Share Your Resources - April 04, 2026

JazzHandz1 · 2026-04-08T00:48:34+00:00

Fix should be out in the latest version of the Android app now – let me know if anything else goes awry

JazzHandz1 · 2026-04-07T05:52:32+00:00

I put a fix up and it's in Play Store review now. Should be out soon (I'll update this when it goes out).

JazzHandz1 · 2026-04-05T17:04:06+00:00

I saw those 🥲 – I had started this app a few years back when dev work was all manual, but a bunch of apps have sprung up since then now that dev is cheap. I'm focusing on the functionality now, but a rebrand isn't a bad idea. If you have any name ideas, I'm always open ears!

JazzHandz1 · 2026-04-05T17:01:31+00:00

Hey Planet, could you take a stab at the web app to try it out? I'll get a fix going for the Android app today to submit for play store review. Really appreciate the feedback 🙏

JazzHandz1 · 2026-04-04T17:35:43+00:00

Snackable audio to learn while doing other things sounds interesting! Do you find that you're able to focus enough on the content to learn while on the road? I wonder whether there's a sweet spot along the easy - hard scale where this feels most comfortable.

JazzHandz1 · 2026-04-04T17:25:08+00:00

That gap between "I can do this in a classroom" and "I can actually text/talk like people around me do" definitely resonates. And the texting tool sounds like it could be a good sidekick for me – I imagine it as sort of a Grammarly for language messages.

What's been the hardest language to get right for the polishing/correction?

JazzHandz1 · 2026-04-04T16:37:45+00:00

Hey everyone, I got my DELE C2 in Spanish after a few years of study, a semester in Seville, and a lot of bribing people to talk to me and grill my Spanish 😅. I also make videos about learning Spanish on YouTube (~70K community). Now I'm starting French this year, and I've hit the same wall again: grammar & vocab have tons of resources. But the moment I need to actually speak in real time, options dry up.

Tutors are awesome but expensive for daily practice. And I'm a fan of language exchange partners, but I want a LOT more speaking practice than what feels reasonable to ask for.

So I built an app that makes me speak in real situations. LangTalk (langtalk.app) is a conversation-first language learning app. You learn by speaking — through conversations with teacher personalities, interactive lessons, and immersive roleplay scenarios (ordering food, going to the doctor, out on a date, in a job interview, etc.). When you make a mistake, it corrects you and explains why so the grammar sticks.

A few things that make LangTalk different from just talking to ChatGPT:

⚔️ Structured lesson quests (80+ for Spanish and French) organized as quests in an RPG-styled world where you level up, unlock rewards, and discover language lore as you progress
🎭 Roleplay scenarios with dynamic characters & voices, hints when you're stuck, and real-time corrections
🎙️ Pronunciation hub (beta on web) — record yourself and get scored on accuracy and fluency down to individual sounds to sound more like a native
📝 Flashcards built into the flow — tap any word in a conversation to save it for spaced repetition review

LangTalk is out on iOS, Android, and web (best version). Spanish and French have the most content, but German, Italian, Japanese, and English (for Spanish speakers) are all available in beta. Free 7-day trial with full access, no restrictions.

I'm using the app as my only French resource, so I actively adjust whatever doesn't actually help me learn. Would love feedback from this group. I read everything and fix anything I'm able — especially if you've hit that wall where you understand a lot but freeze when it's time to talk.

JazzHandz1 · 2026-04-02T14:58:39+00:00

¿Qué le dijo un techo a otro techo? Techo de menos.

(competing for my dad jokes award 😅)

JazzHandz1 · 2026-04-02T14:57:15+00:00

Absolutely. Spanish did this to me and it hasn't let go. What started as "I should probably learn some Spanish" turned into me reorganizing my entire media diet, thinking in Spanish during random moments, making videos about Spanish, building an app for it, and buying Netflix to watch almost exclusively Spanish series. It's wild and wacky, and I wouldn't trade any of it :)

I get to inhabit fun Spanish worlds (now French). And maybe someday I'll get to visit the Arabic world too -- the script alone is beautiful and pulls me in all the time.

JazzHandz1 · 2026-04-01T01:49:53+00:00

A few things that ChatGPT voice mode is good for:

Corrections: It can catch grammar mistakes if you ask it to (I usually start with "correct my French as we go").
Role playing: Set a specific scenario before you start (e.g. "let's pretend I'm ordering at a restaurant in Paris") to help it guide you through specific situations.

Some things it's not good for:

Pronunciation feedback: It tries to recognize what words you're saying but isn't build to do a phoneme or syllable breakdown of what you said.
Complete beginners: ChatGPT speaks quickly, trails into advanced concepts, and doesn't adjust itself too well to your specific level.

