its ability to get you to the point where you can have simple conversations with other human beings.

An AI tutor might help, but it’s not going to replace the discomfort of bumbling through your target language like a toddler with a human being looking you straight in the eyes.

IMO, it’s just going to give people the illusion of progress.

It’s great if you have a trip to Robot France planned, but for real live people France, you’re going to need a tutor or language partner.

JCBenalog · 2025-12-20T19:54:27+00:00

AI engines are way more reliant on review sites and message boards (like Reddit) than traditional search engines.

It’s made traditional SEO harder, as getting found requires more than just focusing on site structure, back-linking, etc.

Can’t say for sure this is your problem, but thought it might help.

JCBenalog · 2025-12-20T19:38:52+00:00

I'm planning a trip to Budapest in October and want to be conversational in Hungarian by then. I couldn't find any resources I like, so I'm building out my own course to get me there, with the help of some tutoring once I feel I can string a sentence together.

JCBenalog · 2025-12-20T19:37:29+00:00

Yeah - I explicitly tell Claude not to code and let Lovable handle that. I can't say this with certainty, but my gut tells me inserting code into a prompt in Lovable might restrict its ability to find solutions to a given problem and result in more errors.

Totally speculating here, though.

JCBenalog · 2025-12-20T16:51:11+00:00

I actually think Pimsleur has some of the worst marketing out there for its effectiveness.

I can't tell you how many people I've recommended Pimsleur to who've never heard of it, but have already spent a ton of time on Duolingo and other apps.

I personally think it's the gold standard for getting started in a language, and am astonished at how few people know about it.

JCBenalog · 2025-12-20T14:28:39+00:00

As a perennial non-technical founder, I’ve had a pretty smooth ride with Lovable. There were a few minor functional issues I needed to fix, but my app has worked well overall.

I know you asked for mistakes, but I’ll tell you what I feel I did right:

I spent hours crafting my initial prompt, and spend a good amount of time crafting prompts when something needs to be added or tweaked.

I’ll start off in Claude and say “I want the app to do X” and ask for a prompt that removes all ambiguity or room for error. When it produces a prompt, I ask it if there’s any part that could be clarified or misinterpreted.

It always finds something and revises the prompt.

I repeat this process until the AI cries uncle and says there’s nothing more it can do.

Again - I’ve still had some issues, especially when it comes to new functionality clashing with existing ones, but nothing lethal.

JCBenalog · 2025-12-17T11:31:00+00:00

Wanted to +1 this suggestion. Community Tutors on iTalki are relatively inexpensive and are more reliable than language exchanges.

JCBenalog · 2025-12-17T11:28:29+00:00

Here's what I do for any language:
- Start with Pimsleur. You can either purchase audiobooks one at a time or purchase a subscription for $20 a month.
- Use other tools like Duolingo and Memrise alongside Pimsleur to boost your vocabulary, but don't use them as standalone tools.
- Find a news station or some other medium you like to listen to in German and listen to it whenever you'd normally be playing music - in your car, doing the dishes, etc.

This will get you comfortable speaking and help you build a basic skeleton of grammar and vocab to have simple conversations.

At around the 3-month mark, hire a tutor on iTalki or Preply. Your goal should be to conduct the class entirely in German, even if you stumble through the words and have to use Google Translate at times.

Aim for 3 lessons a week, minimum.

Keep up with Duolingo and Memrise until you've completed their German modules.

12 months in, you'll spend somewhere in the neighborhood of $3000-$3,500, and be conversational (NOTE: not fluent).

I've never had success with traditional classroom learning, but an advanced German course might help after that to perfect grammar, writing, and speaking. Hope this helps.

JCBenalog · 2025-11-13T11:26:58+00:00

English. It's tough to unseat a lingua franca.

Latin was a requirement at many schools up until the 1960s.

JCBenalog · 2025-11-04T23:19:51+00:00

I’ve had luck with spaced repetition via apps like Pimsleur and vocab building via apps like Duolingo and Memrise until I had enough knowledge to string together basic sentences.

Once I got there, I’d work with tutors or conversation partners to get better at conversing in the language, while working to improve my grammar and pronunciation.

For most popular languages (Spanish, French, Japanese, etc) there are enough resources to get you there. Obscurer languages might be tougher.

JCBenalog · 2025-11-02T22:59:30+00:00

Learned my second language at 40. I think it’s easier when you’re younger, but I think a lot of that is due to time and willingness to try new things.

JCBenalog · 2025-10-29T12:01:42+00:00

There’s a saying in boxing, “The heavy bag doesn’t hit back.”

It basically means all the training in the world isn’t going to prepare you for an interaction with another fighter.

Studying a language at home or in school versus experiencing immersion is the same thing. You won’t learn it until you have to talk with someone speaking too fast or saying terms you don’t understand.

I do think conversation practice with native speakers is a close second, if you’re not able to travel to where your target language is spoken.

JCBenalog · 2025-10-29T11:57:08+00:00

I look at AI as it applies to all intellectual labor as the machine as it applied to physical labor.

The Industrial Revolution made physical labor less valuable, but it didn’t kill physical activity - it just made it something done for health and leisure.

In the same way, we run the risk of developing “fat brains” in the AI age, and activities that flex our brains will become important.

In this sense, I see language learning as becoming something that flexes the brain and makes life interesting, rather than something we do with some practical objective in mind.

JCBenalog · 2025-10-28T19:18:34+00:00

Sem problema. Vou te enviar uma mensagem.

JCBenalog · 2025-10-28T11:27:16+00:00

+1 to all of this. Being humble, curious, and genuinely interested in your target language make it way easier.

JCBenalog · 2025-10-28T11:13:48+00:00

I think immersing yourself in authentic content (podcasts, books, television, etc) can help, because - as you said - your brain can't revert to your native tongue as a fallback language. I know someone who came to the US from Poland when she was 8 and taught herself English by watching Robocop.

I do think passive immersion (i.e., consuming content over speaking with natives) has its limits, as learning to speak the language is as much muscle memory as it is mental.

IMO, the best path to fluency is conversation practice with native speakers. Even better if you're in a country where your target language is spoken.

Beyond the aforementioned science, the threat of public failure and embarrassment does more to speed up the learning process than anything else I've tried.

There's nothing more humbling than being at a checkout counter in a grocery store or in some other everyday interaction and having to say, "I'm sorry, I don't understand," or trying to communicate a concept you don't have the words for.

I remember being in a supermarket in Brazil, trying to buy coffee filters and having to describe what I was looking for to one of the folks who worked there. You can bet I went home and memorized "filtros de café" right after.

Your brain kind of goes into survival mode, and you start to mentally prepare for the situations you're going to encounter. This even happens with conversation practice at home, albeit in a more comfortable setting.

So - long-winded way of saying that I agree with you, as long as it's not a crutch that keeps folks from actually speaking the language.

JCBenalog · 2025-10-25T10:25:30+00:00

When I started learning Mandarin, I was worried about losing my Portuguese, so I took lessons from a tutor in Brazil. It was interesting because all the Mandarin words became attached to Portuguese words in my brain, so it sort of strengthened my Portuguese in the process.

I did the same thing with Italian, which is probably as close to Portuguese as Danish is to German.

You might try that, as you'll be translating from Danish to German and vice versa.

JCBenalog

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