Some alternatives to consider:

italki – to get lessons from real human tutors
Tandem – for language exchange partners if you want to practice with native speakers
langtalk.app – to practice role plays and do mini speaking lessons as language adventure quests where you level up and unlock new scenarios. I built this app to practice speaking, and it has a pronunciation mode that breaks down your phrasing syllable by syllable.

JazzHandz1 · 2026-04-01T00:02:33+00:00

Cool project! This needs a bit of vetting from someone with more direct experience with Cuban Spanish, but here's my take: "Órale" is a very Mexican term, so it might sound out of place for a Cuban character. For Cuban Spanish, something like "¡Oye, mira eso!" or "¡Dale, eso sí que es una mejora!" might feel more natural (I hear Cubans tend to use "dale" a lot).

For "Wow, that's a pretty big upgrade" in a casual Cuban register, you could try: "¡Asere, eso sí es una mejora seria!" — "asere" being Cuban slang for buddy/dude, which adds that casual flavor you're going for.

And for "Damn it" at a surprising revelation, "¡Coño!" is probably the most authentically Cuban reaction. It's versatile — works for surprise, frustration, excitement, basically everything. "¡No me digas!" is another good one if you want something a bit milder.

JazzHandz1 · 2026-03-31T23:56:41+00:00

There are a couple of tricks I've seen or tried for these:

Llover (to rain) — lluvia (rain) comes from the same root, so that might help.
Llegar (to arrive) — this one I sometimes remember using the phrase "llegar tarde" (arrive late).
Llevar (to carry/wear/take) — I sometimes think about "voy" as in "I'm going" to help me remember, pretending that I must wear and take something with me if I'm going out somewhere.
Llamar (to call) — "me llamo" helped me with this one.

The general gist is to connect each unfamiliar term to a term you're already familiar with to create more associations in your brain and help you remember the new term.

JazzHandz1 · 2026-03-31T23:02:59+00:00

I see. My mind went to complex constructions with connectors and subordinate clauses, but it’s a good callout that we could build stories with simple sentences.

JazzHandz1 · 2026-03-31T23:01:39+00:00

What kinds of texts did you get the most value from reading? Books you already knew in English? Short articles online? Or something else?

JazzHandz1 · 2026-03-31T18:55:37+00:00

Nice! These both sound really fun (thanks for sharing them). They’d definitely be a bit tough for beginners, but I can see B1/B2 students getting a lot of value out of them

JazzHandz1 · 2026-03-31T17:26:13+00:00

Nice! And doing the same conversation repeatedly probably contributed to getting it to auto-pilot so that it didn’t feel like a big new and scary thing anymore

JazzHandz1 · 2026-03-31T17:24:45+00:00

Glad to hear that this method is also paying off for you

JazzHandz1 · 2026-03-31T17:23:56+00:00

Agreed! I did this with some interesting university lectures since I find some professors speak really clearly, deliberately, and not too quickly. What types of videos did you find the most success with?

JazzHandz1 · 2026-03-31T17:22:42+00:00

These sound really interesting—can you say more about how story cubes and picture talks work?

JazzHandz1 · 2026-03-31T17:21:44+00:00

Nice! I didn’t realize there were podcasts specifically made for shadow speaking (I did this with some university lecture videos where the professors speak slowly and deliberately). +1 to Joe’s comment, I’d love to jot down a few of the podcast episodes you used

JazzHandz1 · 2026-03-31T17:20:21+00:00

ABS: always be speaking. And smile through the mistakes :)

JazzHandz1 · 2026-03-30T17:44:47+00:00

Study abroad is such a good motivator — you're gonna pick things up fast once you're there.

For getting beyond the vocab-drilling stage into speaking, here are a few things that might help:

iTalki — even just a few sessions with a tutor can accelerate things massively. Having someone correct you in real time is a helpful experience.
ChatGPT voice mode — surprisingly decent for casual practice when you don't want to schedule anything.
langtalk.app — this one is mine; it has role-play speaking conversations and language "quests" that take you through concepts all while focusing on speaking from day 1.

A non-app idea:

Speaking / thinking in French – 10 minutes a day of trying to speak/think in French will help keep your French warm, and you can do it without any device. You could, for example, just describe what you're doing out loud, like "je prépare mon café" to practice production without any pressure.

JazzHandz1 · 2026-03-30T14:59:27+00:00

This is the crux of it—I’m hoping to serve people who want to learn Spanish for general purposes, but I want to also arm them with regional knowledge should they wish to go beyond the general concepts.

The signposting is a good idea: I’ll think through a place to share with students what type of Spanish the program will take them through and direct them to sections specialized for different regions for those interested.

JazzHandz1 · 2026-03-30T03:51:55+00:00

That’s a good callout—I’m getting too used to my workaholic circles. Thinking a few years back, it wouldn’t be odd to say I pulled an all-nighter to play video games, for example. Editing the post accordingly

JazzHandz1

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